[Dave-H]

Was I the only one amused watching on Saturday night that the Doctor, a Time Lord with a time travel vehicle at his disposal, was getting bored, creosoting fences and playing keepy-uppy, waiting to see what was going to happen next?

Now I'm sure there's a hundred reasons why he couldn't just fast-forward in the TARDIS to see what the cubes were going to do, and if we started down that road the vast majority of Doctor Who plot-lines would fall apart in a instant, but the whole idea did make me smile at the time!

[James Frederick]

Originally Posted by Dave-H

Now I'm sure there's a hundred reasons why he couldn't just fast-forward in the TARDIS to see what the cubes were going to do

I would say the main one is if he did and went to far forwards then he couldn't do anything as he could go back as he would be crossing his own timeline

[Tom Tit]

Originally Posted by James Frederick

as he would be crossing his own timeline

Which in itself is contrived claptrap. And something he's done many time before (multi doctor stories for example). This argument is a factor best ignored as it would break the format of the show. Anyone who wants to try and make Doctor Who make sense and be consistent with itself is a fool, in all honesty.

All of Doctor Who's 'rules' are subject to the magical disclaimer: 'Except when...'.

The Doctor cannot cross his own time stream... except when he can.

The Doctor seemingly knows everything about Earth's 'future'... except when he doesn't.

Time can be rewritten... except when it can't.

A 'fixed point' in time can't be changed... except when it can.

The Doctor doesn't kill... except when he does.

And so on. Learn this 'rule' and you'll get much less annoyed when watching Doctor Who.

[sandydune]

Originally Posted by Dave-H

Was I the only one amused watching on Saturday night that the Doctor, a Time Lord with a time travel vehicle at his disposal, was getting bored, creosoting fences and playing keepy-uppy, waiting to see what was going to happen next?

Now I'm sure there's a hundred reasons why he couldn't just fast-forward in the TARDIS to see what the cubes were going to do, and if we started down that road the vast majority of Doctor Who plot-lines would fall apart in a instant, but the whole idea did make me smile at the time!

Maybe the other Doctor was busy doing the other stuff, this Doctor was keeping Amy and Rory out of the way.

[johnnysaucepn]

Originally Posted by Tom Tit

Which in itself is contrived claptrap. And something he's done many time before (multi doctor stories for example). This argument is a factor best ignored as it would break the format of the show. Anyone who wants to try and make Doctor Who make sense and be consistent with itself is a fool, in all honesty.

I think when they talk about 'crossing his own timeline', it doesn't mean what you think it means. It's hardly contrived - without it, no story featuring a time traveller could ever work.

[Si_Crewe]

Must admit, that's what bugged me about the whole "death of the Doctor" arc last year.

The idea was that he'd become so fearsome and well-known that he could no longer shuffle about the universe, furtively doing his own thing and so his "death" gave us, the audience, one of those "aha! that's why it happened!" moments, where we are supposed to realise that his "death" freed him of his responsibilities so he could become the happy-go-lucky traveller of old.

Except that it doesn't.

Even if he "died" in 2011 all his enemies already know that he's showed up all over the future like a bad rash so they should realise that his death has solved nothing cos he's "already" done stuff wayyy into the future after the time when he supposedly "died".
Knowing that he "died" in 2011 isn't going to stop the Daleks worrying about him in the 30th century or humans hoping he'll save the planet in the 40th century cos they'd know he's already popped up squillions of times after the time of his apparent "death".

Besides, on a more mundane note, the fact that Kate Stewart simply said "Oh, hello. You must be the Doctor?" upon meeting him in last weeks episode should have at least made him think that all that malarkey last year hardly had the desired effect.

[Tom Tit]

Originally Posted by johnnysaucepn

I think when they talk about 'crossing his own timeline', it doesn't mean what you think it means. It's hardly contrived - without it, no story featuring a time traveller could ever work.

It's not contrived? You fully understand the nature of time and comprehend totally the way it works then do you? You must be building a time machine as we speak if you are able to speak authoritively about the subject of time travel.

Of course it's contrived. We don't know if time travel is possible and how it would work if it is. Everything you see about this subject in fiction is contrived for narrative convenience. That is my point. It can work any way the writers want it to work for the sake of their story. You said it yourself: without this made up plot element no time travel story would work (at least, no time travel story in a conventional adventure format like Doctor Who).

Obviously, the word 'contrivance' "doesn't mean what you think it means"

Originally Posted by Si_Crewe

Must admit, that's what bugged me about the whole "death of the Doctor" arc last year.

The idea was that he'd become so fearsome and well-known that he could no longer shuffle about the universe, furtively doing his own thing and so his "death" gave us, the audience, one of those "aha! that's why it happened!" moments, where we are supposed to realise that his "death" freed him of his responsibilities so he could become the happy-go-lucky traveller of old.

Except that it doesn't.

Even if he "died" in 2011 all his enemies already know that he's showed up all over the future like a bad rash so they should realise that his death has solved nothing cos he's "already" done stuff wayyy into the future after the time when he supposedly "died".
Knowing that he "died" in 2011 isn't going to stop the Daleks worrying about him in the 30th century or humans hoping he'll save the planet in the 40th century cos they'd know he's already popped up squillions of times after the time of his apparent "death".

Besides, on a more mundane note, the fact that Kate Stewart simply said "Oh, hello. You must be the Doctor?" upon meeting him in last weeks episode should have at least made him think that all that malarkey last year hardly had the desired effect.

All of this is true but it's not actually the thing that grated with me the most about last year's theme.The most annoying thing for me was that the Doctor was able to 'achieve' this legend in the first place. The whole of space and time is an inconceivably vast thing and the idea that by having a few adventures and toppling a few empires on disparate worlds across a span of billions of years, with all of the races that will have arisen and become extinct during those times, the Doctor could have become universally famous is absurd to me. He may have had thousands of adventures, but he would need millions, if not billions to achieve that kind of legend.

It also makes a bit of a mockery of the idea of the Time Lords not being able to find him when he was on the run from them, if he was that ubiquitous

But actually, the above niggle is actually the reason i'm pleased they did the story, and are still in the process of stripping away his legend: because the end result will (hopefully) be that he is again anonymous, which is not only more to my taste (a purely subjective concern, sure) but more believable.

[kyllerbuzcut]

Originally Posted by Si_Crewe

Must admit, that's what bugged me about the whole "death of the Doctor" arc last year.

The idea was that he'd become so fearsome and well-known that he could no longer shuffle about the universe, furtively doing his own thing and so his "death" gave us, the audience, one of those "aha! that's why it happened!" moments, where we are supposed to realise that his "death" freed him of his responsibilities so he could become the happy-go-lucky traveller of old.

Except that it doesn't.

Even if he "died" in 2011 all his enemies already know that he's showed up all over the future like a bad rash so they should realise that his death has solved nothing cos he's "already" done stuff wayyy into the future after the time when he supposedly "died".
Knowing that he "died" in 2011 isn't going to stop the Daleks worrying about him in the 30th century or humans hoping he'll save the planet in the 40th century cos they'd know he's already popped up squillions of times after the time of his apparent "death".

Besides, on a more mundane note, the fact that Kate Stewart simply said "Oh, hello. You must be the Doctor?" upon meeting him in last weeks episode should have at least made him think that all that malarkey last year hardly had the desired effect.

They aren't going to know that's he's already done stuff in the future though. Or else they would be able to see the future and be running the universe already anyway

For those aliens that can do some time travel then they accept that certain things will happen and have happened, and must know the downsides of changing certain things by now. I'm sure Daleks don't like being stuck in a paradox as much as anyone else.

The Brigs daughter has a link to knowing about the Doctor already, so even if she thought he was dead they could either be looking for him before he died ( in his timeline), or still 'keeping an eye out' just incase, because she doesn't really believe he's dead despite what she's heard.
That feels almost like Escape from New York there. "Snake Pliskin- I heard you were dead"................Oh- wait I wonder if they will do that joke in the next episode - lol " Docta'- I hurrd yous was dead" ( that's my best New York accent)

[Si_Crewe]

Originally Posted by Tom Tit

All of this is true but it's not actually the thing that grated with me the most about last year's theme.The most annoying thing for me was that the Doctor was able to 'achieve' this legend in the first place.

I suppose the main bit of "suspension of disbelief" that you need to have regarding any time-travel malarkey is that it'd, theoretically, be possible to always turn up in the nick of time.

Obviously, it means he's got to be a busy bunny but, theoretically, he could save the world at 1:03 on Earth and then, after he's finished, he can nip off to Zeta Reticuli and save the world there at 1:04.

It'd be enough to make any evil mastermind paranoid though.
If we're to believe that the Doctor zips from place to place, and from time to time, constantly foiling dastardly plots to the required extent then you'd think the Daleks would, by now, have given up their evil ways cos they must know the Doctor is gonna show up at just the wrong moment and ruin their plans.

Originally Posted by kyllerbuzcut

They aren't going to know that's he's already done stuff in the future though. Or else they would be able to see the future and be running the universe already anyway

Yeah but for the Doctors "death" to have any meaning at all it'd have to be recorded somewhere and made public.
That'd mean that, as far as all the futuristic baddies know, the Doctor died on Earth, in 2011.

But none of them WOULD think that cos they already know that, even if they've heard he died in 2011, he's already showed up long after that on multiple occasions.

I'm thinking that they're going for a "rebooted universe" type explanation where the death in 2011 changes the future so that nobody in the future has heard of him.

That kind of explanation is a bit of a cop-out for the audience though, who's left to think "well, what have I been watching for the last 40 years? stuff from what is now a parallel time-line or summat?"

[nebogipfel]

I don't think it's possible for the writer to easily explain the logic of how the Doctor dying makes him suddenly anonymous. I think we've just got to give them dramatic licence. The goal of returning the Doctor to be more of an anonymous traveller, randomly turning up places is one I like so I'm just going along with it. The best we can do is assume that people are no longer pursuing him for things he might do in his own future, and therefore care less about what he does in what they probably think are his pre-death past. And the Daleks have had their memory of him wiped. Good.

Series 5 and 6 did pretty much explain why all the races that knew all about him did in fact know all about him. The Alliance was of species that had already encountered him. The various species involved in The Silence either knew about him through direct experience (eg humans through his appearances on earth or with that business with the woman soldier who talked about running with him) or had reason to learn about him due to needing to prevent whatever they think is going to happen at Trenzalore. The Eleventh Hour Big Eye had stuff in their database. There was also Prisoner Zero and the Vampire Fish lady. They seemed to know something about The Silence and/or The Alliance being on his tail. Illogical possibly, but worth it for the sake of building mystery.

The Time Lords couldn't track him down because he was travelling totally at random and he hadn't at that point yet spent several hundred years making himself noticeable. When we first met him he was very much more a quiet observer of events. His taste for intervention seemed to grow as we watched him travel. Within a few years he was going to them for help. He might not have been their top priority. Unlike The Silence. But tying oneself up in strict continuity isn't the best way of viewing fifty years of the show.

The original series avoided questions like "Why doesn't he go back or forwards a bit and solve this" by breaking the Tardis and making it pretty much random. Since the third Doctor patched it up he's gained much control over it. (even then they used Blinovitch Limitation to restrict the writers) Sometimes it helps stories (gives the writers freedom), and sometimes it requires the audience to forget about the existence of the Tardis. The writer of Power of Three made a rod for his back by showing the Doctor using the Tardis several times in the story. He should have had the thing break down at the start of the story. Would have been a good nod back to third Doctor to have him take it to the UNIT laboratory to fix.

[johnnysaucepn]

Originally Posted by Tom Tit

It's not contrived? You fully understand the nature of time and comprehend totally the way it works then do you? You must be building a time machine as we speak if you are able to speak authoritively about the subject of time travel.

I don't need to know a thing about time travel. We're talking about narrative. If anything, it's a common sense principle that is naturally intuitive, in comparison to the weirdness of real time travel hypotheses.

If you can change the events of the story after they've happened, then it makes the story worthless. If the Doctor can just jump back in time and redo things, then there is no dramatic tension. That's been pretty well consistently applied across the series, regardless of whether they draw attention to it or not. The episode Father's Day is all about what happens when you cross your own timeline.

'Fixed points in time' are a contrivance, self-contradictory paradoxes and the dangers of them are pretty much standard across time-travel fiction.

Obviously, the word 'contrivance' "doesn't mean what you think it means"

Originally Posted by http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/contrived

adjective
obviously planned or forced; artificial; strained