Category: SIDRAT

Craig here. It gives me great pleasure to post another blog by guest blogger – @cathannabel !

Sometimes everything you read or watch seems to have a connection, a theme that’s so clear it feels as though it cannot be mere coincidence, even though it is impossible for it to be otherwise. It’s been that way lately with death. Obviously once one heads into middle age and beyond, intimations of mortality come thick and fast. But it really isn’t just that.

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Apologies for the lack of illustration with this piece. I did keep holding off in the hope that I’d have a piece of art to go along with it finished, but there’s only so many hours in the day (I sooo need a TARDIS).  Hopefully it’ll be the jumping off point for a few general reactions on Series 8 in in its entirety. And also thanks in advance if you manage to make it to the end of this. It’s appreciated.

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Craig here. It gives me great pleasure to introduce a new guest blogger – @thommck !

Missy Who?

Missy is this series’ big enigma. Who is she, where does she come from, is she a new or returning character?

This blog is me putting forward my bit of bonkers on answering some of those questions. I’ll try to support it with only facts from within the episodes we have seen. It definitely does not contain any spoilers and is purely my speculation. I’ll be really interested on your thoughts and urge you to put forward your own theories on Missy.

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To mark the closure of the first part of the tenure of Steve Moffat, and our retrospective of The Time Meddler, Phaseshift looks at Time in the Whoniverse. Warning – any time you spend reading this blog is lost to you.

A popular criticism (at least, on some internet boards) of the first three series of the tenure of Steve Moffat is his approach to time. That it seems to lack “rules” (or rather consistent application of rules) is a common one. It’s led to some entertaining debates and rigorous perspectives on the mechanics of what happened in various stories (for example, these blogs produced by @bluesqueakpip and @nick on change and no-change in Day of the Doctor).

I actually like it, and I’ll endeavour to explain why. The main reason, I suppose, is that its reignited some very old debates on how Time works in the Whoniverse, the nature of reality, individual perspective on events, and delivers a crash course in elements that have existed in the show since its very early days. These arguments seemed to solidify (to me) on the academic internet in the late 80s/early 90s. Students, with too much time (and beer) on tap, suddenly discovering how sexy ideas like Chaos Theory and Uncertainty were, and given a convenient electronic means to speak to like-minded (i.e. drunk) people .

Many of the elements that Steve Moffat brings to the table have clear precedent in the Whoniverse. We’ve seen them before in individual stories in the BG and RTD years. What’s unusual is to see them overlain, and the nature of following an arc of stories forces you to consider the overall shape of the narrative, to trace the flow of cause and effect. His series also revel in dialogue and iconography that reflects perceptions and metaphors for time.

Take a look at Series 6 for example, and it’s soggy with watery metaphors for time. The series is bookmarked by Lake Silencio, the lake being a pretty commonly used metaphor in stories for measuring your life against. A still point. You have a ship calmed on the Tides of Time and the Red Waterfall of an accelerated time stream. Throughout it you have River, and if theres ever a metaphor that’s been applied to Time, time and time again, it’s that one:

“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Time is a flowing river. Happy those who allow themselves to be carried, unresisting, with the current. They float through easy days. They live, unquestioning, in the moment.”

– Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”

– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Series 7 used in the iconography of the leaf, in substance and implementation a signifier of Chaos theory. A simple random occurrence of a leaf blowing in the wind (perhaps a wind started on another continent by one of those bloody butterflies) initiates a meeting between Clara’s parents.

Ellie: What? You kept it.
Dave: Of course I kept it.
Ellie: Why?
Dave: Because this exact leaf had to grow in that exact way, in that exact place, so that precise wind could tear it from that precise branch, and make it fly into this exact face. At that exact moment. And if just one of those tiny little things never happened, I’d never have met you. Which makes this the most important leaf in human history.

– Rings of Akhaten

The very talented TimeDancer visualises The Eighth Doctors Butterfly Room via Deviant art.

I’m glad SM chose the leaf, as I’m afraid the Butterflies (The Butterfly Effect) have been done to death. Edward Lorenz, a meteorological physicist at MIT wrote a paper “Predictibility: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas” in ’73. Its conclusions, that tiny changes to a system can radically change an outcome, tend to be misrepresented in pop culture like the film, er, The Butterfly Effect, simply because trying to quantify a direct route cause of an event in a complex system becomes impossible. Among the many pop culture uses of the Butterfly, the Eighth Doctor novels had an enormous open space within the TARDIS filled with Butterflies – a visualisation of the TARDIS systems navigating their way through the endless shifting range of possibilities.

Largely – a lot of the jousting in old and new conversations seems to be between those who preferred the idea that Time was written, and nothing could alter it, and those who saw time as a dynamic flow. The River is an excellent metaphor for this one. The Doctors TARDIS flies upriver, back in time and lands with a splash at its new locations. The adventure occurs, and causes ripples in the eddy and flow of the River of Time. The Doctor leaves, with everything looking “about right”. Going back forward in time, and the River may look the same, but inevitably small changes on a minuscule level may have occurred and grown. Things the Doctor doesn’t particularly notice, because he’s not everywhere.

Evidence that the Universe doesn’t really change around the Doctor is a bit thin on the ground, to be frank. The early days of the Whoniverse saw a large number of tales set in the Earths past as the Doctor fruitlessly tried to navigate the TARDIS back to Earth to drop of his human passengers. Implicit in these travels seemed to be the understanding that time could not be changed, or so it is said. Many remember the Doctors advice to Barbara in The Aztecs:

“You can’t rewrite history. Not one line!”

A line that was to be echoed by River to the tenth Doctor regarding her own life. But that seems more of a plea, than a statement of fact. In The Massacre, the Doctor ruminates of Steven:

“Even after all this time, he cannot understand. I dare not change the course of history.”

Both of these quotes don’t rule out the possibility of change though. They seem, on the face of it, to suggest that it’s undesirable. Perhaps in this early stage of the Doctors life he still believes in the rules of Time for his people, or perhaps because he understands that, for his companions who exist further down the timeline, change could be disastrous. Being there could be dangerous – actively changing the outcome of known events could lead to a serious case of “not being born”. An embarrassing outcome in anyone’s life.

RTD seemed to throw a lifeboat of optimism to the solid state mindset with the idea of “Fixed Points” in time, which could not be changed. These all boiled down to perception though. A popular one is Fires of Pompeii which, some argue, shows the Doctor always destroyed Pompeii. Did he though, because locating the cause of that scenario reaches backwards and forwards in Time? Pompeii wasn’t going to be destroyed in this timeline because the Pyroville were tapping its power. They tapped the power to convert the Earth. They did this because their planet had disappeared. Their planet was taken by the Daleks. The Daleks had removed themselves from time to fight a Time War with the Time Lords. It’s timey-wimey, but the net result is that, in the Universe pre-timewar, Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii. The Doctor made sure that in the post-timewar Universe it still did.

RTD then set about deconstructing his own idea of a “fixed point” in Waters of Mars. The events (the Doctor believes) are a fixed point, and he changes them. We see a big event being displaced as the headlines the Doctor recalls change. We see two people, who should be dead, survive to tell the tale. There is a sense of time unravelling until the suicide of Adelaide seems to stabilise things. Her death is the critical aspect of the events of Mars. Perhaps others could be saved, but the outcome that should have been preserved – that Adelaide’s granddaughter should go to the stars based on heroic tales of a grandmother she never met, was preserved. It’s a matter of perception, and being able to anticipate the crucial elements of cause and effect, and even the Doctor can’t get it right. SM pulled a similar trick in Series 6 – the Death of the Doctor. If everyone calls the events of Lake Silencio the fixed point of the Death of the Doctor, does it make it true?

Arguments for the transient nature of the Universe the Doctor inhabits are actually difficult to ignore. Not that long after the events of The Aztecs we had the Doctors first Trenzalore in the Space Museum. The Doctor sees his fate mounted in the Museum and seeks to change the outcome. He’s successful (and delighted, as you would be). We also had the introduction of The Time Meddler. Like the Master later, a member of the Doctors own species who actively sought to alter events for his own purposes. Even non-renegade Time Lords were later seen to desire changes in time when it suited their purposes.

TIMELORD: We’d like you to return to Skaro at a point in time before the Daleks evolved.
DOCTOR: Do you mean avert their creation?
TIMELORD: Or affect their genetic development so that they evolve into less aggressive creatures.
DOCTOR: Hmm. That’s feasible.

– Genesis of the Daleks

And the Doctor succeeds – the Daleks were never quite the same after that, and the story became one of Davros, who perhaps should have really died in the original Time Line. One of the frequent hazards of time travel stories is that the outcome you seek to avert becomes worse, or solidifies. It’s why this story is often seen (especially by RTD) as the start of the time war. The Time Lords inadvertently created the Time Line that would lead to the Time War. The Butterfly flaps its wings, and Chaos followed.

Shortly after that, the Doctor gave a demonstration to Sarah Jane of the cost leaving work undone in Pyramids of Mars. Asking to leave the adventure uncompleted and Sutekh on the verge of escaping, she asks to go home – they know how these events will play out and Sutekh doesn’t succeed. He takes her to her own time to experience a destroyed, sterile, Earth. They can only return to the Earth she knows by defeating the foe in the past. Evidence that the Doctor was always fated to intervene? A fixed event? You could equally argue that Marcus Scarman may, before the Doctor began causing ripples in the Time stream, never have found the Tomb of Sutekh. An earlier adventure may have caused just enough change in a minor player to contribute to a chain of events that gave Marcus the location of the Tomb. Perhaps that’s an explanation of the meandering nature of the TARDIS. Navigating to yet another pressure point of change for the Doctor to sort out to ensure that the timelines, more or less, travel on the “accepted” course.

Time is a storm in which we are all lost. Only inside the convolutions of the storm itself shall we find our directions.

– William Carlos Williams, Selected Essays

Think like that, and you can see why his fellow Time Lords consider the Doctor an absolute madman. Backwards and forwards, with little changes leading to big events. Just about the most dangerous individual in the Universe, even if his hearts are in the right place. The Eleventh Doctor wondered if he’d ever get done with saving us, but the trick is, he may be the cause of some of the issues he saves us from. He’ll never be done, because each intervention leads to yet further disturbances.

So I think Steve Moffat has spent his time profitably. Dealing with some big concepts in a poetic way. A tea-time TV show that can spark more debate about perceptions, root-causes, and uncertainty over time than just about anyone else outside of physics. Not bad.

I hope the new incarnation of the Butterfly, Peter Capaldi, will continue to flap his wings. Let new storms commence.

While you consider the transient nature of our perception of time, don’t forget to change your clocks tonight in the UK as we shift to British Summer Time. Damn Time Meddlers.

The phrases ‘Genetic Multiplicity’ and ‘Spatial Genetics’ exist in the real world. Perform a poetic combination (a la ‘Gallifrey Falls – No More’) and you get ‘Spatial Genetic Multiplicity’, a technobabble term for the different people throughout time and space who share looks in common.

The phrase came to our attention in ‘Journey’s End’, where the remark was used to point out the similarity between Gwen Cooper of 21st c. Torchwood and Gwyneth the Maid from the 19thc., both from Cardiff (Where there happens to be a Time Rift).

Gwen states her family roots in Cardiff date back to the 19th century. Russell T Davies explained the concept thus: “It’s not familial as we understand it. There’s no blood tie. Spatial genetic multiplicity means an echo and repetition of physical traits across a Time Rift.” This means that although Gwen may be a physical ‘copy’ of Gwyneth, she isn’t the same person.

In retrospect it cleverly solves the fact that the Doctor wasn’t surprised to see Terry Walsh as a different person every few weeks.

So, given that Clara and her ‘Claricles’ turned out to be ‘living ghosts’ – shards of a person splintered across time (Like Scaroth the Jagaroth), can the term apply to her?

If so, can most or all SGM cases be similar (-ie. Fragments of an original person fractured through time)?
Is this in direct conflict with RTD’s definintion?

Also, fans will be aware that The 12th Doctor (Capaldi) looks an awful lot like Caecilius and John Frobisher. RTD semi-joked on the Torchwood ‘Children of Earth’ commentary that Caecilius’ bloodline was finally ended (as fate intended) after a 2000 year postponement.

Many of us are speculating why No.12 looks like these other 2 men. Will the SGM term apply in this case? If so, will we learn more about  this phenomenon?

Dr Who already incorporated the change of lead actor into the stories of the show with the genius maguffin that is Regeneration.

Is Moffat about to make SGM another integral part of the legend by expanding on it’s significance?

Has ‘The Crack’ that was the arc of the 11th Doctor caused many more SGM cases?

Will series 8 see the Doctor searching the Universe’s time cracks, time faults, time flaws, time splits, time breaks, time breaches, time fissures, time fractures, time clefts, time crevices, time gaps, time crannies, time slits, time chinks, time interstices, time cavities, time openings, time rifts, time spaces, time holes, time ruptures and time apertures for his lost home?

Wouldn’t it be ironic if Gallifrey had been hidden right behind The Rift in Cardiff all along?

AG candidates for SGM

Gwyneth and Gwen
Adeola Oshodi and Martha Jones
The Soothsayer and Amy Pond
Caecilius, John Frobisher and the 12th Doctor
Clara and her (numerous) Claricles; Oswin Oswald, Clara Oswin, etc. (shards of the same character)

(Mostly) BG candidates for SGM

Barabara Wright and Lexa
Za and Greg Sutton
Old Mother and Karela
Kala and Lady Peinforte
Tlotoxl, Blake and Ashe
Carl Tyler, Saladin, Crossland and Caldwell
Ascaris, Garvey and Drax
Delos and Davis
Tor and Hal
Morton Dill and Steven Taylor
Bret Vyon and Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
Mavic Chen and Tobias Vaughn
Joanna of England, Sara Kingdom and Morgaine
Richard The Lionheart and Scaroth (Human disguise and his splintered incarnations)
Thatcher, Morgan and Jackson
Rhos, Dr Roland Summers, Laurence Scarman, Lowe, Mergrave and Coal Hill Headmaster
The Abbot of Amboise and the 1st Doctor
The Celestial Toymaker and Hedin
Anne and Dodo Chaplet
Jano and Sorenson
Squire Edwards and The Marshal of Solos
Bragen and Marcus Scarman
Pilot and Count Grendel of Gracht
Controller, Price and Time Lord
Jean Rock and Ransome

Roger Colbert, Steven Jenkins and Andred

Queen Victoria and Samantha Briggs
Jean Rock and Thea Ransome

John Viner, Dr. Lennox, Prof. Herbert Clegg and The Archimandrite
Khrisong, Baker and Hieronymous
Salamander and the 2nd Doctor
Alexander Denes, Jaeger and Spandrell
Van Lutyens, General Carrington, Richard Railton and Ranquin
Benik, Guy Crayford and Kelner
Jimmy, Vaber, Salamar and The Shrieve Captain
Cully and Mr Henderson
Osgood and Harry Towb
Eelek, The War Lord, Solon and Fenner
Lemuel Gulliver, Tribunal Time Lord, Taron and Chancellor Goth
Mullins and Dave
Hawkins and Tekker
Dr. Charles Lawrence , Professor Whitaker and Nyder
Road works overseer, Bors, Trask and James Quinlan
George Hibbert and The Duke of Forgill
John Wakefield, Rex Farrel and Morelli
Sir Keith Gold, Henry Gordon Jago and Colonel Hugh
Johnson and The Traken Master
George Patrick Barnham and Thawn
Moor, King Peladon and Professor Hobbes
Galleia and Solow
David Mitchell and UNIT Soldiers
Irongron and Captain Rigg
Andrews and Harry Sullivan
Poul and Mawdryn
Clara the Clown/Mrs. Wiggs/ The Queen of Hearts and Ruth
Edward Masters, The Administrator and Captain Hardaker
Norton and James
Lady Eleanor and Dot Cotton(!) (=Kiston and Dirty Den Watts? Leela & Rosa di Marco?! etc.)
Butler and The Governor of Varos
Sevrin and Arak
Professor Watson and Ben Wolsey
Dr Fendelman and Sir George Hutchinson
Princess Strella and Romana 1
Kara and Parisian Art Lover
Duggan and Merdeen
Professor Chronotis, The Keeper of Traken and Old Man (public face of The Borad)
Nyssa and Ann Talbot
Todd and Brenda Williams (Rhys’ mum)
Captain Wrack and Val
Morgus and Trevor Sigma
Maxil and the 6th Doctor

Jobel and Mr Copper
Kiv and General Staal (?!)
Chief Caretaker and Henry Parker
Helen A and Clara’s Gran
Joan Redfern and Verity Newman
Tony Mack and Jonah Bevan
Dr Kent and Cass

And that’s not too mention the roles played by:

Pat Gorman
Derek Ware
Terry Walsh
Stewart Fell
Max Faulkner

This guest blog post is by @Arbutus

A Tale of Two Celebrations: Thoughts about the BG and AG 50th Anniversary Specials

(Note for those who haven’t heard The Light at the End: I am trying to avoid any more spoilers than absolutely necessary, but for the purpose of commentary, I couldn’t help revealing the identity of the villain and the nature of the plot against the Doctor. Be warned!)
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This guest blog post is by @CathAnnabel

Once there was a planet much like any other. And unimportant. This planet sent the universe a message. A bell, tolling among the stars, ringing out to all the dark corners of creation. And everybody came to see. Although no one understood the message, everyone who heard it found themselves afraid. Except one man. The man who stayed for Christmas.

So this is the story of a man who got stuck somewhere. ‘Everyone gets stuck somewhere eventually, Clara. Everything ends.’ He could have left, but no one else could have protected that small town as he did, from the forces that were besieging it, and from the war that could have burned it and all around it.
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If there’s one technical drama phrase that people struggle to understand, it’s Deus Ex Machina.

Most people get that it’s Classical Greek for ‘god from the machine’, many can tell you that it derives from Greek drama. Some can even explain that, originally, the gods in Ancient Greek drama were lowered down onto the stage by a sort of crane contraption – the god in the machine.

Then things get a bit confused.

Confusion No. 1: The solution needed the intervention of enormously powerful beings. It was a Deus Ex Machina!
Confusion No. 2: I didn’t see the solution coming! It was a Deus Ex Machina!
Confusion No. 3: The resolution was rushed! It was a Deus Ex Machina!

No, no and no.
A genuine Deus ex Machina (D.E.M.) needs all of the following:
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This is our first GuestBlogger post and is by @Nick

This is the first time I’ve attempted something like this, so apologies in advance if I fail to be concise enough or get a bit confusing in places.

After finally seeing the DotD via BBC DVD I read @Bluesqueakpip’s masterly analysis of how the story can be explained by sequential changes in the Doctor’s (and by inference the Universe’s) time line. I found the “bowler hat” diagram and the explanation (and subsequent discussion) convincing…

But I was left thinking whether we needed to postulate such a major change in the time line to accommodate DofD at all.

I postulate that the events shown in DofD (summarized above by Bluesqueakpip) happened pretty much in the way she describes, for the reasons she explains BUT that this is what always happened on the last day of the Time War in AG Who. Time therefore didn’t change as the Black Line always happened.

Let me try and explain:

I think the most critical question to ask and attempt to answer is “What changed” between the previously known version of events

The Moment is used and Gallifrey and the Daleks burn

and the DofD version

Gallifrey is removed from time/space and the Daleks are destroyed in their own cross fire.

For me, there are three major considerations (although I’m sure there are many others as well) which must be addressed before a scenario where Gallifrey was always removed from time/space can be accepted are:

1. The actions of the Moment
2. Does Doctor10 (Eccleston) realise that Gallifrey is missing rather than burned once the War Doctor regenerates ? and
3. How can essentially all of the Daleks have been destroyed when all 13 Doctors/Tardis act together to remove Gallifrey from time/space ?

Considering each of these points, helps explain why the “best” explanation for DotD revolves around a nothing changed view of the timeline. Dealing with these in turn:

The Moment

In the DotD, we saw a sentient weapon of universal scale hyper-destruction that seems to need to test the resolve of any potential user before becoming self-armed and permitting itself to be used. As a sentient weapon, the Moment itself will also have its own point of view and preference.

The Moment brings the War Doctor in contact with Doctor 11 (Tennant) and 12 (Smith) to show him the effect on himself of using the Weapon and thus test his resolve based on his post-use guilt and remorse.

I assume that the Moment always forced to Doctor to undergo this test. Accordingly, I consider that

• the War Doctor’s decision always happened in the way that DotD showed us and therefore this is what always happened in AG Who (the history of the Doctor and the Universe remains unchanged) OR
• whilst the test always happened, originally the War Doctor wasn’t swayed enough by the guilt and regret shown by D11 and D12 to alter his conviction that ending the Time War by destroying Gallifrey and the Daleks, wasn’t the only sane option regardless of the personal consequences.

In the latter case, you have to conclude that something “timey-wimey” has happened to Doctor 12’s timeline, as Bluesqueakpip describes, which changed the circumstances of the War Doctor’s test and allowed the Doctors act together to change his personal past and that of the universe as a whole. It seems that this probably revolves around Clara “impossible girl” arc (Bluesqueakpip @Phaseshift) given what we have seen.

I think this is a reasonable argument, since the Doctor’s future can’t be written in stone yet. Therefore the Clara present/Clara absent options (and multiple others of course) should remain open in theory. However, in that case, there really must be multiple versions of DotD each version with a different outcome so far as the Moment is concerned whether this is the first, second or “X” possible future outcome, which the Moment “sees” simultaneously.

Using Time-Wimey words, from the perspective of the Doctor’s time line, it might be better to describe this as that the Moment fails to convince the War Doctor not to use the weapon, right upto the point the Doctor’s future changes (Clara survives if you like) when the change in the future simultaneously rewrites the past in accordance with the DotD version.

I think this view is subtly different from what Bluesqueakpip describes. For the Moment (like the Tardis perhaps) all possible futures remain open and possible and the weapon choses to pick the version where the weapon is never used as this is the Moment’s preference. Given the Moment picks the option then it seems to me that all the possible futures ceases to be possible and the Doctor’s future time line is fixed on the version AG Who has shown us instantaneously, the millisecond the Moment sees the only future time line that coincides with its preference. Simply, the Moment chooses Bluesqueakpips “black line option, and this is what always happens.

In addition to avoiding any change to the Doctor’s past, I think it also gets around having to consider why the end of the Timewar, the destruction of Gallifrey and the Daleks isn’t a fixed point in time, with all that entails.

Daleks

AG Who initially showed us a post time war Universe free of the Daleks, from the very start with Dalek. Since then, we have seen various Dalek time war survivors (The Emperor Dalek, Cult of Skaro and Davros) managed to survive and secretly rebuild an army, only to be beaten by the Doctor each time, before re-establishing a Dalek Empire.

The first time we see a rebuilt Dalek empire is in Asylum of the Daleks. Quite how this came about is unclear to me as the premise seems to ignore the Time War arc entirely (sorry not being on here or the Guardian thread back then I haven’t caught up with fan thinking here). Perhaps the new Paradigm Daleks have gathered together various stragglers from pre-Victory of the Daleks to rebuild a “democratic” Dalek empire.

If the Moment wasn’t used to burn the Dalek empire and “time-lock” it as we previously understood, then can we explain the Dalek timeline as seen in AG Who so far ?

My answer is YES, but only with special pleading:

One has to assume that every Dalek in existence was gathered above Gallifrey immediately before the Time War ended with Gallifrey being removed from time/space allowing them all to be caught in their own cross fire and destroyed. I believe an argument can be made that the Daleks would indeed have gathered their entire force to destroy Gallifrey in order to become the undisputed Masters of all Time and Space. Their goal must be considered so important that leaving forces elsewhere and failing to destroy Gallifrey and the Time Lords for the absence of such force would demand such a concentration as part of their strategy ? To potentially lose and leave the TimeLords able to strike back would be unthinkable.

However, you may not find such an explanation satisfactory as I said, there is an element of special pleading.

The Doctor

In DotD, the War Doctor and Doctor 12 make it clear that no Doctor prior to Matt Smith will remember what happened around the War Doctor’s decision to use the Moment along with all 13 Doctors coming together to save Gallifrey. Whilst we can debate whether the un-remembering effect has been present on previous multi-Doctor stories, Steven Moffat has made this effect unambiguously clear this time. There can be no debate about this then.

In my opinion, one really clear change between pre and post DotD then should be what Doctor 10 (Eccleston) sees and remembers after the War Doctor’s regeneration.

AG Who makes it clear that he remembers causing and seeing both Gallfrey and the Daleks being destroyed and is imbued with a mixture of survivor and perpetrator guilt from causing this very act, creating a depressed, angry, lonely, PTSD personality that all AG Doctors’ have shared since the destruction of Gallifrey in their own unique way.

Doctor 10 on regenerating must remember stealing the Moment and his intention to use the weapon to end the Time War. On surveying the post DotD battlefield does he realise he has indeed perpetrated two acts of genocide or does he see Gallifrey disappeared, the wreckage of the destroyed Dalek fleet and realise miraculously that something else happened instead and that he didn’t undertake genocide even if he is completely unclear what exactly happened.

In my opinion, if he sees a time locked genocidal end to the Time War (regardless of whether it happened that way or not) on the Tardis scanner then his personality and his subsequent motivations stand. However, if he sees something other than that, then in my opinion, we have to assume that his personality and motivations change. He can no longer be an agent of genocide and even if he is now the lone TimeLord in the universe, surely he now lacks the guilt, the PTSD, the anger and self-loathing that we know he once had ?

I conclude that so long as Doctor 10 on regeneration can’t distinguish between Gallifrey burning and being removed from time/space then at a personal level his personal history will seem unaffected by the events in DotD. In this case, I think you can conclude that either the events shown in the DotD always happened or that events in DotD had no discernable effect so long as Doctor’s 9, 11 and 12 are concerned.

However, if Doctor 10 does understand that Gallifrey no longer burned, then his personality and that of Doctor’s 11 and 12 must be fundamentally changed.

My conclusion

In my opinion, it is possible to hypothesize that the events shown in the Day of the Doctor were always those which happened on the final day of the Time War and that this is at least as viable explanation as that set out by Bluesqueakpip in her blog post The Day of the Doctor – a time structure analysis.

Furthermore in some ways, I find this to be a more preferable explanation given that it can be interpreted to leave the personality of the Doctor and the time line shown in AG Who largely untouched. For me, potentially the most problematic element of changing the Doctor’s timeline is that it really should result in a fundamental change to the personality of the Doctor compared to that shown by AG Who as well as a rewrite the Daleks time line at the same time. In this case, I have to ask myself what other elements of AG Who would remain unchanged or unaffected?

Nick