The christmas special of dr who is nearly upon us and with the season finale of dr who promises were made that the dr would be different, where previous seasons the dr had been focused on clara and had been noted by many as the worst dr of all time thing weren’t looking great when the season consisted of two parters where everyone was dead or dying one week and saved and alive the next week through increasingly absurd plot lines.
The terrible plot’s didn’t end there with the doctor increasingly breaking the fourth wall to explain plots and subtext directly to the audience in order to make the episode feasible. This was of course made worse when there was a special episode consisting of a character telling a story to the audience of sleep based creatures outside of the dr who universe being a pure work of fiction from a one time character, things were looking bad for the series and it was looking like the entire franchise was about to be ruined.
The dead/not dead plot lines continued in varying forms even revolving around the doctor dying over and over in a never ending cycle through time until he was on gallifrey at the end of time itself having gone the long way around, using up “lives” being reborn by a special technology which reset itself including his teleporter signal yet ignored the final room where he was able to chip away diamonds until the end of time quoting a parable to explain how through persistence a raven could chip away a mountain until the end of time. One major plot fault is if everything reset within the dial of the castle surely that room too would reset.
The story then began to revolve around a “hybrid” who would destroy the universe, where the doctor believed himself to be this hybrid refusing to reveal it to the timelords there have been previous hybrids throughout the series with no mention of this “prophecy” at any point, including dalek sec, the hybrid human timelord daleks, davros himself, and more that shall not be named. The problem is however that dalek caan was voiced by the same lady on gallifrey who was also in a similar prophetic role as the insane dalek who saved the daleks from the very same point of the time war as the doctor did, not to mention the problems that would ensue with the fact that both factions of the war are separately saved throughout time somewhere, this also makes the possibility that caan and the lady are bound and one with the prophecy as the cause of destruction, furthermore the story continues to the shielder maisie williams who now goes by “me” being the last survivor of the universe having traveled the long way around also, having lived every day yet maintaining human form unlike the face of bo: jack harkness who of course failed his form and eventually died.
The shielder theorized that together the prophecy of the hybrid may also be that the end of the timelords and time may not be simply one person but a hybrid of multiple people working together whether intentional or not throughout time that causes the prophecy. Of course having traveled the long way around, past even the timelords where she could have existed on gallifrey at the time and also even given birth to timelords themselves (or the doctor or even the master) she may have knowledge beyond the doctors as to exactly what happened.
While on gallifrey the doctor of course enacted the prophecy in some form, bringing back clara from the point of death freezing her in time but alive under the promise to return her to the point of death and prevent the catastrophe that would ensue by keeping her out of time. Together the shielder takes clara herself on their newly stolen tardis to travel throughout time keeping clara both dead and not dead at the same time which forgives some of the terrible plots as a hint as to clara’s inevitable condition, this even allows for further points where clara has been experienced in history without the doctors knowledge, where the doctor had been obsessed with why clara appeared throughout multiple timelines having taken her on his travels he has slowly put her into those positions, pairing with a daleks mind inside, and continuing to propagate at points in time and now travelling with the shielder dead but alive with no life signs she can return to the beginning and die (or pretend to) at the point the doctor knew her to die, and forgetting the paradoxes of the shielder existing twice in any timeline she visits due to having travelled the long way it could be any instance we see her in the future.
The ending however redeemed a lot of the series and even the terrible doctor, with him being the doctor to piss off most of the universe and wreck things through that simple action, yet being saved in the series through forgetting clara and in that instance clicking his fingers to close the tardis doors as if to show that he is the doctor to be with river song (the christmas special where this didn’t need any hint beyond the finger click) and having the chalkboard state be the doctor showing he should be more like the doctor of past and not the terrible doctor that he had been written to be in the seasons thus far of this actor; this was furthered by getting a new sonic screwdriver rather than the sonic douche glasses as though to say he is now the doctor again and not a douche.
Things yet to happen would be to save river song by giving her the sonic screwdriver with the saving facilities intact on it, the major worry is that upon giving this to her he would return to douche glasses and not have another sonic screwdriver, as terrible as the worry he would have a new tardis he could disguise as something else (maybe a blue portaloo) However he would have to meet river and her not know who he is, this would show to him it would be the last time he is alive in this form and soon to die, which would be the time for him to give her the sonic under the plan to use his regeneration energy knowing he is about to die and save everyone from the computer by using this energy to give everyone form once more including river song his fellow timelord and bring everyone back to life.
Of course this is all theory on how things would seem to play out in the universe should they not add rather silly or unusual reasons for things, and the actual plot may play out differently as I have no insider knowledge but this would be a sensible way for the series to progress with the doctor now on track and able to get viewers back under an air of a fresh start.