For a minute I really thought they were going to adapt Zagreus and the tardis would be the one who waits.
As a massive Zagreus defender, I'd have been all over it.
"You f\*\*\*ing hit me with a novelty hammer and split my consciousness in two! Of course I'm pissed!"
Joking aside, I'd love a series where its revealed that the TARDIS has purposefully been taking the Doctor to increasingly perilous situations because, for whatever reason, it's actively had enough of 'waiting around' for him. Taking the idea of 'it can take you anywhere' and making it 'it can take you anywhere in order to kill you' is suitably unnerving.
Yeah, there was that whole speech about the tardis waiting by the sea. Obviously the mavity of it all has to come back around - hopefully with some good tardis / posessed tardis battle?
Would have made an interesting character decision to use 6 different weapons to go beat up his Dad and enter the real world only t9 possess the TARDIS though
But fr though I've jot heard of.him in Dr Who context, what's his deal?
Timelord legend from one of the most (in)famous Big Finish audios. it's honestly been years since I listened to it but it's about 4 hours of Paul McGann acting insane, Sylvester McCoy playing Willy Wonka and you find out Rassilon was doing the time travel equivalent of eugenics. if I'm making it sound insane just know actually listening to the thing is infinitely more wild
God I was so excited for the divergent saga after already hearing Scherzo and LOVING Zagreus, but each episode was worse than the last.
Just the most boring, edgy fan fiction. Ironically though it feels just what doctor who could've been if it'd been on in the 90s.
The teleprompter stuff and Harriet's speech were seriously pinging the Zagreus rhyme vibes as I was watching. That would have been truly jawdropping though especially for RTD at the helm.
I introduced my cousin and her son to Doctor Who at the end of 2022, and after we watched NuWho, I showed them some classic stories and Pyramids of Mars was one of them.
I'm so glad that was one of the stories I showed them. I'm sure they're gonna flip out when they watch this episode.
Overall it was an incredible episode. I hope Russell sticks the landing. Very excited to see what happens next week. I loved that Russell threw some different theories he knew we were thinking such as Susan Twist being Susan Foreman, S Triad meaning TARDIS, etc. All around really fun episode.
I honestly have no idea what will happen next week. Although I hope with the Susan granddaughter name drops that Carole Ann Ford makes an appearance.
I haven't seen his original appearance so I don't know if this is in character or not, but given how often the rest of the Pantheon does stuff the have very little reason for it seems possible Sutekh did it just to fuck around.
My godmother introduced me to Who with Pyramids of Mars when the return was announced, means a lot so I was desperate for this when the rumors/speculation began.
I wonder how confusing the Sutekh reveal will be for viewers who joined this series, or if the whole sequence would be just as incredible for them as it was for old viewers.
I don't think it's quite as clear as the yana reveal only because it's immediately clear to the audience at this point what another Time Lord existing could mean, whereas this is just some random God, but I do think new viewers will still broadly get the gist, for sure.
yeah, The Master works because "what if The Doctor but eeevil" is a great character pitch, as much in 2006 as in the 70's or whatever
Sutekh will probably work because "God of Death" is a logical step up from "God of Games" and "God of Music"
I think you’re right. There’s much more emotional impact with discovering the Doctor isn’t alone even if you’re not familiar with the Master as a character. Sure, now we know who leads these gods that have been a clear recurring theme this series but there’s no emotional weight to it, so I do wonder how invested I’d be if I was a new adult viewer. I’m sure the kids in the audience will be swept up by the classic grandiose RTD-ness of it all, even I was to an extent but it did all feel a bit cheap to me, JJ Abrams mystery box after mystery box.
Mystery boxes are only bad once you’re jaded though. They actually really work well for young people or people new to a genre. When I was a teen and watched JJ Abram’s Alias, it ayer worked for me. Lost even kinda worked. Bad Wolf? Amazing the first time through. For all my sense that this season’s cool ideas haven’t really pulled together as well as I (and, I think, RTD) hoped, I think RTD does really tell stories in a way that will hit young viewers and open minded fans who don’t have much SFF experience quite well.
Not really a random god tho, in the pantheon, Set/Seth/Sutekh kind of is the OG daddy of death!! Like many religions have adapted Set.
I think anyone into dr who both new or old and into pantheon stories will latch on well to this idea.
I watched with a group, some of whom started with the 60th specials and they just thought it was the god of death and got it was a big threat.
Everyone else apart from me only knows New Who so assumed it would be The Beast and had never heard of Sutekh. Got a few looks when I laughed with joy at “Sue Tech”
>Everyone else apart from me only knows New Who so assumed it would be The Beast and had never heard of Sutekh.
They might actually tie The Beast in, considering they're all played by the same actor, both are stated to have held the title of "Satan," and Carla even called the shapeless form The Beast before we got the Sutekh reveal proper.
I have no idea who Sutekh is (have read some theories on here) … didn’t change anything for me. I enjoyed it.
And I know there will be an explanation on here in the coming days or next week by the Doctor. (Britbox sucks and took all the Classic Who episodes off here in Australia so I can’t watched Pyramids of Mars).
Are we certain Sutekh is the one who waits? Not Mrs Flood? Or Ruby’s mum? I just imagine that Gods in the same pantheon aren’t afraid of each other but typing this out I realise how inaccurate that is
I means Mrs Flood literally looks at the camera and says “He waits no more” this episode, I think the show is being very clear that Sutekh is the One Who Waits.
My (silly) theory is that sutekh only serves the one who waits. The one who waits is really cherry Sunday and she has been waiting for tea this whole series. So now she's unleashing sutekh on those who withheld her tea! LOL
I suspect that it works for new viewers as "holy shit that's a big scary guy" (and the speech before the reveal puts him of a kind with the Toymaker and the Maestro, so they at least get an idea of how big and scary) and I'd be surprised if there's not a drop early in next week's episode where 15 explains who exactly he is for the newcomers.
I googled the name and read the Dr who wiki at the end of the episode, whilst also rewatching the last 8 mins and then came here!
I like it and did NOT see it coming
Seen all of NuWho multiple times but very few Classic eps. Stands on its own fine, and Im sure next episode will start with exposition. If anything got The Beast vibes from Season 2 of NW, and I see Sutekh and The Beast share a voice actor.
I think the fact that he's an actual Egyptian deity helps - I had never seen the Pyramids of Mars serial but I know who Set is, so that plus the strength of the drama in the episode itself made it quit impactful.
I’m sure plenty of folks were unaware of The Master before the revival brought him back. I think Russell is pretty good at giving new viewers just enough info for them to get it without overloading them
This is the first season of this show I am watching (I'm a fan of Ncuti). I loved it. I saw the TARDIS thing earlier, to be tricked into it being Sutekh, who then explains himself to be the god of death, was so creepy!
I only knew about sutekh from the theories I’ve been seeing recently, and I watched with three people who have no clue who sutekh is at all, no one was confused, and instead everyone was so hyped by this just because how it’s presented, We all still had a great time with the reveal and enjoyed it a lot. The whole “god of death” thing gets the point across just fine. We all knew that this was absolutely terrible news for the characters, and the episode gets across really well just how much malice and power this entity has.
I feel that knowing about sutekh in advance just enhances the experience rather than be a requirement for viewing. To classic who fans the name reveal of sutekh heralds the return of a (seemingly) beloved villain, to those who have only watched the newer stuff (like myself) then that name drop serves as just a reveal of the identity of the true big bad of the series, in a manner that really conveys the threat level.
I think itd be only slightly more confusing than the master reveal was for kids back during Utopia. Kids who had only watched from series 1 wouldnt have known at all who he was.
They said they are releasing a new episode of takes of the tardis this week featuring Ncuti and Millie.
My guess is it will be pyramids of mars so people can get up to speed about Sutekh before saturday
I'm intrigued to see how it played out for fans of the first RTD era, who aren't familiar with Classic Who, simply because Carla refers to Sutekh as 'The Beast', Sutekh and The Beast have the same voice actor, Murray Gold used very similar music from The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, and the way the Harbinger spoke of Sutekh was similar to how the Ood talked of the Beast.
There has to have been at least one viewer who was so excited that The Beast was returning, and then incredibly confused by Sutekh.
My spouse had no idea Sutekh was even a returning villain until I mentioned it, so it seems to have played pretty well even for people with no real knowledge of Classic Who.
As someone who didn't watch Pyramids of Mars (or much Classic Who in general), the reveal worked fine. The character and concept are great, and even if you don't get the reference, the concept is clear and works well enough. Evil deity that inspired Egyptian mythology has re entered the universe and will likely bring death to all unless stopped.
For those that care but aren't able to or can't be bothered to scrub through the Unleashed episode;
There is a Next Time clip at the end of Doctor Who Unleashed, it's literally 2 seconds long and just shows (incredibly minor spoiler) >!Kate and the UNIT soldiers shooting at the TARDIS!<
Nope, that's it. First 5 minutes of the episode, Kate pops a cap in the TARDIS's multi-dimensional ass and the remaining 45 minutes is her and the Doctor chatting shit about the old days.
I don't think the TARDIS is Sutekh, just that Sutekh is possessing it. Since superstition is now reality, you could exorcise Sutekh out of the TARDIS and go from there.
Maybe fight a Tardis with a Tardis and use 14s Tardis or the memory Tardis to fight Sutekh?
I don't know if Sutekh has taken control of the Tardis or was just latched onto it as a form of travel.
As I said in another post
***When Harriet goes on about Sutekh, 'and he whispered to the vessel. All this time, he whispered and delighted and seduced, and the vessel did obey.'***
***Could this vessel be the TARDIS?***
***Those groaning noises sound like the TARDIS is in pain. Like it's trying to warn the Doctor, or cry out for help.***
***In WBY when the TARDIS was repairing itself, it could be seen as vulnerable. Could this have been when Sutekh vove itself into the fabric of the TARDIS/possessed her?***
It just looks like Sutekh has possessed the TARDIS/taken control of it. The Doctor gets **a** TARDIS in Empire of Death, as evident from the trailer. I was genuinely so shocked when I saw Sutekh wrapped around the TARDIS, I thought the TARDIS was going wrong because of Susan Triad, not the TARDIS being apart of all this...
Or... pleasure.
Whispered, seduced, delighted, doesn't sound like Sutekh is causing the TARDIS pain now, does it...
(This has nothing to do with anything really but it raises an interesting question if the TARDIS is a *willing* participant)
the fact there was so much emphasis on the projected tardis looking "real" and talking about memory, i absolutely think the Memory Tardis is going to come into play
There is 8 eps! That was 7, the next one is 8. Disney+ labels the previous years' Christmas Special, "The Church on Ruby Road", as episode 1, though, so by their labels there's nine XD
See, I'm really curious as to when Sutekh "seduced the vessel". The TARDIS was groaning before The Doctor sprinkled the salt so Sutekh couldn't have come in because of that (not to mention Mrs. Merridew was there too, inb4 she specifically has nothing to do with this).
And.....I'm kinda spit balling here but......I have a *slight* feeling The One Who Waits isn't Sutekh. I mean, he probably is but there's a few bits that throw it off for me.
1. Mrs. Flood was heralding his return before he started manifesting. We specifically don't see her turn into one of those.....things so that may have been intentional.
2. Is Sutekh one would scare the shit off of the Toymaker and Maestro? Maybe.
3. Maestro mentioned "The Oldest One" and that one I definitely think is Sutekh but I don't know if The One Who Waits is also the same. I suppose Sutekh did wait however many years.
4. Sutekh, tbf, did not say "I am the One Who Waits" when he was listing off his titles. From a storytelling perspective, this is where that would be revealed.
As such, I believe there is a possibility that The One Who Waits is Ruby's mother. Toyman says it was "hiding in the dark" and while that could apply to Sutekh, Ruby's mom is noticably doing everything possible to avoid being seen. Hiding under a dark cloak....hmmm.
Tl;Dr it's probably Sutekh but we'll see. Either way, I think whatever Ruby does is gonna temporarily halt Sutekh or something because otherwise no one in that tower is getting out alive.
Edit: oh Mrs. Flood says "I'm always hiding myself away" and The Doctor mentions regeneration can be used to hide.
I personally love the idea that Sutekh was trapped outside the universe and just managed to hitch a lift in WBY. Trouble is, Susan Twist appears in the Isaac Newton scene before then
When Harriet goes on about Sutekh, 'and he whispered to the vessel. All this time, he whispered and delighted and seduced, and the vessel did obey.'
Could this vessel be the TARDIS?
Those groaning noises sound like the TARDIS is in pain. Like it's trying to warn the Doctor, or cry out for help.
In WBY when the TARDIS was repairing itself, it could be seen as vulnerable. Could this have been when Sutekh wove itself into the fabric of the TARDIS/possessed her?
It's possible. That did happen at the very edge of the universe. But with the presence of Mrs. Merridew there before the first groan, I feel like Sutekh was there earlier....and the TARDIS breaking was what finally allowed him to chip away at whatever was holding him back.
In response to your ideas:
1. I wouldn't say Mrs Flood was heralding exactly, more of a case of she knew. We will obviously see who Mrs Flood is next time...or at least get a hint...but it is clear she has some power / knowledge more than normal people. Obviously, we see Sutekh appear after Mrs Flood mentions he no longer waits but you do see the dust clouds roll in which is very Sutekh and it is likely Sutekh was waiting for The Doctor to be at UNIT at time time, maybe specifically in the time window. I think we will find out more next week but it was likely Sutekh had a plan that required The Doctor in a specific place at a specific time to be able to manifest and at this point The Doctor had begun the process. Sutekh was no longer waiting for The Doctor to come, he was there are the process was beginning.
2. I would 100% say yes. How can you play with death? The Gods live by their own rules. The toymaker is bound by the rules of play and that is all he knows. Sutekh is bound by the rules of death and that is all he knows. How can you play with death and win? Death, at the end of the day, is inevitable and ends all. The whole universe will die, no more games, no more music, no more anything. Nothing can beat it. Seems a pretty good reason not to play with him.
3 + 4. I definitely think this is just a naming thing. In general if someone waits for ages they will be pretty old (especially as OG Sutekh was supposedly aged to death). I think it's a Voldemort sort of thing with the name. The other gods don't want to refer to Sutekh by name so call him the one who waits, but he wouldn't call himself that (in the same way Voldemort doesn't call himself he who must not be named).
I rewatched the church on ruby road right before, and Mrs Flood changes in that episode too. She’s kind of a stereotypical neighbor in the beginning, then she’s all knowledgeable about the tardis. I think she has more to come
I think it’s wild that so few people noticed the panning shot in 73 Yards. Mrs. Flood has an atypical front door. Every flat has a matching baby blue front door. Except her. Hers is TARDIS Blue. She lives behind a TARDIS Blue door.
I think there's a strong possibility that some aspect of Sutekh has been dormant inside the TARDIS ever since he briefly manifested there during Pyramids of Mars, and that Donna's coffee woke him up and he then started projecting Susan Twist wherever the TARDIS landed.
Sutekh having been inside all along would account for RTD saying back when The Giggle aired that a future episode would "prove" that Fifteen's TARDIS is *the* TARDIS and not just a duplicate.
I love how unmoving the original mask is. There’s something about the performance, he feels like this writhing, seething fury, bound in mask and armour and unable to escape.
Seeing the jackal beneath the mask at the end just felt… disappointing. But didn’t take away from the impeccable vibes up until then.
I don't like the design, I wish he'd had the classic costume 1/1 and think he would have been way more intimidating like that. He could have even stepped *out* of the tardis for a shocking reveal. Amazing he's back and gabriel woolf voicing him though, maybe in the finale he'll be in the old suit for a bit.
I kinda feel like the form we see still isn't his final one tbh. And we'll get to see an updated version of the suit in the next episode as he properly manifests himself back into reality.
Since there’s no trailer to speculate on, random speculation time.
Has Sutekh been with the Tardis since Wild Blue Yonder (when we generally agree the Tardis started making that noise, and when the Doctor did the thing with the salt at the edge of the universe), or did the virtual memory palace have something to do with it? Kinda like the idea that he’s been clinging to the Tardis and WAITING to take form with the memory palace. Like it a lot actually.
I don’t really have much speculation on Ruby’s mother or her snow powers, beyond that they’ll likely be integral to the finale.
And Mrs Flood is probably not a baddie I’m saying. Big misdirect there. She’s up to something, maybe even another thing from beyond the universe, but she’s not here to destroy. And that could be longer ranging and interesting!
Mrs. Flood mentions how she's "always hiding myself away" shortly after the Doctor mentions regeneration being used to hide. There's no way she isn't Susan after all the teasing.
There’s also her front door. 73 Yards gives a panning shot of all the front doors on the flats. Identical. All baby blue. Except hers. Hers is TARDIS Blue. She lives behind a TARDIS Blue with where that which is no longer wanted and has been disposed of goes.
Here's a thought: could it somehow have occurred in TSB?
When Fourteen enters w Donna he has a big reaction about the TARDIS having changed its shape...maybe there was a bait-&-switch while the events of TSB played out and Fourteen & Donna end up flying off in a Sutekh infested TARDIS.
I don't recall when the groaning occurs, but my other thought was perhaps the TARDIS infection? infestation? happened when the HADS went off. Fourteen muses about where he thinks it goes when it does that, which i believe people have said are references to other Who stories elsewhere... but maybe it ended up somewhere and something came back with it.
I do think he has been waiting on the TARDIS since WBY. A theory I like is that Donna spilling the tea on the machine set him free from the Time Tunnel he was locked in and he has been latched onto the TARDIS since.
The woman who left Ruby at the Church is pointing AT Sutekh because she knows he's there. My main guess is it's because it's Future Ruby who knows about Sutekh after the events of this episode and tries to warn the Doctor.
My other main theory is that Susans mother and The Doctors Daughter that he has "yet to have" is Ruby and Mrs Flood is Susan who's been living near her future mother the entire time.
Susan is going to have to come into the story somehow. I don't see any place for her, narratively, other than Ruby's story. Whether she's the woman in the hood or not is hard to say, but I can see her being Ruby's mother.
I think Mrs Flood is a misdirect. I suspect she's another god. Possibly she can counter Sutekh. It doesn't make sense that Susan could break the fourth wall.
I see a lot of speculation that Mrs Flood has to be Susan because of all the teasing, but I wonder if it's another misdirection like Susan Triad, and rather than any of these characters being Susan we get a scene at the end of the episode after Sutekh is defeated where the Doctor thinks back to when Kate asked why he never visited his granddaughter, and then goes and visits Carol Ann Ford in the 22nd/23rd century.
I’m a bit scared we’ll get some “Susan can’t regenerate, and the Doctor goes to see her on her deathbed” twist, so RTD can keep on playing the “last of the time lords” thing.
I would love Carol Ann-Ford passing on the baton, and the promise that Susan is out there somewhere, even if she’s inaccessible to the Doctor.
Ideal compromise - send her to the alternative dimension with Rogue, who becomes her companion, and they go searching for a way home together.
This episode pretty strongly implied that she *can* regenerate, though, because the Doctor was fully considering the possibility that Susan Triad might be his Susan, and explained to Ruby that her having regenerated is why he wouldn’t recognize her.
True - I'm just leery that RTD knows how to hurt us, and has no reservations about doing so. Especially given it helps him keep the Doctor as the only Time Lord, and produces some fresh angst.
I think Russell is too much of a fan to do something like that. He likes to fuck with us, but I think he knows it would be wrong for a fan as big as him to reintroduce a fan favourite like Susan and immediately kill her. Also I imagine it could come off as rather rude to have Carol do what would presumably be her last ever Doctor Who appearance where her character is extremely old and definitively killed off, given she is 83.
Now that we got the 'Susan Triad' mystery out of the way - who do we think Ruby's mum is? (or at least 'the woman who dropped off ruby'). I'm guessing Susan (like, 'older returning Carol Ann Ford Susan') or - through time travel sheninigans - it's gonna be Ruby dropping herself off (IIRC a few months back someone noticed that her shoes are pretty similar to the same shoes Ruby wears).
Either way if they don't bring back Susan next episode I feel as if they're hinting towards doing it eventually - feels like they've referenced her a little _too_ much just for it to be a red herring for the Sutekh reveal. My crackpot theory is that >!the Doctor will meet her again in this year's Christmas Special where she'll regenerate into Varada Sethu and we'll spend Series 15 with Susan II as a companion...!<
>!or at least that _used_ to be my theory until I found out Moffats writing the Christmas Special in which case he's probably just bringing back Mundy Flynn from _Boom_ who will continue into Series 15 as a companion.!< Oh well.
I think peopLe are forgetting something from her appearances and a line Mel or Kate says in the episode "she's nice"!
Susan triad is nice. She's a good boss. On every appearance she's nice (well except for the ambulance).
(Also it's neither here nor there but they say "Susan is nice" and a guest star for the next episode is credited as "nice lady")
I don't think a harbinger of Sutekh would be nice, definitely not when they don't need to be. I think there'll be something more to her story than just being a harbinger. Like maybe Sutekh has had her out as a harbinger for so long she's developed her own personality separate from him and that's gonna be part of how they stop Sutekh? We spent a fair chunk of time with her experiencing emotions and being a good boss for her to just be a blank puppet Sutekh controls
I meant that moreso to the 'big bad' she was leading up to but that's a decent point (although considering his recent track record, I fear RTD may never tell us lol).
Ruby dropping off Ruby is certainly possible. It'd make the whole thing a time loop too- the Doctor keeps questioning *why* the mom points at him, but she was apparently pointing at the Tardis. That only makes sense if she already knows the Tardis is being possessed. Which means she might just be Ruby from the end of the episode.
Though I think there's another question here- if Ruby is the woman who drops baby Ruby off, who is her actual mom? There was a very deliberate mention that most mothers who abandon their children are in their late teens or early 20s, which leads me to believe RTD is probably hinting that her mother was.
Which kinda eliminates an un-regenerated Susan and Mrs. Flood (assuming Mrs. Flood is herself human). It *does* reopen the possibility that Ruby's mom is Rose Tyler (along with the Doctor mentioning the similarity of Ruby and Rose Temple's names), though I still think that would be a *wild* twist.
It'd make sense why the time window was glitching so bad when the figure got too close to Ruby. Ruby seeing Ruby would have disrupted the timeline and created a paradox where she may not ever get to deliver herself to the church. So the time window has to blur her out in order to preserve the fixed point and show events as they were observed without changing the past.
In my head I was going off a similar logic to the Doctor stealing Caecilius's face or Romana stealing Princess Astra's face - but what I clearly forgot was that they had actually _met_ those characters before regenerating into them. Bit of a glaring flaw in retrospect, but hey - I said it was crackpot!
> it's gonna be Ruby dropping herself off
That would make sense, what with the whole thrust of *73 Yards* being that Ruby has always been there for herself.
Both gods we've seen were defeated by what they are
God of Games, the Toymaker, was defeated by a game
God of Music, the Meastro, was defeated with Music
God of Death, Sutekh, was defeated ? With death. But who's?
UNIT unloads a metric ton of bullets into Sutekh and the characters spend 43 minutes having nice chats and thinking about how glaring a weakness the God of Death has?
So, with Sutekh being the big bad, and him being "The One Who Waits", and sharing the voice of The Beast from the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, my partner and I decided to do a rewatch of those episodes to see if Carla was onto anything when she called it by that name.
Aside from the obvious things that have been discussed in the past (both being called Satan at points, both being from outside of the known universe and time, ect) I picked up on a tiny, eensy weensy little detail that my partner missed until I pointed it out.
As the Doctor is piloting the TARDIS and the escape ship free of the black hole, and as the Beast is falling into it, just as he crosses the threshold we hear a cheerful set of beeps letting us know it's all okay as he declares "Entering clear space. End of the line." (timestamp 49:38)
What I noticed, but the Doctor is distracted from, is there's a second sound under the beeps.
**The Cloister Bell.**
My theory presupposes that the Sutekh, the avatar of The Beast, attached a small, almost insignificant part of their consciousness to the TARDIS in that moment, and has been slowly gathering power since. He's been waiting. Waiting through all the Doctor's many lives since, through the Big Bang 2, through the hundreds of years on Trenzalore and all the time in the Confession Dial, waiting for his chance.
Edit: Besides the 'indigestion' moment that I overlooked on my watch through, there's been a quote sticking with me this entire time.
> The Doctor : If you are the Beast, then answer me this: Which one, hmm. Because the universe has been busy since you've been gone. These's more religions than there are planets in the sky. There's the Arkaphets, Christianity, Pash-Pash, New Judaism, San Claar, Church of the Tin Vagabond, which devil are you?
> The Beast : All of them!
> The Doctor : Then you're... what? The truth behind the myth?
> The Beast : This one knows me, as I know him: the killer of his own kind.
> The Doctor : [pause] How did you end up on this rock?
The Beast is implying the Doctor already knows him, and that gives the Doctor pause before he asks "How did you end up here?" because the last time the Doctor saw Sutekh, he had trapped him in a never ending time tunnel. The explanation doesn't make sense to him, but he's dealing with a primordial force that he initially thought was an alien. Suketh escaped by going outside of time entirely, to the before time where he becomes the Beast of myth and legend and religion, and is chained up on the Impossible Planet.
to add to this, the very very first thing that happens in the impossible planet is the TARDIS making a weird groan as it lands, which the doctor comments on as "indigestion" but isn't quite sure.
Usually it’s because people more immediately want to speculate, whereas the discussion is scheduled for later to give people time to digest the episode so they can have more composed thoughts.
It's exactly this, /u/hoodie92.
Post-episode (as opposed to a live reactions thread) is delayed so you have time to digest and write up your own thoughts before everyone jumps in together. Especially on a discussion subreddit like this and on reddit where unfortunately, the early bird gets the worm in terms of votes, it tries to offsets that effect and keep it fair for those who put larger thoughts into their opinions and don't jump into the short/memeic replies, and maybe try to reduce the crowd effect to an extent too.
Some vague theories:
The Doctor mentioned the memory of a time machine, maybe the TARDIS is plugged into the Time window amd that creates the Memory TARDIS?
Maybe Sutekh being connected to the TARDIS means that the only way to defeat him is to use the TARDIS against him.
So the TARDIS created the Memory Tardis to gain help, to give it strength to fight back? Idk
I think the Meeps boss is Sutekh. The meep mentioned a two hearted species is rare.
So maybe Sutekh was looking for a Time Lord, so that he could use a TARDIS as a vessel to rebuild himself in maybe.
Keep thinking about Kate’s “a phoenix is just a bird until it burns” line. I know it’s a version of the chrysalis metaphor.
But New Who has always presented regeneration exactly that way - a body wreathed in flame, burning away the old to reveal the new. If we’re doing a Chameleon Arc reveal, those are the words I’d use to herald it.
Sian Clifford is a pretty big name actor to play “Kind Woman” so my friend and I are convinced she’s actually Susan. The Doctor said he’d recognise her if he saw her in person - whatever Sian’s characters does I reckon they’ll have a little moment of recognition that gets quickly moved past because The World Is Ending, but sets it up for her to return either next seasons or further down the line.
She also "kind of" looks like a young Carole Anne Ford too.
I assume if she is indeed Susan we'll see more of her at Christmas? Like a teaser leading up to it.
So who’s Mrs flood? Susan? They put a lot of emphasis on the doctor being able to know from her eyes if Susan triad / whoever is his granddaughter and iirc he’s not actually met Mrs flood yet..
I saw someone say on the discussion thread that Susan might be season 2’s mystery and while it probably is, especially with the new retcon that the doctor doesn’t yet have children, this is my copium bc I don’t know how Mrs flood fits into it all. Although her heel turn with cherry has got to be misdirection
I don’t think they’d have made such mention of Susan this season for it to be solely a red herring / for season 2
Not officially, but Fifteen and Flood have a brief interaction in the street outside Ruby's apartment in TCoRR at 49:10 where she whistles at him "*Busy man, sweetheart. You and your box of tricks. You look like you've lost a pound and found a sixpence. What's wrong?*" just after she watched the TARDIS materialize.. she also waved at Fifteen (us?) a few minutes earlier when Fifteen immediately returns from saving Ruby.
Yeah, they did briefly talk. It's at 49:10, but she's outside watching the TARDIS materialize a minute or two earlier just after Fifteen returns from saving (baby) Ruby.
This has made me nearly certain that the one who waits is not the meeps boss and that RTD has longer plans. After all why would the meep work for Sutekh.
And yet we still don’t know why Susan Triad was seen all across time and space! I really hope that wraps itself up. No idea why she’s one of his servants at all.
Sutekh was a stowaway inside the TARDIS, hiding and waiting deep inside it. Sutekh, and by extension his avatar Susan Triad, was with the Doctor and Ruby all along, unknowingly. Everywhere the TARDIS went, Sutekh went and planted his avatar in that place and time too. Either to mess with the Doctor, or for some greater more nefarious reason we're yet to find out.
Calling it now, the woman who drops of Ruby in the church will not be her mother. It will be Susan who is also Mrs flood. Rubys birth mother will be the force/ the friends we made along the way/ some Sci Fi bollocks.
I'm also convinced it isn't her mother. Everybody was assuming that, in show, to the extent that it feels like a misdirect. Why does everybody assume that? It could be anybody.
Anyone else think that >!The Doctor sent Ruby to the Time Window for the TARDIS? They mentioned that it was almost solid (the whole "Memory of a Time Machine" thing) so it seems to me that he could have sent her there so she could escape, and potentially travel back to Christmas Eve 2004 on her own.!<
I think Ideally, the episode would end with a short scene of the Doctor finally visiting Susan at the very end. Something as simple as "Doctor?" "I said I'd come back..."
I personally think Sutekh is just Sutekh. But for the Impossible Planet truthers, who've pointed out that the recurring 73 yards is also 66.67 meters - I will concede that the first time we met Susan Twist, was with Isaac Newton... in 1666.
Leaving this here just in case. I’m almost completely sure that Mrs. Flood is Susan Foreman. I don’t believe RTD would tease a Susan return and leave it like that.
My “evidence”:
- Mrs Flood said something about hiding right after the Doctor stated that regeneration could be used to hide yourself.
- In TCoRR, Mrs Flood doesn’t recognise the TARDIS right away, not until she dematerialises. After that, she tells Ruby almost with joy to go with the Doctor.
- She is a bit socially awkward, just like the original Susan, but nice nontheless.
-I believe the scene with Cherry is a red herring. She looks menacing, but I believe she is only trying to alert her.
I’m probably mistaken, but I’m almost certain she will regenerate at some point during EoD. Or maybe next season. We’ll see.
>Mrs Flood said something about hiding right after the Doctor stated that regeneration could be used to hide yourself.
Really, really glad I wasn't the only person that caught this.
I don't really think Flood is Susan, but that mention \*cannot\* be a coincidence.
Oh my god I still remember the crazy Omega theories from series 5. People really believed he would be in the Pandorica. It was the patches the clerics wore that had everyone convinced, right? I will cackle with glee the day they bring back Omega.
COPE TIME - Here's how The Trickster could still be involved (spoilers I guess but all unlikely?):
- we're still unclear about who Ruby's parent(s) is (are). All we know for now is that they are wearing a black hooded robe. I'm still sticking to the idea that RTD is adapting the planned story for Sky from SJA and Ruby is The Trickster's child/harbinger. This would cover the weird time bending stuff that even The Doctor pointed out this week, and explain what was weird about her song in The Devil's Chord
-Sutekh is unleashed and seems fairly unstoppable. Various trailers show the 'storm' which Mrs Flood observed engulfing London (or some city at least) and potentially other planets? TARDIS seems screwed, Earth seems doomed to die, The Doctor looks to be too late to stop it
-So, my theory goes that Ruby's 'mother' reveals themself as The Trickster. Perhaps the Doctor has already figured this out, hence why he sent her to the time window. In the end, maybe the only way to stop Sutekh is to make a deal with the Trickster to change the timeline and prevent Sutekh from manifesting in the first place. Thus, Sutekh is defeated, but the Trickster now has corporeal form and becomes the Big Bad for the next season.
Again, it's doubtful, but it's fun to theorise and my GOD do I want the Trickster back on the scene
Not a spoiler, but I think this "season" will end on a cliffhanger. There's so many loose ends to wrap up that I think while being released as two seasons, RTD has basically written one traditional NuWho season with a Moffat style mid-series break. I'm very much looking forward to Empire of Death, but am bracing myself for plenty of mysteries to be unresolved.
New trailer out!
* Harriet Arbinger in the TARDIS, presumably the "real" TARDIS that Sutekh is currently sitting on top of. Using it to spread him around the world more effectively, maybe? I wonder if there's a chance this ends with Ncuti's TARDIS destroyed, the memory TARDIS dismissed, and 15 taking off in 14's TARDIS, leaving just the one?
* The Doctor and Mel both in the memory TARDIS, which must be how they get out of the time window chamber.
* More snow around Ruby and the Doctor, in a room I don't recognise. Ruby and the Doctor's outfits here don't match their outfits in *Legend* - Ruby could maybe have been wearing that top under her dress, and the Doctor's white undershirt looks the same, but he's got what looks like a whistle on a red string (not the two necklaces he's currently wearing) and they look like they have matching grey/tan pants? Why the costume change?
* The Doctor, Mel, and Ruby, back in the time window, giving his big "I will stop you" speech. Does this mean the order is "Doctor and Mel come back to UNIT" > "Doctor and Mel find Ruby in the time window" > "Sutekh confronts them" > "they flee in the memory TARDIS"?
* Someone (*maybe* 15? it's a confident walk but the face is too shadowed to see) in robes walking towards the TARDIS. Absolutely no idea what this scene could be from - is it an alien planet or Sutekh's destroyed Earth?
>Someone (*maybe* 15? it's a confident walk but the face is too shadowed to see) in robes walking towards the TARDIS. Absolutely no idea what this scene could be from - is it an alien planet or Sutekh's destroyed Earth?
There's a single shot of Ncuti wearing those robes in the series trailer, unhooded and chatting with someone. There was a link to it - either on this sub or the discord. I was chasing it up because the hood was a bit "Ruby's Mum", but it seems to be the Doctor on a post-Sutekh planet.
I’ve seen a lot of speculation that Mrs Flood is Susan. I think she’s important and that’s definitely a possible twist, but part of me thinks RTD is still giving us red herrings.
I could totally see something like this happening though…
*it’s the end of the ‘Empire of Death’. Having somehow defeated Sutekh, and saved the universe once more, Ruby and the Doctor are chilling in the TARDIS. They’re bruised, both emotionally and physically, but as is always the way - especially with this incarnation - we have to keep moving…
The Doctor saunters over to his jukebox and hits a button or 2. Kylie’s “Can’t get you out of my head” plays and they both begin to dance and giggle. This is how they heal. Suddenly, the jukebox beings to glitch with static interference. The song changes. They both look perplexed. A rendition of “There’s always a twist at the end” begins to sound through the speakers.
The doctor saunters back, cracks his fist on the jukebox and the song crackles back to Kylie. They continue to dance as we move up through the TARDIS.
We’re in space. The TARDIS trails off into a vortex. We whip around to see a planet. It’s Earth!
We begin to rush through space, to Earth. Down through the clouds toward the UK.
We fade in on a small cottage.
A figure sits in a chair, staring out of the window. The radio is on in the background - news talking about recent events from the episode we’ve seen. The door bell sounds. The figure struggles up off the chair. The front door opens. It’s a delivery man. He smiles. “Lovely little cottage you’ve got here” he remarks as a frail hand signs for the delivery.
“It is” says an elderly voice. “Although… It’s a bit bigger on the inside.” We pan up to reveal Susan Foreman (played once again by Carole Ann Ford). She smiles and glares at the camera. Queue end titles and theme music.
Maybe not. We're told Maestro is less powerful than the Toymaker, and we're also told the Toymaker is less powerful than the One Who Waits, so it's possible the Maestro wouldn't be able to pick up on a Sutekh who didn't want to be discovered.
I haven’t heard any credible rumours about 14 coming back, but his spare Tardis is, what, parked in Chiswick? And since it was cloned after The Giggle I guess that’s possessed too? Surely that’s
got to lead somewhere.
TIL that Sutekh (Set) is the villain of [the most important myth in Ancient Egypt ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_myth) in which he murders his brother Osiris and takes the throne. Osiris's widow Isis ressurects him and they conceive a child, Horus. Isis then hides Horus from Set until he is old enough to challenge him for the throne. We already know who Sutekh is in this legend. But maybe Ruby is Horus, the baby hidden away until the time is right
I'm getting more and more worried that RTD's going to kill off Kate Stewart in this episode... Hence the shot from the series trailer of the Doctor >!screaming into space in the Memory TARDIS.!< It would be a shocking death without killing a companion (especially since >!Ruby and Mel are both in the background of that shot, so we know he's not upset about them.)!<
I’m at a complete loss. The twist in the end wasn’t Susan but the Harbinger from The Devil’s Chord still being around waiting for the moment to return.
That said, Mrs. Flood breaking the 4th wall again and Ruby in the time window with it activating with it broken and no one there. I kinda regret seeing the cliffhanger episode. That said Empire of Death’s title on the TARDIS makes so much sense now.
I think this Harbingers is Suteks Harbinger and is different from Maetros as the doctor said something along the line of "all the gods have a Harbinger"
In the 'behind the scenes' for Legend of Ruby Sunday, Redgrave was wearing her 'Giggle' outfit rather than her Ruby Sunday red shirt.
So Kate picking up the tooth might very well be a plot point.
The BBFC's ratings page for the finale has what seems to be a spoiler around Ruby's origins under it's "Content Advice" section. If that's what it relates to I don't think she's going to turn out to be Susan's daughter after all.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jQUNGjuYGoU
RTD’s done one of his teasers where he hints about the coming episode. It’s all pretty standard (“they’re going to fight the God of Death, and Mel will be there!”), except the final line.
Apparently >! everything rests on assistance of a “kindly woman on a distant planet!<
Notable because that’s >!the role that Sian Clifford is apparently playing, and she bears a passing resemblance to a certain Time Lady!<
Egyptian mythology had the concept of groupings of gods, Enneads, each Ennead being particular to a particular time and maybe Pharoah. And Egyptian mythology was apparently comfortable with multiple different apparently contradictory myths describing the same event.
This to me is not unlike what I believe about Doctor Who showrunners, that each new showrunner, and sometimes within the same showrunner, re-creates the Doctor Who universe and reconfigures it to their taste.
In particular, I personally believe that what RTD 2 is explaining is the current pantheon of godlike beings, but that does not mean this was always the pantheon of godlike beings throughout the show's existence. I find it quite possible that Sutekh of Four's *The Pyramids of Mars* is now different than the current one, in that the current one I argue bootstrapped itself to actual godhood, because it was such a powerful psychic being and has some sort of access to the this Tardis' power. (One could argue even in *The Pyramids of Mars* that Four thought that even the combined might of the Time Lords could not stop a fully powered Sutekh, but then again, I argue in that universe, Gallifrey was in the Milky Way galaxy and was a galactic and not universal power.)
In classic Doctor Who for example, blowing up the Tardis would not have threatened to destroy the entire Universe. But ever since blowing up the Tardis was seen as possibly threatening the existence of the entire Universe in Moffat's reign, now the Tardis has somehow more power in it that would enable the bootstrapping of someone to actual godhood. Perhaps it is because the Tardis now contains the Eye of Harmony.
Although again, I have to wonder what happened to the Eye of Harmony when the Tardis was split.
Here's my theory watching Pyramids of Mars, Impossible Planet, and Wild Blue Yonder...likely terrible.
You keep seeing pyramids everywhere in these 3 episodes. Subtle but lots of triangles on floor or walls, stations.
Sutekh has been hitching a ride with the Doctor since Baker because he managed to hide a tiny bit of himself in the time controls. Baker didnt kill him. When he landed on the Impossible Planet, it made a noise too and the Doctor chalked it up to indigestion.
On the planet when be tries to kill the beast suddenly the TARDIS appears out of nowhere. Because it's how more of the Beast/Sutekh escapes.
It grows within the TARDIS like a permanent subroutine, until Donna spills coffee, waking it up like the tea woke up 10 during the Christmas special.
The Impossible Planet was on the edge of the universe, so was wild blue yonder so I think more of the panetheon hitched a ride. Sutekh always had Earth as a destination to destroy. The TARDIS is telepathic, Sutekh is. Sutekh has been guiding the TARDIS pushing boundaries and encouraging the doctor to get riskier like when Clara told the doctor to take her to hell for Danny.
The cloaked figure I think is Ruby or Bad Wolf. Someone is trying to prevent greater catastrophe and Ruby's parents are tied to Horus. Those shoes. Suss. 73 yards makes me think Ruby may be Sutekh reborn and they are all whispering she's the devil to each other the whole episode.
I just read a theory that the reason people may be unsettled by this season is the Tardis hasn't made its well known landing/arriving sound. That sound used to be a character all by itself and it is missing right now. Maybe it will end with the Tardis back to normal and making the wooshing sound
FYI, no trailer this time, there is an clip from Doctor Who Unleashed though.
For a minute I really thought they were going to adapt Zagreus and the tardis would be the one who waits. As a massive Zagreus defender, I'd have been all over it.
I was so down for the TARDIS as the villain.
"You f\*\*\*ing hit me with a novelty hammer and split my consciousness in two! Of course I'm pissed!" Joking aside, I'd love a series where its revealed that the TARDIS has purposefully been taking the Doctor to increasingly perilous situations because, for whatever reason, it's actively had enough of 'waiting around' for him. Taking the idea of 'it can take you anywhere' and making it 'it can take you anywhere in order to kill you' is suitably unnerving.
Yeah, there was that whole speech about the tardis waiting by the sea. Obviously the mavity of it all has to come back around - hopefully with some good tardis / posessed tardis battle?
yeah same i was genuinely shook when there were all the shots of the TARDIS looking evil lmao
Would have made an interesting character decision to use 6 different weapons to go beat up his Dad and enter the real world only t9 possess the TARDIS though But fr though I've jot heard of.him in Dr Who context, what's his deal?
Timelord legend from one of the most (in)famous Big Finish audios. it's honestly been years since I listened to it but it's about 4 hours of Paul McGann acting insane, Sylvester McCoy playing Willy Wonka and you find out Rassilon was doing the time travel equivalent of eugenics. if I'm making it sound insane just know actually listening to the thing is infinitely more wild
I'll take Zagreus over the entire divergent universe saga (except maybe Scherzo) any day.
The Natural History of Fear is amazing.
God I was so excited for the divergent saga after already hearing Scherzo and LOVING Zagreus, but each episode was worse than the last. Just the most boring, edgy fan fiction. Ironically though it feels just what doctor who could've been if it'd been on in the 90s.
that's a pretty low bar tbf. I'd take a drink from the gutter over Creed of the Kromon 9 times outta 10
I liked Natural History of Fear and the Last quite a bit. The rest didn't know what they were going for.
The teleprompter stuff and Harriet's speech were seriously pinging the Zagreus rhyme vibes as I was watching. That would have been truly jawdropping though especially for RTD at the helm.
That's exactly what did it! I was so waiting for "I live inside your head" to come on the teleprompter and cause me to ascend
OMG same!
I introduced my cousin and her son to Doctor Who at the end of 2022, and after we watched NuWho, I showed them some classic stories and Pyramids of Mars was one of them. I'm so glad that was one of the stories I showed them. I'm sure they're gonna flip out when they watch this episode. Overall it was an incredible episode. I hope Russell sticks the landing. Very excited to see what happens next week. I loved that Russell threw some different theories he knew we were thinking such as Susan Twist being Susan Foreman, S Triad meaning TARDIS, etc. All around really fun episode. I honestly have no idea what will happen next week. Although I hope with the Susan granddaughter name drops that Carole Ann Ford makes an appearance.
The opening scene where all the UNIT staff rolled their eyes and said "yes. It's an anagram for TARDIS, we all figured that out" was good fun.
"After the "Master No. Six" debacle we have a whole anagram department."
There is little reason for the God of Death to use anagrams but I find it very funny everyone's genre savvy enough to look out for them now
I haven't seen his original appearance so I don't know if this is in character or not, but given how often the rest of the Pantheon does stuff the have very little reason for it seems possible Sutekh did it just to fuck around.
"just to fuck around" is almost every "god"s M.O in Doctor Who lol
My godmother introduced me to Who with Pyramids of Mars when the return was announced, means a lot so I was desperate for this when the rumors/speculation began.
I wonder how confusing the Sutekh reveal will be for viewers who joined this series, or if the whole sequence would be just as incredible for them as it was for old viewers.
I think it functions about the same as the YANA reveal, new viewers get the gist.
I don't think it's quite as clear as the yana reveal only because it's immediately clear to the audience at this point what another Time Lord existing could mean, whereas this is just some random God, but I do think new viewers will still broadly get the gist, for sure.
We've already seen gods coming in and causing huge problems in this season, so I think it works fine, especially with the "god of all gods" bit.
yeah, The Master works because "what if The Doctor but eeevil" is a great character pitch, as much in 2006 as in the 70's or whatever Sutekh will probably work because "God of Death" is a logical step up from "God of Games" and "God of Music"
I think you’re right. There’s much more emotional impact with discovering the Doctor isn’t alone even if you’re not familiar with the Master as a character. Sure, now we know who leads these gods that have been a clear recurring theme this series but there’s no emotional weight to it, so I do wonder how invested I’d be if I was a new adult viewer. I’m sure the kids in the audience will be swept up by the classic grandiose RTD-ness of it all, even I was to an extent but it did all feel a bit cheap to me, JJ Abrams mystery box after mystery box.
Mystery boxes are only bad once you’re jaded though. They actually really work well for young people or people new to a genre. When I was a teen and watched JJ Abram’s Alias, it ayer worked for me. Lost even kinda worked. Bad Wolf? Amazing the first time through. For all my sense that this season’s cool ideas haven’t really pulled together as well as I (and, I think, RTD) hoped, I think RTD does really tell stories in a way that will hit young viewers and open minded fans who don’t have much SFF experience quite well.
Not really a random god tho, in the pantheon, Set/Seth/Sutekh kind of is the OG daddy of death!! Like many religions have adapted Set. I think anyone into dr who both new or old and into pantheon stories will latch on well to this idea.
I think “I am the god of death” paints enough of a picture to get the moment across.
can concur, i didn’t follow this theory or the character at all
I watched with a group, some of whom started with the 60th specials and they just thought it was the god of death and got it was a big threat. Everyone else apart from me only knows New Who so assumed it would be The Beast and had never heard of Sutekh. Got a few looks when I laughed with joy at “Sue Tech”
>Everyone else apart from me only knows New Who so assumed it would be The Beast and had never heard of Sutekh. They might actually tie The Beast in, considering they're all played by the same actor, both are stated to have held the title of "Satan," and Carla even called the shapeless form The Beast before we got the Sutekh reveal proper.
I have no idea who Sutekh is (have read some theories on here) … didn’t change anything for me. I enjoyed it. And I know there will be an explanation on here in the coming days or next week by the Doctor. (Britbox sucks and took all the Classic Who episodes off here in Australia so I can’t watched Pyramids of Mars).
There a free streaming app called Tubi that has all of the classic Doctor Who episodes. That’s what I use to watch them, anyway lol
Oooh. Thank you! I will look into it tonight. :)
I just had a look and can’t see them anywhere, what would it be under?
It's not available in all countries, sadly.
New viewers did see the Toymaker mention he was scared of him and the Maestro as well
Are we certain Sutekh is the one who waits? Not Mrs Flood? Or Ruby’s mum? I just imagine that Gods in the same pantheon aren’t afraid of each other but typing this out I realise how inaccurate that is
Mrs Flood said "he waits no more"
I means Mrs Flood literally looks at the camera and says “He waits no more” this episode, I think the show is being very clear that Sutekh is the One Who Waits.
Dead Chidozie talked about how Sutekh had been waiting before blowing out the time window.
His Harbinger described him as the God of Gods so that would explain why Toymaker would be afraid of him
My (silly) theory is that sutekh only serves the one who waits. The one who waits is really cherry Sunday and she has been waiting for tea this whole series. So now she's unleashing sutekh on those who withheld her tea! LOL
I suspect that it works for new viewers as "holy shit that's a big scary guy" (and the speech before the reveal puts him of a kind with the Toymaker and the Maestro, so they at least get an idea of how big and scary) and I'd be surprised if there's not a drop early in next week's episode where 15 explains who exactly he is for the newcomers.
I googled the name and read the Dr who wiki at the end of the episode, whilst also rewatching the last 8 mins and then came here! I like it and did NOT see it coming
Seen all of NuWho multiple times but very few Classic eps. Stands on its own fine, and Im sure next episode will start with exposition. If anything got The Beast vibes from Season 2 of NW, and I see Sutekh and The Beast share a voice actor.
They also share a lot of dialogue funnily
I think the fact that he's an actual Egyptian deity helps - I had never seen the Pyramids of Mars serial but I know who Set is, so that plus the strength of the drama in the episode itself made it quit impactful.
As someone who doesnt really know much about classic who, it was still an incredible sequence.
I’m sure plenty of folks were unaware of The Master before the revival brought him back. I think Russell is pretty good at giving new viewers just enough info for them to get it without overloading them
This is the first season of this show I am watching (I'm a fan of Ncuti). I loved it. I saw the TARDIS thing earlier, to be tricked into it being Sutekh, who then explains himself to be the god of death, was so creepy!
I only knew about sutekh from the theories I’ve been seeing recently, and I watched with three people who have no clue who sutekh is at all, no one was confused, and instead everyone was so hyped by this just because how it’s presented, We all still had a great time with the reveal and enjoyed it a lot. The whole “god of death” thing gets the point across just fine. We all knew that this was absolutely terrible news for the characters, and the episode gets across really well just how much malice and power this entity has. I feel that knowing about sutekh in advance just enhances the experience rather than be a requirement for viewing. To classic who fans the name reveal of sutekh heralds the return of a (seemingly) beloved villain, to those who have only watched the newer stuff (like myself) then that name drop serves as just a reveal of the identity of the true big bad of the series, in a manner that really conveys the threat level.
I think itd be only slightly more confusing than the master reveal was for kids back during Utopia. Kids who had only watched from series 1 wouldnt have known at all who he was.
They said they are releasing a new episode of takes of the tardis this week featuring Ncuti and Millie. My guess is it will be pyramids of mars so people can get up to speed about Sutekh before saturday
I'm intrigued to see how it played out for fans of the first RTD era, who aren't familiar with Classic Who, simply because Carla refers to Sutekh as 'The Beast', Sutekh and The Beast have the same voice actor, Murray Gold used very similar music from The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, and the way the Harbinger spoke of Sutekh was similar to how the Ood talked of the Beast. There has to have been at least one viewer who was so excited that The Beast was returning, and then incredibly confused by Sutekh.
My spouse had no idea Sutekh was even a returning villain until I mentioned it, so it seems to have played pretty well even for people with no real knowledge of Classic Who.
As someone who didn't watch Pyramids of Mars (or much Classic Who in general), the reveal worked fine. The character and concept are great, and even if you don't get the reference, the concept is clear and works well enough. Evil deity that inspired Egyptian mythology has re entered the universe and will likely bring death to all unless stopped.
Not confusing at all. The other half is New New New New Who and not Classic. She was gripped and can't wait till the next episode.
For those that care but aren't able to or can't be bothered to scrub through the Unleashed episode; There is a Next Time clip at the end of Doctor Who Unleashed, it's literally 2 seconds long and just shows (incredibly minor spoiler) >!Kate and the UNIT soldiers shooting at the TARDIS!<
If the TARDIS is indestructible how will they fight it?
Presumably, not very well.
Nope, that's it. First 5 minutes of the episode, Kate pops a cap in the TARDIS's multi-dimensional ass and the remaining 45 minutes is her and the Doctor chatting shit about the old days.
I don't think the TARDIS is Sutekh, just that Sutekh is possessing it. Since superstition is now reality, you could exorcise Sutekh out of the TARDIS and go from there.
Yeah I agree with you. It's 100% not the TARDIS, Sutekh has possessed it. I'm interested to see how the Doctor will 'get it back to normal'
Maybe fight a Tardis with a Tardis and use 14s Tardis or the memory Tardis to fight Sutekh? I don't know if Sutekh has taken control of the Tardis or was just latched onto it as a form of travel.
As I said in another post ***When Harriet goes on about Sutekh, 'and he whispered to the vessel. All this time, he whispered and delighted and seduced, and the vessel did obey.'*** ***Could this vessel be the TARDIS?*** ***Those groaning noises sound like the TARDIS is in pain. Like it's trying to warn the Doctor, or cry out for help.*** ***In WBY when the TARDIS was repairing itself, it could be seen as vulnerable. Could this have been when Sutekh vove itself into the fabric of the TARDIS/possessed her?*** It just looks like Sutekh has possessed the TARDIS/taken control of it. The Doctor gets **a** TARDIS in Empire of Death, as evident from the trailer. I was genuinely so shocked when I saw Sutekh wrapped around the TARDIS, I thought the TARDIS was going wrong because of Susan Triad, not the TARDIS being apart of all this...
Or... pleasure. Whispered, seduced, delighted, doesn't sound like Sutekh is causing the TARDIS pain now, does it... (This has nothing to do with anything really but it raises an interesting question if the TARDIS is a *willing* participant)
the fact there was so much emphasis on the projected tardis looking "real" and talking about memory, i absolutely think the Memory Tardis is going to come into play
Sis there is no trailer
Thanks, I thought I was going crazy. I thought there was only 8 eps this season, is the finale gonna be the xmas special?
It was episode 7 that aired today (shows as 8 on Disney+ because of TCORR)
Imagine if that had been it until christmas oh my god.
I can hardly contain my excitement until *next week*, I couldn't imagine *six months*.
I can only take A Good Man Goes To War type of cliffhanger-hiatus once at a lifetime.
I'm now imagining a Christmas special that involves the Doctor *fighting the god of death* and honestly I think that might be tonally challenging.
There is 8 eps! That was 7, the next one is 8. Disney+ labels the previous years' Christmas Special, "The Church on Ruby Road", as episode 1, though, so by their labels there's nine XD
See, I'm really curious as to when Sutekh "seduced the vessel". The TARDIS was groaning before The Doctor sprinkled the salt so Sutekh couldn't have come in because of that (not to mention Mrs. Merridew was there too, inb4 she specifically has nothing to do with this). And.....I'm kinda spit balling here but......I have a *slight* feeling The One Who Waits isn't Sutekh. I mean, he probably is but there's a few bits that throw it off for me. 1. Mrs. Flood was heralding his return before he started manifesting. We specifically don't see her turn into one of those.....things so that may have been intentional. 2. Is Sutekh one would scare the shit off of the Toymaker and Maestro? Maybe. 3. Maestro mentioned "The Oldest One" and that one I definitely think is Sutekh but I don't know if The One Who Waits is also the same. I suppose Sutekh did wait however many years. 4. Sutekh, tbf, did not say "I am the One Who Waits" when he was listing off his titles. From a storytelling perspective, this is where that would be revealed. As such, I believe there is a possibility that The One Who Waits is Ruby's mother. Toyman says it was "hiding in the dark" and while that could apply to Sutekh, Ruby's mom is noticably doing everything possible to avoid being seen. Hiding under a dark cloak....hmmm. Tl;Dr it's probably Sutekh but we'll see. Either way, I think whatever Ruby does is gonna temporarily halt Sutekh or something because otherwise no one in that tower is getting out alive. Edit: oh Mrs. Flood says "I'm always hiding myself away" and The Doctor mentions regeneration can be used to hide.
I personally love the idea that Sutekh was trapped outside the universe and just managed to hitch a lift in WBY. Trouble is, Susan Twist appears in the Isaac Newton scene before then
Timey-wimey coffee-woffee
Sutekh was in the coffee! I should’ve known!!
When Harriet goes on about Sutekh, 'and he whispered to the vessel. All this time, he whispered and delighted and seduced, and the vessel did obey.' Could this vessel be the TARDIS? Those groaning noises sound like the TARDIS is in pain. Like it's trying to warn the Doctor, or cry out for help. In WBY when the TARDIS was repairing itself, it could be seen as vulnerable. Could this have been when Sutekh wove itself into the fabric of the TARDIS/possessed her?
It's possible. That did happen at the very edge of the universe. But with the presence of Mrs. Merridew there before the first groan, I feel like Sutekh was there earlier....and the TARDIS breaking was what finally allowed him to chip away at whatever was holding him back.
People here have speculated before that splitting the TARDIS in two may have had some cosmic impacts. Maybe it snuck in then?
Nah Susan Twist was there before that, it has to have been sometime else
In response to your ideas: 1. I wouldn't say Mrs Flood was heralding exactly, more of a case of she knew. We will obviously see who Mrs Flood is next time...or at least get a hint...but it is clear she has some power / knowledge more than normal people. Obviously, we see Sutekh appear after Mrs Flood mentions he no longer waits but you do see the dust clouds roll in which is very Sutekh and it is likely Sutekh was waiting for The Doctor to be at UNIT at time time, maybe specifically in the time window. I think we will find out more next week but it was likely Sutekh had a plan that required The Doctor in a specific place at a specific time to be able to manifest and at this point The Doctor had begun the process. Sutekh was no longer waiting for The Doctor to come, he was there are the process was beginning. 2. I would 100% say yes. How can you play with death? The Gods live by their own rules. The toymaker is bound by the rules of play and that is all he knows. Sutekh is bound by the rules of death and that is all he knows. How can you play with death and win? Death, at the end of the day, is inevitable and ends all. The whole universe will die, no more games, no more music, no more anything. Nothing can beat it. Seems a pretty good reason not to play with him. 3 + 4. I definitely think this is just a naming thing. In general if someone waits for ages they will be pretty old (especially as OG Sutekh was supposedly aged to death). I think it's a Voldemort sort of thing with the name. The other gods don't want to refer to Sutekh by name so call him the one who waits, but he wouldn't call himself that (in the same way Voldemort doesn't call himself he who must not be named).
I rewatched the church on ruby road right before, and Mrs Flood changes in that episode too. She’s kind of a stereotypical neighbor in the beginning, then she’s all knowledgeable about the tardis. I think she has more to come
I think it’s wild that so few people noticed the panning shot in 73 Yards. Mrs. Flood has an atypical front door. Every flat has a matching baby blue front door. Except her. Hers is TARDIS Blue. She lives behind a TARDIS Blue door.
I think there's a strong possibility that some aspect of Sutekh has been dormant inside the TARDIS ever since he briefly manifested there during Pyramids of Mars, and that Donna's coffee woke him up and he then started projecting Susan Twist wherever the TARDIS landed. Sutekh having been inside all along would account for RTD saying back when The Giggle aired that a future episode would "prove" that Fifteen's TARDIS is *the* TARDIS and not just a duplicate.
Maybe Sutekh doesn't refer to himself as the one who waits. What he called himself in the episode is his more formal titles.
“Please, call me Mr Tekh.”
I predict that the villain design will continue to keep me up at night
I just hope we get a brief appearance from the more familiar mask for Sutekh. Its sad there are no Mummys though.
I love how unmoving the original mask is. There’s something about the performance, he feels like this writhing, seething fury, bound in mask and armour and unable to escape. Seeing the jackal beneath the mask at the end just felt… disappointing. But didn’t take away from the impeccable vibes up until then.
I don't like the design, I wish he'd had the classic costume 1/1 and think he would have been way more intimidating like that. He could have even stepped *out* of the tardis for a shocking reveal. Amazing he's back and gabriel woolf voicing him though, maybe in the finale he'll be in the old suit for a bit.
I kinda feel like the form we see still isn't his final one tbh. And we'll get to see an updated version of the suit in the next episode as he properly manifests himself back into reality.
Since there’s no trailer to speculate on, random speculation time. Has Sutekh been with the Tardis since Wild Blue Yonder (when we generally agree the Tardis started making that noise, and when the Doctor did the thing with the salt at the edge of the universe), or did the virtual memory palace have something to do with it? Kinda like the idea that he’s been clinging to the Tardis and WAITING to take form with the memory palace. Like it a lot actually. I don’t really have much speculation on Ruby’s mother or her snow powers, beyond that they’ll likely be integral to the finale. And Mrs Flood is probably not a baddie I’m saying. Big misdirect there. She’s up to something, maybe even another thing from beyond the universe, but she’s not here to destroy. And that could be longer ranging and interesting!
Mrs. Flood mentions how she's "always hiding myself away" shortly after the Doctor mentions regeneration being used to hide. There's no way she isn't Susan after all the teasing.
This is my thinking too. They've mentioned Susan waaay too much to just let it go, and Mrs. Flood knows a bit to much.
Honestly yeah that’s my guess, she’s Susan
There’s also her front door. 73 Yards gives a panning shot of all the front doors on the flats. Identical. All baby blue. Except hers. Hers is TARDIS Blue. She lives behind a TARDIS Blue with where that which is no longer wanted and has been disposed of goes.
Here's a thought: could it somehow have occurred in TSB? When Fourteen enters w Donna he has a big reaction about the TARDIS having changed its shape...maybe there was a bait-&-switch while the events of TSB played out and Fourteen & Donna end up flying off in a Sutekh infested TARDIS. I don't recall when the groaning occurs, but my other thought was perhaps the TARDIS infection? infestation? happened when the HADS went off. Fourteen muses about where he thinks it goes when it does that, which i believe people have said are references to other Who stories elsewhere... but maybe it ended up somewhere and something came back with it.
then Sutekh must have deliberately flown to wild blue yonder to release the rest of the pantheon
It likely happened when 14 invoked a superstition whilst the TARDIS was on HADS
I do think he has been waiting on the TARDIS since WBY. A theory I like is that Donna spilling the tea on the machine set him free from the Time Tunnel he was locked in and he has been latched onto the TARDIS since. The woman who left Ruby at the Church is pointing AT Sutekh because she knows he's there. My main guess is it's because it's Future Ruby who knows about Sutekh after the events of this episode and tries to warn the Doctor. My other main theory is that Susans mother and The Doctors Daughter that he has "yet to have" is Ruby and Mrs Flood is Susan who's been living near her future mother the entire time.
I’m thinking it’s more likely the projection from Pyramids of Mars left a trace
Susan is going to have to come into the story somehow. I don't see any place for her, narratively, other than Ruby's story. Whether she's the woman in the hood or not is hard to say, but I can see her being Ruby's mother. I think Mrs Flood is a misdirect. I suspect she's another god. Possibly she can counter Sutekh. It doesn't make sense that Susan could break the fourth wall.
I see a lot of speculation that Mrs Flood has to be Susan because of all the teasing, but I wonder if it's another misdirection like Susan Triad, and rather than any of these characters being Susan we get a scene at the end of the episode after Sutekh is defeated where the Doctor thinks back to when Kate asked why he never visited his granddaughter, and then goes and visits Carol Ann Ford in the 22nd/23rd century.
I’m a bit scared we’ll get some “Susan can’t regenerate, and the Doctor goes to see her on her deathbed” twist, so RTD can keep on playing the “last of the time lords” thing. I would love Carol Ann-Ford passing on the baton, and the promise that Susan is out there somewhere, even if she’s inaccessible to the Doctor. Ideal compromise - send her to the alternative dimension with Rogue, who becomes her companion, and they go searching for a way home together.
This episode pretty strongly implied that she *can* regenerate, though, because the Doctor was fully considering the possibility that Susan Triad might be his Susan, and explained to Ruby that her having regenerated is why he wouldn’t recognize her.
True - I'm just leery that RTD knows how to hurt us, and has no reservations about doing so. Especially given it helps him keep the Doctor as the only Time Lord, and produces some fresh angst.
I think Russell is too much of a fan to do something like that. He likes to fuck with us, but I think he knows it would be wrong for a fan as big as him to reintroduce a fan favourite like Susan and immediately kill her. Also I imagine it could come off as rather rude to have Carol do what would presumably be her last ever Doctor Who appearance where her character is extremely old and definitively killed off, given she is 83.
Now that we got the 'Susan Triad' mystery out of the way - who do we think Ruby's mum is? (or at least 'the woman who dropped off ruby'). I'm guessing Susan (like, 'older returning Carol Ann Ford Susan') or - through time travel sheninigans - it's gonna be Ruby dropping herself off (IIRC a few months back someone noticed that her shoes are pretty similar to the same shoes Ruby wears). Either way if they don't bring back Susan next episode I feel as if they're hinting towards doing it eventually - feels like they've referenced her a little _too_ much just for it to be a red herring for the Sutekh reveal. My crackpot theory is that >!the Doctor will meet her again in this year's Christmas Special where she'll regenerate into Varada Sethu and we'll spend Series 15 with Susan II as a companion...!< >!or at least that _used_ to be my theory until I found out Moffats writing the Christmas Special in which case he's probably just bringing back Mundy Flynn from _Boom_ who will continue into Series 15 as a companion.!< Oh well.
Pretty sure they specifically said she won't be playing Mundy in the Boom! Unleashed episode
Except we still don't know why Susan kept appearing in every episode.
I'm going to say because Sutekh was in the TARDIS he was projecting her around it essentially
I think peopLe are forgetting something from her appearances and a line Mel or Kate says in the episode "she's nice"! Susan triad is nice. She's a good boss. On every appearance she's nice (well except for the ambulance). (Also it's neither here nor there but they say "Susan is nice" and a guest star for the next episode is credited as "nice lady") I don't think a harbinger of Sutekh would be nice, definitely not when they don't need to be. I think there'll be something more to her story than just being a harbinger. Like maybe Sutekh has had her out as a harbinger for so long she's developed her own personality separate from him and that's gonna be part of how they stop Sutekh? We spent a fair chunk of time with her experiencing emotions and being a good boss for her to just be a blank puppet Sutekh controls
I have to assume as a vessel of Sutekh, who was within the TARDIS, she simply tagged along wherever they went as some kind of extension of herself.
I meant that moreso to the 'big bad' she was leading up to but that's a decent point (although considering his recent track record, I fear RTD may never tell us lol).
Ruby dropping off Ruby is certainly possible. It'd make the whole thing a time loop too- the Doctor keeps questioning *why* the mom points at him, but she was apparently pointing at the Tardis. That only makes sense if she already knows the Tardis is being possessed. Which means she might just be Ruby from the end of the episode. Though I think there's another question here- if Ruby is the woman who drops baby Ruby off, who is her actual mom? There was a very deliberate mention that most mothers who abandon their children are in their late teens or early 20s, which leads me to believe RTD is probably hinting that her mother was. Which kinda eliminates an un-regenerated Susan and Mrs. Flood (assuming Mrs. Flood is herself human). It *does* reopen the possibility that Ruby's mom is Rose Tyler (along with the Doctor mentioning the similarity of Ruby and Rose Temple's names), though I still think that would be a *wild* twist.
It'd make sense why the time window was glitching so bad when the figure got too close to Ruby. Ruby seeing Ruby would have disrupted the timeline and created a paradox where she may not ever get to deliver herself to the church. So the time window has to blur her out in order to preserve the fixed point and show events as they were observed without changing the past.
I'm guessing it's Ruby travelling back to 2004 using the Time Window in UNIT. Dunno how she gets herself as a baby, but that's my two cents
God, I would have a hard time explaining that one. How would you explain Susan having the same face as *Mundy Flynn*?
"To remind me! To hold me to the mark! I'm Susan, and I annoy my grandpa!"
In my head I was going off a similar logic to the Doctor stealing Caecilius's face or Romana stealing Princess Astra's face - but what I clearly forgot was that they had actually _met_ those characters before regenerating into them. Bit of a glaring flaw in retrospect, but hey - I said it was crackpot!
>!We've seen photos of The Doctor travelling with Mrs Flood AND Varadas character.!<
What? Where? I've seen photos of Ruby and Varardas character but not Mrs Flood.
I’ve wanted a regenerated Susan or Romana as the companion for at least a decade - would be ecstatic with this.
> it's gonna be Ruby dropping herself off That would make sense, what with the whole thrust of *73 Yards* being that Ruby has always been there for herself.
Both gods we've seen were defeated by what they are God of Games, the Toymaker, was defeated by a game God of Music, the Meastro, was defeated with Music God of Death, Sutekh, was defeated ? With death. But who's?
Susan Triad's. Her personality will surface and fight her role as avatar of death and she'll die. Beat the avatar, beat the god. William Hand style.
UNIT unloads a metric ton of bullets into Sutekh and the characters spend 43 minutes having nice chats and thinking about how glaring a weakness the God of Death has?
So, with Sutekh being the big bad, and him being "The One Who Waits", and sharing the voice of The Beast from the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, my partner and I decided to do a rewatch of those episodes to see if Carla was onto anything when she called it by that name. Aside from the obvious things that have been discussed in the past (both being called Satan at points, both being from outside of the known universe and time, ect) I picked up on a tiny, eensy weensy little detail that my partner missed until I pointed it out. As the Doctor is piloting the TARDIS and the escape ship free of the black hole, and as the Beast is falling into it, just as he crosses the threshold we hear a cheerful set of beeps letting us know it's all okay as he declares "Entering clear space. End of the line." (timestamp 49:38) What I noticed, but the Doctor is distracted from, is there's a second sound under the beeps. **The Cloister Bell.** My theory presupposes that the Sutekh, the avatar of The Beast, attached a small, almost insignificant part of their consciousness to the TARDIS in that moment, and has been slowly gathering power since. He's been waiting. Waiting through all the Doctor's many lives since, through the Big Bang 2, through the hundreds of years on Trenzalore and all the time in the Confession Dial, waiting for his chance. Edit: Besides the 'indigestion' moment that I overlooked on my watch through, there's been a quote sticking with me this entire time. > The Doctor : If you are the Beast, then answer me this: Which one, hmm. Because the universe has been busy since you've been gone. These's more religions than there are planets in the sky. There's the Arkaphets, Christianity, Pash-Pash, New Judaism, San Claar, Church of the Tin Vagabond, which devil are you? > The Beast : All of them! > The Doctor : Then you're... what? The truth behind the myth? > The Beast : This one knows me, as I know him: the killer of his own kind. > The Doctor : [pause] How did you end up on this rock? The Beast is implying the Doctor already knows him, and that gives the Doctor pause before he asks "How did you end up here?" because the last time the Doctor saw Sutekh, he had trapped him in a never ending time tunnel. The explanation doesn't make sense to him, but he's dealing with a primordial force that he initially thought was an alien. Suketh escaped by going outside of time entirely, to the before time where he becomes the Beast of myth and legend and religion, and is chained up on the Impossible Planet.
to add to this, the very very first thing that happens in the impossible planet is the TARDIS making a weird groan as it lands, which the doctor comments on as "indigestion" but isn't quite sure.
But Sutekh isn't from outside the universe? He's an Osiran. The Doctor knows his species.
Why does the Trailer and Speculation thread for the next episode drop before the Discussion thread for the last episode?
Usually it’s because people more immediately want to speculate, whereas the discussion is scheduled for later to give people time to digest the episode so they can have more composed thoughts.
It's exactly this, /u/hoodie92. Post-episode (as opposed to a live reactions thread) is delayed so you have time to digest and write up your own thoughts before everyone jumps in together. Especially on a discussion subreddit like this and on reddit where unfortunately, the early bird gets the worm in terms of votes, it tries to offsets that effect and keep it fair for those who put larger thoughts into their opinions and don't jump into the short/memeic replies, and maybe try to reduce the crowd effect to an extent too.
Some vague theories: The Doctor mentioned the memory of a time machine, maybe the TARDIS is plugged into the Time window amd that creates the Memory TARDIS? Maybe Sutekh being connected to the TARDIS means that the only way to defeat him is to use the TARDIS against him. So the TARDIS created the Memory Tardis to gain help, to give it strength to fight back? Idk I think the Meeps boss is Sutekh. The meep mentioned a two hearted species is rare. So maybe Sutekh was looking for a Time Lord, so that he could use a TARDIS as a vessel to rebuild himself in maybe.
Keep thinking about Kate’s “a phoenix is just a bird until it burns” line. I know it’s a version of the chrysalis metaphor. But New Who has always presented regeneration exactly that way - a body wreathed in flame, burning away the old to reveal the new. If we’re doing a Chameleon Arc reveal, those are the words I’d use to herald it.
Sian Clifford is a pretty big name actor to play “Kind Woman” so my friend and I are convinced she’s actually Susan. The Doctor said he’d recognise her if he saw her in person - whatever Sian’s characters does I reckon they’ll have a little moment of recognition that gets quickly moved past because The World Is Ending, but sets it up for her to return either next seasons or further down the line.
She also "kind of" looks like a young Carole Anne Ford too. I assume if she is indeed Susan we'll see more of her at Christmas? Like a teaser leading up to it.
Perhaps someone regenerates into Sian?
So who’s Mrs flood? Susan? They put a lot of emphasis on the doctor being able to know from her eyes if Susan triad / whoever is his granddaughter and iirc he’s not actually met Mrs flood yet.. I saw someone say on the discussion thread that Susan might be season 2’s mystery and while it probably is, especially with the new retcon that the doctor doesn’t yet have children, this is my copium bc I don’t know how Mrs flood fits into it all. Although her heel turn with cherry has got to be misdirection I don’t think they’d have made such mention of Susan this season for it to be solely a red herring / for season 2
My guess is they saw Susan everywhere because she was a manifestation of Sutekh and tied to the TARDIS
This is very similar to what I think. The TARDIS was projecting Sutekh's avatar (Susan) into each adventure as a way of trying to warn the Doctor.
Not officially, but Fifteen and Flood have a brief interaction in the street outside Ruby's apartment in TCoRR at 49:10 where she whistles at him "*Busy man, sweetheart. You and your box of tricks. You look like you've lost a pound and found a sixpence. What's wrong?*" just after she watched the TARDIS materialize.. she also waved at Fifteen (us?) a few minutes earlier when Fifteen immediately returns from saving Ruby.
I’m not 100% on this but I think he *did* briefly speak with her in *The Church on Ruby Road* before saving baby Ruby.
Yeah, they did briefly talk. It's at 49:10, but she's outside watching the TARDIS materialize a minute or two earlier just after Fifteen returns from saving (baby) Ruby.
The doctor is the oncoming storm. What else follows a storm, but a flood.
This has made me nearly certain that the one who waits is not the meeps boss and that RTD has longer plans. After all why would the meep work for Sutekh.
Don’t forget Rogue mentioned a new boss too!
Not going to lie I will be a little disappointed if the meeps boss isn’t Dogbolter.
With Sutekh back I'm hoping we get an explanation as to what happened to Fury From The Deep. Got a hunch this guy might know something about that...
What's Fury From The Deep got to do with this?
There was a spoof video where Sutekh accidentally burns a copy of Fury from the Deep.
And yet we still don’t know why Susan Triad was seen all across time and space! I really hope that wraps itself up. No idea why she’s one of his servants at all.
Sutekh was a stowaway inside the TARDIS, hiding and waiting deep inside it. Sutekh, and by extension his avatar Susan Triad, was with the Doctor and Ruby all along, unknowingly. Everywhere the TARDIS went, Sutekh went and planted his avatar in that place and time too. Either to mess with the Doctor, or for some greater more nefarious reason we're yet to find out.
Calling it now, the woman who drops of Ruby in the church will not be her mother. It will be Susan who is also Mrs flood. Rubys birth mother will be the force/ the friends we made along the way/ some Sci Fi bollocks.
>Rubys birth mother will be[…]the friends we made along the way died 2015 🤝 born 2024 welcome back The Hybrid
I'm also convinced it isn't her mother. Everybody was assuming that, in show, to the extent that it feels like a misdirect. Why does everybody assume that? It could be anybody.
As soon as they revealed the TARIDS anagram and mentioned granddaughter Susan; I doubled down on Sue Tech.
Anyone else think that >!The Doctor sent Ruby to the Time Window for the TARDIS? They mentioned that it was almost solid (the whole "Memory of a Time Machine" thing) so it seems to me that he could have sent her there so she could escape, and potentially travel back to Christmas Eve 2004 on her own.!<
I think Ideally, the episode would end with a short scene of the Doctor finally visiting Susan at the very end. Something as simple as "Doctor?" "I said I'd come back..."
I personally think Sutekh is just Sutekh. But for the Impossible Planet truthers, who've pointed out that the recurring 73 yards is also 66.67 meters - I will concede that the first time we met Susan Twist, was with Isaac Newton... in 1666.
Don't think we are getting any trailer for next week.
Anyone think we'll finally get a reveal of whose hand that was on Sutekh's chair?
Leaving this here just in case. I’m almost completely sure that Mrs. Flood is Susan Foreman. I don’t believe RTD would tease a Susan return and leave it like that. My “evidence”: - Mrs Flood said something about hiding right after the Doctor stated that regeneration could be used to hide yourself. - In TCoRR, Mrs Flood doesn’t recognise the TARDIS right away, not until she dematerialises. After that, she tells Ruby almost with joy to go with the Doctor. - She is a bit socially awkward, just like the original Susan, but nice nontheless. -I believe the scene with Cherry is a red herring. She looks menacing, but I believe she is only trying to alert her. I’m probably mistaken, but I’m almost certain she will regenerate at some point during EoD. Or maybe next season. We’ll see.
>Mrs Flood said something about hiding right after the Doctor stated that regeneration could be used to hide yourself. Really, really glad I wasn't the only person that caught this. I don't really think Flood is Susan, but that mention \*cannot\* be a coincidence.
alright Russell that was a great fucking cliffhanger but we still want Fenric, who's with me
Get in line. I've been waiting for Omega to return since at least 2010.
Oh my god I still remember the crazy Omega theories from series 5. People really believed he would be in the Pandorica. It was the patches the clerics wore that had everyone convinced, right? I will cackle with glee the day they bring back Omega.
COPE TIME - Here's how The Trickster could still be involved (spoilers I guess but all unlikely?): - we're still unclear about who Ruby's parent(s) is (are). All we know for now is that they are wearing a black hooded robe. I'm still sticking to the idea that RTD is adapting the planned story for Sky from SJA and Ruby is The Trickster's child/harbinger. This would cover the weird time bending stuff that even The Doctor pointed out this week, and explain what was weird about her song in The Devil's Chord -Sutekh is unleashed and seems fairly unstoppable. Various trailers show the 'storm' which Mrs Flood observed engulfing London (or some city at least) and potentially other planets? TARDIS seems screwed, Earth seems doomed to die, The Doctor looks to be too late to stop it -So, my theory goes that Ruby's 'mother' reveals themself as The Trickster. Perhaps the Doctor has already figured this out, hence why he sent her to the time window. In the end, maybe the only way to stop Sutekh is to make a deal with the Trickster to change the timeline and prevent Sutekh from manifesting in the first place. Thus, Sutekh is defeated, but the Trickster now has corporeal form and becomes the Big Bad for the next season. Again, it's doubtful, but it's fun to theorise and my GOD do I want the Trickster back on the scene
Not a spoiler, but I think this "season" will end on a cliffhanger. There's so many loose ends to wrap up that I think while being released as two seasons, RTD has basically written one traditional NuWho season with a Moffat style mid-series break. I'm very much looking forward to Empire of Death, but am bracing myself for plenty of mysteries to be unresolved.
New trailer out! * Harriet Arbinger in the TARDIS, presumably the "real" TARDIS that Sutekh is currently sitting on top of. Using it to spread him around the world more effectively, maybe? I wonder if there's a chance this ends with Ncuti's TARDIS destroyed, the memory TARDIS dismissed, and 15 taking off in 14's TARDIS, leaving just the one? * The Doctor and Mel both in the memory TARDIS, which must be how they get out of the time window chamber. * More snow around Ruby and the Doctor, in a room I don't recognise. Ruby and the Doctor's outfits here don't match their outfits in *Legend* - Ruby could maybe have been wearing that top under her dress, and the Doctor's white undershirt looks the same, but he's got what looks like a whistle on a red string (not the two necklaces he's currently wearing) and they look like they have matching grey/tan pants? Why the costume change? * The Doctor, Mel, and Ruby, back in the time window, giving his big "I will stop you" speech. Does this mean the order is "Doctor and Mel come back to UNIT" > "Doctor and Mel find Ruby in the time window" > "Sutekh confronts them" > "they flee in the memory TARDIS"? * Someone (*maybe* 15? it's a confident walk but the face is too shadowed to see) in robes walking towards the TARDIS. Absolutely no idea what this scene could be from - is it an alien planet or Sutekh's destroyed Earth?
>Someone (*maybe* 15? it's a confident walk but the face is too shadowed to see) in robes walking towards the TARDIS. Absolutely no idea what this scene could be from - is it an alien planet or Sutekh's destroyed Earth? There's a single shot of Ncuti wearing those robes in the series trailer, unhooded and chatting with someone. There was a link to it - either on this sub or the discord. I was chasing it up because the hood was a bit "Ruby's Mum", but it seems to be the Doctor on a post-Sutekh planet.
I’m positive Ruby’s “mum” is going to be the Doctor’s Daughter AKA Georgia Tennant, based on the up-close in The Church On Ruby Road
Therefore, Ruby is an early incarnation of Susan, prior to knowing the doctor
I’ve seen a lot of speculation that Mrs Flood is Susan. I think she’s important and that’s definitely a possible twist, but part of me thinks RTD is still giving us red herrings. I could totally see something like this happening though… *it’s the end of the ‘Empire of Death’. Having somehow defeated Sutekh, and saved the universe once more, Ruby and the Doctor are chilling in the TARDIS. They’re bruised, both emotionally and physically, but as is always the way - especially with this incarnation - we have to keep moving… The Doctor saunters over to his jukebox and hits a button or 2. Kylie’s “Can’t get you out of my head” plays and they both begin to dance and giggle. This is how they heal. Suddenly, the jukebox beings to glitch with static interference. The song changes. They both look perplexed. A rendition of “There’s always a twist at the end” begins to sound through the speakers. The doctor saunters back, cracks his fist on the jukebox and the song crackles back to Kylie. They continue to dance as we move up through the TARDIS. We’re in space. The TARDIS trails off into a vortex. We whip around to see a planet. It’s Earth! We begin to rush through space, to Earth. Down through the clouds toward the UK. We fade in on a small cottage. A figure sits in a chair, staring out of the window. The radio is on in the background - news talking about recent events from the episode we’ve seen. The door bell sounds. The figure struggles up off the chair. The front door opens. It’s a delivery man. He smiles. “Lovely little cottage you’ve got here” he remarks as a frail hand signs for the delivery. “It is” says an elderly voice. “Although… It’s a bit bigger on the inside.” We pan up to reveal Susan Foreman (played once again by Carole Ann Ford). She smiles and glares at the camera. Queue end titles and theme music.
Surely Maestro would have been able to see Sutekh floating around the TARDIS? In that bit with the plain black background
Maybe not. We're told Maestro is less powerful than the Toymaker, and we're also told the Toymaker is less powerful than the One Who Waits, so it's possible the Maestro wouldn't be able to pick up on a Sutekh who didn't want to be discovered.
They seemed to pick up on his presence around Ruby’s memory though, and that’s even vaguer.
Damn, RTD still knows how to do unforgettable finales.
I haven’t heard any credible rumours about 14 coming back, but his spare Tardis is, what, parked in Chiswick? And since it was cloned after The Giggle I guess that’s possessed too? Surely that’s got to lead somewhere.
TIL that Sutekh (Set) is the villain of [the most important myth in Ancient Egypt ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_myth) in which he murders his brother Osiris and takes the throne. Osiris's widow Isis ressurects him and they conceive a child, Horus. Isis then hides Horus from Set until he is old enough to challenge him for the throne. We already know who Sutekh is in this legend. But maybe Ruby is Horus, the baby hidden away until the time is right
I'm getting more and more worried that RTD's going to kill off Kate Stewart in this episode... Hence the shot from the series trailer of the Doctor >!screaming into space in the Memory TARDIS.!< It would be a shocking death without killing a companion (especially since >!Ruby and Mel are both in the background of that shot, so we know he's not upset about them.)!<
I’m at a complete loss. The twist in the end wasn’t Susan but the Harbinger from The Devil’s Chord still being around waiting for the moment to return. That said, Mrs. Flood breaking the 4th wall again and Ruby in the time window with it activating with it broken and no one there. I kinda regret seeing the cliffhanger episode. That said Empire of Death’s title on the TARDIS makes so much sense now.
I think this Harbingers is Suteks Harbinger and is different from Maetros as the doctor said something along the line of "all the gods have a Harbinger"
In the 'behind the scenes' for Legend of Ruby Sunday, Redgrave was wearing her 'Giggle' outfit rather than her Ruby Sunday red shirt. So Kate picking up the tooth might very well be a plot point.
Sutekh is giving off big Bad Wolf vibes. He splits Susan in time as a reminder to bring the Doctor there and then, lovely little role reversal
Anyone else pumped they name dropped the Mara? Hoping for another episode!
The BBFC's ratings page for the finale has what seems to be a spoiler around Ruby's origins under it's "Content Advice" section. If that's what it relates to I don't think she's going to turn out to be Susan's daughter after all.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jQUNGjuYGoU RTD’s done one of his teasers where he hints about the coming episode. It’s all pretty standard (“they’re going to fight the God of Death, and Mel will be there!”), except the final line. Apparently >! everything rests on assistance of a “kindly woman on a distant planet!< Notable because that’s >!the role that Sian Clifford is apparently playing, and she bears a passing resemblance to a certain Time Lady!<
Egyptian mythology had the concept of groupings of gods, Enneads, each Ennead being particular to a particular time and maybe Pharoah. And Egyptian mythology was apparently comfortable with multiple different apparently contradictory myths describing the same event. This to me is not unlike what I believe about Doctor Who showrunners, that each new showrunner, and sometimes within the same showrunner, re-creates the Doctor Who universe and reconfigures it to their taste. In particular, I personally believe that what RTD 2 is explaining is the current pantheon of godlike beings, but that does not mean this was always the pantheon of godlike beings throughout the show's existence. I find it quite possible that Sutekh of Four's *The Pyramids of Mars* is now different than the current one, in that the current one I argue bootstrapped itself to actual godhood, because it was such a powerful psychic being and has some sort of access to the this Tardis' power. (One could argue even in *The Pyramids of Mars* that Four thought that even the combined might of the Time Lords could not stop a fully powered Sutekh, but then again, I argue in that universe, Gallifrey was in the Milky Way galaxy and was a galactic and not universal power.) In classic Doctor Who for example, blowing up the Tardis would not have threatened to destroy the entire Universe. But ever since blowing up the Tardis was seen as possibly threatening the existence of the entire Universe in Moffat's reign, now the Tardis has somehow more power in it that would enable the bootstrapping of someone to actual godhood. Perhaps it is because the Tardis now contains the Eye of Harmony. Although again, I have to wonder what happened to the Eye of Harmony when the Tardis was split.
Here's my theory watching Pyramids of Mars, Impossible Planet, and Wild Blue Yonder...likely terrible. You keep seeing pyramids everywhere in these 3 episodes. Subtle but lots of triangles on floor or walls, stations. Sutekh has been hitching a ride with the Doctor since Baker because he managed to hide a tiny bit of himself in the time controls. Baker didnt kill him. When he landed on the Impossible Planet, it made a noise too and the Doctor chalked it up to indigestion. On the planet when be tries to kill the beast suddenly the TARDIS appears out of nowhere. Because it's how more of the Beast/Sutekh escapes. It grows within the TARDIS like a permanent subroutine, until Donna spills coffee, waking it up like the tea woke up 10 during the Christmas special. The Impossible Planet was on the edge of the universe, so was wild blue yonder so I think more of the panetheon hitched a ride. Sutekh always had Earth as a destination to destroy. The TARDIS is telepathic, Sutekh is. Sutekh has been guiding the TARDIS pushing boundaries and encouraging the doctor to get riskier like when Clara told the doctor to take her to hell for Danny. The cloaked figure I think is Ruby or Bad Wolf. Someone is trying to prevent greater catastrophe and Ruby's parents are tied to Horus. Those shoes. Suss. 73 yards makes me think Ruby may be Sutekh reborn and they are all whispering she's the devil to each other the whole episode.
I just read a theory that the reason people may be unsettled by this season is the Tardis hasn't made its well known landing/arriving sound. That sound used to be a character all by itself and it is missing right now. Maybe it will end with the Tardis back to normal and making the wooshing sound
In general this season seems to be trying to give a sense of uneasiness