In Doctor Who ‘The Stolen Earth‘ we see that since gate-crashing the time-lock on the First Great Time-War (which even the Doctor claims is impossible) and rescuing Davros from his command ship at the Gates of Elysium, Dalek Caan seems to have gained pre-cognitive powers; but it cost him his mind and his casing.
Davros seems to take Dalek Caan’s cryptic predictions and prophecies as gospel, claiming Caan speaks only the truth. Whilst Davros’ new Dalek Army and it’s commander, the Supreme Dalek, all view Caan as an insane abomination.
Lets take a look at some of Caan’s cryptic babbling;
“…he is coming, the three-fold man he dances in the lonely places; oh creator of us all, the Doctor is coming.”
The Three-Fold Man is a strange way to describe the Doctor. Since the end of the First Great Time-War, two incarnations of the Doctor have faced a Dalek horde.
Assuming the Doctor finishes his regeneration and faces them again, the new Daleks will’ve had their asses whooped en masse by three Doctors; a three-fold man. Unless anyone has any better ideas?
[Davros paraphrases] “…the Children of Time will move against us.”
The Children of Time must surely mean the Doctor’s current and former companions on Earth; Jack Harkness, Sarah-Jane, Martha Jones, Rose Tyler and Donna Noble. Davros inferred this when the sub-wave network was detected.
“…he is here, the Dark Lord is come.”
Dalek Caan squeaked this excitedly when the Doctor synchronised with the Daleks and their 27 stolen planets inside the Medusa Cascade, it must mean the Doctor.
The Daleks have a in-depth knowledge of the Doctor and this exploits; every Dalek knows that every time they have faced the Doctor in battle he has defeated them. He is legend in Dalek folklore if there is such a thing; they call him ‘the Oncoming Storm‘ as well as ‘the Destroyer of Worlds‘.
“…I flew into the wild and fire; I danced and died a thousand times.”
Dalek Caan says this after Davros explains how Caan rescued him from certain death at the Gates of Elysium in the first year of the Time-War. We don’t know what the Gates of Elysium are, but in Greek myth Elysium was the entrance to Hell.
The Doctor saw Davros’ command ship fly into the Nightmare Child (whatever that is? anyone?) at the Gates of Elysium, but now Davros says Caan rescued him from that ship after breaking the time-lock on the war. The wild and fire probably means the battle, conventional weapons (fire) as well as temporal ones (wild); you risk being both killed and erased from existance all-together.
To dance and die a thousand times probably means he was caught in some kind of time-loop, maybe a paradox, endlessly fighting and dying over and over until eventually doing something significant which breaks the loop.
The entire Time-War is time-locked, it is probably too volatile and unstable, too unpredictable to be messed around with for precisely this reason. Transversing this time-rollercoaster is undoubtedly how Dalek Caan lost his mind and how he gained his pre-cognitive powers.
“…death is coming, oh I can see it. Everlasting death for the most faithful companion.”
There has been much speculation about this, who is it? Donna has been told she will die soon, but is she the most faithful? Captain Jack Harkness can never die, everlasting death could mean that he is bound to die over and over again forever.
Some people have said that the Doctor’s most faithful companion is in fact the TARDIS. The TARDIS is telepathic, it has been with him since the beginning, longer than any companion.
The next model up, the Level V TARDIS could assume humanoid form (having a working chameleon circuit) and accompany a Time-Lord as a companion.
Could the Doctor really lose the TARDIS? Then what? What would he do? Could he find one in another dimension? On Rose’s parallel Earth? Could he use salvaged equipment from Torchwood or UNIT? It’d be pretty low-tech for him, he’s scoffed at it previously.
In Torchwood there is a piece of Coral growing on Jack Harkness’ desk. The actor John Barrowman has revealed it is a piece of TARDIS and is 30years old, in 500 years the carving process could begin, but that was just an off-the-cuff remark in an interview for the Radio Times. It is consistent with the concept that TARDISes are grown, not built.
What do you guys think?
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July 3rd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I think the ‘three-fold man’ could be The Doctor, The Doctor’s severed hand and Jenny; his daughter. Three parts of the same man?
Also, we don’t know which incarnation of the Doctor was involved in the Time War. It could well have been the 8th Doctor.
The exertions of the Time-War could have been what caused his regeneration to the 9th Doctor. Meaning 8, 9 and 10 are the three-folds.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Alan, you are a genius. Caan can probably see all Time-Lord threats to the Daleks not just the Doctor’s immediate presence at the Medusa Cascade.
That severed hand keeps appearing! He has it in the control room close at hand if you pardon the pun. It must be significant; rather than just another prop like psychic paper.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Maybe the most faithful companion is Rose Tyler, she did cross a parallel universe to reach the Doctor. She’s obviously very fond of this incarnation of the Doctor and now he’s regenerating, so maybe Caan meant death as a metaphor for his regeneration.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I beg to disagree!
(”the three-folded man”)
You are not looking at the big picture. For months it’s been rumoured that there will be “regeneration gone wrong” with the 10th Doctor, and there you go - he started regenerating in the end of the episode, and there you go - David Tennant stars in the Christmas episode, and there you go - there is a photo of a caravan on the web for the actor playing “the other doctor” in the Christmas episode, and there you go - David Tennant has a contract for the 5th season (2010).
Well, since we are certain for a wrong regeneration and two Doctors what’s stopping them to surprise us with “third degree” wrong regeneration if you know what I mean.
Time will tell if I’m right.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
and there you go!
Where are these photos you mentioned? Seeing as the BBC have a pretty complete Press blackout (publishing statements about next year in March and taking those statements down 15mins before ‘The Stolen Earth‘ was aired) I dont really go looking for evidence that much as I question how much, if any of it, we can believe. But I’d be interested to see.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
The Doctor has had 3 female companions. Maybe it not just one of these things that make him the three fold man, maybe its all of them. It could be like a magic number for him or something.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I just realised, he’s also had three male companions!
July 4th, 2008 at 12:08 am
You’ve been busy Noel!
Which three male companions do you mean? Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith and Bruno Langley? Well yeah I’ll give you that. But there is a huge dispute about what makes a companion, check out wikipedia on the subject of disputed companions.
Some say Astrid Peth was a companion, I dont, she never travelled with the Doctor. But then I dont really rank Mickey or Bruno as companions and they did travel with him, but I will rank Jack as one. Of course its all down to Russell T Davies (RTD) to decide who is and who is not significant, who has a part to play in this, or not.
July 4th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
How about instead of a regeneration that flows forward with time (going from 10th to the 11th Doctor), he degenerates back to a previous Doctor?
July 5th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Could the “most faithful companion” be K9? Wouldn’t we all feel cheated if it was?
July 5th, 2008 at 9:37 am
There was a clip of tonight’s episode on the BBC news this morning. It appeared to show someone lying down inside a proper steelworks crucible. Is the crucible that literal? I imagined it was some piece of equipment for merging someone/something. Did anyone else catch that?
July 11th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
as we have found out donna had to forget the doctor but she did not die completely so i think the gate is still open