The "Ray of Hope" Ending will be...
After being fatally wounded in "The Doctor Falls", somehow saving the universe from the Cybermen and the two Masters, the Twelfth Doctor is ready to give up, but a familiar voice says "It's far from being all over". Turning around, it's revealed that the person who said this is none other than the First Doctor, who will be played by David Bradley.- Confirmed that David Bradley provides the "Ray of Hope" Ending as the First Doctor, although his first line is a different Call-Back.
The Master enslaves the Cybermen
During either this episode or the previous one, the youngest version of the Master (whether she's turned into Missy or not) will gain a technological knick-knack that they use to "reprogram" some of the Cybermen into servitude and decide to use the Cyberhospital to create an army. Their plan is foiled, of course — but they manage to escape with the gadget (and if she IS "newborn" Missy, a few Cyberslaves), leading to "Dark Water"'s events.- Jossed: Saxon meant to do this, but Twelve tampers with their program to make the Cybermen seek out Time Lords to upgrade, forcing both Masters to flee with him, Nardole and Cyber-Bill to level 507.
Bill's mother will appear
We know that the original Mondasian Cybermen attacked Earth in 1986. Going by Pearl Mackie's age, that's around the time that Bill would've been born. Bill's mother will appear, and will play a role in Bill's fate.- What can she do to help? If the Doctor and Bill's love for each other isn't enough to reverse what's been done to her, what can her mum do?
- She did save the day before when the Doctor couldn't, so there is at least a precedent. Although, the fact that she's at the very least presumed to have been dead since around that time does mean if she shows, things may not go well.
- Jossed
Twelve's release of regeneration energy from the previous episode won't be a consequence of some fatal injury he'd suffered.
Rather, he attempted to tap into all that energy he'd been given for his new regeneration-cycle and use it to restore Bill's body to its original state, undoing her Cyber-conversion. Unfortunately for him, he is unable to hold back the energy long enough to reach her after deliberately unleashing it, which makes his Big "NO!" a protest that he can't save her, not that he's dying/regenerating himself.- But why didn't he do this as soon as she was shot? Also — why is he so far from her in the first place, apparently on another planet, if he's trying to save her in this way? Shouldn't she be in the TARDIS?
- Alternatively, if Bill is saved by Pilot!Heather (see below) the Doctor will try to save Missy, the last person he has in his life who can relate to him on his level, if her Heel–Face Turn goes through. Again, he will fail.
- The Next Time trailer for "The Doctor Falls" has his hand glowing at one point. But what if he's been trying to hold it in all this time, for some reason, bar the occasional release as with his fake-out in "The Lie of the Land"? What if he's wearing thin, but doesn't want to regenerate? Or perhaps he's afraid that if he does, he'll become the Valeyard, said to emerge between his twelfth and thirteenth lives. While the Twelfth Doctor is actually the Fourteenth Doctor when the War Doctor and Meta-Crisis 10 are counted, he may still be concerned about this issue, given that the Great Intelligence said in "The Name of the Doctor" that he would come to be known as the Valeyard at some point.
- The original description was that the Valeyard was from "between his twelth and final" lives, so there's no rush to get there. If you actually think he'll appear someday, it could be any time between now and the absolute final end of the series (which I doubt will ever happen, there can always be another revival).
- In the worst case scenario, he's crying out because things go so badly for him in "The Doctor Falls" that he wants to die for good and he can't.
- It may not be a fatal injury from this adventure that's causing him to glow, but rather that he's been Secretly Dying for a while, and this was what Missy was picking up on back in the final scene of "Empress of Mars". For whatever reason, he isn't willing to just die as yet.
Cybus Cybermen are on Floor 507
We know they're coming back, and we know eventually the Mondasian Cybermen evolve to look identical to them. The most efficient explanation is that the Cybus Cybermen invaded the colony ship and are directly responsible for the creation of their Mondasian counterparts in the first place. A variant of this theory was first put forth by Neil Gaiman, writer of Nightmare in Silver.- Jossed; they're improved versions of level 1056's native Cybermen. Level 507 is home to human farmers whom the Cybermen - Mondasian, Cybus, etc - threaten.
Pilot-Heather will save Bill
We saw someone resembling her in a window in the Mondasian ship's city, and it was teased that she would return back in "The Pilot". Her human connection to Bill will cause her to act to save her love-interest, possibly by either absorbing her as a sort of fused being, or by reconstructing her to repair the damage done by the Cyber-conversion (as well as the gunshot).- Confirmed: Heather tracks Bill down by the tears she'd left within her Love Interest, and converts her into a universe-traversing liquid entity like herself. Bill now has the option to return to Earth and make herself human again, but for now she's off to see the cosmos with Heather.
The Master or Missy will steal the Doctor's body, like the Master stole Tremas's
Since they're Time Lords, the Doctor won't disappear, instead they'll end up swapping bodies. This would explain why there's been no announcement of who the next Doctor will be, and why there's mixed signals over whether Missy will be coming back once Capaldi leaves. It would be fantastic to see these two amazing actors immitating each others' mannerisms and speech patterns, even if it were only a temporary thing.- Jossed.
The Doctor will forgive Missy.
Remember his speech from "The Zygon Inversion"? "You're all the same, you screaming kids, you know that? "Look at me, I'm unforgivable." Well here's the unforeseeable, I forgive you. After all you've done. I forgive you." This will be the final step in Missy's Heel–Face Turn, and she'll end up helping the Doctor after all. The Master's plan causes his own regeneration into Missy.
Sometime in the episode, the Master will regenerate into Missy, creating a Stable Time Loop and explain her obsession with Cybermen and the dead within her first two-parter. Ironically, The Master reacts to Missy with a Future Me Scares Me, but what if he causes his future anyway?- Jossed: It's the Doctor's plan to reform Missy that inadvertently causes Saxon's regeneration, as Missy ultimately stabs him (and is shot by him in turn) in a dispute over her choice to return and fight side by side with Twelve.
The Mondasian Cybermen are getting reinforcements from their more advanced selves.
The intro shot of the ship in 'World Enough and Time' shows the floor with the green fields to be on floor 507. While the Doctor is busy dealing with the Mondasian Cybermen on this floor, they are busy upgrading themselves in the engine room. Thanks to Time Dilation, they are advancing faster than the Doctor can defeat them. This is where the more advanced versions of the Cybermen shown in the 'Next Time' trailer come in to play.- Or the Master might be gathering Cybermen from throughout history, an Army of The Ages.
- Confirmed: The non-Mondasian Cybermen are more advanced and combat-capable variants which level 1056 developed over the many years they had to improve their designs. Their resemblance to other worlds' Cybermen is given a Hand Wave by Twelve, who attributes it to convergent techno-evolution.
There is no threat on floor 507
This was a lie concocted by the Master to keep the un-upgraded Mondasians trapped in the engine room. After all, if they could take the lifts to the top floor, (as the proto-Cybermen patients did... and who's to say the Master didn't send them up there!) they could easily use the bridge controls to escape the black hole. The Master kept them trapped for thousands of years so they'd become desperate enough to accept conversion. It's probably one of his most despicable acts if it's true.- Confirmed that there's no "threat" on level 507: there are ordinary human farmers living there, although it's never stated why the current occupants' ancestors stayed there.
The Doctor will fight off regenerating for a time.
The trailers show the Doctor's right hand touching grassy ground and starting to release regeneration energy. Another glimpse in the trailers shows the Doctor with a bandaged right hand. The Doctor receives a glancing hit, or a toxin or radiation (of a type he can't just shunt into his footwear) to his right hand or arm, but is able to keep the regeneration from proceeding by sheer determination, hiding the glowing spot under the bandage. The scene from the pre-title teaser is after he's been fighting to hold back a full regeneration for a while.- Interesting question is why he needs to fight it off. If rumors of a first Doctor appearance in the Christmas special are true, perhaps he's chasing after the Master, who's trying to get to the antarctic base from "Tenth Planet"?
- Confirmed, evidently because he's extremely sick and tired of changing his persona. Precisely why he feels that way so strongly this time isn't stated, although an analogy to Bill's dread of "not being me anymore" if her Cyber-programming should seize control is implied earlier in the episode.
The Doctor, Saxon and Missy will all regenerate.
Steven Moffatt has called this episode a "bloodbath" but apart from the Cybermen, who is there left to die? And do we really believe the Moff could kill off Bill and Nardole for real after so many years of Death Is Cheap?The 'deaths' will be of all the Time Lord characters. We know something triggers the Doctor's regeneration, and maybe this is where Saxon becomes Missy and is "abandoned" (like she claimed in Death In Heaven. After failing his test so badly, The Doctor can't bear to be around this incarnation anymore and runs away. However he still has to deal with the new Master that Missy becomes and their battle leads to his regeneration in the Christmas Episode.
- Confirmed that all three Time Lord characters die: Missy and Saxon because they kill each other over Missy's decision to fight alongside the Doctor, Twelve by taking on too many Cybermen and pulling an explosive Taking You with Me Heroic Sacrifice. Jossed that all three will regenerate, because the Doctor is desperately holding his back at the episode's end and Saxon claims that he'd shot Missy full-blast, ensuring she'll fail if she tries. Saxon was also not shown regenerating, even though it was heavily implied he would, so there is a window of opportunity for something unexpected to happen.
This episode will divide everyone, even further than any of Moffat's finales before it.
As this is Steven Moffat's final series finale, it is a given. The possible heated arguments may be due to:- Bill's final fate.
- The possible They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot regarding the Doctor and the two Masters choosing to work together instead of the two masters fighting the Doctor. Just like how people complained about Gallifrey's return being sidelined for Clara's final fate.
- If the regeneration seen in "World Enough and Time" is a fakeout or not.
- If the Cybermen even make an impact in the story, and how they are defeated.
- Steven Moffat's claims about the episode being a "bloodbath" possibly being a lie, and in true Moffat fashion, pulls an Everybody Lives.
- Jossed: The first holiday-special trailer reveals that Bill's final fate will wait for the Christmas Episode. The Masters get in a reasonable amount of backstabbing. The regeneration-energy shot was not a fakeout, just Twelve's progressively-fatal condition being fought off. The threat of the Cybermen does drive much of the story, and they're defeated with a fair degree of awesome and Stuff Blowing Up. The "bloodbath" comment was not a lie, assuming deaths that force regeneration count. And it's all irrelevant anyway, because the announcement that the Thirteenth Doctor will be a woman has given fans something entirely different to have really heated arguments about.
Some Cybermen will escape...
- ...and return to Mondas. The Doctor might even let them go, knowing it has to happen.
It will end with regeneration...
- ...with the implication the Doctor has just had another adventure.
- Or it might be halted suddenly, but not like Journey's End, more with the knowledge it is about to happen.
- The First Doctor might stop it.
- Possibly Jossed and inverted: From the look of the closing scene, it's Twelve who's struggling not to change and One who'll help him come to terms with the necessity.
- We will see he is regenerating where his first self was dying.
The Master lied to Missy about killing her.
Like he'd ever be willing to permanently kill himself, since he already planned around a suicide once. He claimed that the laser screwdriver would deny her a chance to regeneration out of anger. He just wants her to regenerate into a persona that doesn't get along with the Doctor. Missy has been unable to regenerate since her execution.
The Doctor is told that the execution device will create a cellular shock which will permanently disable the cells' regenerative ability. He was able to save her current life, but the shock still rendered her unable to regenerate...until the Master hit her with a massive cellular shock from his laser screwdriver, restarting her cells, much as an electrical shock could stop a healthy heart but a defibrillator can restart it.Missy tried to tell the Doctor what she was going to do
- When Missy left the Doctor behind, she grabs his hand briefly and exchanges looks with him. Given that Time Lords are touch-telepathic, perhaps she was trying to quietly tell him, "I'll be back, I need to take care of things with Old Me first." Thus, while he never sees Missy again, the Doctor does know that his efforts with her did work, perhaps even too well, given that they proved ultimately fatal to her.
