Good analogy.

But people saw spaceships in the skies and aliens in their living rooms, not just on TV or in pictures. I guess though you would still be overwhelmed by actually travelling to another planet.

Cheers

tbh, I thought this was rather nicely handled in VotD, given the events of TCI and TRB, where London had evacuated itself over Christmas to avoid further danger - a terribly British way of dealing with alien threats

And in the 60's people were evacuated en masse because of Cybermen and Yeti, in the 70's they saw their relatives killed by plastic daffodils, mannequins smashing out onto the street, in the 80's they saw people possessed by haemovores in WWII Britain...all these things never bothered me at the time (although I didn't like shop window displays for years) because the key thing about DW is that it's a fictional world...

...and if I knew the world had survived alien invasion a hundred times over, it would still bother me more than a little to find an alien in my front room.

Au contraire - if it wasn't for the Doctor, they would all have been dead in minutes. Don't underestimate the skill needed in keeping everyone alive long enough for the tide of battle to turn. The whole story was cat-and-mouse - it's only fair that the cat be caught by a dog.

I love the Terror of the Zygons....and I wish someone would go...."fo you remember that big T-rex thingy in the Thames?"



What I mean is the resolution.....I know the Doctor kept everyone alive...well most of them...and actually his reason to give the Crack more attention resulted in the end of Octavian (again another of my favourite bits in that story)....

What I mean the first episode was about how dangerous the Angels were....the second became mostly about the Crack....which is part of the bigger arc...everything that happend was about that....in a way so was the loss of father Octavion, the scene in which the soldier forgot about his clerics was about the crack....not a result of the Angels, like Amy's predicimnet....then in other to get rid of the crack the angels became usuful to that...it was a cat and mouse story with the Doctor and the angels...and now in part two it was a cat and mouse between the crack and the Doctor...with the angels as fodders....the change of pace just didn't work for me. I don't mind Story arcs, and I was looking forwrd to fiding out a bit more about it....but for me the focus was too much on it....the rest was just pretty pictures and done for effect, like Amy being stuck in the middle of group of Angels....who again ended up there due to running away from the crack....for me the story ended up playing second fiddle to the main series arc, and for that it didn't work for me. I don't feel that balance was right. But again if others do then that is fine...

I have to watch dr who through the eyes of the wife as she watches dr who for me. she isnt someone who will sit and speculate about whats happening but yet she does pick up on things that are said and pick up on arcs but yet she doesnt speculate about them on forums like people here. what should be remembered i feel is we people that sit and read forums and speculate over every last detail we are the minority. The majority see each episode and there linking features as just that episodes with linking features telling one big story over all.

my wife was still packing her self over the angels even though they became second fiddle to the crack. I think the majority will have felt the same. i also think that the majority of people dont think as hard about continuity as forum members. surly a show should be written for the masses and not the minority so that the show that the minority watch is still there because if it was written just for the minority it would once again vanish and then we would have nothing to speculate, hypothasise and discuss. so if a story uses a big button that said reset as long as it works in teh story why does it matter because i am sure the majority wouldnt give a damn as long as it worked in its story. but that is just my opinion and i am show it will be shot down in flames but hey ho the world still turns. hope that makes sense to all and not just some garbled writtiong because it makes sense in my head just hope it does out here!

I'm now wondering if RTD included the Doctor's line "Yeah, funny that!" about no one remembering the Cyberking because he knew what SM was planning by that point. It seemed that it was going to build up to something in the final specials but didn't in the end. Interesting either way that SM referenced it.

A lot of your recent posts seem more about other posters than you expressing your own views.
I have no problem with that at all but you seem a bit too pre-occupied with fandom at large.

who are these people to whom you continually refer?

Says the person who tends to start threads about what others think.....need a reminder...remember one titled by this "...so the Moffat backlash has begun."

It's interesting that whilst some consider the end of DT'S tenure and the start of MS'S tenure as a complete break and change, RTD and SM collaborated to ensure that it would be a smooth transition from 10 to 11 and onwards into next era...of course there are going to be references that SM uses...it makes perfect sense for the continued success of the programme and enjoyment of the viewers.

No, not plotting conspiracies, just couching their own brand of hatred and unpleasant dislike of anything that they consider unfitting of a place in this world in the trappings of a fan of a series that has always championed acceptance, tolerance and a peaceful resolution to the most heinous of situations.

About 5 days, actually. It's rather bright!

Well said. I'm sure the vast majority of fans agree with this.

A rather cynical view oif your fellow fans?

Yup, but at least Last of the Timelords had a massive great big reset button in it, though we were still left with an assassinated POTUS.

I am a fan of Doctor Who in all it's forms no matter how difficult that can be sometimes: I credit the people who share my appreciation of the programme with their own intelligence, their own wit and their own ability to distinguish between what they like or dislike...I certainly do not associate myself with the unpleasant, vitriolic almost evangelical negativity of many on this forum because my chief reason for being a fan of Doctor Who is enjoyment, not the belittling and bullying of others.

*applauds*

Especially the part I've bolded up.

well said and a nice way of putting what I've hated about this forum since joining.

Back to my OP. the reason I think it is such a clever plot device is that it gives any future writer of a show to write any future story unhindered. I don't believe that they will rewrite past events willynilly but if a writer goes to Steven Moffat with a good idea but that it clashes with previous history then the crack allows them for cases where the story is worth it to do what the new story demands.
Doctor who is only as good as it's most recent episodes and new stories shouldn't be constrained by past events without getting ridiculous

But for a show that has run for over 40 years now, and didn't constrain the new series, and still allowed them to build their own mythology (time War)...does anything that happend in the last five years really create any more problems than any earth invasions of the past did? Considering that a large number of the audience probably don't give a damn about contiuity, and are only interested in the present story, surely now every writer will need such a plot device to write another story because it clashes with it. After all, being a fan of the show, I have no issue watching Dalek, or Journey's end....and think at that time "oh why don't they know about Daleks in 2012"...I just get on with watching, because bothe stories for me are strong enough to hold my attention of what is currently happening. Its only when I come on here and someone says it and I think..."oh yeah, I wonder why?"....so most casual viewers won't either.


And on top of that, this is Doctor Who....its the biggest contradicting show ever on Earth!!! So its normal for things to clash and not worry about plot devices that erase those events.....

The more I think about it, the more I feel that this Crack arc isn't about earsing events in order for the new team to tell stories without the worry of a clash, but more because they are playing with the Theme of Time itself.....so in order to do that, Moff has decided to take some big moments and erase them....I mean after all, if he erased the events of Journey's end, and the Next Doctor...he also erased the events of Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, as the Doctor clearly states...the Angels never existed....although that would contradict a lot of things within that story as well, for example, if they never existed, then River wouldn't have been sent on this mission, and chances of her getting a pardon are even less, because they won't remember sending her on this mission...especailly as Octavion is dead too...and in fact may have never existed as the Angel that killed him didn't exist, so how could have been killed in the first place?

So you see I don't think its as simple as some posters are making it out to be...ie that Moff is earsing RTD stories so he can start fresh....as he is doing it to his own stories as well.

Except that is just rationalization for mediocrity. Even if you just write a story set in a normal world, you are bound by tons of history, and conventions - this is no different in a scifi world, just some different parts of what has gone before. It only hamstrings bad writers.

I appreciate that you may not agree with my point but I would completely disagree that it is a rationalisation for mediocrity. Without riding roughshod over Doctor Who's history a writer should be able to write the sroey he/she wants.
Imagine if a writer has a great idea for a dalek story and it is the best story ever written regarding our pepperpot friends, should he be forcrd to compromise it because of something that happened in Journey's end and make the story weaker?
It is not mediocrity to give writers assistance to prevent compromises to their story

Fair enough you're right with the contradiction.
But it's interesting that you bring up the time war as RTD said in the writer's tale that the very reason he brought in the device of the time war was to give them a clean slate and not be bogged down with continuity and bring it back to the fundamental story of a man in his box.

Quite. And - though it really grieves me to write this as I so wanted series 5 to be a triumph - while RTD could be guilty of going OTT at times, he knew how to structure a story and to keep production values hugh, both of which seem to be beyond the present team. I love Matt Smith, though have yet to be convinced by the one-note Karen Gillen, but the scripts have been a mess thus far (apart from the first one) and the show looks shoddy and thrown together.

Exactly. And pandering to those "fans" is what killed the show back in the 80s. The die-hard fans are the very last people producers of long-running franchises - be it James Bond, Star Trek or Doctor Who - should listen to. That way lies madness and failure.

I completely agree with yo about RTD, and how good he was, but I'm surprised you think the show looks shoddy and thrown together now. I could understand if you didn't like the stories (fair enough), but the production of Fas and TOTA certainly did not look shoddy and don't seem to be thrown together IMO obviously.

And I think from everything I've ever read from RTD & moffat they completely agree. Infact the Moff has said on a few occassions that you need to write for someone who has never seen the show before.
Mind you nothing wrong with treating the fans now and again