Some quick jotted down thoughts about the new DW ep

[giallarhorn]

[And spoilers, of course]

• How does a 23 year old student who's graduated from uni not know a thing about wifi? Or rather, why is she computer illiterate?
• Oh and that whole scene with the monk and evil spirit=woman good nothing's changed Moffat
• Why do I have a feeling the shop girl is going to be River or an older!Clara in disguise? Why do I sense a time loop?
• JLC is fun to

Comments

[eve11]

Eleven saying that being stuck in a data cloud without a body to go back to is hell when oh wait isn't that what happened to River with Ten basically sticking her into a computer mainframe?

Good point. Maybe that means he's going to try and actually rescue her at some point. And they did at least make that mainframe feel different than the Library; the Library was kind of like "make your own life" and this mainframe was "stare at your computer not knowing where you are or why you are there until you get fed to evil Richard E Grant."

Clara's internet non-knowledge was kind of a tough pill to swallow if they want us to believe she was born in 1989. ETA: but to be fair, they did not say that she went through university. I imagine these days though, that High school is enough to at least learn the basics of the Internet.

[giallarhorn]

I had gotten the impression that since River's body had expired, there wasn't a chance for her to return to the physical world since she had basically been reduced to an 'echo', so to say? But that is fair- the data cloud seemed to be fairly limited and isolated in it's capacity when compared to the mainframe, which doesn't really make sense given how a data cloud should work?

I can't remember where I read it (maybe an interview or article?) but someone had stated that Eleven meets Clara around the time after she's graduated from university, though I don't think they ever mentioned it proper in the episode. But like you said- high school alone would've been enough to provide the basics of the internet, so.

[tellshannon815]

I can't believe I didn't connect with River and Ten in that episode - what I was remembering was The Idiot's Lantern with Rose getting trapped in the screen! There were a few moments when I really wondered if I was watching that episode again what with the bike thing as well. (And then I was surprised at how well I remembered TIL since I last saw that 4 years ago.)

And yes, that wasn't exactly plausible about Clara knowing so little about the Internet.

Yes, I think the woman in the shop is River.

[giallarhorn]

Yeah, there was a lot of parallels to TIL in this episode, tbh- I didn't make the connect to River till he said something about living in a data cloud, to which I started wondering where I had heard it before. But yeah, parallels might be a kind term to describe it.

Someone made a point that it could also be Rose, seeing how she was also a shop girl, though it would be harder to mesh timeline wise?

[tellshannon815]

I had heard that rumour as well about Rose, but I'm not taking it seriously. I don't know how that would work. Saying that though, if I had heard any rumours about Rose in the early episodes of S4 before it aired I don't know whether I'd have believed it either.

[giallarhorn]

Yeah, though to be fair, Rose coming back was more as a way to bring closure to her storyline. Bringing her back now would feel strange, given how JE ended as opposed to River, though I would've thought that her storyline would've been done by now.

[sarahblack]

Yeah, I was kind of wtf at Clara's inability to connect to the internet. :|

[giallarhorn]

Yeah, I don't really get how we're expected to believe we have a 23 year old who doesn't know how to operate the basics of the internet =/ I had been hoping that she was tech savvy beforehand since how we saw her earlier, but I suppose that went to waste.

[aim2misbhave]

I could buy Clara not knowing how to get onto wifi on her own - in college, I lived with a 21-year-old who said URL like "earl" and connecting to wifi networks is something that doesn't seem to be an uncommon problem among young 20-somethings who only use computers for typing papers and going on Facebook and maybe Pinterest.

I've become sooo frustrated with Moffat's storytelling method, too. I do like Clara's personality, though, and I love that the Great Intelligence appears to be making a comeback.

[giallarhorn]

I just find it hard to believe that she didn't know anything about the internet other than 'it's not working', since I imagine since she had been living with the family for about a year, she should've managed to pick up on some knowledge of how the internet should work in that time, if not during school. Especially given the prevalence of wifi, particularly on college campuses nowadays.

Yeah, I've liked what I saw of Clara so far (but then again, I also liked how Amy started) but it is too early in the game to make any predictions yet.

[aim2misbhave]

Eh, try living with an artist. You set up their computer so the home network is preferred and the password is saved in the settings, and they'll only need help connecting every few months.

[giallarhorn]

That's true, I suppose- it's just hard for me to imagine that people can get by without knowing how to operate the basics of the internet.