"And am I the only one who thinks that at least some of the previous incarnations would have viewed "Rule one: the Doctor lies" with a certain amount of horror?"
Not just his previous incarnations, but this one too! (Even though all of them have told a few woppers in their time... "The fluid link's broken! We'll have to go and get some mercury from that fascinating city you wouldn't let me explore"... "'Boney', I said: 'Always remember, an army marches on it's stomach'"... ) But it's the eleventh Doctor himself who coins that rule (amongst others), as a gloomy comment on his own behaviour. It's one of the many things he doesn't like about himself, that send him running away for 200 hundred years. Not just running from the Silence, but running from his friends and himself. Until eventually he gets an answer to the question he asked the TARDIS last time he was dying: "There must be someone left in the universe I haven't screwed up...?". There is: Craig. One person he's pretty sure he actually did help. He decides to pop back and reassure himself of that, before he goes to face what he still thinks, at this point, is his inevitable doom...
That's the beginning of the end of his self-destructive spiral. But the real turnaround happens when he goes to talk to the Teselecta guy, and - with a clear head at last, having finished making all his preparations - finally puts two and two together: He can satisfy all the requirements of the Lake Silencio event, and get away safely and unseen, if he goes there *in the Teselecta*.
To me, the only weak point in the plotting there is the idea that the Doctor could actually manage to survive a massive blue funk lasting 200 years without either caving in and taking on board another "stray" or dropping himself down teh nearest singularity. But I suppose if he stays aboard the TARDIS she'll nurse him through most of it.
Or maybe, as some have suggested, it isn't really 200 hundred years he's been running: It's just that during this period he decides to start giving his real age again... but still doesn't admit to having lied about it ever since his 9th incarnation. Giving up one lie, only to conceal it behind another...
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Not just his previous incarnations, but this one too! (Even though all of them have told a few woppers in their time... "The fluid link's broken! We'll have to go and get some mercury from that fascinating city you wouldn't let me explore"... "'Boney', I said: 'Always remember, an army marches on it's stomach'"... ) But it's the eleventh Doctor himself who coins that rule (amongst others), as a gloomy comment on his own behaviour. It's one of the many things he doesn't like about himself, that send him running away for 200 hundred years. Not just running from the Silence, but running from his friends and himself. Until eventually he gets an answer to the question he asked the TARDIS last time he was dying: "There must be someone left in the universe I haven't screwed up...?". There is: Craig. One person he's pretty sure he actually did help. He decides to pop back and reassure himself of that, before he goes to face what he still thinks, at this point, is his inevitable doom...
That's the beginning of the end of his self-destructive spiral. But the real turnaround happens when he goes to talk to the Teselecta guy, and - with a clear head at last, having finished making all his preparations - finally puts two and two together: He can satisfy all the requirements of the Lake Silencio event, and get away safely and unseen, if he goes there *in the Teselecta*.
To me, the only weak point in the plotting there is the idea that the Doctor could actually manage to survive a massive blue funk lasting 200 years without either caving in and taking on board another "stray" or dropping himself down teh nearest singularity. But I suppose if he stays aboard the TARDIS she'll nurse him through most of it.
Or maybe, as some have suggested, it isn't really 200 hundred years he's been running: It's just that during this period he decides to start giving his real age again... but still doesn't admit to having lied about it ever since his 9th incarnation. Giving up one lie, only to conceal it behind another...