yes but he hasnt aged,
so he could literally go back to 5 minutes after he teleported in the raven episode and no one would notice he has been anywhere for that length of time, including himself.

its time travel.


A....C........................B

A. - teleports to dial..

B. - 50 million years later time travels back to C.

C. - hello I'm back to 5 minutes after clara died, Ha Ha no one noticed I went anywhere.

Sorry I didn't word that very well. I know he only lived the day once in his time but he let himself be killed - very un doctor like. And he (even once) didn't think to get something stronger than his fist to hit the wall.

He didn't think to go back for the shovel (giving himself more time away from the creature chasing him) etc etc.

Again, very un doctor like.

You'd just expect someone as intelligent as the doctor to think to himself 'wait, I'll run about the castle a bit, give myself more time away from the creature and create something to whack this wall withband myself more time'.

He can't. He doesn't have his tardis and hasn't had it for millions of years (if time passed in the dial normally). He still doesn't have it. He hasn't had it for 50 million years. He can't pop back anywhere without his tardis. He hasn't been able to pop back anywhere because he doesn't have the tardis. Until he gets the tardis (which he doesn't have) then 50 million years have (possibly) passed and nobody around now remembers The Doctor. Because hems been unable to pop anywhere due to being trapped - with no tardis.

If he had the Tardis yes he could. But he doesn't have it and hasn't had it for millions of years (possibly) which is why it's relevant because the episode is based on the premise he's been trapped, without his tardis for possibly millions of years.
He can't pop back and not be missing for millions of years because he doesn't have his tardis.

We're going around in circles here. I don't know any other way to explain my PoV. Let's just agree to disagree.

I understand why he let himself be killed , but I agree with you about the shovel .

I can only imagine that Moffat aesthetically wanted him to do it barehanded , like its more meaningful , but that bit just doesn't work for me .

.

Wouldn't even kicking it have hurt less and been quicker.

He had a strong pair of boots on to.

I edited my post while you typed, sorry.

Anyway, he doesn't need the tardis, he is on Gallifrey, the home of the timelords, he just needs access to timetravel

If he gets access and went back no one would notice he was missing.

He could always nick a TARDIS but he'd never do that

My understanding of that was the 'lock' on the device being broken. If you rewatch the Doctor's first 'death' at the hands of the creature, it very clearly disappears in the same way as a hologram.

This is all a moot point anyway.

I like the theory of it being VR, but even if it isn't, the story still works for me. Time travel means the doctor, and all of his various incarnations, can be everywhere and nowhere at once, so him being 'locked away' for several billions years doesn't make too much difference in the grand scheme of things, because ANY Doctor can still be in any timezone, anywhere in the Universe, at any time - even during those billions of years. Moreover, due to the fact that the Doctor only 'lived' for a few days (roughly) at a time, I actually find it easier to swallow from a "How didn't he go mad?" perspective in comparison to Rory guarding the Pandorica for 2000 years, or the Doctor guarding Trenzalore for 300 years.

But until he gets that he can't have not been missing for millions of years and as of yet he doesn't have it.

I'm not talking about what he may do in the future I'm talking about the episode as it stands right now. If time passed in the dial as it does in normal reality then the doctor has been missing for millions of years and nobody around now will know him or give two hoots about it. When he gets the time travel ability back he can erase it all but as it stands at the end of that episode, if time passes in the dial the same as it does in reality the The doctor has been missing for millions of years. And that won't change until he gets his tardis back and gains the ability to flit about in time again. Which hasn't happened yet.

Which is why I think time in the dial will have been totally different to reality.

Yeah it was most probably some for of metaphors that's gone right over my head.

By the time he finds Room 12 the Veil is always just behind him in the corridor so he can't run off and get the shovel without the Veil killing him.

If he confesses to something to freeze the Veil then the Castle would spin and reset and he would have to spend time searching for Room 12 again and the Veil would be just behind him when he finds it.

So to get just a couple of hits on the wall with the shovel he would have to confess something major to the Veil everytime (and we are talking billions of reiterations here) and I'm not sure that even the Doctor has that many secrets.


By the way you keep saying the Doctor was in the dial for 50 million years, it was actually over 2 billion years.

This is true but I'm not sure the length of time he realises the truth of his situation matters all that much.

Okay, I mean, imagine you look up to the stars and realise that you have been repeating the same exact day for over a billion years. Then you make your way to a room where you find a wall that you need to get through, and realise that it will take you at least a further billion years of repeating this day to get through to the other side. In that few minutes, wouldn't you simply lose your mind if you for one second believed it to be true?

Obviously we are talking the Doctor here, and he doesn't see things the way we do, but even he would eventually crack under the weight of that reality, if he didn't have the slightest understanding that the situation wasn't entirely real. I have to believe that at least subconsciously, the Doctor knew it was all a simulation.


Again, I think this all comes down to the Doctor knowing that it wasn't real. He acted in ways that only make sense if you take them in more of a 'dream' reality setting. For example, the beating the wall with his hands? In the real world the Doctor would have stripped all the tech within the castle down and built himself something to burn through the wall. Or at least tried anyway. Instead he chooses to hammer against it, almost as a metaphor for his frustration and anger towards those holding him prisoner. I feel like all of his un-Doctor like actions can be explained away by him realising that it was all little more than a dream that he had to wake up from.

The simple answer is - there was no reset.

Did anyone else think about GuS while watching this episode?

The point you're missing is that every time round was exactly like the one we saw, with minor changes like the positioning of the stars. He didn't consciously do the same thing over and over. He didn't understand the nature of what was happening to him until he was in Room 12, confronted by the crystal wall, every single time. He has no memory of the previous occasions. Therefore, he makes the same mistakes every time. He can't learn from what has happened previously to make things easier for himself (by taking the shovel to Room 12 for instance), because he never experienced it. Each Doctor is a new Doctor, freshly created out of the teleporter, with memories only to the point of time in which he was teleported.

Another point to make is that he had no reason to make the process more efficient anyway. It did not matter to him if it took a hundred years or a million. Each incarnation of himself would only have awareness of that one day anyway. Assuming the theory was sound (that, after a fraction of eternity the wall would be fully worn away) the actual time frame was completely unimportant; it was a done deal. The only memory the version of the Doctor to finally escape would have is of breaking through that wall, not the billions of previous incarnations who died.

He never 'let himself be killed'. He worked out a practical way to survive.

but he could leave messages for his next version . . . "keep the shovel with you !" would help .

.

GuS ?
it rings a bell but could you remind us ?

Does no-one remember the classic series!!! watch The Deadly Assasin, could well be....The Matrix

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

He had no time. By the time he understood what was going on he only had time to set up the teleporter (surely the priority) and to scrawl that one word 'Bird', which he figured would give his other selves the inspiration they needed (and he knew for certain it would as it worked to inspire himself).

And again, making the process more efficient was not necessary anyway. As soon as he figured it out it was a done deal.

he had 36 hours .
he realises whats happening when he sees the wall , then he's attacked and spends 36 hours climbing up to the teleport room , so he did have time

He wasn't meant to escape. Not without confessing.

They created a trap that would take 2 billion years of real time to escape precisely -because- they didn't want him escaping.

Then why have the crystal wall at all? And why make it even remotely possible to smash your way through, regardless of how long it might take?

Sorry I wasn't sure if the exact time and for some reason I only remembered the 50 million.

But if everything, including the doctor reset then he will have made the same confessions over and over to stop the Veil.

He didn't give a different co cession each time. If so he wouldn't have worked out that telling the truth stops the vail because on the second reset when he gave his 'first' confession the veil wouldn't have stopped, having already heard that confession.

Every day was exactly like the first. Ha made the same confessions each time to stop the creature.

But I do get your point. For him to escape the vail each time he was trapped in the corridor, run off then run back he would have needed endless confessions.

So where is the extra time? He spent 36 hours crawling up the stairs and then the rest working on the teleporter - and all of that is more important than leaving himself a note about the shovel, which was not necessary in any case.

There's an idea going around that this series is complex, when in fact it's merely opaque.

This is a literary technique used when you don't have much material, it pads it out.

Still feel hungry for an episode of Doctor Who after having watched each episode this series? It's because it's a very small meal but with lot's of hot air.