Pray for Daylight, Charlie Brown (rated PG)

The festivities had died down for the night.  He could hear the kids leaving the various parties, drifting off to their homes with withering conversations filling the air.  Suddenly he hear one or two scream in the distance.  His dog rose instantly to his feet, springing to the door, hunched low and growling, fur rising up on the back of his neck.  The boy left his easy chair and went to the door.  The screams were getting louder, rising in pitch and terror.  Something gave a low, gurgling chucked outside.  Street lamps went dark, and his dog, continuing to growl backed away from the door.  There came a pounding all at once.  Someone or something had slammed into his front door.

“JUST PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR!” a familiar voice cried in panic.  The door swung open and in tumbled his best friend.  They both lunged at the door, slamming it shut and securing the locks.  He thought he saw something against the pale moon light.  Something like a thin tentacle and an orange orb.

“Linus…what is going on!”

Linus looked back at him, his eyes wide with terror.  “Oh God…” he slumped to the floor, his face buried in his hands.  “Lucy…Schroder…Patti…what did I do?  So much blood…so much blood…”

“What is going on, Linus?” he demanded.

Linus looked up, tears streaming down his face “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  He’s real!”

Charlie and Linus stared at each other for a long moment, the screams becoming a distant echo.  "What did you just say?" Charlie whispered.  His head spun, he must be dreaming, he thought.  This kind of thing didn't happen in their sleepy little town.  This kind of thing didn't happen at all.  "It’s...it’s the Great Pumpkin..." Linus whispered.

"That can't be." Charlie said, glancing at the window.  "The Great Pumpkin isn't...real."  With a soft pop the lights cut out.
"We can't stay here." Linus muttered.  "We have to go."

Charlie went for the only weapon in the house, an old air rifle his dad kept in the attic for combating the occasional farm it that made its way into their back yard.  Returning he found Linus curled up in the corner.  His dog came to his side and nuzzled his hand. "Where's Sally?" Charlie asked.  Linus stared at him blankly as if hearing the name for the first time.  "Where is my baby sister, Linus?" he asked again, emphasizing each word.  Linus blinked a few times.  "Marcie's.  She went to hang out with Marcie."

"Get up.  We're going to go find her."
"Why am I going?"

"You just said we can't stay here.  My sister is out there somewhere.  If we are going anywhere we're going to find her."
"But the Great Pumpkin...!"

Something slithered up to the front door with a heavy thud. Charlie motioned for Linus to be quiet and in turn Linus planted both of his hands on his mouth.  Carefully Charlie stepped across his living room floor until he reached the window.  He tipped the rifle's barrel into the thick blue curtain and edged it back to see if he could spot anything.  A long, thick, greenish black vine slithered slowly along the side of the house.

The window exploded into a shower of glass as an orange object bounced into the house with a gurgling roar.  Linus screamed, springing to his feet.  In rapid succession Charlie fired round after round into the object.  Without realizing it, a tentacle like vine whipped into the room but then dog leaped at it, chomping furiously until it was torn off.  Linus emerged from the hallway and beat the orange object mercilessly until it broke apart, revealing itself to be a large pumpkin.

Even after it stopped moving, Linus continued to pummel it, sobbing, until Charlie grabbed him.

"Is that it?" he asked. "Is that the..."

"No...its part of it, some kind of spawn.  They get thrown by the vines, and they latch onto people's heads.  They eat the head and drive the person's body.  That's...that's what happened to Lucy."
"Then we need to find Sally now."

 The town was quiet, with a thick hazy mist hanging in the air.  Charlie led Linus, tucking close to buildings, peeking around corners down deserted streets and alleys before darting across intersections.  Buckets and bags of candy lay scattered about the streets.  Torn costumes and masks hung loosely on shrubbery.  “Where is everyone?” Charlie whispered.  He didn’t know if he was talking to Linus or Snoopy or God, but the question hung there, unanswered.  Crossing the third intersection, they again tucked into the side of one of the houses where they heard a faint sobbing.  It came from the back yard of the house, surrounded by a six foot high privacy fence.  “This is it…this is Marcie’s house.” Linus whispered.

Charlie thought it looked different in the night.  He edged his way around the fence until he found the gate, swinging open from a broken hinge.  He saw her sitting next to her swing set, curled up in the fetal position, shuddering with sobs.  He could faintly hear her saying “I’m sorry sir…I’m so sorry…”

“Marcie!” he said in a loud whisper.  She turned and saw him.  She looked around before darting towards him in a low run.  “Marcie…what happened?”

“It was Pattie…Charles.  She…went crazy.  She came at me with a pumpkin mask on, like she was trying to eat me.  I…didn’t know what to do.”

“Oh…” Linus said.  Charlie looked to where he was pointing and saw Pattie’s green shirt wrapped around a mangled body, a crushed pumpkin for a head, and a bloody baseball bat on the ground.
“Where is Sally?” Charlie said with caution.

“She and some of the other kids ran.  They headed towards the library.  I don’t know if they made it.”

Pine Cove’s Library was a single story building, much like the rest of the town, and was spread out over about an acre of land.  They approached with extreme caution, coming at it from the side where low trees hugged the edge of the property.  “We can’t just walk in the front.” Charlie pointed out.  “We have to check the perimeter.”
“Right.” Linus agreed.  Marcie stayed quiet.

They checked all around the building but found no trace of the Great Pumpkin or it’s minions, so approached the front doors.  The glass had been shattered and long tables propped up against the doors to block entrance.  “Sally.”  Charlie said, trying to peer through the tables.  “Big Brother?” a small voice whispered from behind the barricade.

“Sally!” he said, almost crying.  Pig Pen and Franklin struggled with the tables, allowing Charlie and Linus passage.  Once through, they saw the survivors.  A group of scared children huddled among the long, narrow shelves.  Someone screamed “Its in here!”  Charlie turned towards the door but saw only Marcie.  “Charles!” someone called from the crowd “That’s NOT MARCIE!” He turned to see who was shouting at him.  It was Marcie, leaning on a makeshift crutch.  Charlie turned and leveled the rifle at the fake Marcie, who laughed with a low gurgle.  Her eyes began to glow as a weird grin crossed her face.  From under her clothes, tentacle like vines snaked out and lifted her into the air.  The Great Pumpkin-Marcie swiped at Charlie and Linus, knocking them over the librarian’s counter.  Vines shot out after the children who ran in all directions.  One caught the real Marcie by the leg and lifted her up as she screamed.  Charlie rose to his hands and knees and something caught the corner of his eye.  A flash light.  He looked back at the monster.  “It hates light.  That’s why it killed the street lamps and the power, it only comes out at night.” He looked at Linus who still had his baseball bat.  Charlie jumped onto the counter “HEY!  UGLY!” he shouted.  The pumpkin monster turned and growled.  The beam from the flash light cut the darkness, shining directly into the monster’s face.  It dropped Marcie with a roar.  She was caught by Franklin who moved her away from the fight.  It’s body reeled backwards, but it found itself tangled in the mass of tables.  It started to lower itself to the floor.  That’s when Linus pounced, bat held high and bringing it down with a fury.  Again and again he bashed the creature in the head as Charlie held it with the flash light beam.

 October 31st dawned bright and new.  Charlie wandered about his day.  He saw Lucy and Patty and Schroder.  Everyone was fine, physically, but also seemed to be reeling from some shared trauma, some kind of nightmare that had washed over the town.  The adults didn’t know what was going on, or why all the kids in town were acting weird.  For them, it was just another Halloween.

Dusk came, and Charlie had pushed out of his mind any normal festivities.  Maybe later, he thought.  But now, he felt he had a job to do.  He carried in one hand a baseball bat, in the other a flash light.  He found Linus already perched on the fence to the pumpkin patch.  He hopped up on to the fence with him.  Across Linus’ lap was his own baseball bat.

One by one the children arrived.  Patty, Marcie, Franklin, Lucy, Sally, even Schroder.  Those who didn’t have baseball bats brought their flash lights.  Charlie understood.

Call it God, or Vishnu, or Allah, or some other kind of divine intervention, something had given them a glimpse into the future.  A future that all the children of their sleepy little town were determined not to let come to pass.

As the sun set over the horizon, Charlie’s dog jumped to his feet, set his head low and growled.  Something in the patch stirred.

Credits and Post Script

Lets get the legal out of the way.  I do not own the rights to Charlie Brown or any of the Peanuts gang, and I am not making a dime off of this.  This is strictly a little story I cooked up over the last few days.  I want to thank Turtle Power over at Geekfandom for not only inadvertently inspiring this, but offering the creative freedom to actually post it some place other than BlogSpot or Fan Fiction.

That's really what this is, complete fan fiction.  I love the work of Charles Schultz and my family make it a point to watch the Charlie Brown holiday specials every year.  So this is kind of a love letter to all those specials, plus pretty much all survival horror movies, but especially "Night of the Living Dead".

Quick Hits: Supergirl "Last Children of Krypton" and Flash "Magenta"

On with “The Last Children of Krypton”.  Now I have no idea what happened when they moved Supergirl from CBS to CW, but it feels like the creative team is getting to flex some serious muscles and giving Supergirl a punch.  Superman is still hanging around National City, though again his presence doesn’t really overshadow Supergirl, so they are balancing it very well.  The Kryptonian cousins are flying around saving days and generally annoying the Martian Manhunter, who is still rather unhappy about the Man of Steel’s presence.  In case you missed the origin of their conflict, MM is keeping kryptonite at the DEO and Superman isn’t happy about that.  Both have very valid reasons for their standpoints on the issue, but honestly I do agree with MM’s logic, though I think more could have been done to safeguard such a rare and important substance.

That’s when John Corbin, sorry, Metallo makes a comeback.  Metallo is a minor villain that’s made appearances throughout all of Superman fiction, notably in Lois and Clark and Smallville, and I personally think they handled him better here.  More in keeping with the comic book/cartoon origins of the character he’s been “upgraded” by Cadmus into a kryptonite powered cyborg who gives the super cousins a run for their money before Supergirl “Terminate 2’s” his hand.

Meanwhile Kara is dealing with major changes at Catco as Cat Grant is stepping down, appointing Jimmy Olsen in her stead, and Kara is dealing with her new “boss”, who refuses to acknowledge her as an actual reporter, much less an employee.  Kara does not deal with change very well.

Cadmus steps up their villain game by launching Metallo 2.0, in the form of an actual second cyborg and Winn gets creative in generating armor to protect Superman and Supergirl.

What follows is probably one of the best battles I’ve seen in the series, not to mention some pretty organic character development for our major players.

I won’t get into major details but after the predictable defeat of the Corbin-Metallo, Supergirl uses the cyborg’s camera eyes to issue a warning to Cadmus.  Melissa being allowed to show that kind of rage and just the pure savagery of using your fallen opponent to send a message to your enemy was very well done and greatly appreciated.  Please check out the episode.

 

We follow this with Season 3 of the Flash, “Magenta”.  Iris and Barry are trying to kick start their romance but Iris is rather stand off-ish of Barry’s fast running ways and wants to be with “the real Barry.”  Predictably life gets in the way as they are summoned to STAR Labs because a breach has opened.  Lo and behold our favorite cantankerous scientist Harrison Wells has arrived citing he needs their help to solve a problem.  Namely his daughter Jesse has become a speedster and he needs their help.  Of course he notices some differences in the Earth 1 lab and comes to the quick and reasonable conclusion that Barry once again changed the timeline and gives him a little hell for it. 

But the team has other problems as a yet unknown metahuman (named Magenta) has attempted to kill a ban with a light pole.  Julian rightly deduces that the man’s adoptive daughter Frankie is the metahuman and the stress summons forth her alternate personality Magenta who wreaks havoc in the police department before escaping.  While they are dealing with Magenta, Wells is on one hand relieved that his daughter is okay, also wants the team to talk her out of using her powers to save people.  Everyone has different reactions to this, and Wally’s is by far the stupidest as he tries to get the situation to kick start his own powers, which go over like a lead balloon.  Ultimately Barry addresses Wells saying that he’s the problem with Jesse’s situation and the two men talk about coming to grips with their various mistakes and the consequences they’ve wrought.  Jesse comes to the aide of Barry in the climax of the episode and the team is left with the question of who the new villain Dr. Alchemy is and why he’s doing what he’s doing.

Personally I’m loving the new season of both shows and I can’t wait to see where things are headed.

Super Hero Tuesday Review: Paradox and the Adventures of Supergirl

Alright so there we have it, our first post Flashpoint Flash episode and our very first CW Supergirl Season 2 episode.  Now they went back to back, probably the two most popular television superhero franchises out there.  Arrow is…eh doing alright and Legends of Tomorrow hasn’t come back yet so we’re going to reserve judgement until then.

THAT said this is the first time we get to see Barry really dealing with the consequences of his actions, really in a way that we never have before.  So let’s jump into my favorite: The Flash, Season 3 Episode 2: PARADOX.

Paradox opens up shortly after where we left off last week, with Barry chasing down a motorcycle riding jewel thief.  After some witty banter he returns to STAR Labs and meets with team Flash, all of whom are dealing some serious tension.  Barry tries lightening the mood but the team isn’t having any of it.  It appears that the only thing that did cross time lines is Iris’ affection for Barry, which is fine, but to see Cisco giving him the cold shoulder and nobody wanting to talk about…anything.  It was Twilight Zone level creepy.  Carlos Valdes (Cisco) rarely gets the meaty emotions and I’m very pleased with the way he conveyed the mixture of sadness, grief, and anger towards Barry.  We soon learn that his brother was killed by a drunk driver and he (for reasons you’ll have to see) blames Barry.

We don’t really get much in the way of explanation for why Iris and Joe aren’t talking; only that apparently Joe “did something stupid”.  But later it’s stated that Cisco revealed Barry’s secret to the police captain, so…we still have no idea what repercussions came from that.  Maybe it feeds into why Julian, Barry’s new work partner, isn’t exactly fond of him.

Let’s talk about Tom Felton as Julian Albert, CSI #2 to Central City’s police.  He’s a very different kind of character.  We’re not used to seeing someone not trusting Barry, and openly stating so.  Albert is a forensic scientist and for whatever reason he does not like Barry at all.  He’s also not stupid, and can pick up on Barry’s inconsistent stories very quickly.  While Patty Spivot from season 2 took literally all season long to work out Barry’s secret, Julian will probably riddle this out in very short order.

I’m jumping around a lot and I really hope you sit and watch the episode in its entirety.  Without giving away any major plot points, I will instead point out a really cool Easter Egg team either threw in intentionally or accidentally.

Namely it’s revealed in the reset timeline that John Diggle from Arrow doesn’t have a daughter anymore.  He has a son.  This is a call out to a film called “About Time”, which is a romance centered on a character with the ability to time travel.  Whenever he goes back in time and alters history, things are obviously changed in the present.  In one instance, after he has a daughter, he goes back to change history and when he returns he has a son.  It’s a very good movie, please go watch it.  It’s called “About Time”.  Go, grab your girl or your guy and go watch it tonight.

Where was I?

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERGIRL!

                Okay, prior to the jump I had not really given the show that much of a chance, and I regret that now.  Season 2 starts off really strong picking up literally where season 1 left off with the team locating another Kryptonian escape pod, this time with a comatose male inside.  The whole shooting match is taken to the DEO’s other location, which Kara rightfully complains that she never knew about and looks much better than the cave they had her hanging out in, and the inclusion of Winn as a probationary employee for the government agency.  Winn is a much better fit for the DEO than he ever was at CAT Co., so I was pleased to see that.  His tech savvy and personality work much better alongside their more unusual encounters, and his current assignment is to translate the data log from the crashed ship.

We also pick up with James and Kara’s first date, as they try to determine if this relationship-thing is going to really work out.  Long story short, probably not.  Also Cat Grant is making Kara choose a new job and has given her a deadline to determine what her new career will be.  I liked Calista Flockhart a lot better in this episode than I had in previous ones, because I think she was allowed much more range in her personality.

There was something else they added to this episode…what was it?

Oh yeah…Lena Luthor.  Taking over her now imprisoned brother’s company she tries to make a name for herself by re-christening it “L Corp”, which makes as much sense as Cat Co, but there you go.  Folks behind the scenes apparently have other ideas as it seems Lex has hired John Corbin to straight up murder his little sister.  Thanksgiving must have been fun.

The plans are, of course, thwarted by our heroes and Corbin is last seen being experimented on in Cadmus.

That can’t be all…what else happened.  Oh, Cat got a new assistant, Miss Tessmacher.  For those of you too young to know, Miss Tessmacher was the name of Lex Luthor’s assistant in the 1978 Superman movie, and Calista really nailed shouting that name out ala Gene Hackman.  A very nice call back.

Now what was that other thing they added this season?

Oh right…Superman.  Clark appears and lends an assist to Kara’s adventures and I do appreciate that they were very conservative with how they used him.  He was present, he made a difference, but he didn’t dominate the show, it still very much felt like Supergirl’s show.  Tyler Hoechlin did a very good job in both roles, portraying a Clark that was reminiscent of Dean Cain’s turn with a little Christopher Reeve thrown in for good measure.  They even reference his “clumsy” persona, with Clark sheepishly admitting that occasionally it’s for real.  His interaction with Kara was also really great as you can tell there is genuine affection for each other, and that they are family first and foremost, even giving each other a hard time every now and then.

His Superman was very well done.  I was genuinely surprised because they made it clear that seeing Superman is an event for a lot of people.  When he walks into the DEO and the soldiers and staff part, its like watching the president come in.  There’s a lot of respect both from those that encounter him and with the way he treats other people.  This is hugely different from Man of Steel/Batman v Superman’s take where there is a major divide between the hero and the people he saves.  Here he’s more connected with them.  They don’t fear him and he makes a point to say hello and be friendly with the bystanders.

All said and done, I’m really excited to see where this season is going for the girl of steel.  Ultimately I can’t wait to see how her show folds into the greater CW DC universe.

 

Thanks for reading.

I Promised a Theory, I Delivered A Theory: Who is the Valeyard?

So last time I teased a theory about who the Valeyard might be.  In order to really get into that theory we need to explore some assumptions the Doctor made in “Journey’s End.”  Namely that the “Other Doctor” couldn’t regenerate because he was human.

But fundamentally, he’s not.  He’s part Time Lord, literally grown from the severed hand of a Time Lord.  Sci-fi genetic mumbo jumbo aside this implies that he is a kind of hybrid creature, something new, unique and different…unless this has happened before.

Remember he pumped that energy into the hand, he aimed it, and chose to do that, but we don’t know if that was a kind of reflex or if that was a cognitive decision on his part.  Its implied in “Time of the Doctor” that 10 chose to keep his form rather than take on a new face, which could very well be, but also contradicts everything we’ve ever seen from regenerations prior to this event.

The Doctor also lies.  He actually lies quite a lot throughout the series; even River Song points it out as a cautionary piece of advice to Amy Pond.  When he said he “chose” not to change, he could have been lying to make himself look cleverer than he actually is, and that some kind of genetic instinct directed him to shoot that energy into the severed hand because the regenerative energy sought out “dead Doctor” cells to revive.

Speaking of River Song, she might actually help us unpack this quandary.  In “Journey’s End” the Doctor explicitly states that the Other Doctor has one heart, one life span.  That he will grow old and die with Rose Tyler, “give her the life” he never could.  But two hearts do not a regeneration require.  We know this because of Melody Pond, aka River Song, who somehow gained the powers of a Time Lord because she was conceived while the TARDIS was going through the time vortex.  I cannot make that up, but if that’s all it takes to give someone a set of regenerations, doesn’t that mean that someone actually grown FROM a Time Lord should have their own set of regenerations?

So you have this Other Doctor in an alternate dimension with Rose Tyler, promised that he’s going to grow old and die with the woman he loves.  But you also have this strong case built from circumstantial evidence that he’s probably going to regenerate once he dies of “old age” or what have you.  Now what do we know about the Doctor’s personality when he loses the people he loves or discovers he’s been conned into a losing position?

We know he doesn’t handle loss well.  10^th will destroy and entire species, 9^th will willingly gun down a dalek, 11 wiped out space ships with ease and toppled a government.  12 hijacked Gallifrey itself.

He has a dark side, to be sure of.  The only thing that pulls him back from the brink are his companions, but if he’s living with Rose Tyler and loses her because she’s still just a human being, he doesn’t have the means or the inclination to recruit more companions.  Remember we talked about how 10 pushed away companionship in lieu of running solo.

Because he was grieving.

He tried to re-write time, because he was grieving.

He does not handle grief well.

Now let’s say you were shunted to an alternate universe, told you would get to live out your life with Rose Tyler, and that you were getting a story book ending while the other version of you sauntered away in the TARDIS to go have adventures.  Then Rose dies, as humans are want to do.  Maybe it’s within the year, maybe its ten years, twenty years, or even sixty years, regardless she dies.  Then you die, thinking you’ll get to see Rose in the afterlife and…you regenerate.  Nope, sorry, you don’t get to go anywhere, the Doctor lied to you…or to himself.  Either way, you are kind of screwed, because now you don’t know if you have 12 regenerations because you are technically a brand new Time Lord, or if you’ve just got the one, but you are piiiiiiissssed.

Breaching the dimensional barrier, if you are motivated enough, isn’t that hard for the Doctor.  I cite a different but similar issue that 11 dealt with:  When Amy Pond was kidnapped by the Silence, the Doctor and Rory tore their way across the universe to find her.  Remember all those times he struggled against the Cybermen, how they seemed like this massive, all imposing threat?  Yeah he blows up ships from their fleet with easy as a means of questioning them about Amy’s whereabouts.  The Doctor can do anything with the proper motivation, including using whatever scraps of tech he can find in some alternate universe to punch a hole in between dimensions.

Now there is a problem here.  The Doctor, 10, our Doctor, explains that crossing dimensions was easier before the Time War, now they’re all pretty much separated from each other.  So you are an angry version of the Doctor, pissed that you’ve been screwed really really hard, and you know that you can’t just kick down the interdimensional door to get back.  What do you do?  You go back in time of course.  Chances are their version of Torchwood has at least one version of a vortex manipulator. Or, being that you are the Doctor, you can cobble together your own.  Either way, you go back in time to a point where the walls between universes are thin enough to cross.  Vortex manipulators aren’t terribly accurate, but they work well enough so you can get where you need to go, back to the time of the 6^th Doctor, some 20 or 30 years before the Time War.

This would be a logical point for him to shoot for since, being that he’s the angry Doctor, the sum of all rage and hurt, he knows he’s been here before, as the Valeyard menacing the Doctor.

This sets up the Valeyard’s motivation as well, since he wanted to claim the Doctor’s remaining regenerations for himself, he wants to end his pain before it begins.  It also explains why the 10^th Doctor would have been so willing to send him away, hoping that Rose’s love would keep him from turning, or if he did turn, he’d be trapped in an alternate dimension.

Ironically it’s one of the least complicated ways you can have a villain who is a true match for the Doctor.  The Doctor is sincerely his own worst enemy.

But that’s just a theory.

Why the 10th Doctor Didn't Want To Go.

“I don’t want to go.”

Famously these were the final words of the 10^th Doctor before his regeneration into incarnation 11, and they’ve never really set well with me.  When 9 turned into 10, he had a good speech, praising his companion and setting up the new series.  When 11 turned into 12, he had a really good speech, one that reflected on the changes life brings.

But then there is 10.  I love 10, I really do, David Tennant is a phenomenal actor and brought so much to this role.  But there’s still that nagging little line, the final words spoken by someone who had contributed so much to the role.  Why would they do him like that?

Then I remembered something.  When I got into Dr. Who, I dove in head first.  9 was my first Doctor, but I went back and I absorbed everything I could about the character.  I wouldn’t get something close to an answer, however, until Matt Smith was getting ready to depart.  In that episode, it was revealed that the Doctor had actually used up all his regenerations.  Prior to this, we met the “War Doctor”, the actual 9^th incarnation, which made 9 actually 10, and 10 was actually 11.  So that meant that Matt Smith played the 12^th version of the Doctor, right?

Nope, in 10’s story “Journey’s End” we see him about to regenerate after getting blasted by a dalek.  He regenerates just enough to heal the damage, but then pumps the rest of that regeneration into his severed hand, which later becomes a new version of the 10^th Doctor.  11 explains in his final turn that THIS was his 12th incarnation, making Matt Smith the 13^th version of the Doctor.  It was explained much earlier in the series that Time Lords get 12 regenerations, so this was it…this was the last of the Doctors.

So, going back to 10’s line “I don’t want to go.”  Why would he say that?  Was it because he knew he was about to change into his final version, that there were no more continues to the video game he called a life?

To understand his real fear, we need to go back to the 6^th Doctor’s run, and his episode “The Mysterious Planet”.  In this storyline, he meets a character called the Valeyard, who causes him no end of frustration.  He soon discovers that the Valeyard is in fact a version of the Doctor, a culmination of all the darkness in the Doctor’s soul given physical form, and set to appear between his 12^th and final incarnation.

When 10 (actually 11) sent that regeneration energy into the hand, he created a hybrid creature, half Time Lord, half human, and it was the 12^th incarnation, like we just discussed.  But he had no ability to regenerate, which means that if the Valeyard was going to come, this evil creature was going to manifest, it was going to be from 10.  If you follow the logic that Time Lords get 12 regenerations and the 12^th incarnation can’t regenerate, that meant that 11 would have to become the Valeyard.  The dialog said that he appeared between his 12^th and final incarnation.  10 was about to become the incarnation right after 12.  He had no way of knowing that the Time Lords would kick him some more lives.  I noticed a distinct tone shift in the Doctor after “Journey’s End”.  Suddenly he was much more closed off, disinclined to recruit companions, ready to push people away and occasionally give into his darker impulses.  He was, essentially preparing for the coming of the Valeyard and that was depression and angst taking hold.  He fully expected the next Doctor to be this sinister being that would go on to menace his previous incarnations.

Of course those of us following the series know that didn’t happen, he went on to become new versions of the “good” Doctor…but that still begs the question:  “When will the Valeyard come?”

Later I’ll post my theory about that…

Until next time.