Is he really gone?

[Hartnell chronowire]

We could of course just have the Doctor dead. Dead, dead, dead! Then at the beginning of Series 7, Amy gets out of bed and walks into the bathroom to find the Doctor stepping out of the shower, proving the last year had just been a.....

Ah, the Dallasian Exception Variation of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect 

but its not her doctor its ten!!

[Peri]

I think yes! He is definately dead. But in answer to the original question, I do not think he is gone.

Moffat has a way of writing timey wimey so that it can sometimes tie the viewer up in knots, but when broken down its really simple. Looking at it on a larger scale, the Doctor dying sort of means that the Doctor can never die. It created a paradox. By dying it means it put his past self into action on a course of events that means two years down the line he will again leave a message to his past self before dying, which his past self will then follow, leading to the same point two years in his future, etc. Round and round and round and round we go.

BUT

Perhaps this has already gone round in circles 20 times already. Perhaps the future Doctor knows the ending and so is changing events. Perhaps future Doctor was never actually meant to die, but did so as a way of ensuring his younger self carried on down a different path. Perhaps the Doctor really is dead but by dying leads younger Doctor to do something which means older Doctor never dies in the first place.

This of course could create a sort of anti-clockwise paradox, as if he doesnt die, it doesnt set the Doctor on his new path, which then means he does die, which then does set the Doctor off on his new path, so then he doesnt die, which means......... Get my drift?

I'm sure, confusing as I just made it, that the Doctor dying is the reason he doesn't die. Whether Moff then feels the need to fill out the rest of the story with paradox bumpf is up to him, but I think its the only way it can really work without the story being a big huge copout.

This is sort of the reason I am starting to really hate all the timey wimey crap. Straight lines work just as well and the stories are often just as good, if not better.

I tried to explain this in the Story Arc thread... I think the arc this year is going to be something related to paradoxes, and the way you put it, all wibbly wobbly, explains exactly how I feel and what I think the whole series will be about.

[Peri]

Also, he might not be dead dead... The master died at the end of S3, and still part of him survived (the ring) so peeps were able to regen him... OK, OK, I know the master has a way of bending rules, which the Doctor doesn't, but what if the "Time Lord Victorious" takes over him again at the end of this series -like it did in TWoM? He might see the end is coming or something, and decides to mess with time instead of running this time.

[RedHairedGrrlGeek]

Has anyone got this month's DWM yet (the Nicholas Courtney tribute issue)?  They talk about the 2012 plans in that, and at one point they say something like 'now that we know Eleven is the last Doctor...' implying that his death in TIA was absolute and final.  I'd like to think this is a red herring, because it does seem it's just the mag saying it, it's not coming from anyone at the BBC.

Also, Alex has commented that the Doctor that River is involved with in her younger days is 'not necessarily this Doctor'...which implies future Doctors (her past = his future), am I right?

Much as I like Smith as Eleven, I do hope he won't be absolutely the last.  I'm pretty sure the fiendish schemes of the Moff will find a way out of this one. 

(Peri-Peri, as get-out clauses go, it's old, but I like your style. )

[Vampyros Adric]

I gotta agree - this won't be the last Doctor as long as the franchise keeps making money (I hate being old and cynical ) I think this is all part of what I call the "Moff Peril Agenda" and it goes something like this;

- Moff says the Daleks are given a rest because they are "the most reliably defeated foe in the galaxy"
- Moff says the Master won't return for much the same reason.
- Now we are told MS definitely died on the beach and that 11 is definitely the last Doctor.

I suspect this is another attempt by Moff for us to believe that the Doc and his companions are in genuine peril and that they could meet a sticky end.

There is a simpler way (as I have advocated before) - kill off a companion or two mid season!

[2cajuman2]

I'd be happy with that VA...

Nah, he just likes his alternate Time Lines, as long he can work out a way to converge it without a huge explosion.... You don't think it could be similar to S5 ending? And like when the angels temporarily closed the crack do you? And how the Universe couldn't heal with the Doc on the wrong side of the crack...

I'm sure he won't be the last ever, we need to have Gatiss first