Even though the plan with Doctor Who series 7 has been to give us a standalone blockbuster each week, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t elements that haven’t been underpinning each of the episodes thus far.
Hence, we’ve had constant reminders that the Doctor has been erased from the history of the universe, for starters, and that feels like it’s building to something. Then, for reasons fairly well known, the Doctor has also been having chats with his companions reiterating that they all seem to be drifting apart.
Yet there’s another. This might be us just being a bit sad – it wouldn’t be the first time – but is there something more to what we’re about to show you?
Firstly, then, Asylum Of The Daleks. You might recall that when the Daleks acquired Amy in that episode, she was at a fashion shoot, before retreating to her dressing table. Said dresssing table was in front of lightbulbs, that started flickering. Here are some pictures to refresh your memory:
Next, let’s go to Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. At the start of that one, Brian Williams – played by the wonderful Mark Williams – is seen changing a lightbulb, too. Here he is fixing it...
And then at the end of the episode, Rory is finishing the job off (he's switched it for a more energy efficient one, if you want us to be nerdy about it).
Finally, at least for now, there’s A Town Called Mercy. Two or three times in the episode, we see lightbulbs (sometimes flickering), courtesy of the electricity that has been rigged up by Kahler-Jax. So there's one out on the street...
And then another eyefull of lightbulb when we move indoors...
Sadly, we’ve just got questions, rather than answers, here. Is all of this linked to the Doctor’s disappearance from records? Does that affect lightbulbs in some way? Is some nasty thing always in the background, that can only be picked up by the flicker of a lightbulb?
In fact, that seems possible. After all, the lightbulbs flickered at the start when the Dalek-human-thingy was present. Does that mean more Daleks are coming? Have we met some of them already? Or have we gone mad again?
We’ll leave you to speculate below…
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