thanks , but -
so the killer (which is a young River right?) was placed there in the lake in '69 ? I mean - he's killed in the present day right ?

Oh yeah, he was wasn't he (do excuse me, I recently got a new PS4, so am not getting much sleep...)!

But still, the space suit thing stands - it's a self-contained mobile life support machine. Which is what they needed to contain River both as a child when kidnapped, and an adult when a killer.

Someone has recently pointed out to me that the child actor is listed as playing two different characters in the credits, so it would appear that it is indeed two nephews played by the same actor. Very strange.

Do we think, or is there any dialogue evidence to suggest, that the doctor has a time which he thinks of as present day?. Just wondering because it would seem that he was likely living day to day in linear time in the period before he stole the TARDIS and ran away so he must have had a present day at some point, but considering he's now been back to gallifrey many times, at different time points, and mixed in with his random travels, it makes me wonder whether there still would be any time that he considers his present day.

That's a very good question. I'm not sure if there's a present day but it does seem to be the case that, at least where Gallifrey and meeting other Time Lords are concerned, there is usually some kind of consistent chronology. Every time he meets the Master or the Rani or the Meddling Monk, every time he visits Gallifrey it is always in the same chronological order for himself as it is for them (apart from where the Time Lords have fished other Doctor's out of their proper time streams, of course).

This suggests to me that there is some kind of phenomenon or law of time, imposing this order and preventing things happening out of sequence, regardless of what actual Time period the time travellers meet in. It's possible that the only reason he and River seem to be an exception to this is because the Time Lords are no longer around to enforce this law.

Good theory. . Of course it reality, the timelords always meeting each other in the same order was just for simplicity of script, but as for explaining why in the world of the show it makes sense that this is the case, it works.

Perhaps it's the TARDIS deliberately going to each planet in chronological order of their last visit unless the Doctor deliberately doesn't want to. It certainly does seem werid that out of 100 trillion + years he always returns to Earth in the year we're living in

some interesting idea's, but that's to do with how he travels etc. My initial question was more in the vein of does the doctor consider himself to have a present day?. My initial thought was that he might consider the time he ran away as his present, being the last time he really lived in linear time, but I discounted that because he's been back to gallifrey so many times since, at different times, mixed with the usual travels that even when he ran away must now surely seem like the past to him.

Basically, if someone said to the doctor 'lets go to your time' would he say he dosen't have one, or is there still a time which he considers to be his present?

Technically I'd say it'll be the time he left + how many years its been since he left or 21st century earth. But tbh I think he considers himself a traveller in time and doesn't have one time period he calls home- just in the TARDIS

That was kind of my thinking also.

A question about rivers 'pardon'

To quote the angels take Manhattan dialogue :

River: Oh I was pardoned ages ago. And it's Professor Song, to you.
The Doctor: Pardoned?
River: Mm. Turns out the person I killed never existed in the first place. Apparently there's no record of him. It's almost as if someone's gone around deleting himself from every database in the universe.

This really dosen't make any sense to me. Why would anyone go to the trouble of arresting someone and locking them up, just to one day let them go on the basis that the information they had on the victim had gone missing. It's not like peoples minds were being erased, just databases, so whoever had her in custody would still know her crime and who the doctor was.

Had they somehow that they never remembered she was supposed to be locked up in the first place, perhaps if the doctor had been able to erase himself from minds then that would have made sense, but to say that they had her locked up for murder and then pardoned her because of a deleted database entry seems very strange indeed.

They were actually (in some cases at least).


The Doctor explains that any data he could not erase he memory proofed so that it was forgotten the moment it was learnt (a trick he learnt from The Silence).


It's not much of a stretch that he memory proofed the Info that River was convicted of his Murder.

But in that case they would just not remember she was supposed to be locked up at all, whereas she says they pardoned her. the pardon is the bit that dosen't make sense.

Had she said they'd forgotten they locked her up at all, it would make sense, but saying she was pardoned dosen't seem to. A pardon implies you know someone's crime but are now excusing them from it

They would forget the reason she was locked up but would still know she was locked up.

So they have a person locked up in Stormcage for xx years but no evidence of any crime.


To avoid any scandal they would let her go but can't bring themselves to admit they imprisoned an innocent person so give her a Pardon for any (unspecified) Crimes she may have committed.



To be honest I'm not a fan of this little Retcon and much preferred the way things worked out previously with River doing jobs (such as the Byzanthium) for the authorities and slowing earning her pardon that way.

Enough of this River Song rubbish! She is GONE!

I'd like to know how Romana regenerated multiple times within five minutes whilst the Doctor was clearing up K9's laryngitis?? Very funny - but it took the piss out of the regeneration idea didn't it?!

They were future projections as seen previously in Planet of the Spiders or later in Logopolis.

or

A Time Lords body can be altered (such as growing a new hand) in the first few hours after Regeneration, Romana just took it a bit further.


Take your pick

Some people like the character even though you clearly don't and It's not certain she is gone for good either. I sincerely hope she does appear in series 8. It certainly dosen't carry any weight to say don't talk about a character you think is gone and then proceed to ask a question about a character who was gone decades ago. In fact it proves the point that any character is valid to be talked about regardless of how long they have been gone.

Sorry I've upset you! I just don't like River Song turning up every time! It got a bit boring after so long and her time has been sorted out anyway. Romana was a repetitive character anyway - she was an annoying person as well! So I cannot say anything there.

Oh Lordy - bring back TEGAN!!! at least she was HUMAN! (despite being Australian!)

I wasn't offended, I was just surprised that you seemed rather offended that I would talk about her, with you capital lettered, exclamation point post. If you don't like her that's fair enough. I like the character but agree her story became a little worn over time (although I would like just to see the derillium scene so the story can feel complete)

speaking of River Song -

I don't really understand what made her turn into a goody . It seems to happen in Let's Kill Hitler , we know she was raised and brainwashed to kill the Doctor , but then suddenly she seems to change her mind , something to do with flying the Tardis (?) , never really understood that .

.

Think it's supposed to be that she grew up idolizing the Doctor through Amy's tales of what happened when she was a child and then her stories of her travels, then when she meets him, even though part of her says she must kill him, she can't help but pretty much instantly fall in love.

To quote river herself on the matter:
"Such a basic mistake, Madame Kovarian - take a child, raise her into the perfect psychopath, introduce her to the Doctor. Who else was I going to fall in love with?"

Think it was just before that when he went to save Amy and Roy despite being in agony and dying from the poison. He earn her respect. River then realised she could save him putting things right.

Not to mention the fact that she willed herself to regenerate rather than having suffered any kind of a mortal wound!

I always figured it was a gender thing. We'd never seen a female Time Lord regenerate so maybe it works differently for them. Come to think of it, Jenny didn't change her face when she regenerated so maybe that's another example.

The spin-off media have postulated a few other theories too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regener...s_regeneration

This is a bit of an older one, but in doomsday, in the scene where the void is open and rose and the doctor get separated, as brilliant and powerful a scene as it is, the one thing that has always bugged me about it is how is Pete Tyler able to appear and then stand right next to the void opening for a few seconds, catch rose, then stand there for a second or two longer with rose in his arms without either of them getting sucked in?.

The whole reason she was in danger was because the pull was so strong, and the Doctor is still hanging on for his life, yet they can casually stand closer with nothing happening. As I say I love the scene otherwise and the whole episode in fact but this point has always been a bit of a niggle for me in an otherwise great scene.

No thoughts?. Maybe it just dosen't make sense then.