Doctor Who

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

River Song herself had already used up a few regenerations. If we ignore Brain of Morbious, Tennant's 'cheat' Regeneration in The Stolen Earth and the events of that Sarah Jane episode (where the Doctor states he has 502 regenerations) then the doctor has 13 lives. I don't know why a throwaway line in The Deadly Assassin has more weight than all the above but there you go.

This 13 lives thing is a plot point that will have to be dealt with eventually and I'd rather think that Moffat used Hurt to bump this forward so he can deal with it while he's still show runner

[Ed Oscuro]

I'd rather think that Moffat used Hurt to bump this forward so he can deal with it while he's still show runner

They'd better have Smith's incarnation triggered by sliding down an unconvincing grade or something to make up for this unprecedented attempt at forethought; it seems downright un-Whoish.

[heisenbergman]

In Let's Kill Hitler, River Song gave the Doctor her extra regenerations! So the twelve regeneration limit has already been gotten around. I'm surprised Moffat didn't mention that, not to mention the article itself.

Wasn't it said that River used all of her regenerations to save The Doctor from the poison? If that's the case, she didn't pass any additional regenerations to him.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

sliding down an unconvincing grade

Yes of course, the Doctor's deadliest enemy: Michael Grade.

[Ed Oscuro]

http://www.digitalspy.com/british-tv/s7 ... -fans.html

Who's Tom Baker to complain about having the series destroy his career? John Hurt's Who Bump was strangled in the crib, for shame.

[shmuppyLove]

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Regeneration

Everything you possibly wanted to know (and then some!), all referenced by source.

[Ed Oscuro]

So many facts to be knocked down the well at the stroke of a key...I'll have a look though.

[piginapoke]

I enjoyed DotD but was entertained more by the Five (ish) Doctors Reboot. BBC, give Peter Davison a crack at a Dr. Who episode!

[heisenbergman]

Another question: Since we now know that the War Doctor chose to save Gallifrey, but just forgot that he did... why does he remember that he destroyed Gallifrey when that didn't happen at all?

[BPzeBanshee]

It didn't get "destroyed", it got "put in time lock". I remember this much was clarified even from Eccle(ew)ston days.

[heisenbergman]

^ I don't seem to remember that.

[BPzeBanshee]

I wish I remembered what episode it was.

Maybe it was later on, but what I mean to say is that I'm sure it's been made clear the Time Lords were in some form of time lock well before Bow-Tie showed up.

[shmuppyLove]

I think you're remembering that it was stated the Time War had been time-locked, so that no one could time travel into or out of it, potentionally altering the events after the fact.

It was established very early into the new series that (the Doctor thought) Gallifrey had been destroyed during the Time War.

[heisenbergman]

So my question still stands if anyone's willing to maybe try and explain. Because I can't wrap my head around it.

[Edmond Dantes]

I imagine the "I'll still remember thinking that I destroyed Gallifrey" line was thrown in DotD basically so it wouldn't contradict continuity with the first six seasons. That might be a lame reason but considering Nu Who is basically fanfiction, it wouldn't surprise me if the writers were too continuity-focused for their own good.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

There's a curious line in Parting of the Ways about how if the Doctor goes back and tries to change history, the second the Tardis lands he would become "part of events".

I think its implied that after the Tennant and Hurt Doctors leave, they are both simply returned to their old timelines where Gallifrey is still destroyed. That's why they forget.

[Edmond Dantes]

Becoming "a part of events" also was brought up in the Old Who serial "Pyramids of Mars." It actually goes a bit farther with it: Sarah Jane questions the need to interfere at all, since she comes from the 1980s so obviously the Earth didn't get destroyed in the 30s (or whenever the serial took place). The Doctor then took her back to the 1980s... and Earth is a wasteland, because they didn't interfere.

It seems like Nu Who often assumes you've seen the old serials, despite also wanting to appeal to non-fans.

[Ed Oscuro]

What the hell does "becoming a part of events" even mean in this case? It's just like "oh look, the timeline won't erase / change / spit the Doctor back to where he came from." And the same for his companion, apparently!

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

^in the case of Day of the Doctor? I think it serves as a nice bit of anti-paradox plot-hole armour. The Doctor can't alter his personal past. If John Hurt had never destroyed Gallifrey in the first place, then there would be no reason for Matt Smith to travel back to save it.

Likewise, if he discovers a Dalek war on Tuesday and travels back to prevent it from starting on Monday - in doing so, he would also destroy the fact that he ever knew about the war on Tuesday. At least, that's my interpretation of it all.

[Ed Oscuro]

I think it goes farther than that - he doesn't actually change the past, he just creates little pockets of history relative to his own history, and you can find the most accurate history at any given point in time by just following the oldest incarnation of the Doctor at any point in time. Of course that doesn't guarantee that time won't be wiped out in short order. The timeline is still anchored, just to him, despite his status as the meandering sightseer and meddler-in-chief. Since he can't change his own past, he really can't change the course of history - the appearance of change is arguably just an illusion because whatever is most recent in his life is the state of history - just the way it is for non-time-travelling folk.

From the perspective of the random person he meets, of course, he does appear to change history, because they don't have the same frame of reference.

Can't believe I'm actually thinking about this.

I was on the fence towards saying that it didn't mean anything because it could explain anything but apparently this isn't so.

[Edmond Dantes]

What the hell does "becoming a part of events" even mean in this case? It's just like "oh look, the timeline won't erase / change / spit the Doctor back to where he came from." And the same for his companion, apparently!

Basically, the moment he arrives, the timeline already assumes that he intervened.

Again, go back to "Pyramids of Mars" for a clearer explanation. Sarah says the alien clearly didn't destroy Earth because she's from the 1980s and this is the 1930s. The Doctor decides to show her what will happen if they don't stop the alien... and they return to a 1980s that is a wasteland. In short, the very fact that the TARDIS landed in that era means history already assumes the Doctor intervened, and he can't back out without dire consequences.

Although Nu Who uses the "part of events" thing to justify some shakier material (like the spaceship with the time-travelling window... there's really no reason the Doctor couldn't have gone back to her in the TARDIS).

[Ed Oscuro]

Basically, the moment he arrives, the timeline already assumes that he intervened.

Sigh...maybe what I wrote is wrong with respect to Doctor Who, but I hope it's agreeable that it's a more elegant statement.

Actually, I am having some difficulty seeing how there is any incompatibility between the two statements: Firstly, saying "the timeline already assumes" is not really very different from stating that the timeline is set with respect to the Doctor and he doesn't have free will - the only ambiguity is when it changes. One statement says that his appearance actually changes it; my reading is that it doesn't change; it's just an illusion that it changed. My statement implied that he can go through the motions; your reference makes explicit that not only does he already go through those motions, but also implies that in fact he has no free will in this respect, so it could be meaningless to posit a future where the Doctor does not make good on what the timeline assumes will happen, even if the Doctor considers possible futures where he does not do what is expected (at least, without the perspective of some being or thing that actually can explore what would happen if the timeline didn't change). Throughout this latest story, note there is actually no point where the Doctor does anything especially unusual with respect to time having a predetermined flow. He even comments on having found the right time to throw the fez in!

If the Doctor does not change his own history, what happens if he has a memory of a time (and it should be very well established that this happens literally all the time) that his appearance later changes to something else? (i.e., his memory of a fascist Britain in Inferno - which, for the reason of being a parallel universe or possibly a hallucination by the Doctor, might not need to actually change in the timeline, but this is a possible example of where they can go.) I think it's sensible to say that he can follow along his own time stream, and what happens not only happened (!) but is also true - until you travel to a later point in his timeline, where it can change. We never have the perspective of somebody or something that can actually investigate what would happen if the pairing of the timeline to the Doctor's actions is different from what we have seen; we always have the perspective of either the most current Doctor (which is the same as the current state of the timeline), or of a previous Doctor, whose short sojourns outside his normal timeline apparently are remembered only by the most recent incarnation of the Doctor.

That's also why I give special consideration to the current Doctor, since we're having that whole discussion about how he could do things but also not do them - which is possibly a bad reading (but reasonable because I think they left some clues in which suggest it), so far as we know that Gallifrey wasn't actually destroyed; this is because we have the privileged viewpoint of seeing things as the most recent Doctor does. For other Doctors past the eight, up to Matt Smith's Doctor, it's actually true that before the rescue Gallifrey was destroyed. At the same time we are also urged to believe that it's possible it never was destroyed, given the ambiguity of what the painting is about.

I think what they've actually done is try to make it seem plausible that either explanation could work, while neither actually can be a complete explanation.

You'll note, though, that they appear to play around with this "rule" a bit when the First Doctor shows up in his final appearance on a television screen high inside the TARDIS, but again we have no way of seeing whether he actually would have remembered the trip when he got back to his time. Perhaps this explains the aged appearance of some former Doctors showing up during later Doctors' timestreams, as well. Perhaps Tom Baker's appearance at the end of the latest show is a real example of timeline-breaking, which is why it struck everybody as odd - he clearly is outside his timeline but also apparently persisting there. However, I suppose you could just take my analysis further and say that he's just been trapped, aging normally even, without having been returned to the point in his timeline from which he was snatched - and that he seems aware of some things the Doctor might not normally be aware of isn't a problem because he's simply that "rogue" fragment of his Doctor that hasn't been returned to its timeline, aware of things he normally wouldn't be in the same way that David Tennant's Doctor was. Or he could just be a shapeshifter.

Full Who.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Basically, the moment he arrives, the timeline already assumes that he intervened.

I think you got this completely backwards. Its never assumed that the doctor intervenes. Being "part of events" means that as soon as the doctor landed in Pyramids of Mars - "time goes into flux", Sarah's version of 1980 is unwritten and becomes just a possible outcome of events, along with Sutekh's apocalyptic future. When the Doctor leaves in the Tardis, the apocalyptic future is shown to be true. The only way for Sarah's future to be true is if Sutekh is stopped. -But from their relative viewpoints, as they are adventuring when the story is set (1911), both outcomes are undecided - so there is free will. No fate except what we make.

The only time its assumed he intervenes is before he gets there.

What Ed Oscuro wrote isn't wrong. The show tries to stick to one timeline, it has an extra bunch of rules that govern alternate timelines/parallel universes. Of course all the rules can be broken but it's usually shown to be pretty bad. (eg Father's Day)

[Ed Oscuro]

Great post, just one thing bothers me:

unwritten and becomes just a possible outcome of events

Is there any reason to actually view it this way? Without any upshot, that's potentially needlessly complicating what happens. I think things might make much more sense to say that the timeline remains true but only relative to what the Doctor's experience is.

My beef with this view is that it's like asking how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, even within the context of Doctor Who - I don't know of anything that suggests that timelines are actually in a superposition of states; unless I'm wrong, you can say that there's no "two contrary events happening at the same time" happening in the show - two Doctors aren't necessarily an example of this.

I agree; it's silly to think this will stand up to perfect scrutiny in the context of the shows (or rather that the shows stand up to scrutiny). Remember the First Doctor's last appearance? That is followed by the Second and Third Doctors flipping a coin to see who gets to go outside the box, and when the Third Doctor loses the toss (supposedly), he goes outside and so does his companion. He just manages to yell "Get back!" before the both of them disappear to - somewhere.

The rest of the script is filled with silly crap like time eddies* and an Asimov-lite "First Law of Time" rule about not summoning multiple instances of the Doctor to the same time. You wonder how, having apparently strong interest in Britain in the last half-millennia, the Doctor manages not to bump into himself. Maybe he does and it doesn't matter.

*not to be confused with Time Eddie, middle name "Fast."

[BitFaced]

This 13 lives thing is a plot point that will have to be dealt with eventually and I'd rather think that Moffat used Hurt to bump this forward so he can deal with it while he's still show runner

Also maybe wanting to work around regeneration stuff between the 1996 movie and 2005 revival, since Eccleston's kinda snobbish towards the series post-departure, let's just say.

[Mischief Maker]

All this discussion of the "science" behind Doctor Who's time travel makes a viewing of this video mandatory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDEzKvScglM

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Great post, just one thing bothers me:

unwritten and becomes just a possible outcome of events

Is there any reason to actually view it this way? Without any upshot, that's potentially needlessly complicating what happens.

If you view possible futures as things physically existing in superposition, happening at the same time - then yes, it does sound needlessly complicated. Is that what you were saying? This implies the "branching path" interpretation of time which the show seems to deliberately avoid. Your simpler version - that what the Doctor creates and experiences is the "True" timeline is fine but it doesn't reconcile all the bleating about "time being in flux" and "time can be rewritten".

I'd rather view an unwritten future as something that is constantly modified based on our actions rather than an infinite number of possibilities, sat around waiting to be chosen.

Re: Technobabble. Its a cheat. Rather than thinking about how a concept might work, we just handwave it with "Because of artron energy."

[shmuppyLove]

Had something interesting pointed out to me today, that 10's appearance in DotD is at the point in his timeline where he went adventuring between the events in The Waters of Mars and The End of Time -- at the beginning of The End of Time he mentions to Ood Sigma that he married Elizabeth I.

[Ed Oscuro]

Your simpler version - that what the Doctor creates and experiences is the "True" timeline is fine but it doesn't reconcile all the bleating about "time being in flux" and "time can be rewritten".

Yeah, that's true! I just viewed it as the highly improbable True Time Lord standing just off to the side a bit with his invisible cane, ready to pull any offending bits back into the clown car of the proper timeline.

I'd rather view an unwritten future as something that is constantly modified based on our actions rather than an infinite number of possibilities, sat around waiting to be chosen.

Close, although I am not sure that really brings much enthusiasm to me when I always viewed entropy as the old demon. Besides, the show always had an element of "stuff sucks sometimes" so in the context of the show it doesn't really fit either.

Star Trek probably has the most fun take on time travel (well, outside of flying around the sun really fast, thank you Superman and Search for Shlock) but the possibility of everything just going "poof" is certainly frightening. You want ninjas in the future? WELL TOO BAD WE SPUN THE UNIVERSE BACK TO A PERIOD WHERE THERE CAN'T BE UNIVERSES NOR POTENTIAL FOR NINJAS. Ultimate ninja'd.

There's certainly no empirical evidence for infinite possibilities - the two theoretical concerns I know of that prefer it are trying to explain why we happen to be in the universe we are in (a rather clunky response to the equally unconvincing "tailored universe" philosophical problem) and more rigorously as an attempt to explain quantum randomness.

Re: Technobabble. Its a cheat. Rather than thinking about how a concept might work, we just handwave it with "Because of artron energy."

Or Omega! I think they reused that guy for Legends of the Hidden Temple. Later he became The Face of Boe.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

I thought I knew what entropy was but then I watched Logopolis and realised that it was an evil force that ate Traken and had to be shunted into a different universe. If you believe time didn't exist before the big bang - then it cant exist after entropy has done its thing either. So lets do a thought experiment: If I get in my Tardis and start travelling forward in time until I hit heat death - do I stop as if crashing into a dead end? What if I decide to just keep going? How do I know that I am still moving forward in time?

Star Trek has settled with the "branching path" method. The JJverse did not 'undo' the old continuity. The two universes exist separately now. They certainly didn't undo those blu-rays they keep releasing.

Doctor Who avoids the above for good reason, I think. If the Tardis can navigate an entire web of causality - then the Doctor can just solve every conflict by navigating to the most favourable outcome (ie the one where Faust never quits) There would be no consequence - and even less drama than there is now.