I was sitting in a small cafe in Whangarei, mulling over the loose threads
posed by my viewing of the new Doctor Who telemovie the previous night,
when suddenly my latte bowl flew up into the air just as the shop's CD player
started skipping. 'Of course!' I yelled clearly to staff and patrons, 'if the
Doctor's half-human then I know who his mother is!!!'
'Who?' queried the staff and patrons.
'Dr Grace Holloway,' replied I.
'Who?' re-queried the staff and patrons bemusedly as I began to dance on the tables.
'It's all quite simple, really,' I began, as I pulled up a chair and began
to relate the following set of clues as a carefully presented chronology of the
telemovie...
- An early shot inside the TARDIS duplicates an opening shot (of clocks on a
table) from Back to the Future (which as we all know is about a man
going back in time to kiss his mother...).
- The Doctor appears to be listening to an English version of the aria Un Bel
Di ('One Fine Day') from the opera Madame Butterfly whilst sipping
tea in the TARDIS.
- We first meet Grace Holloway at the opera listening to Un Bel Di
(surprise! surprise!) from Madame Butterfly - which incidentally is an
opera about a woman in a far-off land (Japan) who falls pregnant to a sailor
(from America) The sailor returns home and she has the baby. When the sailor
returns with his American wife, Madame B kills herself and the boy goes back to
a different culture with his father (i.e. the child is brought up in two
worlds).
- After regenerating, the amnesia-ridden Doctor rushes towards the woman who
just 'killed' him, trusting her as 'safe' and sensing her as somebody who
knows him; in the car park he remembers enough about her to tell her about her
fear of dying, so they've met before (or maybe this is symptomatic behaviour of
Puccini fans...).
- At Grace's apartment there's a picture by Leonardo da Vinci on the wall -
the Doctor's met both Leo and Puccini (people he knows because of his mother's
influence, perhaps???)
- In the apartment the Doctor confirms that he's met Grace before by
referring to her 'childhood dreams' and revealing that she goes on to do 'great
things'. (The Doctor could be psychic, but a later scene in which he recognises
Gareth seems to refute this). Interestingly Madame Butterfly plays on the
soundtrack again!
- As the Eye of Harmony opens, the Doctor remembers who he is and kisses
Grace with a look of apparent recognition (Mummy!!), either that or opening the
Eye of Harmony cures celibacy!
- Why is Grace on the board of the 'Institute of Technological Advancement
and Research' (ITAR)?
- Why is ITAR a partial anagram of TARDIS and why is the sign outside ITAR a
big blue box!!!
- Why does the beryllium clock have strong echoes of TARDIS console in its
design (curiously the Doctor needs the beryllium to fix the TARDIS and it fits
the time rotor perfectly).
- Oh, by the way, the words 'Dr Who' are hidden in the name 'Dr Grace
Holloway'. (Does he call himself 'Doctor' in memory of his mother?).
- The Doctor is trying to tell Grace something important, but she doesn't
want to hear it, so he mischievously tells it to a scientist while
pick-pocketing a security pass. If he tells him the same secret, why was the
Doctor so eager to tell Grace he's half human on his mother's side.
- The 'size' joke is common to bath Earth and Gallifrey; did the Doctor's
mother introduce it?
- During their escape from ITAR we discover that the Doctor and Grace are
both afraid of heights, and both hide keys in the same place prompting the
Doctor to remark 'great minds think alike!' (hmm, as we all know both vertigo
and key-hiding rivals are genetic traits). So is lying to make a point!
- When repairing the TARDIS, Grace has a line of technobabble that reveals
she knows a bit about spatial displacement and such like.
- On the bike, the Doctor tells an inquisitive Grace light-heartedly that she
doesn't want to know what happens to her. However by the end of the story the
Doctor tells her that 'there's something she should know'. Grace doesn't want
to hear it as she's happy with who she is. The Doctor gives her a short
'distant' kiss. Grace looks disturbed by this and then gives a look of
realisation (she obviously took Method Acting 101). They part, and the Doctor
leaves and resumes playing the same record inside the TARDIS.
'But if she's his mother, who's his father?' queried the staff and patrons
of the coffee shop.
'I don't know,' I replied, but it's worth considering the following...
- The Master's campy comment about the son he's always wanted.
- The Master yelling 'You are my life!' at the Doctor.
- The odd fact that he can possess Grace from a distance, yet has to snog her
to 'suck the possession' out of her. This is doubly odd considering that the
Master's 'snake form' enters through the mouth (perhaps that's why the Doctor
only pecks Grace on the lips at the end??).
- Is Grace somehow impregnated with a Gallifreyan child?
Whatever happens, the new telemovie has been one hell of a good rebirth for
an old friend. Welcome back Doctor, I hope you stay a while.
Time will tell, it always does!