Spoilers, Sweetie. So many, many spoilers.

Theories abounded for Series 6 of “Doctor Who,” which began with the Doctor’s death. Big theories, like an alternate timeline Doctor; theories based on small clues, like the Doctor’s shoes, his love or hatred of apples at any given moment, or whether he can solve a Rubik’s Cube.

When the laser dust all settled, though, as one Redditor pointed out in this thread, for each one of the questions that were posed to us this season, head writer Steven Moffat took the most obvious answer, even down to the “question,”
that when asked, will cause the silence to fall.

And yet many of us were surprised.

I think I know how that magician does it. Like any other skilled in slight-of-hand, it’s all in where you get your audience to look. Earlier this week, Moffat said in an interview that he knows that his viewers are smart. In fact, he’s said “…I wish the press would stop assuming that everyone is stupid! This is why our ratings are better than their readership – we think the audience is clever, and the
millions of people who tune in show that we’re right.”

He never underestimates the people who watch his show, and he also knows that he can use it against us. So he does. He plants things, shiny things that attract the eye, like those apples and Rubik’s Cubes and open bits of plot that can lead down twisty, knotty stretches of road, and lets us do the work of throwing ourselves off the track.

It’s devious.

And it’s brilliant.

He doesn’t have to complicate because we do the work for him. He doesn’t take wild turns in the plotting because we’ll get ourselves lost, and though he sends out a beacon now and then, we swear it’s coming from the other direction.

Because sometimes it is coming from the other direction, but just enough to get us to turn our heads.

So bring on Series 7, we know what you’re up to now, Moffat.

Or do we?