Foreshadowing: Part 3

Moving right along...

This whole idea is on Moffat's foreshadowing. Yes I know that he doesn't write all the episodes in the series but as the show runner, his hand is a guiding force in everything, so in a way it's still all his. This is another reason why I've chosen not to go back to those episodes from the RTD era unless absolutely necessary. Starting with this series, the show is all Moffat's.


Vampires In Venice
This episode if more about getting Amy back to focusing on Rory than much else. We'll see that to in the next episode, Amy's Choice.

14.) We have our first mention of the Silence. The aliens here fled the Silence thru a crack in time and ended up in 15th century Earth, Venice. These Silence...we'll get to know them better as we go...

Amy's Choice
15.) This whole episode is a payoff in who Amy really "chooses" to be with, the Doctor or Rory. In the end, she wants and gets both.

Oh, and Rory dies. (But only in the dream world. But...)

16.) This is the interesting bit - in this episode, the trio is at the hands of someone calling himself the "Dream Lord" We, the viewer, don't necessarily get who exactly he really is, and depending on how long you've been a fan, I bet there are a few ideas flowing, the Master or the Valeyard being first on the list. When the Doctor tells him "There's one only person that hates me as much as you do..." we get that sense he knows exactly who this "Dream Lord" is. He also notes that he's not sure how this person or being is even "here" meaning about to communicate and manipulate their realities. Now, if like me, you are watching this episode having see the series 7.2 finale, this is going to send massive ALARM bells ringing in your brain. O.M.G. Here we have for the first time (for the new series) this possibility of there being parts of the Doctor's personality that are cut off in some fashion, but that can still affect time and space. This "Dream Lord" is a dark side of the Doctor. Its part of his personality, albeit one that he doesn't let to the surface much, mostly likely because of what it represents. Throws a new light on that last minute of the 7.2 finale, doesn't it? Heck, we even have the taunt to Amy of the fact that she doesn't even know the Doctor's real name!!
Granted, this "Dream Lord" was all just a bit psychic pollen knocking around in the Doctor's head...but still. If there are parts of him like that in his head...are there others? Is this were Hurt's character will come from?

The Hungry Earth
A lot of what we get here will be paid off in the next episode, Cold Blood. This is one of the fewer 2-part episodes of the Moffat era. They are rather stand alone in the series as a whole, with the exception of what happens at the end of Cold Blood. The foreshadowing mostly relates to the second part of the story - Amy waving at what is possibly herself, Rory saying she should leave her ring in the TARDIS, Amy being taken underground, Nasreen and Tony's feelings for each other, who will eventually kill the Silurian - and this really isn't the true foreshadowing like we've been tracking, just parts of the plot. In a few ways, I almost wonder if what happens at the end of Cold Blood wasn't almost a tack-on, like this elements were what was needed to advance the story and they couldn't find a place for them in another story.

17.) Rory makes Amy leave her ring in the TARDIS - I'm only adding it here because that one little bit will become significant later in the series.

Cold Blood
18.) We see a crack. A BIG one. Bigger than before. And this time, the Doctor says there must be shrapnel because all these cracks are from an explosion, one big enough to cause the cracks in all of space and time.  He actually goes and sticks his hand into it - because YES that is totally safe for the Time Lord - and pulls out...something steaming and very hot. That something? A piece of the TARDIS sign.

OH BOY

19. and 20.) Rory the hero - Reztac is still kicking, because she needs her revenge. She aims for the Doctor, but Rory steps in the way and is hurt...and dies. Because we need any more feels.

And then...because of course there is more...he gets sucked into the crack, which will erase him from Amy's memory. She can remember the clerics who were sucked into the crack on the ship but this is her own history changing.

And the Doctor leaves him.

Pardon me while my heart is TORN IN TWO.


And, try as he might, the Doctor can't get Amy to keep Rory in her memory for very long. We humans have such trouble with that...

Back out on the hill, she waves to her other self, though for an instant she thinks she saw something else, but the thought is fleeting.

Except...not everything of Rory has been erased.


Because there is the engagement ring, safe in it's box.

(Also to note this all happens while the TARDIS had landed in a graveyard. We'll be back in one eventually...)

(And is it me or is the color of the piece of the TARDIS that was pulled from the crack more like the blue of 9/10's TARDIS? Or is that just because it was a piece that was smoke damaged? Looks to me like the more gray-blue than the current more royal blue...)

This is a double number because Rory's death and remembering him are part of the same thing, but the also things that will be dealt with and have meaning separately later.