I've REALLY tried to get this show this season...

I still don't, it's an hour of "What...the...fuck?! Why didn't he/she just...?"

The only distinguisher for me is if this is "good"--ie, funny or comical--or "bad," ie, a plot hole you could fly a phone booth through.



But this one just baffles me why no one has tried it.

STAR TREK, that OTHER 50+ years sci-fi show, seems to have a handle on this idea...as stated, the Borg go back to try and ruin Earth in the past...other bad guys try that as well...the only half-way decent part of Star Trek: Enterprise involved aliens trying to blow up Earth in the past before--they think--Earth will blow them up in the future.

(Time-traveling Space Nazis were WAY too far...fun for two seconds, and then once you realize how ridiculous that was, way to far...and Mark Twain helping Picard battle energy-zapping aliens in San Francisco's 1880s or so was silly, but fun, and hey, TREK isn't the show that focuses primarily on time travel, after all, so why not.)

Terminator's whole premise rests on it.

Why has this not happened yet, it seems so obvious...it's an outgrowth of my larger, #1 issue watching this show:

The Doc has the Universe's Greatest Redo Button on his hands with this time machine...

Why not use it every time a friend is lost, or things don't work out perfectly?

And if he CAN'T...

What was all this "I must die, it's a Fixed Point!" and then "Ha, I just appeared to die, I really lived!" business tonight?!

Obi is confused! :/

...

Ah, DW...as soon as I start to fall for your campy, silly charm and grow to like the Evil Trashcans as characters I can relate to...you once again confuse the hell out of me... ;)

@jmo:

No one kn ows how it works?

Then how are they able to time travel at all?! :O

Or, to be more fair...

How can they control it? I've SEEN them control where they want to go before--like the Shakespeare episode, which I liked, for obvious reasons and because David Tennant, unlike this Matth Smith guy, is an actor who I really DO like and think is brilliant...I liked his Hamlet, so for me, you can imagine the kind of compliment that is for an actor--so how can they control it if they don't know how it works?

Isn't that like my being able to accurately fly a plane from Los Angeles to London and not have a clue how to pilot a plane?

No, it's more like sitting in one of google's self driving cars while it drives across China and not knowing how the self driving programming works, only being able to take over the wheel if it fucks up. At least that's how I see it.

But if you take the wheel if it fuck's up, that presumes you know how to drive.'

If you know how to drive...well, you know how to direct yourself, don't you?

So even if he doesn't know how to use the super-Google-driving system of the Phonebooth, the Doctor can still "drive," right?

If so, again...why not use this thing as the biggest Redo button in history?

It just wrecks the dramatic tension for me everythime I think "Well, why not hop in your Booth at the end, go back 30 minutes, and fix that?"

That's why I either laugh or just scratch my head most times I watch this...

Either it's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy implausible and just embraces it, in which case I can shrug it off as a comedy and laugh with them the same way I laugh at the Improbability Drive and poor, tea-loving Arthur Dent (I sympathize, Arthur!) or else, if its dramatic, wonder why no one thinks to "drive" 30 minutes into the past and fix things.

The only 2 episodes I can honestly say I NEVER thought this are the Shakespeare one--silly and comic, so I just embraced the silliness, and laughing at Shakespeare's own putdown of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," and other Shakespeare in-jokes--and one with the Tom Baker Doctor fighting the Daleks at their creation...

And THAT one I liked because

1. Tom Baker is a good actor and was a decent SHerlock Holmes, and his Doc sort of reminds me of Holmes, rather than this new Matt Smith guy just acting like a dweeb
2. I like the Daleks, as bad guys are so much more fun
3. The "Why not go back in time?" thing actually doesn't bother me here BECAUSE the who point IS he's back in time and CAN destroy the Daleks, but doesn't because he says as evil as they are, they'll bring people together with their evil and good will come from that AND it's morally wrong to kill something before it's actually done wrong yet...both points are open to logical debate, but AT LEAST there's a reason, and even if *I* don't agree 100% with it, it's still a point of view I can recognize as valid

Obi - It's a TV show. The drama and the comedy is more important than trying to figure things out. As far as his death was concerned, history had to record him dying. History as in what was perceived by the human race and other races. By killing the Doctor look alike, River satisfied that condition such that even the Silence thought he was dead. But again, it's not about tyhe perfect logical plot. It's about the overall story. The drama.

@Draug:

I just like the dramatic structure to make sense is all...it doesn't have to be flawless--my favorite author has WTF? moments all the time--but if the story just pulls things out its ass, then you get authors not taking their audience seriously and, consequently, a bad show, and no one likes that.

I don't ask for a show with a 700 year old time traveler in a British police box and flying trashcans with periscope eyes to make total sense...consistency with the made up stuff is all I ask. :)

As for that explanation...

Well, that doesn't make sense at all, as isn't time NOT dependent upon human perception or other perception, even in the show's own universe? It's its own phenomenon...plus, didn't that River/Amy--whichever, can't remember which is which, the humans are always hard to keep track of for me--go and ask the whole damn universe to help save him, and they responded...?

Isn't that...well, sort of a giveaway to all of them? If it's all the creatures in the universe--presumably minus the bad guys the Doc battles--then wouldn't someone figure out he's NOT dead?

Anyone?

Plus, if he's going to go on living now...well, someone IS going to find out eventually, right?

And then there's the whole "time is dissintegrating" thing that he went on about the whole episode, and actually was something I liked and was kind of cool as a dilemma...THAT doesn't sound as if it's time via the perception of others, as if it were, everyone could just perceive time fixed, and the problem would be solved, so it seems like time isn't perception based, so...how did this work?



If watching TV/movies/books/plays works for you just enjoying it, more power to you. :)

*I* am just the kind of guy who will sit there asking my TV screen what the hell just happened, or yelling at characters or players and coaches that I know can't here me anyway...needless to say, I must be an absolute JOY to watch TV with. ;)

I guess I grant more leeway to show I find fascinating and view the issues of time in Doctor Who to be Deus Ex Amchina much like Treknology and Scotty/Geordi/Data being a miracle worker. Oh, and if you follow the Doctor, he has always said there are points in time that can't be changed. That was one such point. But the key was at that point in time the universe had to think he died. He never died, just that fake body. But when River didn't shoot the fake body, she caused a serious rift in time. He was supposed to "die" to be able to back away for a while. So when the Austronaut shoots him in the first episode of the season, it was him in the fake body at that point as well. I'm not explaining it well, but it was never that he had to die. Only that he had to appear to die. That was what actually occured at that fixed point in time and space. Now, the Deus Ex Machina is him not being able to cross his own time stream, but we know the doctor *can* so long as it is a different incarnation (see several episodes of the original series, including the Five Doctors - one of my favorites - and Trial of a Time Lord where it is revealed the Valyard is actual a future incarnation of the Doctor).

Now, I do expect movies to be more self-consistent. As a result, I hollered at the screen and threw popcorn when Mel Gibson and family went upstairs without the axe in Signs. I mean, who the fuck doesn't take the axe after spending the night under siege from aliens. Totally fucking stupid.

"But the key was at that point in time the universe had to think he died."

...

Is the universe in Doctor Who...sentient?! O.O

That's not a criticism, an honest question...if it is, if the universe literally has a life of its own...well, it's odd, but that's in keeping with a show with evil traschans and cyborgs with little trilobite mini-pet-cyberbots and the like...

That'd actually be kind of neat, a universe with a mind of it's own. lol

I DO know about that "fixed point in time" stuff, which actually was what I was unhappy with here; I hate the idea of that fixed point stuff in general--partly because it's like the Prime Directive in STar trek, ie, a cop out I dislike and most good episodes Kirk and Picard break it anyway, and partly because it makes no sense...if a point is fixed and MUST happen, it seems to follow that the point in time CAUSING that point in time must be fixed, since Point A is necessary, so Point B is necessary to cause Point A, but then of course, Point C must be fixed to cause Point B to cause Point A...and so on, it's a logically fallacy--but even buying that, it just annoyed me all the more when OTHER times it had to happen...

But main character powers mean this one, particular time, the Fixed Point thing can be cheated.

Again--consistency with the made up stuff is all I aks. ;)

(And yeah...Mel Gibson=fail.)

And, to be consistent and fair...

I also dislike Technobabble when it's used to solve the problem magically.

Good use of Techno-solution:

The crew using Data to interface with the Locutus of Borg part of Picard to tell all the Borg to go to sleep...makes perfect sense, computer hooking up with a computer, OK, fair enough, we can all understand that and for the most part buy it, it's uncomplicated, simple, logical, and elegant.

Bad use of Technobabble:

Creating a quantum-neutrino-gamma-bla-blah-blah sort of something-something that will do godknowswhat in order to magically save the day...we have no idea what just happened, only that some made up word was made out of many words writers felt sounded sci-fi and slapped them together, and that this is a cheat and comes from nowhere but the writers' collective asses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-wDPoC6GM

Tell us more about yourself.

Obi - I meant the residents of the universe. Its like saying "the world". I'm not saying the planet is sentient, but that the residents are. At that point in time, the various intelligent races of the universe had to think he had died. When River refused to kill him, it caused a time bubble inside of which time never changed. But we were seeing it from River, Amy, and Rory's point of view that he had to actually die.

Btw obi, I fall into the sfi fiction fan category, not the doctor who fan, so my comments were more geared toward the terminator and star trek. One of these days I suppose I'll get around to watching the Doctor Who series though.

Obiwanobiwan, you ruined the ending of Genesis of the Daleks for me. Anger.

The reason the doctor can't go back in time once he's traveled to the event is because he generally becomes part of the chain of events, and his TARDIS has built in safeties to stop him from altering events at that point. There are also safeties on every TARDIS that stops it from going in to Gallifrey's past, and since time machines are hard to come by, it explains why no one killed the Doctor as a child.

As for why he can't go back in time and change something he's only heard of, I would assume that he knows the consequences of such actions. The episode "Father's Day" shows that if events are messed with, then horrible flying lizard things come to destroy the world.

If I find an issue with Doctor Who, it's not its logic in relation to time travel.

Fixed points: I agree with you on the fact that things before and after should be fixed points, but for all we know, the Doctor's presence there is part of that point, even if the writing doesn't indicate that.

And in to River's (older lady) plot/plan of showing the Doctor that the world cared, well, that never really happened, it was simply an anomaly in time that was removed when the Doctor and River fixed it. That entire scene was pretty pointless as a set up for the Doctor's reveal to River. The only reason River and Amy remember it is because Amy is special and River is very special.

1. Well...I don't even recall talking to you before all that much, and I certainly didn't know you were watching the episode--or that it was even called that--so...sorry? :p

2. AGAIN I must ask what the hell the point of a time machine is if you can't alter the event, it's liked the Fixed Point business, it's dramatically convenient, yes, but not altogether logical structure-wise, which annoys me--I'm not looking for TOO much logic in a show about a 700 year old guy time traveling everywhere, but something as basic as that sort of "go back and fix things" logic should at least be adressed more intelligently, rather than the storybook equivalent of "because his time machine just can't. OK?"

3. BESIDES THAT, it doesn't seem like even THAT should be an impediment--you don't have to travel back to the event ITSELF to warn yourself or fix things, jsut far enough back that your warning will precede the event. Say the Doctor has a friend, Manny McExpendable, and Manny dies in a Dalek attack in 2151 on a planet the Doctor just happened to pick to vacation on at the moment. If he can't go back a few minutes and undo the death, why not go back, say, 5 years before the he ever made the trip AT ALL, stop by his former self, and just say, "Hey, dude, don't go to X place in 5 years...Manny will die if you do. Thanks, your pal...yourself." Why not?

4. Likewise, why not just go back to a time when the Doctor's great-great-great-great grandparents were off that planet and then kill THEM, thus preventing his existence?

5. But he messes with events all the time--just when its convenient.

6. But if points before fixed points are fixed, and back and back, it would follow that ALL OF TIME IS FIXED, fatalistically...so you can't have it both ways, Doctor Who: either time can't be changed and is fixed, in which case the show would be pretty boring, or else time is changeable, and in THAT case, get rid of this Fixed Points nonsense, and just go back to the 9/11s and Pearl Harbors and Pompeiis and such of history...come on, the show's been on for nearly 50 years, why not? Sure, it could be challenging to write, but EVERYONE would be interested in such stories, and after 50 years, I think you have some leeway yo do something different.

6. I STILL have no idea what that River girl is all about...except she's annoying, and the Evil Trashcans are much preferred. :)

We're doing numbers now? Cool.

1. The Tom Baker story you mentioned with the Daleks, your comments ruined why the Daleks didn't die. It's fine, though, I was unlikely to ever finish watching it.

2. His time machine can alter events at certain points, again "Father's Day" but there are consequences to that. When the Timelords where around, they could do whatever they wanted, and I'm unsure if they did, or if they chose not to out of some respect for time, but without the Timelords, the present Doctor has no way of stopping any reaction that happens due to his intervention.

3. You can't cross paths with yourself. It creates a paradox, which causes bad things to happen. (And yeah, I realize that it's this sort of thing you're complaining about. It's slightly lame, but I can see why it was written in.) He also can't go back to warn the person that would die, because he becomes part of the chain of events. It's why he never goes back to see his old companions before he met them, unless it's by accident. (Yes, you might have your complaint again, but it's been written in)

4. Probably doesn't give you an answer, but the Timelords weren't one to die easily, or to leave their planet much. (I think.)

5. With my view of time, it all becomes very convenient. He wasn't actually messing with events, he was there in the "original" timeline, but historians never realized it, with a few exceptions.

6. The Doctor's a Timelord, he CAN and does have it both ways. But every time he tries to change things to suit his own desires, something bad happens. I think by now he chooses not to alter events if he can help it. And they've already done Pompeii.

6, again. Massive spoilers ahead. River is the daughter of Amy Pond and Rory Williams. She was raised from birth to try to kill the Doctor. When the Doctor first met her, it was when he was still the Tenth Doctor, and she died in that meeting. Pretty good episodes. From then on, the Doctor's time stream was going the wrong way in comparison to hers, she was getting younger, he was getting older. This seems to be one of the exceptions to the "chain of events" but in a way, it still follows it. In one of their meetings, River tried to kill the Doctor, but he ended up making her a good person in a really annoying moment. Then the last episode happened.

Most of your problems come down to the direction the writing is going. They've decided to not make the doctor alter time. I've given you in story reasons for why he can't, but it's all the writing. I think that's actually a pretty good, because it would just become too easy for the doctor to pop in and say "Oh yeah, don't go there." By writing in some obstacles, they've made it more interesting, he has to solve it in the moment, and not by getting in to the TARDIS and going back in time.

@obiwan If you want to see something similar to your ideas of time travel, try reading Orson Scott Card's Pathfinder
It involves timetravel without a lot of the traditional conventions.

river Song is the Doctor's wife and Amy and Rory's daughter. She was conceived on the Tardis while it we in flight on Amy and Rory's wedding night, which gave her Time Lord DNA. She was stolen by agents of the Silence at Demon's Run and "programmed" to kill the Doctor. She ended up falling in love with him and, as you saw, they got married in their own special way. Now, and this is the tricky part, she basically meets the doctor in and out of time "backwards". That is most of the time she sees him, it is at a different point in each of their timelines. When he first meets her, she has known him a long time. When they first kiss from his point of view, she realizes it and becomes depressed because she realizes she will never kiss him again. And the first time they meet from her perspective, she is still going by Melody Pond and keeps wondering who River is until everything becomes clear and she falls in love with him.

I was 5 when the very first episode of Dr Who aired. I can't point to a particular episode nor to any specific memory but I've always believed that the Time Lords were the first to invent time travel and took steps to stop others developing it later. Which is why they call themselves Time Lords.

During the recent revival the writers have been allowed to "break the playground equipment" by changing things that were part of The Doctor's future history, like adding story lines about the Daleks and Capt Jack's people developing "a rudimentary form" of time-travel.

"river Song is the Doctor's wife and Amy and Rory's daughter."

But...she's the same age as they are, it seems...

And the Doc's hundreds of years older than her...?!

(This is a WEIRD show!) LOL XD

Time travel. You can meet your daughter before she is even born, as Amy and Rory did in River. River was stolen from Amy and Rory and raised/program to be a psychopathic Doctor killer. Then she reenters the time stream as an adult. Although we did see one episode where Amy's best friend, Mel (who is the person Amy named Melody after) steals the Tardis at gunpoint and then winds up regenerating into River and tries to kill the Doctor, so Amy's daughter was *also* her best friend whom she named her daughter after (bit of a paradox there) and then went on to marry her best friend that wasn't her husband. Seriously, there are much more complex relationships in literature, TVs, and movies. Hell, let's look at all the secret hidden cylons in the "new" Battlestar Galactica. Just go read James Tiptree, Jr's 'Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket' for a complex relationship. JTjr is the pen name for Alice B. Sheldon and she broke some serious preconcieved barriers about men and women writers. This is one great short story. If you get a chance to pick up Ten Thousand Light Years from Home (the book this story is in) at a used books store (it's out of print) do. It is a very good collection of her work.

And don't forget, the doctor is hundreds of years older than any human. Arguably, with her ability to regenerate, River will attain that same longevity.

Spoilers:
Would have, except that we know she "gives up her regenerations" to heal the Doctor from the poison. Also, she dies for good in the library that's infested with Vashda Nerada(Spelling)

Good point. I forgot about her death in the library. Now the question is, how long do they actually have together and do they get in sync for part of it? I mean, theoretically, he could make his visits and adventures with her be in sync with his timeline now that they are at a point where they are on the same path (married and all that stuff).

Sorry, I know a lot of folks love the Doctor, but (even though I am a ridiculous SF geek) I just don't get it.

Today's PvP:

http://www.pvponline.com/comics/pvp20110929.png

And isn't the doctor running out of regenerations? I mean, we were tols a long time ago he has 12 regenerations, right? He has used 10 (arguably 11 if you count the one in the tardis that didn't result in his changing) and we know the Valyard was an incarnation of the Doctor, making him either the 13th Doctor or the 12th if you count the aborted generation. So either Matt is the last Doctor, or the second to last Doctor, or they write off the Valyard as being an alternate time stream and give yet one more chap a shot at being the Doctor, but they can't have more than a decade left before they have to start breaking the rules on the Doctor's Regeneration count like they did with the Master stealing the body of Tremas in 'The Keeper of Traken' then getting offered a new set of regenerations for his help in 'The Five Doctors'. But with the Doctor having permanently banished Rassilon and the Master going with him as they are locked in mortal combat, there are no Time Lords to give the Doctor more regenerations even if they were inclined.

@Ges - I used to have to videotape the old series on PBS because it came on so late and they ran the entire multipart story in one evening. But the new Doctor is no snoozefest. Quite the contrary. The story keeps up a good pace and has a lot more action in it than the old shows did. The old ones felt more like a sci fi soap opera. But the new ones are more dramatic sci fi along the lines of BSG.

And I absolutely loved Torchwood. I've got to get my hands on Miracle Day, though.

@obi

Re 2: What's the point of having a gun if you can't shoot anyone you please? What's the point of having a car if you can't ride 100MPH anywhere you please?

We have rules everywhere so that things don't get royally fucked up. Why would a time machine (which has the most potential for fuck-uping) be any different?

@Draug

Yeah, the 12 doctors was unnecessarily short sighted of the writers.

I think they only brought it into play because of the story lines involving the Master being on his last regeneration. I personally think Roger Delgado was the best Master, but John Simm was pretty damn good.

@Draugnar, the Valeyard is not a full incarnation of the doctor, he was created some point between the twelth and thirteenth incarnation, but he is not either of them.
Personally, I think that they'll change the "13" lives thing with either a long ago reference, like Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf Entity using her powers to make the Doctor slightly immortal, like she did with Jack. Or through some new plot device when the Doctor again fears for his life.