Companions past and present

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  • #14087
    ScaryB @scaryb

    @Shazzbot @htpbdet et al

    While I like your explanations (and am relieved there are a few options 🙂 ) for why Clara apparently sees no future Doctors in his timeline, there is also the other possibility – that Smith’s incarnation is the last.

    Looking at what Clara says (rather than relying on the snapshots of what she does) – “I saw all your faces – all eleven” Combined with the similarities of Smith’s TARDIS to the dying one (the interior design and the matching window cracks) there is definitely a suggestion that this at least a possibility.  I’m fine if it turns out to be one of those Moff red herring phrases like “…secret the Dr will take to his grave. It is discovered”

    #14089
    Anonymous @

    @Shazzbot, @bluesqueakpip

    Skaro has been reported destroyed a couple of times, but it always seems to keep coming back. DW#7 destroyed it (or its sun, anyways) in RotD, DW#8 picked up the executed Master’s remains from there in the DW TV movie, the Daleks of the Cult of Skaro state that it was destroyed during the Time War in DiM, DW#11 goes there in AotD.

    I see 2 possible explanations:

    1. Each time, Skaro was devastated, but not actually destroyed. The planet was left a burnt-out ruin, which the Daleks later returned to and rebuilt.
    2. Each time “Skaro” got destroyed, the Daleks set up a new planet as their central base and renamed it Skaro.
    #14091
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    @bluesqueakpip and @scaryb

    I didn’t think you could upload a file by copying and pasting. I think you have to link via a URL using the “img” button, but I’ve not actually experimented with copying and pasting so it may work. This program throws up new things all the time!

    Bluesqueakpip, as you are an Author you have access to the back-end and can upload images via the +Add Media button or Media section. After you upload an image you can then get the URL to it, usually on the right, which you can then use in any post.

    For anyone not an Author, I’d suggest posting your images on an image sharing site e.g. Flickr or Photobucket and then you can link to them using the “img” button. 😕

    Hope that makes sense

    #14093
    ScaryB @scaryb

    @craig @Shazzbot

    I posted an image with cut and paste (it’s only on my computer) of the Tartan Dalek – http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/on-the-sofa-part-2/page/6/#post-13112

    (have done the odd one before)

    It’s not a big issue, it’s just that it worked before and I can’t work out what I did diferently. Don’t worry it’s most likely me!

    #14094
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    @scaryb and @Shazzbot

    That Dalek picture is actually hosted by Facebook and it is visible because it is drawn in via the Facebook URL. Maybe copying and pasting from Facebook keeps the URL of he image intact.

    I’m now going to try and copy and paste a pic from somewhere else now.

    Shark Film Posters: Sharknado

    #14095
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    Well, that worked, but it as a picture that was already on the web. Now I’ll try copying and pasting from my PC.

    #14096
    Anonymous @

    @craig – ‘Snakes on a Plane’ has certainly met its match.   😀

    #14098
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    Wow, that worked too, it turned it into code rather than upload it. Maybe if the pic is under a certain size then you can post by copying and pasting. Who knows.

    #14099
    HTPBDET @htpbdet

    @bluesqueakpip

    So I suspect he’d now try to avoid Skaro; the point that he doesn’t mention it’s going to be destroyed by him or make any comment whatsoever that implies it will be destroyed is the continuity change. He seems completely unaware that he’s destroyed the place.

    I would really like to understand why you think this is the case.

    Why would he bring up the fact that he is one day going to destroy Skaro?

    I can’t understand why his saying nothing necessitates a continuity change?

    #14100
    HTPBDET @htpbdet

    @bluesqueakpip

    Equally, as well as a future Doctor, a Companion would – in theory –  be able to change the Doctor’s timeline. It’s not their own timeline. But the implication has always been that it takes the power of a Time Lord to change time. River might be able to do it.

    Really?

    As early as Aztecs you have a scenario where the Doctor is concerned about a human (Barbara) altering time.

    I think anyone can alter time – its just Time Lords who seem to have the ability to do it with less consequences than others.

    Basically my attitude is ‘the Doctor cannot alter his own timeline’. That’s why he’s so careful about spoilers; once he knew he didn’t rescue Amy and Rory, he can’t.

    But there is a whole SM season devoted to the Eleventh Doctor altering his own future to avoid a fixed point in time where he dies…

    Moffat alters the “rules” about this stuff as he goes along – which, many will say, is fair enough if good stories are told. This fluid notion about what is and isn’t a fixed point in time makes everything possible.

    Given what happened in The Wedding of River Song, isn’t it more a case of “once he knew he didn’t rescue Amy and Rory” he didn’t?

    #14185
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @htpbdet

    But there is a whole SM season devoted to the Eleventh Doctor altering his own future to avoid a fixed point in time where he dies…

    No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t alter it. He believes what everybody told him – because they believed it too (except for River, very probably, and she’s almost as good a liar as the Doctor). Everybody told him he dies at Lake Silencio. And he follows the Time Lord rules; once you know your own future you can’t change it. It’s not until the very last moment that he realises that there is a way of making everyone think that he died there; and then realises what the fixed point really is.

    The fixed point is that everyone believes that the Doctor dies at Lake Silencio.

    Was this always the case? Well, Rory obstinately won’t die – because his death is a fixed point. Had the Doctor ever died in truth at Lake Silencio, Rory wouldn’t have been able to travel to the place and time of his death. If the fixed point at Lake Silencio had been the Doctor’s true death, the two fixed points of the Doctor’s death and Rory’s death would contradict each other.

    I can’t understand why his saying nothing necessitates a continuity change?

    Um, because you don’t normally look at something that’s been vapourised by a sun going nova and say ‘look at the state of it’? Mind you, it could have been the Time War rather than the GI.

    #14228
    Nick @nick

    @bluesqueakpip @htpbdet @MadScientist72 @scaryb @Shazzbot

    It seems to me that trying to debate anything to do with the Daleks, Davros and the destruction of Skaro is problematic anyway as both the Doctor and the Daleks are time travelers and the Dalek/Human/Doctor timeline cant be easily populated with hard and fast dates. Even if there was a hard and fast time timeline, travel makes it possible for Davros to be reanimated in say AD 2,800 and travel forward to the far future anyway.

    For example, when Doctor 7 used the Hand of Omega to destroy Skaro, the only thing you can state with certainty was that there was two Dalek factions – Imperial (led by Davros) and the Other(s). As we saw in Journey’s End, Davros appeared to be something of a prisoner of the Daleks (certainly wasn’t in charge). Assuming you postulate he escapes (he always does after all) then there is nothing in the existing continuity (yet) that he doesn’t go one to found the Imperial Daleks subsequently. I don’t think there is a date in Revelation of the Daleks showing when Davros created his Imperial Daleks. Likewise you can fit the destruction of the Daleks in the Evil of the Daleks story into sometime after 100,000 AD (when Bad Wolf is set) without having to change continuity just as easily.

    In any case, with the Time War, its quite possible to speculate that the Dalek timeline has changed several times due to various TimeWar related events. What is in the Time War perhaps also needs to reflect the perspective of the writer. For example, the remaining post time war Daleks may view both Doctor 2 and Doctor 7’s actions discussed above being events in the TimeWar even if they aren’t from our perspective. In any case, it is reasonable that we speculate that the TimeWar Doctor or the TimeLords themselves may have unconsciously influenced Doctor’s 2 and 7 which resulted in both Doctor’s being in the right place at the right time to deliver major blows against the Daleks which formed individual actions in the longer TimeWar narrative. Its a TimeWar after all and shouldn’t be thought about in a linear way with just Doctor’s 8/Hurt Doctor (!?)/9 being personally involved.

    I don’t think we need to postulate any post Clara continuity changes having occurred re the Daleks. It doesn’t mean they haven’t, just that there is enough leeway anyway to fit in most things you want to (even before any Time War related effects) as it is. The reference itself to the “Battle of Exillon” can be taken to be quite vague. I would not characterize anything seen in Death to the Daleks as a battle (Skirmish perhaps).

    Nick

    #14229
    Nick @nick

    @htpbdet @bluesqueakpip

    But there is a whole SM season devoted to the Eleventh Doctor altering his own future to avoid a fixed point in time where he dies…

    Was this ever a fixed point in time in the first place ? Surely all the Doctor actually knows is that something, which may involved his Death (ie no regeneration) might happen at that point in time and that place. He’s free to investigate it and take steps to avoid it happening. His future isn’t written so far as he is concerned so, so long as something that looks like his Death happens at the due date/point, he’s free maneuver around it. Surely the fact there wasn’t a regeneration was the clearest hint that it wasn’t his death ? Although we don’t exactly how a Timelord can die and not regenerate, the Doctor will have a pretty good idea.

    I rather think both your points of view are essentially correct in this case. I don’t think they are certainly as mutually exclusive as you both appear to think.

    Nick

    #14230
    Nick @nick

    @bluesqueakpip

    The continuity changes are generally subtle (except for Skaro), but they’re consistently there throughout both Asylum and the second half of Series 7. And while most of them could be explained away individually, the cumulative effect is difficult to explain without saying ‘the Doctor’s continuity has changed’.

    Yes, he could have visited Skaro at a point before he destroyed it. Yes, there might have been another battle of Exillon. Yes, the missing wonder of the universe could have been destroyed in an off-screen event. Yes, he could have forgotten how to pronounce ‘Metebelis’.

    Hmmm. Let me tell you a story..

    A writer and show runner called Steven had this idea relating to an new companion called Clara’s story arc. He dubbed it the “Impossible Girl” arc. His idea links nicely to his concept for the 50th anniversary show and allowed him to write a longer narrative story linking the anniversary show into the preceding season. He was rightly pleases as no previous anniversary had really managed to get this right. With this success, he reflected on how he might build this impossible girl concept into the prior history of the show, which was needed for the story arc to be convincing.

    His first plan, was to show strange Doctor behavior in the preceding episodes which would be caused by the impossible girl idea and become obvious in the final episode of the season. To support this he wrote some lines for the Doctor to speak showing his confusion and dropping in hints that that the events in past stories had changed. As the coup de grace he inserted some edit scenes of former Doctors with the impossible girl’s Claraicles. All together they imply the Doctor’s past continuity may have changed in unknown ways.

    Work’s right ?

    At a superficial level, yes it does. Obviously he can’t show the Claraicles really acting to reverse the GI’s influence on the Doctor (impossible to do), but that doesn’t really matter. He thinks the rest of the scenes work to deliver enough to get the concept over to the Audience.

    Whilst we await the revelation of exactly who John Hurt Doctor is, it seems most likely that he’s TimeWar related and as such might provide SM a way to reset the post Time War Doctor’s troubled personality which has been expressed by 9/10/11 in various different ways since AG Who reappeared.

    Problems ?

    Depends on your point of view. He can’t show a Claraicle having any impact on any prior Doctor story because he can’t remake an episode with a former Doctor. He can’t explain how any of the Claraicles exactly counteracts the GI’s influence (just how do the thousand’s of Claraicles actually do this ?), although he can show how Clara 1 helps the Doctor in series 7B and show Claraicles helping in series 7a stories (but note I don’t think we can see the GI’s negative influence in these stories apart from in the Christmas show where the GI is the protagonist).

    The method chosen to set up the anniversary show (entering the timeline) has some interesting consequences for him. The Doctor should see his future as well as past selves. He doesn’t see any future ones (so far). This doesn’t make sense. He should at least see 13 who is or becomes the Valeyard self and reveals the John Hurt Doctor (who is either 12 or new 9 or just possibly some one else).

    Past especially BG continuity is reset (it appears)

    The inconsistencies and poor execution don’t worry Steven as these are only for the hard core fans to debate surely ?

    Why do this at all ?

    We can’t know yet as we need to see the Anniversary and possibly the Christmas specials and series 8. However, it seems to be related to three separate things:

    1. Liberating future writers from the BG and early AG continuity (possibly)
    2. Putting the TimeWar firmly behind us (probably)
    3. Creating a way for the Doctor to start again from Zero (probably)

    end of Story.

    So yes Bluesqueakpip, I believe you are correctly describing the way the SM is trying to indicate that past Continuity has changed as a result of the Impossible Girl, although we can’t yet be sure just how significant a change it is.

    I think for fans like myself and @htpbdet upsetting the BG continuity isn’t really necessary (I certainly don’t see AG Who has been limited by BG Who continuity and if anything the writers had self imposed what limits there are, rather than the continuity itself having such a baleful influence).

    Moving past the TimeWar, assuming that happens, is likely to be most welcome though. The character of the Doctor needs to move on to a place where he is not driven by his TimeWar guilt.

    We’ll have a clearer idea in November whether we really like what SM has attempted to do. 🙂

    Nick

     

    #14365
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @nick

    Was this ever a fixed point in time in the first place ?

    Since time completely stopped when it was changed, I think the answer has to be a categorical ‘yes’.

    Although we don’t exactly how a Timelord can die and not regenerate, the Doctor will have a pretty good idea.

    Yeah, we have a pretty good idea as well, because it’s been seen several times in the BG Who and once in the AG Who (Last of the Time Lords). If Time Lords receive a fatal injury and don’t regenerate, they die. Fatal shooting + no regeneration = dead. They may live forever barring accidents, but the accidents do happen.

     

     

    #14366
    Nick @nick

    @bluesqueakpip

    Hmmm. I think we might be at cross purposes slightly. In my mind the Doctor can’t have known that he would actually die at the Lake, even if everyone he knew swore that they saw him die there. For all he knew it could have been a clone, an android replica, the version we saw (whatever the Robot Doctor actually was) or something even more outlandish. That gives him plenty of opportunity to avoid dying even if the shooting itself cant be avoid. The problem as you’ve demonstrated in your timey-wimey blog is that the writer decides what is fixed and what isn’t for dramatic purposes and not for any underlying rules of Who time-travel physics [more on that point below].

    Back to the event itself. My distinct impression at the time was that he had co-opted the idea anyway (since he invited Amy/Rory/River to be present) to allow himself a way out which River spoiled by refusing to go along with the plan.  The event (the shooting) may be a fixed point for the Doctor in that it had to happen, but the Doctor found a devious way round what it meant. Since the Doctor wasn’t shot (the robot thing was), there was no reason for him to regenerate. In hind sight the lack of regeneration was the biggest clue that it actually want the real Doctor in the first place surely ?  [it possible in my mind that the original shooting we see isn’t the same as the one we see at the end of the story arc and the Doctor has indeed rewritten his own future/past, but I’m not sure if this was something we were meant to think might have happened or just something I thought was possible at the time]. In any case, I don’t think we can therefore actually conclude that a head shot will kill a Time Lord.

    I don’t recall seeing a Time Lord actually dying in BG Who although the Master came close quite a few times (like a cat he has 9 lives for each regeneration) as did Doctor’s 3, 5 [and 10 (by the Dalek)]. Did the Master really die at the end of Last of the Time Lords ? I thought the whole point of the final scene (with the ring) was RTD’s showing us how the Master got round the problem and didn’t he refuse to regenerate before that ?

    Given what we know about regeneration I can well believe the body can grow a new head or the head a new body and that’s before allowing for any involvement of the Tardis which (certainly in Doctor 4’s time) stored a copy of all the Doctors memories.

    Just what is a fixed point ?

    First off let me say that I agree with your comment on the Timey-wimey blog the Who universe rules set out (mostly by Steven Moffat I think) don’t necessarily follow any sense verses how others have suggested time travel ought to work. You state you cant change your own future without destroying the Universe. That may be correct, but can we be really 100 % sure that the Doctor didn’t change his future at Lake Silencio ? The “death” shown in the Impossible Astronaut has to be the same as the one shown in River Song’s wedding. There is insufficient evidence shown on screen to assert that this is 100 % certain I think. However, lets assume it is.

    So when River refuses to shoot the Doctor and time breaks down, it is quite a reasonably question to ask why that event is fixed and the universe will be destroyed if it doesn’t happen. I don’t recall an explanation being given on screen, but its more than likely that I may have forgotten. I can fully understand that for the Doctor, who knows that it will/did happen and also knows he wont die (since he’s plotted a way round that problem) this a fixed event. For the Universes as a whole ? Why would it be ? It makes perfect sense to me that it something has to happen to the Doctor as a consequence of the event not happening, but I can’t see the same logic applying to the Universe as a whole.

    If we look at this when a different perspective, for all we know from the Universe’s perspective there are many many fixed points out there. So when the Doctor turns up and saves the planet (eg Rings of Akhatan) he could well be changing a fixed point in Akhatan history – the consequences of this event (millions possibly billions of individuals are saved) are very significant. Contrast this with Pompeii, where its “fixed” and he can’t save tens of thousands of ancient Romans. Why is one a fixed event and the other isn’t ? Its impossible to say, although I would argue that the Doctor knows (and has maybe even seen) Vesuvius erupt so its a fixed event for him whereas Akhatan isn’t (he has no idea what happens at all). This is what I meant by arguing its a matter of the time travelers personal perspective to the event in question whether it is a fixed point or not.

    I know we can equally argue that the Doctor has never come across a fixed point during his travels so the issue of him changing fixed points has never come up before. Its a reasonable argument, but sounds like a case of special pleading to me.

    I would prefer to argue in the Who universe it is possible to generally change both the future and past without consequence unless your trying to change your own future or past or something major (ie affecting a large number of people directly or indirectly) that you are personally aware actually happened. I would argue that making the Doctor a special case (probably because he is the most time travelled individual in the universe who has literally had his fingers in far too many pies) makes more sense than creating a universal “physical law” around fixed points. If you think about it, Time travel would be extremely risky to contemplate at all if you were going to keep bumping into various cultures fixed points without any knowledge in advance of which points were fixed and which weren’t. Surely a Time Lord, Time Agent or Dalek time traveler would have accidently destroyed the universe by now ? If you don’t agree with me here, then you have to have a theory which explains why some events are fixed and others aren’t which makes sense other than for narrative purposes.

    The major problem with this explanation is that it is River who attempts to change the Doctors future at Lake Silencio (although the Doctor may already have done this for himself) and it is River who almost destroys the Universe. This works with my “Doctor is a special case” explanation, but otherwise destroys the whole idea I’m setting out.

    Therefore I believe that anniversary show is likely to change the Doctor’s personal future in that it is not 11 who is at Trenzalore and it either never happens that way or its a future Doctor from a new regeneration cycle and change his personal past in some way by changing the TimeWar in some unknown way. That’s a different discussion though.

    Of course trying to rationalize physics in a fictional universe is a interesting challenge but ultimately futile. Who show runners are never going to satisfactorily explain how the Who universe works (its far too difficult and sets up the worst sort of cannon in that it really limits your narrative ability going forward) as if the story narrative suits them they’ll change it. I accept that it suits Steven Moffat’s narrative to have some points fixed and others variable based on the story he’s telling and to require the universe to be destroyed (sometimes) as a result. The fact that this is apparently different (more perhaps more complex concept) than that shown in the pre-Steven Moffat era and may be ignored or further changed by the next show runner is just one of those things that either annoy you (including me sometimes) or not.

    Fascinating discussion anyway. I’m looking forward to you pointing out  where and why I got it wrong 🙂

    Thanks

    Nick

    #14377
    Anonymous @

    @nick

    In hind sight the lack of regeneration was the biggest clue that it actually want the real Doctor in the first place surely ?

    I suggest you watch this clip from The Impossible Astronaut. Just before the 1 minute mark, he does start to regenerate (or at least appears to). Then the astronaut shoots him again. That second shot appears to abort the regeneration, killing him – the head shot wasn’t what made it fatal, the “double-tap” was. It’s not until the end of the season – in The Wedding of River Song – that we find out it was all an elaborate ruse. But we never find out how he made the Teselecta appear to be regenerating.

    I don’t recall seeing a Time Lord actually dying in BG Who although the Master came close quite a few times

    The Master has actually died at least 3 times.

    1. Prior to DW:tM he was executed by the Daleks (the Doctor was on his way to return his ashes to Gallifrey at the start of the movie), but his consciousness somehow surivived the death of his body.
    2. At the end of DW:tM, he’s cast into the Eye of Harmony, destorying his physical form again. The Time Lords ressurected him for the Time War (The Sound of Drums) – you can’t ressurect someone who’s not dead.
    3. At the end of Last of the Time Lords, he chooses not to regenerate and his body is subsequently cremated. He was resurrected again by Miss Trefusis in the End of Time.

    So, the Master has really died, he just never seems to stay dead.

    Just what is a fixed point ?

    In Cold Blood, the Doctor described it as “There are fixed points throughout time where things must stay exactly the way they are.” The Wedding of River Song, however, shows us that “the way they are” isn’t necessarily the same as the way people perceive them to be. In The Parting of the Ways, the Doctor claimed that the Time Lords knew which points were fixed and said in the fires of Pompeii that not meddling with fixed points was the “burden of the Time Lords”. I don’t recall it ever being explained why certain points are fixed, but my guess would be that they somehow act as anchors/reference points for the space-time continuum. Thanks to Mr. Einstein, space and time are relative, but this means they need something to be relative to.

     

    #14386
    Arkleseizure @arkleseizure

    @nick

    I don’t recall seeing a Time Lord actually dying in BG Who although the Master came close quite a few times

    I would suggest The Deadly Assassin as the answer to that one. The President is indeed killed with a staser shot from point-blank range, Runcible is killed with a knife in the back, and Goth dies of… well I’ve never been quite sure what Goth dies of, but I’m confident he does! Although I suppose it’s possible they were all on their last regeneration (as was Azmael in The Twin Dilemma, now I come to think of it).

    #14388
    HTPBDET @htpbdet

    @arkleseizure

    Yes, you are quite right – there are  a number of murders of Time Lords in BG Doctor Who.

    It is an interesting question this: but I have always thought one way to rationalise it is that if the Time Lord is deliberately murdered by another, they die. If it is accidental, they might be able to regenerate.

    Except in Troughton’s case, no Doctor has regenerated because someone has directly tried to kill them – apart from McCoy and even there you could argue that while he was murdered there was no specific animus or intention to kill him – as opposed to kill anyone who was watching/present.

    The truth of it is that writers write what works: and don’t care about the issues that might arise in continuity.

    🙂

    #14389
    Arkleseizure @arkleseizure

    @htpbdet — yes, only Troughton had his regeneration deliberately triggered by someone else, and by the very people who’d be extra careful that they didn’t kill him. Even McCoy can be ruled out as his Doctor survived being shot: it was actually Grace who killed him by not knowing how to operate on a Time Lord!

    The Deadly Assassin also established that Time Lords had the death penalty, and executed by dispersing the condemned’s atoms around the universe. That suggests to me that they wanted to be absolutely sure that somebody they’d executed couldn’t just come back to life!

    🙂

    #14391
    Anonymous @

    @htpbdet

    It is an interesting question this: but I have always thought one way to rationalise it is that if the Time Lord is deliberately murdered by another, they die. If it is accidental, they might be able to regenerate.

    In Last of the Time Lords, the Master is shot & fatally wounded by Lucy Saxon – a deliberate act of murder. The Doctor urged him to regenerate – clearly indicating that he could – but he died becaues he chose not to.

    #14392
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    @MadScientist72 I have to agree. I think basing your regeneration on what the law describes as someone else’s “mens rea” (guilty mind) would be difficult. Court cases can take weeks, if not months, to determine if someone has mens rea. I would think they are either on last regenerations, or Time Lords just know how to kill Time Lords.

    #14393
    Anonymous @

    @MadScientist72 @craig

    Lucy Saxon ‘fatally wounded’ the Master?  I’m thinking there is a different definition of ‘fatally’ not only in the Whoniverse, but also in Real Life, to what you are describing.  Because he quite clearly came back after that.

    Btw, does Lucy Saxon count as a ‘companion’?  I’ve already been characterised as the ‘Topic Nazi’ so I have to keep a close eye on these things.  😀

    #14394
    HTPBDET @htpbdet

    @MadScientist72 @craig @Shazzbot

    True re the Master, except that as the story develops it becomes fairly clear that Lucy did not kill him but did what had been pre-arranged so that he could be revived.

    So, I don’t think she meant to kill him dead – she meant to kill him alive.

    But it’s just a matter of interpretation.

    @craig, of course, is right; it is not something that the Time Lord could decide. But, given how the regeneration energy has quite remarkable powers, perhaps it can recognise the animus?

    Or the accidents that Troughton mentioned as being the cap on Time Lord life become those moments when the Time Lord victim is caught off-guard because of someone else’s deliberate actions and the Regeneration process does not kick in because the Time Lord is not conscious.

    I am not wedded to it as a theory – but it does seem to fit the available evidence. At least in a way….

    But, no, Lucy is not a companion. The Topic Nazi is right – this discussion is off-topic – apologies!
     

    #14395
    Craig @craig
    Emperor

    @Shazzbot I think that keeping this thread on topic may now be impossible. I blame @bluesqueakpip for not keeping us on track as usual 😀

    I don’t really care though as it’s kinda interesting. I’ll look into splitting it tomorrow if it’s possible.

    #14396
    Anonymous @

    @htpbdet @craig

    Oh,thanks a bunch.  ‘Topic Nazi’ was not my first choice of epithet.  I’d much prefer ‘Grammar Nazi‘  (watch those apostrophes).

    #14397
    HTPBDET @htpbdet

    @craig @Shazzbot

    Maybe we could just rename the topic?

    Companions and Concepts: past and present

    What do you think. This one is very organic in its twists and turns. But, of course, whatever you decide is fine with me.

    I retract Topic Nazi and, in my defence, noted you mentioned the title first, in what I thought was a twinge of “quite right too”. I note it was not the use of “Nazi” which caused offence…

    But apologies anyway!

    #14398
    Anonymous @

    @Shazzbot – Well, Lucy was married to Harold Saxon (aka the Master), so you could say that she was his companion. (It’s a pretty serious stretch just to justify a tangent, I know.) Maybe we need a thread for villains?

    Lucy Saxon ‘fatally wounded’ the Master? I’m thinking there is a different definition of ‘fatally’ not only in the Whoniverse, but also in Real Life, to what you are describing. Because he quite clearly came back after that.

    She shot him and he died. That’d be a fatal shooting, unless I missed something else that forced his regenerate-or-die decision. But he’s the Master – he comes back from being dead a lot.

    @htpbdet

    So, I don’t think she meant to kill him dead – she meant to kill him alive.

    I disagree. When the Master was resurrected in The End of Time, she was decidedly not happy to see him. She even tried to kill him again, at the cost of her own life.

    #14399
    HTPBDET @htpbdet

    @MadScientist72

    Again, fair enough.

    I reconciled that by taking the view that Lucy had been mind-controlled by the Master to shoot and revive him- and once that was done the spell broke and she was revulsed…

    But that is just me…

    #14403
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @craig and @Shazzbot – you have to admit though, when I go off-topic, I go off-topic in style. 

    😈

    #14406
    Anonymous @

    @bluesqueakpip – arrrgghh! I’m so not the Topic Nazi!! I so much prefer ‘Grammar Nazi’. @craig knows my preference for perfect apostraphal placement. 😀

    And Bluey, whether off-topic, off-piste, or gloriously in groove – you are never out of style.  😀

    #14422
    ScaryB @scaryb

    @Shazzbot – OK, I second your (self)nomination to be both Topic AND Grammar Dalek (TGD for short) 😉

    I know we wibbley-wobbley off-topic sometimes, but we usually come back to it sooner or later (esp with TGD on our tails, LOL). Otherwise we’d never get to the glorious discussions of Isis myths, creationism, predestination, mind-melting multiverses and 7000 year old popcorn.

    PS We need an emoticon for “tugs forelock and prostrates self in obsequious manner before incurring the wrath of the Rani (aka TGD)” 😉

    #14423
    Anonymous @

    @scaryb – I may have to deliberately pour a mug of milky tea into my brand-new laptop just to avoid you and your TGD business.  😆

    #14424
    ScaryB @scaryb

    @Shazzbot

    But someone has to keep us in line – and you do it so nicely :mrgreen: <grabs shovel to dig even deeper hole for self> (The other mods are just sooo snarky hehe)

    PS Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Not the milky tea! 😉

    #14425
    Anonymous @

    @scaryb – that’s exactly what my last laptop screamed.  🙂  It’s being sent off today to the data recovery experts to see if the hard drive survived the experience.

    #14540
    Nick @nick

    @MadScientist72 @arkleseizure

    Thanks. How could I have forgotten the Deadly Assassin ? I recall Goth dies because his brain and body had been severely damaged in the Matrix struggle. I think we’ll have to ask Robert Holmes why he didn’t regenerate, but I suppose the Matrix involvement is enough reason ? On top of Runcible, there was also a camera technician who the Master killed using his Tissue Compression Eliminator (if that is the correct name). I guess you have to ask whether either of them were full Time Lords given there is some uncertainty regarding time lord society ? Being knifed ought to be survivable from a regeneration point of view.

    On the BG Master, I’m not really sure whether he has a new set of regenerations after he seizes Tremas’ body in the Traken story. Personally I doubt it, although he certainly acquires extra biological ability as he survived being accidently shot by his tissue compression eliminator (Planet of Fire). I’m not sure we should therefore place too much reliance on the events in the TV movie as its not clear he has any regenerations left at all and he used the snake thing to steal another body to replace Tremas (I can’t remember whether we have a to believe it isn’t supposed to be Ainley’s Master). The Snake thing of course was somehow ‘immune” to the Dalek execution anyway.

    I agree in Deadly Assassin it appears its much easier to kill Time Lord without regeneration. @htpbdet your suggestion while interesting – and fitting the facts I can recall – seems like special pleading to me. Actually isn’t it easier to argue that regenerations work differently on Gallifrey so that you can be murdered without regeneration there, but no where else ? (also special pleading).

    When you follow the logic of regeneration (other than on Gallifrey itself), it seems like the Time Lords method of execution (we also saw it in the second Omega story) of being dispersed into constituent atoms is pretty much the only way to make sure a Time Lord doesn’t regenerate ? My conclusion, is that we can’t really say just what it takes to kill a Time Lord although there seems to be a big difference between what we see in Deadly Assassin and elsewhere.

    With this point of view, it seems that the lack of a regeneration at Lake Silencio makes perfect sense (presumably the Doctor used a small part of his regeneration energy to fake the onset of regeneration) in that almost certainly there would be nobody alive in the Universe that would know enough about the regeneration process to know he faked his Death. Whether two shots would actually work @Madscientist72 therefore remains a mystery.

    My opinion, for what its worth, is that you’d need to wait until the regeneration was completed before shooting again and even then it might not work. If you can regrow an arm sometime after the regeneration then why not a Brain ? Certainly you have to conclude that it must be especially likely during the regeneration itself ? On this basis, the Time Lord’s execution method make the most sense.

    Nick

    #14541
    Nick @nick

    @MadScientist72

    without a doubt fixed points exist in the Who universe and the Time Lords would certainly have collectively know which points were. I suppose you could argue that the Tardis would have a list of them embedded in her memory and of course it follows that the Doctor would know on landing.

    However, you could only know the future of the universe if you had sat and taken your measurements just before the universe ended (ie measured the entire past). You have to have knowledge of the future in order to assert that changing a specific event at point X (the fixed point) would change the future of the universe surely ? Worse still as a time traveler, your choice to act or not to act at point X might be the very event which changes the future anyway. From the perspective of an observer at point X (who has no knowledge of the future) the future can’t be fixed it must still remain as a series of many different outcomes each with a different probability of occurring. However, at the same time the same observers view of the past is fixed.

    For this reason, I find it hard to conceptualise how the Who universe’s description of the concept can work as described without allowing that the Time Travelers knowledge of the future or past is involved.

    This hurts my head too much

    Nick

     

    #14583
    Arkleseizure @arkleseizure

    @nick,

    You know, that whole 9/10 – Rose thing made me lose a lot of respect for RTD. It was as if he didn’t trust the audience to like Rose, so he felt the need to keep telling us how bloody wonderful she was. It actually backfired with me: I liked her initially because she was a thoroughly ordinary girl in an extraordinary situation, and yet The Parting of the Ways gave the impression that the Doctor and Jack were only interested in saving Rose. The entire population of planet Earth? Nah, they’re nobody special. Actually, no: Rose is nobody special.

    It actually got worse after she left, with poor Martha being explicitly treated like a third-rate replacement, and she was left unable to develop as her own character. When did the Doctor do that sort of thing before? He welcomed Vicki with open arms when she replaced his own Granddaughter! He was openly very fond of Victoria, but did that cause him to belittle Zoe? I found I’d actually grown to loathe Rose for reasons that weren’t her fault at all: I was just reacting to being constantly told she was so fantastic. I’ve been able to mellow back towards her since, but why did RTD need to be so heavy-handed?

    This why I prefer Moffatt: Amy was just allowed to travel with the Doctor. She meant a lot to him, but we were allowed to see that in the performance rather than have it shoved in our faces. And has 11 made Clara feel second-rate? Come to that, he welcomed Rory like a brother, a far cry from the worthless appendage he treated Mickey as.

    Anyway, enough of this rant. Much that RTD did was great, but it’s as if he hadn’t the self-confidence to let us take to Rose in our own way.

    #14585
    HTPBDET @htpbdet

    @arkleseizure

    I confess to not understanding where you are coming from here.

    Can you give me some examples of how Tennant treated Martha badly? I do not remember him belittling her nor do I remember him treating her like a third-rate replacement.

    There was almost no chemistry between Martha and Tennant – but that is not down to anything except the actress (at least that is how it seemed to me). Both Billie Piper and Catherine Tate made something quite remarkable about of what they were given – But Freema Agyeman was not up to the task. (Imagine if the actress who played Melody had played Martha, for instance)

    And as it is Martha who pretty much single-handedly provides the solution to the Master’s conquest by her coming to grips with who she is and what the Doctor is and what their relationship is – she grows up because of the Doctor and becomes something finer than she was when she started – as a character I can’t see that RTD treated her differently either.

    The problem with Martha lies in the actress I think, not Tennant or RTD.

    But completely understand that others will see it differently – and would really like to know why you feel so strongly.

    To me, it is entirely the other way around. I never felt I saw Amy become the Doctor’s best friend but I certainly got sick of being told that she was his best friend.

    🙂

    #14586
    Anonymous @

    @arkleseizure  (and @htpbdet ) – I understand why you said “poor Martha being explicitly treated like a third-rate replacement” because (and I remember this especially in The Shakespeare Code) 10 tries to talk to Martha but then says something like ‘Oh, I wish Rose were here … she‘d know what to do.’

    But I would debate whether 10 was treating Martha deliberately badly, or, he just has no real sense of human empathy, and how that comment would hurt Martha — and the elephant in the room here is that Martha is so clearly goo-goo-ga-ga over the Doctor.  And 10 is blissfully unaware of that.

    I agree with you that Martha really didn’t develop as a character over her series; she rose and shone only in the Master’s finale episodes.

    I agree with @htpbdet that there just wasn’t something gelling between Freema and David – and that the actress who played Mels in Let’s Kill Hitler could have been amazing as Martha (but could she have played old enough to be an actual real-life medical doctor?).

    #14589
    Arkleseizure @arkleseizure

    @htpbdet and @Shazzbot:

    Yes, “explicitly” was the wrong word. “Thoughtless” would be better. I don’t really mean Rose personally meaning a lot to the Doctor so much as how her presence seemed to make him indifferent or plain nasty to everyone else: admittedly, this is more 9 than 10.

    It starts in World War III, with that dreadful line “I could save the world but lose you”. Save the world, then. That shouldn’t be a difficult choice. Painful, yes. A huge sacrifice, yes. But it’s presented like a genuine moral dilemma. As if it would be a legitimate moral choice not to save the world as long as he saves Rose. And in The Parting of the Ways, that’s exactly what he does. He rallies an army to hold back the Daleks, knowing they’ll all get slaughtered. But that’s a moral choice if he needs to buy time to build the delta wave. Except he doesn’t use the delta wave. This is portrayed as a moral choice, the Doctor unable to use such a weapon, but it follows from World War III: He doesn’t need to because he’s got Rose safely home and that’s the main thing. His army bought him time to do that. As long as she’s safe, the Daleks can do what they want.

    Parenthetically, this selective compassion was typical of 9. In Bad Wolf, he helps Lynda escape but leaves the other bloke to his fate. Sure, the bloke was a jerk, but no previous Doctor would have abandoned him. Even 6 would have helped, even if he insulted him all the way.

    This goes over and above Rose just being special to the Doctor. That would be fair enough. “If the world falls, you’ll fall with it” is a legitimate extra motivation. But that’s not what we get. The world can fall as long as you don’t? Rose just wasn’t that special, but RTD kept telling us she was. And it’s so frustrating because she was a good character. Just not something uniquely wonderful.

    #14592
    HTPBDET @htpbdet

    @shazzbot

    Send him and Moffat a tweet to that effect – own ARSE!

    @arkleseizure

    I would urge you to rewatch World War Three.

    I think that Eccleston’s Doctor is “unthawing” throughout. He definitely re-evaluates his position re Mickey in that episode and he is not the first Doctor to do that with a close male friend – Hartnell and Ian, Pertwee and Mike Yates, Tom Baker and Harry – even, arguably, Davison and Adric.

    The line about saving Rose is said in the context of Jackie and her demands to know from the Doctor that Rose will be safe. It’s not, absolutely not, a choice between the world or Rose. It’s about what the Doctor stands for – the greater good ( Sealing the Time War ) or the personal good ( not being alone).

    In the end, he does what every Doctor does – takes a risk that will save both Rose and the world – and Mickey helps him do it. By trusting Mickey, he can save everyone.

    That is the lesson for the Doctor – don’t judge, trust.

    It is the same lesson Ian and Barbara taught Hartnell right at the start.

    At least, that is how it seems to me.

    #14603
    HTPBDET @htpbdet

    @arkleseizure

    I went back to look at Parting of the Ways and, again, I am not sure your reading is right.

    The Doctor sends Rose away in the TARDIS to keep her safe. He knows he is going to have to use the Delta Wave and he does not want her to die unnecessarily. That seems to me entirely in tune with the Doctor over the years. He saves those he can save.

    Then he builds the Delta Wave, but just as Tom Baker won’t touch the two wires in Genesis,  neither will Eccelston start the Delta Wave. He is searching for a way out. But he realizes there isn’t one he can think of and says “Maybe its time”.

    Then Rose returns full of Matrix power in Bad Wolf mode and saves the day. She can only do that because the Doctor sent her back and Mickey reminded her about what he had seen in the TARDIS.

    So the Doctor’s own actions provided the solution he needed – because neither Mickey nor Rose would stand by and see him die without “taking a stand”.

    It seems to me plain that he wanted to save Rose and that he was about to use the Delta Wave. And I think pretty much any Doctor would have done exactly the same.

    And I don’t know what you mean about Lynda – she dies. The Doctor knows that they are all going to die – he just tries to reassure them unless something happens to prevent the catastrophe he expects.

    I don’t see Eccleston’s Doctor as nasty in any way. Indifferent – sure – but they so often are…

    🙂

    #14608
    Nick @nick

    @arkleseizure @htpbdet

    It was the series 2 Rose/Doctor love in that did it for me more than season 1. RTD clearly meant us to see how a rather unDoctorish Doctor 9 was put back on track by the relationship he developed with Rose. Narratively it worked pretty well although it was less appealing to me because I didn’t like Rose’s character much at all in the first place.

    Looking back, I can’t really say whether the lack of chemistry between Freema and David was the problem or the way the season 3 companion premise was written by RTD (D10 mourning Rose with the combination of love struck Martha) just want that believable.

    Nick

    #14612
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @nick and @htpbdet – while I’d certainly agree that Freema Agyeman was relatively inexperienced when she got the role of Martha, I don’t think she can really be blamed for a ‘lack of chemistry’. The entire Martha/Tenth Doctor plotline and resolution depended on a lack of chemistry.

     

    #14614
    Anonymous @

    … aaaaand it’s time to bring this conversation back into the topic which it belongs.  (Yes, @scaryb, I sadly admit to being the Topic Nazi)

    @Bluesqueakpip

    @nick and @htpbdet – while I’d certainly agree that Freema Agyeman was relatively inexperienced when she got the role of Martha, I don’t think she can really be blamed for a ‘lack of chemistry’. The entire Martha/Tenth Doctor plotline and resolution depended on a lack of chemistry.”

    But in a wider conversation about companions, was it really necessary to have Martha go all goo-goo eyed over the Doctor?  Was this devised as a riposte to Rose and the Doctor having what was expressed on-screen as a ‘lurrve’ relationship?

    Again thinking about what @htpbdet said about the actress who played Mels in ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’, there are many ways to play unrequited love (even if that was the showrunner’s ultimate goal with the character of Martha), which could have been sassier, more confident, and less bathetic than what we saw with Freema’s Martha.

    And I for one really didn’t see any on-screen chemistry with Freema and David – it’s not about the unrequited love aspect, it’s about watching two actors on-screen who just don’t seem to be in the same scene together.

    #14622

    @Bluesqueakpip – I concur. I think Freema was very badly served by a hideous “rebound girl” theme that converted Martha from an ambitious medical student in a busy hospital to a lovelorn teenager far too readily.

    #14628
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @Shazzbot – she did seem to be wearing ‘L’ plates for quite a few episodes; if I’m remembering her career correctly, she went to the University of Middlesex rather than drama school – and then got lots of smallish telly parts rather than longish theatre gigs – which would mean she’d basically been working a day here and a day there.  Since leaving Doctor Who she’s barely stopped working – currently she’s a series regular in  The Carrie Diaries in the US. 

    But I suspect a lot of it was the plotline; which seemed to consist of endless episodes in which Martha wasn’t yet officially on board the TARDIS.

    I seem to recall David Tennant in one of the commentaries joking that one episode had consisted entirely of Martha having to take a Companion’s Theory Test. But then they’d decided that really was too boring…

     

    #14643
    janetteB @janetteb

    I always felt that Martha was a “rebound” character. RTD simply didn’t quite know what to do with the character. In my view the only episodes in which she really came into her own were Human Nature/Family of Blood where the Doctor was really in her care. When “Martha” was strong the characterisation worked. When Martha was the love lorn companion it didn’t.

    The “Rose is wonderful” meme irritated me too and I was also rather shocked by the way the Doctor treated Mickey and thought it most “undoctorish” until re watching the early Baker episodes. “Harry Sullivan is an idiot.” I think the problem was that C.E. did nasty too well whereas both D.T and T.B. managed to soften their harshness with humour.

    I think that every companion is a little in love with the doctor, but more in the way that people fall in love with Hollywood stars or Mr Darcy, not the way people fall in love with flesh and blood fellow mortals. And that works because it adds to the mystique of the character. Rose and Martha’s respective infatuation with the Doctor was of the everyday, reducing the character to “fellow human, fellow traveller”. River’s relationship with the doctor is far from the everyday as she operates on an elevated plane as well thus preserving the mystique of the Doctor. There now I have worked out why I disliked the Doctor/Rose and Doctor/Martha relationships. They humanised the Doctor. S.M. has endeavoured to “de humanise” him again. Rory is the optimal human partner for Amy. The Doctor is reduced, or elevated, to the role of outsider.

    Cheers

    Janette

    #14644
    Nick @nick

    @janetteb

    A good explanation and description from my perspective. I guess RTD realized it was a mistake pretty quickly as well, because of the speed at which he wrote Martha out of the Tardis.

    Nick

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