I know we all dread the word 'reset' when it comes to Doctor Who, but let us consider the events of New Who so far...

Doctor Who - Wide knowledge
1) Spaceship destroys part of Big Ben, crashes in Thames.
2) Gigantic spaceship appears above London, 1/3 of the World's population stand on rooftop about to jump.
3) Ghosts appear all around the world. These ghosts then turn into millions of cybermen, which are then fought by millions of daleks.
4) A giant star appears in the skies, shoots lasers at the Earth. The Thames is drained.
5) A hospital is physically transported to the moon, leaving a gaping crater,then returned (the patients and doctors with stories about rhinos).
6) The president is killed live on television.
7) A spaceship shaped like the Titanic nearly crashes into Buckingham palace.
8) Spaceship appears, hundreds of little blobs of fat are abducted by the spaceships.
9) Sat-navs go on the blink, the cars of the Earth leak fumes, the sky is lit up on fire.
10) The entire Earth is removed from the Solar System, and finds itself with a green Sky full of other planets, until it is towed back through Space.
11) Daleks invade the planet once again causing widespread death and destruction.
12) After experiencing bad dreams and being turned into copies of the Master, the great big orange planet of Gallifrey appears in the sky, then disappears again.

Torchwood and Sarah-Jane Adventures - Wide Knowledge
1) Mind Control: Bubble Shock, Odd Bob the clown, and Martin Trueman (taking over everyone except those who are Taurus)
2) The moon nearly crashes into the Earth.
3) Spaceships appear above the Taj Mahal.
4) The giant form of Abaddon attacks Cardiff.
5) Several bombs are set off across Cardiff, causing widespread damage.
6) Children being rounded up by the Government for the 456. (Plus Roald Dahl Plass being blown up)

None of this includes the autons attacking people in the streets of London, the 200 bus disappearing, people being attacked by carnies, people dissolving into Adipose babies, sleeper agents being activated, or the hundreds of other minor events occuring in the last five years.

My question is, considering how aware the world now is of aliens, should RTD have carried out some form of 'reset' to at least allow Moff a cleaner slate to work with?

No. A reset would have been too easy. We'd have all moaned in the end. Better to keep what we know has happened and move on.

No, of course not.

Why the hell should he have to do it. No one else has in the past.

In all of that post you don't explain why the world being aware of aliens is a problem for the Who universe?

The new crew take on the show and it's history up to this point, there's absolutely no reason to suggest that history be rewritten to accomodate them.

No a reset would have robbed the viewers of all that has happened. However, I got a bit tired of the entire planet knowing about big scale alien invasions, having their minds robbed etc. For me it sort of took the magic out of being a companion, that they are one of a few who get the honour of seeing such things.

I hope with the new production this year they can kind of reset it in the sense that things are scaled down from a global panic state to smaller alien encounters on Earth like we saw in the Pertwee Earth exile years.

Overall though I would like to see more other world stories and give Earth a rest. I doubt that will happen though. Doesn't look like it for the 2010 series anyway.

It was my understanding though that the majority of people oblivious and in denial of all these alien events. Of course loads aren't (Organisations like Torchwood, U.N.I.T, Sarah Janes Gang, probably even members of the public)

Or am i completely wrong the public have changed their tune and acknowledged the existence of aliens?

I remember the kid from Sarah Janes show saying that the planet (Gallifrey) appearing in the sky was just a hallucination caused by Wi-Fi, just before the Doctor saved him. So someone was creating a cover story.

If Moffat wanted a reset, he could have written a reset. RTD's responsability was to leave the Doctor physically where Moffat wanted him, not to essentially write his first story.

RTD did, however, reset the events of the final episode by having Sarah Jane and Mr Smith put out the WiFi gone wild story.

Yes, cover stories are constantly put out by Mr. Smith and the likes, but it's clear that many people are becoming very aware.

For instance, take Voyage of the Damned. Everyone has abandoned London for Christmas due to the events of the last 2 years.

In various different episodes, characters have said that there is no way to keep denying that Earth is being visited by aliens.


Because I think that it takes away from the viewer being able to connect with the world, and it takes away from writers being able to create character reactions. The world becomes used to such encounters, and that means that alien invasions are handled completely differently, with defence systems activated rather than human shock.

Whilst that does make for interesting storylines, it isn't easy to relate it to the modern world anymore, and fundamentally changes how the world of Who operates.

Edit: I think I've approached this the wrong way... How about this:

There have been so many events in the NewWhoniverse that even 'leaked' cover stories are not enough to control the widespread knowledge of aliens.

Should Moffat address this, and how?
Last edited by Deanzom : 03-01-2010 at 13:47

I don't see why the audience need to see the modern world as being parallel to them. I think your rather insulting the intelligence of the viewers to suggest otherwise.

Harsh :/ I'm not insulting anyone's intelligence.

My point is that the World is meant to be like ours, in that they are generally unaware of aliens, hence the fact that Torchwood + SJA + UNIT actually do try and cover any form of alien event up.

I think that the appeal of the show to a lot of people is the possibility that it could be real (obviously I know it's not), and that the features of the World could exist. This then becomes difficult when you consider how many massive events take place, especially within such a small space of time.

Personally I'd find it much harder to relate to a world full of easily-duped idiots. "Wifi gone mad" is beyond stupid as an explanation for events for which there remains a huge body of evidence that they did happen - every TV and radio broadcast in the world, the bodies left over from the plane and car crashes, the vast areas of the world with no Wifi.

And I agree! There are only so many cover stories that would work, and it's fairly obvious that many humans are indeed aware of the events that are happening.

This is why I ask now, what should Moff do?

no no no. it would have made everything we have watched and loved, all the lore and knowledge that me and my kids have sat and learnt together redundant. I would have hated that.

Keep going the way things are. Superman and Spider-man operate in a world where people are aware of aliens and people with strange powers. The big difference is that the Doctor himself remains mainly unknown, and that's the way it should remain.

When you list it like that it just shows how ludicrous the "big" plots of RTD were. The apocolypse stuff was dire and same old stuff time and time again. Also was it likely that Obama would be president after all the other events?

The irony is that when you didnt want him to use the reset button - eg at the end of Series 3 he did (it would have been great to keep that Earth recovering from the Master's rule / Toclafane) and when you do want him to use now (to undo the stupid list of happenings above) he doesnt use it.

To me the boy from "Sarah Jane" summed up how ridiculous it was getting with all these constant alien invasions in the early 21st century in his comment.

I fear RTD has left the new show with far too much baggage.

"The 21'st Century is when it all changes - and Torchwood is ready"

I think even if Moffat wanted to change back there's still things like Torchwood and Sarah Jane adventures to consider. The world is different now in Doctor Who, a world where people are largely aware of aliens.

Doctor Who has moved on and we've got to look forward.

What happens in Cardiff, stays in Cardiff.

(In case that doesn't make sense to British readers, in North America the city of Las Vegas, known for gambling, strippers and prostitution, advertises "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.")

The Earth was invaded pretty much every other week in the early 70s stories. At other times, the Loch Ness Monster swam up the Thames and menaced Parliament, the Cybermen marched through London, and the city was overrun by robotic Yeti, alien webs, walking mannequins and dinosaurs amongst other things. This was never an issue and nobody ever seemed to remember any of it the following week; it was implied that the government just kept fabricating cover stories. Why should it be any more of a problem now?

I may be wrong, but the last thing Ten did before regenerating was visit Rose in 2005 London. As far as we know, he didn't time travel after that: all he did was leave the surface of the planet - travelled in space, but not time.

So Eleven is crash-landing (and then presumably meeting Amy Pond) in 2005, before NewWho began, and before mankind knew about the existence of aliens.

Although, that might involve crossing his own timeline, so he might skip forward to the present day to meet Amy Pond. I dunno.

Nah, the show never needed to in the past, so why now?

In the Classic Series, we had Yetis in the underground, a full-blown Cyberman invasion, an Auton invasion, London over-run with dinosaurs, the Skarasen towering above the Thames...

And what happened?

Nothing really...they came, they went, and life of earth carried on as normal.

Regards,

Cypher

What i dont get is why there wasnt more desctruction caused by a planet appearing not that far from earth. at the very least the oceans should have shifted back and forth causing immense damage etc.

I guess this could be explained however by saying that the planet hadnt reached our space time yet

Yes but supposedly the whole "in-show" population of the earth wouldnt have found out about all that because there was no global, instantaneous media or internet. It would have been easy keeping such things hushed up. Refer to Peri's comments about the Mondas and the Cybermen in "Attack of the Cybermen".

Having the population so au fait with constant invasions loses some of the magic as well as probably completely changing the fabric of society so that it would be unrecognisable compared to current society today. Thus it would render setting stories on mocren day (ie looks the same as our world) earth pointless.

We did have BBC3 reporting live from 'strange' events...


I must confess that 'Attack Of The Cybermen' is not a story I watch very much, but I thought it took place *before* the events of 'The Tenth Planet', so there was nothing for Peri to recall.


In what way do you think it would change society so dramatically?

We've already lived through a time where an apocalyptic nucleur war could have broken out at any moment. And life still carried on.

Regards,

Cypher

Why would it be pointless? The Marvel and DC heroes exist in modern day settings where amazing things happen. The recent Day of the Triffids adaptation was set in a familiar modern day world with a few major differences such as eco-friendly oil production and the end of global warming.

RTD has been very brave to make permanent drastic changes to the Whoniverse. A less ballsy writer might have taken us back to the endless cycle of minuscule-scale invasions which affect hardly anyone.