IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED “THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR” DO NOT GO PAST THE JUMP.
Here are my predictions. I feel all of these could be true, or just a few of them.
1. The Great Intelligence is The Doctor. First of all, Richard Grant has already played The Doctor in Scream of The Shalka. Which is going to be released on DVD in September. You know, in plenty of time for new Who. So, you know. There’s a clue. We also know that at some point, The Doctor becomes The Valeyard. And we know that when The Great Intelligence entered The Doctor’s time stream, he fractured into a million pieces… just like Clara, who experienced birth, life, and death in several time lines. So, we could have very well seen The Great Intelligence growing up as a child and dying as a man in that snowman episode, while still being an incarnation of The Doctor.
2. Clara is also The Doctor. She entered his time stream, and went to a place where only The Doctor existed. But she was there. See also, the fracturing into a million pieces thing.
3. John Hurt’s version of The Doctor is an alternate timeline Nine who got trapped in the Time War. Because how would that not be the most fucking amazing thing you’ve ever heard of?
Now, if you will excuse me, I need to rewatch “The Name of The Doctor” then a marathon of 6th Doctor episodes. And I will eat all the cereal in the world.
I just want to say THANK YOU FOR THE DISCLAIMER!
I haven't seen the most recent episode, or the one before it. Trying not to have it spoiled is a difficult endeavor.
I think this is going to be The Doctor before he was The Doctor. Before he stole the TARDIS. Before the Daleks, before everything.
Some people been posing this theory over on the Guardian blog but I don't think it can be, because if Hurt's doctor is the one that broke the promise, the promise must have already been made, and I think we can be fairly sure that Hartnell's Doctor was the first to take the name. I would lay a reasonable amount of money (well, maybe twenty quid, no more) on him coming between 8 and 9, but Eccleston's Doctor still being technically Nine, as, while the same person, Hurt's incarnation does not count as a Doctor, as he did not keep the promise and can not therefore bear the name.
Also Jenny, Richard E. Grant was not only the Doctor in Scream of the Shalka. Have you not seen Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death? A spoof yes, but written by Moffat.
Also, I don't think Clara is the Doctor. We have seen her as a baby,and assume she was born to her parents via the conventional biological process, and if she were a future Doctor he would have regenerated into her as an adult. However Rivers last words make me think she could still be in some way connected to CAL from Forest of the Dead. I think maybe the whole leaf thing was set in motion by River from inside the computer to create someone who would be there to save the doctor when she couldn't be. CAL (Charlotte Abigail Lux) and Clara are quite similar names, and CAL talked about being a clever girl. Clara talked about being born to save the Doctor, as if she had been somehow created with this in mind.
All I know is that if Moffat ruins ANYTHING about my 9, I will ruin him.
I think John Hurt is The Valeyard, it makes perfect sense to me although I too had been playing with the whole Clara/CAL theory. We still don't know why the TARDIS seems to dislike Clara in some way.
And Matt Smith just gets sexier and sexier.
DAMN I love nerds…
Basically, I think 8 was 8 for a *long* time. Paul McGann aged into John Hurt, and John Hurt is the one who committed those terrible crimes to end the Time War.
Well, could be that Hurt was actually Nine (and cue the War), then Nine was actually Ten, Ten was Eleven, and Eleven is really Twelve.
I mean, “the Doctor always lies” *and* we've had the whole contradictory “I'm 900/I'm 1100” thing….
In any case, Doctor/River Song 4eva! (For a value of Doctor = Matt Smith because the chemistry between him and Alex Kingston was *scorching*.)
YESSSS, the Valeyard was mentioned in a throwaway way, and it would totally make sense (the doctor knowing about something that happens in his future, I mean.)