Thought catching a glimpse of the Special Weapons Dalek was going to be the highlight of Doctor Who‘s Series 7 opener? Hah!

In his trademark twisty-wisty fashion, Steven Moffat introduced a very different Dalek to the asylum, and in doing so turned much of what we think we know about Series 7 on its head.

It was a forum-melting surprise to see Jenna-Louise Coleman, the Doctor’s new companion to-be, make her debut not in the Christmas special, but in Episode 1. Not simply because she appeared earlier than expected, or that she wasn’t called Clara, as Internet echoes and electric hearsay had indicated, but that she was called Oswin Oswald. And that Oswin was a Dalek. An ‘Oslek’, if you like.

There’s very little we know for certain about this soufflé-baking, Carmen-listening, Junior Entertainment Manager from the star liner Alaska, but that’s not going to discourage us from speculating wildly. So, let the crackpot theories commence!

Firstly, what about the (pretty much confirmed) rumours that Coleman was going to play a character called Clara? She still might. It’s not unreasonable that she could be playing two characters. Pictures have leaked of her in a 19th century setting wearing period clothing, which might mean that she’s playing two different people split across time but somehow linked.

Or the Clara rumours could be complete bunkum and we’re just looking at Oswin trying to blend in, like Rose in The Unquiet Dead. But if that is Oswin travelling with the Doctor, what about the, y’know, the Dalek-y-ness?

Is Oswin a future companion who will one day be turned into a Dalek? That seems unlikely, not simply because it’s too dark a fate for a companion, but also because she had to look the Doctor up on the Dalek database. She also mentions the Alaska was her first into voyage space. No prior TARDIS trips then.

It’s not entirely impossible that she’s a future companion who’s had her memory wiped of course, either by the Dalek conversion process, or by the Doctor himself. And in an episode that was heavy on the themes of memory and having your head messed with (notice how many times characters are told to remember), it’s not a bonkers theory.

This is though: might it be that the Oslek’s not Oswin at all, but a Dalek so insane, that it thinks it’s a human being? Perhaps the conversion of Oswin went wrong and she escaped, but a Dalek was imprinted with Oswin’s memories and believes itself to be a person that it’s not, in a psychological version of the way that the titular pepperpot in Dalek was emotionally compromised by Rose’s human DNA.

Though far-fetched – and a massive get out – this might not be utterly unlikely, given that a) the asylum is for the craziest Daleks and the Oslek was sealed off from the maddest of the mad, and b) The Doctor never sees the real Oswin.

Or maybe we’re not looking at this in a timey-wimey enough way. Coleman’s character might be a fixed point in Time: someone who dies but is reincarnated again and again in different periods, always physically and mentally the same but never having any memory of her previous lives. That way she could be Clara travelling with the Doctor AND Oswin being Dalekized AND a thousand other version of herself time. How she becomes a fixed point in the first place may be the big mystery that Moffat teased when Coleman was first announced.

Frankly, we’re stumped. Once again at the start of a new series we’re left in thrilling uncertainty – but that’s one of the treats and tribulations of modern Who.

The only thing we know for certain? She’s definitely not the Rani.

But what do you think? Let us know below…

> Order Series 7 Part 1 on DVD on Amazon.

Watch the Series 7 trailer…