I think the post-Who slot would be good for the ITV programme....however I was readinga na article about it and it was stressed that the Patrick Stewart rogramme was not sci-fi...rather a science based drama....so who knows what it is....I guess it's simply pushing the boundries of know science and exagerating it....but then doesn't that go into the edges of science fiction?

I was just using them as examples. EastEnders was once triumphant in the ratings battle with Coronation Street and look how that has changed. All I am saying is we the viewers and the production team shouldn't become complacent and assume that the current trend will continue. I hope and want DW to do well and strive to keep this up with the rest of the series and series 2. Viewing habits vary and the television industry is a fickle world and things can change. If ITV muster themselves who knows what they can pull out of the bag. RTD himself said it is dangerous to listen to people who continually lavish praise on you.

I quite agree, but I don't think RTD is likely to get complacent. From all I seen/read/heard him say - he seems all to aware of the competitive nature of TV world.

Sorry if it came across as patronising...wasnt my intention at all. Working in the 'industry' I appreciate how things can change very quickly, programmes that perform consistently well can go through a rocky patch as EastEnders has done but is now recovering.

I consider myself an eager follower of the series but I am not blinded to how trends can be bucked or that in this fickle old world we live in, what was hot property yesterday can be tomorrows chip paper!

I think this was covered by someone in last week's thread (but I don't blame you for not spotting it - that thread was a doozy!) and whoever it was, realised that the 'Argentum Ordnance' would, of course, be Silver Bullets!

K

I don't see why Adam would need to invent time travel. This is SciFi after all.

Look at the Back to the Future films. In Part 1, Marty goes back in time with the Video and the Doc on the Video explains how to build the time machine.

So we have a future Doc telling a Past doc how to build the machine thus creating a time paradox. Without these sorts of paradoxes, SciFi becomes boring

No, he explains how to POWER the time machine, the Doc already knew how to build one after having the idea for the flux capacitor earlier that day (when he fell off the toilet).



Not in a series based around time travel with an extraordinary history you don't. The way to alienate the Dr Who fans would be to mess with the backstory in such an extremely stupid way.

But without the power, there would have been no machine. So present Doc was instumental in Helping past Doc build the machine


You may be right that it would alienate fans of the show if it messed with the backstory. However, I don't believe that this is the same as the situation with the Gallifreyans.

As you point out, the Gallifreyans invented time travel in 10,000,000 BC and that Davros creates the Daleks in about 5300BC. So on this basis, Adam doesn't need to invent time travel because he only needs to become Davros at around 5300BC, long after time travel was invented.

This leaves the Gallifreyans as the inventors of time travel and thus the key background to the story remains faithful. This only leaves the paradox that the Daleks are invented due to Adam having seen a Dalek ! I don't see this a major problem as any program that deals with time travel is by its nature dealing with paradoxes. In fact, we see one of these next week when Rose and the Doctor are in two places at one.

If you wish to argue that paradoxes shouldn't occur in Dr Who then you are arguing that the whole program is flawed. But the program isn't based upon the real world physics of Hawking and his Contemporaries so I think most other people are prepare to suspend their beliefs for 45 minutes a week.

He didn't build the machine, but simply worked out an alternate power source (lightning).


The Daleks don't have access to time travel in their current history, and neither did Davros.


You're missing my point about Gallifreyan origins completely. I wasn't arguing that Gallifreyans were the inventors of time travel (although this is true) I was arguing that because of the timeline that humans couldn't evolve into Gallifreyans without first inventing time travel, something that they couldn't do because Gallifreyans invented it 10,000,000 BC.


Adam only saw the Travel Unit, he didn't see the Dalek.


Being in two places at once isn't a paradox.


Paradoxes are, in fiction anyways, the effect of bad writing... so I'd rather they didn't occur in the new series of Dr Who.

It isn't on the Quantum level but in the atomic level, it is.

As far as your other points, time IS by its nature full of paradoxes. You can't have a program about time travel with out them.

Try google (time travel paradox) there over 600,000 pages for you to read. Or if you wish to narrow down your search, include Hawking in your search.

Going off on a complete tangent... why was it Space Station 5?

Perhaps stations 1-3 were destroyed during construction, while four disappeared shortly after it went live...

And the Doctor is The One (Time Lord, I mean).
RTD = JMS.

I'll get my coat...
Gary

Can you give some examples, I'm a microbiologist and not a quantum physicist, so I'm quite intrigued.

Wise words BG - I'm talking from within the fickle ol' TV world too - (although I'd give my right leg to work on the show itself!). And FICKLE is definitely the word to describe the viewing public!

(Actually, having thought about it - I'm not sure I would want to work on DW - it'd spoil all the fun we're having second guessing RTD et al....

If you are suggesting that Rose is going to create a cocoon and reappear as half human and half (dalek??) then yes, get your coat!

Cj

That would all make sense ofcourse, if it weren't for the fact that both The Farm (Z-list Channel 5 celebs engaged in dubious animal realetd activites) and the X-Factor (less than successful Pop Idol rip-off) both have their very own separate forums at the same level as the TV prgrammes forum. Why not just amalgamate them into the reality TV forum where they belong, and allow a new SciFi forum? The numbers speak for themselves - the Farm forum only has 188 posts in total: bit of a waste of space if you ask me! There seems to be a fair consensus about the need for the forum, the only dissentors being the mods. Aren't these forums for our convenience?

Enjoyed The Long Game - thought it was classic behind-the-sofa fare, although I agree that the plotting was rushed because of time constraints and Adam's "Turlough behaviour" wasn't explored enough. Still miles better than anything else on this weekend!

Simon Pegg was good.

show was good. I thought it was the second worst episode after number 2.

I though the ending was funny though

A high standard (with one or two exceptions) has been set by this series and we still have 7 episodes to go and I just want them to keep it up and perhaps shine even brighter in series 2, whatever the competition is!

Nah, sorry, don't get the reference - please enlighten me as I hate to miss a good joke!

K

Babylon 5

We're of the same mind then Black Guardian - you're more friendly to the good Doctor than your namesake was I may add.

I voted very good for this episode- the only thing that let it down IMO was the timing. It seemed rushed at the end or a satisfactory conclusion, especially after they had spent so much time building it up. To me it was reminiscent of a 'Paradise towers' type style, with some classic style Dr who effects (such as Suki being introduced to the Jaffafeast on the celiling and us not seeing it)
Simon Pegg wa very good, I liked the dialogue with Suki, all that Liar! stuff- great acting

I think the idea of Adam turning greedy was a good idea but could have been developed more but once again that feels like a timing issue.

My favourite part was at the end when Adam begged to be let back on the Tardis but the doctor said "I only have the best. I have Rose" The look on her face was priceless! Great acting Billie

Cj

With reference to the Bad Wolf saga. Could it just be
Russell T. Davies doing his version of 'an elf with a gun.' That was a reoccurring character in an old comic book, called The Defenders. Each month, the elf would appear and shoot someone. The writer assured his editor that it would all make perfect sense. But in the end the joke
was on the company, 'cause the elf with a gun had no special meaning or relevance to the plot!

Am hooked on this idea and and also the theme that has been present in a number of episodes...money. If the Face of Boe is the financier of these projects as suggested by a FM, then I would be interested in seeing who is on their client list.

If it was in the Face of Boe's interests then they might be financing a project set up by someone else...

Just a thought to add to the mix

Not with Enlightenment as the prize!

I pay homage to you with the air from my lungs.

The most famous time travel paradox is the Grandfather/Grandmother Paradox. In this, paradox, you travel back in time and kill your grand father. As you have killed him, you father and hence you would not have been born. If you were not born, you could not travel in time to kill your grandfather so he would still be alive and you would therefore be born.... and so on.

http://www.cix.co.uk/~antcom/gp.html - this discusses this paradox with reference to "Back to the Future"

"The Flipside of Domanic Hyde" had an interesting play on this paradox. This is known as the Predestination paradox. In this paradox, you travel back in time and become the cause of an event that causes you to travel back in time. This paradox is the usual SciFi paradox due to its complexity. Examples include - Terminator, Harry Potter, Back to the Future, Bill and Ted. Not all bad writting, I'm sure you will agree. Oh and Doctor Who - Day of the Daleks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradox

Conservation of energy. As Einstein correctly summised, Matter and energy are interchangable. The first law of Thermodynamics states that energy can not be created or destroyed. These two fact therefore mean that the amount of energy in the universe is fixed. If time travel were possible, this would mean that the energy in any one time line would be greater than the amount allowed. This is why the same thing cannot be in two places at the same time.

Total Energy. Current understanding of the universe suggests that the only method of time travel would be to travel faster than the speed of light. As you approach the speed of light, you get heavier and therefore require more energy to increas your speed. This means that to reach the speed of light requires an infinate amount of energy. As the amount of energy in the universe is finite, then time travel isn't possible.

There are theoretical physicysts who are trying to over come these obstacles but they remain just theories at the moment. These include multi dimentional universe, Infinate number of time lines and so on.

Going back to two thing being in two places at the same time, this is only possible at the Quantum level. I couldn't do justice to explaining how this can happen. In fact, its not really know how it can occur but only that is has been proven through experimentation. The way they proved this was to take two slits and shine a light through these slits. This causes the light waves to interfear with its self and creates bands of light and darkness. If you reduce this to a single photon, you still see the interferance pattern. So the single photon must have travelled through both slits.

This has lead to some interesting research on quantum entanglement. I won't even attempt to explain this but it allows communication between two quantum particles at the speed of light