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25 August 2013 at 23:46 #16717
Only 8 episodes for 2013. Changing the name doesn’t change that fact.
Series 7 was filmed during 2012 (between February and November, if you’re interested). The broadcast dates were split.
Yeah, there were only five episodes during 2012 – the UK had a couple of other things on at the time. 😉
As to your career in the computing industry: it’s always wise to realise that expert knowledge of one job doesn’t mean you necessarily know anything about another. So far your posts aren’t giving me any confidence that you have a real knowledge of television production.
I’ll give you one example of something that may not have occurred to you. If you took a day off sick – would the entire project have to be rescheduled?
😉
25 August 2013 at 23:24 #16716did its eyes move at all?
@chickenelly – if they did, I have mercifully blotted it from my memory. 😀
25 August 2013 at 23:15 #16715These long gaps between new shows
I think that’s the real irritation; they clearly didn’t want to announce that Matt was leaving and they clearly didn’t want to have the ‘Year of Specials’ that we had when David Tenant left. There’s also the budget problems; the BBC’s Olympic/Jubilee coverage needed a huge amount of money and they were rumoured to be rescheduling quite a few drama productions to put the budgets into a different financial year.
So instead of another Year of Specials, they split Series 7 into two and had three Specials planned around the Anniversary. Two of which (50th and Adventure in Space and Time) are longer than the normal 60 minutes.
I admit I’m not entirely sure why replacing the Doctor is so time consuming that it seems to stop production – but it may be the other way round; by the time the actor playing the Doctor has reached his third series, he physically and mentally needs a longer break – and just can’t do a full fourth.
25 August 2013 at 22:45 #16709You’re counting the 2012/2013 split season as two series, then?
Because last time I counted, Series 7 had 13 episodes, and technically two Specials (The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe was Series 7 for production purposes).
25 August 2013 at 22:41 #16707Another good CGI replacement would be the Skarasen in Terror of the Zygons – which looks like – well, this:
25 August 2013 at 22:34 #16704@chickenelly – I’d argue that the ‘charm’ can be overrated. For Caves, for example, you’ve got a good script, good acting – and a monster so rubbish that it jerked me right out of my suspension of disbelief. That’s equally the case with ‘Kinda’, which is a pretty good story. Until, that is, you get the rubbish snake.
On the whole, I’d say that when it was universally agreed at the time that the monster was rubbish, you’ve got a good case for CGI.
25 August 2013 at 21:14 #16685Your entire argument seems to be made on a very simple misconception: that the number of broadcast minutes in a normal production year has reduced.
It hasn’t. For most of the Before Gap series, a typical episode was 25 minutes long including credits. For the After Gap series, a typical episode is 45 minutes long including credits. A quick calculation shows that a typical 13 episode + Special After Gap series is about ten and three-quarter broadcast hours. A typical 26 episode Before Gap series is about ten hours 50 minutes.
So the difference is a whole five minutes.
In the Hartnell days, episodes were filmed almost live – editing the primitive video tape of the day cost a bloomin’ fortune. That’s why, in the surviving episodes, you’ll often see the actors carry on through missed lines, bumping into sets and wonky props – they couldn’t afford to stop. And so, it was relatively easy to do one week’s rehearsal and then film the short episode. Nowadays, an episode generally takes ten filming days.
By Patrick Troughton’s time, carrying on through mistakes was becoming less acceptable to the audience. It was Patrick Troughton who actually suggested to the producers – when he was leaving – that they really needed to reduce the number of episodes.
I’d be interested to know how you think a series with two or at most three principle actors can manage twenty six episodes: most of the U.S. series who do that have a regular cast of at least five or six principle actors, allowing them to have a much longer shooting day. The actor playing The Doctor generally finds themselves on set for twelve hours a day (ten hours working, two one hour breaks), ten days on, three days off, nine months a year. That’s not including publicity duties. It also doesn’t include time for learning lines.
Both Tennant and Smith had a final year with a much reduced schedule, allowing them to take other work. And both Tennant and Smith looked about ten years older at the end of their respective runs; it’s gruelling.
U.S. series manage a shorter filming time per episode by having longer shooting days; instead of twelve hour shooting days, you hear tales about fifteen to twenty hours on set. Now, if you have a big cast you can do that – the cast members who’ve done their long stint can have their twelve hour mandated break while other cast members are filming – but you can’t do it with a small regular cast.
25 August 2013 at 13:56 #16646For those who don’t have the DVD, the Comic Relief Specials (penned by Mr Moffat, and taking place between the Christmas Special and The Impossible Astronaut).
‘Space’
‘Time’
25 August 2013 at 13:50 #16645@jimthefish – there was a lot of negativity over on the blog, with even the mighty @htpbdet disliking the episode. Given that there’s only 200 odd comments, however, it appears that most of us were under the table wondering why the bottle was empty. 🙂
But I think @htpbdet‘s main blog critique is quite right – this episode breaks continuity in several ways. However, I’d see regard that differently (surprise!) – I think, given the way that developed, that the breaking of continuity was a ‘feature’ rather than a ‘bug’.
Another point that seems to have been changed with Amy’s reboot of the universe – no Blinovitch limitation effect. We saw it in The Big Bang (the two sonic screwdrivers spark). And we never see it again – post reboot, Kazran hugs young Kazran and Amys, Rorys and Doctors interact in ‘Space’ and ‘Time’.
24 August 2013 at 22:50 #16636Davison’s Doctor is certainly working overtime on the sarcasm: “Nobody lives forever.” “He means it will seem like forever.”
Christopher Gable is doing a genuinely excellent job – no facial expressions available, and he still manages to be as creepy as heck. He was dance trained, of course, so he knew how to use his entire body to play the necessary emotions. Maurice Roeves, as well – as @phaseshift says, his humiliation of his subordinate is gripping stuff.
But the monster was so truly terrible, you wondered why they bothered. Seriously, it looked like a pantomime dragon. Mild spoiler: I think Graeme Harper wisely keeps it in the shadows for most of its appearances. Definitely one where – like the Rat in Talons – you wish they’d just CGI over it the next time they re-issue Caves.
24 August 2013 at 20:31 #16635Rather unusually, the complete Confidential is available on the DVD (available from the BBC shop and Amazon) – but for those who haven’t bought it:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
24 August 2013 at 20:22 #16634And Doctor Who doesn’t just jump the shark, it harnesses it to a sledge and flies off with it. 🙂
Seriously, I love this: probably the best of the Christmas Specials to date. It follows the plot of A Christmas Carol quite closely, but justifies it; that’s the Doctor’s plan. To follow the plot of A Christmas Carol and so redeem Kazran Sardick, turning him from a heartless miser into someone who would save the lives of 4,003 members of the ‘surplus population’.
It helps that Sardick is played by Michael Gambon, that Katherine Jenkin’s voice is so good you could believe she can charm sharks, and that the lad playing Young Kazran (Laurence Belcher) can actually act.
Running Moffat themes: time can be changed. I do wonder if we’re watching a possible plot for the 50th here; the Doctor leaps into Kazran’s timestream and changes his past. We can see it changing; the adoption of the bow tie, the period when the portrait is of Abigail – and finally, the moment where Kazran becomes so different that the cloud-controlling machine is no longer isomorphed to his control.
Presumably that’s exactly the way the GI and Clara changed the Doctor’s past.
A frequent comment within the special: “halfway out of the dark”. Is that Kazran, or the Doctor? Who is halfway out of the dark?
And there’s the cheeky joke that will fly straight over the kids’ heads: “why are you dressed like that?” and “Honeymoon Suite?”
Then there’s the final song – both looking forward to the Silence, and looking forward to River Song.
When you’re alone, silence is all you know.
When you’re alone, silence is all you know
Let in the noise and let it grow.When you’re alone, silence is all you see
When you’re alone, silence is all you’ll be
Give me your hand and come to me.When you are here, music is all around.
When you are near, music is all around.
Open your eyes, don’t make a sound.Let in the shadow, let in the shadow,
Let in the light of your bright shadow.24 August 2013 at 11:39 #16603I know there are a couple of Buffy fans in here, and probably also some Marvel Comics fans as well, so:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23797072
The new TV series, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D will be aired in the UK on Channel 4. Which is a bit of a relief to those of us who flatly refuse to buy Sky.
The executive producer is Joss Whedon, the main showrunners will be his brother and his sister-in-law, Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen (clearly, Mutant Enemy is a family company). Clark Gregg will be reprising his movie role of Agent Coulson.
And Iain de Caestecker from the Fades is also in there 🙂
21 August 2013 at 16:30 #16469@htpbdet – glad to see you back, if only briefly. Best of luck with the medication juggling!
21 August 2013 at 16:29 #16468@tardisblue – I suspect it was intentional; they were probably getting a bit sick of the ‘Why is the Doctor always white?’ articles this time round and wanted to point out that it wasn’t for lack of asking.
And since David Tennant and Matt Smith were roaring successes as the Tenth and Eleventh respectively, well – if they’ve worked out that another actor turned the role of their Doctor down, they can now afford to laugh about it.
🙂
20 August 2013 at 14:05 #16423Wolfweed – you’re getting your bmi_orig_img error again
19 August 2013 at 18:49 #16404@jimthefish – I suspect that – given the evil businessman busily manipulating the army and corrupting the politicians – they probably felt there was quite enough politics in this story, thank you! 😈
19 August 2013 at 17:54 #16400a dumping ground for nuclear bases
@jimthefish Oh, England’s quite a dumping ground for nuclear bases as well. Don’t go to Suffolk unless you want to glow in the dark. 😉
@Shazzbot No, I don’t there’s anything especially anti-Scottish. For one thing, this episode was broadcast in the middle of the Troubles, so if they’d been trying to make any political points they’d have been much more likely to go for Northern Irish accents. As Jim says, the Scottish referendum of 79 was history by then.
19 August 2013 at 14:16 #16394Drat! I should have namechecked the forum.
19 August 2013 at 14:15 #16393Well, I’ve just applied for four tickets on the assumption that more than one of us meeting up will want to go – because if it’s anything like as oversubscribed as the Excel Convention, getting tickets is going to be a bit of a lottery.
🙂
19 August 2013 at 00:04 #16375Great cliffhanger ending – but it is amazing how slow this episode feels nowadays. I don’t remember feeling that when I first watched it.
I never felt that Peter Davison was firing on full throttle as the Doctor; I think one of the reasons Caves of Androzani is so well regarded is that this is the story where he finally does give it everything he’s got. Davison’s Doctor is a complete contrast to McCoy’s. The Davison Doctor is generally willing to stand back, let things develop; perhaps a side effect of running a TARDIS that was a combination of refugee centre and number nine bus. He takes it to rather ridiculous extremes in this episode, however; I can only guess that the Spectrox was making him feel rather worse than he thought it was.
McCoy’s Doctor, on the other hand, would probably have researched the situation on Androzani Minor before arrival and have ended up in front of the firing squad because his manipulations had gone a bit pear-shaped.
And what is it with the BG Doctor and instant executions? I seem to recall that one of the AG producers (or possibly Steven Moffat when writing for RTD) said that they came up with the psychic paper because they were just so sick of ‘the Doctor turns up on a strange planet/space station/country/army base and promptly gets arrested.’
Complaints aside, it’s a good script with an interesting scenario. A drug that everyone wants, a sole source of supply, and a businessman willing to kill people to keep the price artificially high.
I’d agree that John Normington’s asides-to-camera may have started with a misread stage direction, but that Graeme Harper then decided to use them throughout. The fourth wall break has quite a shock effect and suits the character of Morgus very well.
18 August 2013 at 19:10 #16366@Shazzbot – looking stuff up, it does seem to have been RTD who wanted the Estuary English – and here’s me thinking it was DT. 😳
Possibly he just said he was happy with it because it distinguished between him and the part he was playing.
So far Sylvester McCoy is the only Scot to use his native accent and Christopher Eccleston is the only Northerner to use his native accent. In terms of variation, there’s no problem with PC using his native accent – by now we’ve had Scottish, RP, Northern, Mockney, RP … so another regional accent will be fine.
It’s up to Moffat and Capaldi, though.
18 August 2013 at 18:20 #16364@fatmaninabox – Amy’s accent and Rory’s hairstyle?
18 August 2013 at 14:56 #16357@Shazzbot – I thought not using his native accent was David Tennant’s own decision? Because he wanted to draw a very clear line between ‘David Tennant’ and ‘The Doctor’?
17 August 2013 at 22:53 #16333The Confidential for this episode – in three parts.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
17 August 2013 at 22:42 #16332OK, kid. This is where it gets complicated.
Amy’s line is probably my favourite line in Doctor Who. Like everyone else so far, I love this episode; it’s probably Steven Moffat’s finest to date. It’s not just got some of the best time paradoxes in Doctor Who, it’s got real heart. Rory, guarding the Pandorica for nearly 2000 years. River, making the Dalek pay for shooting her husband. The Doctor, relying on Amy to bring him home.
Yes, the River who comes to her parent’s wedding reception quite clearly remembers the Doctor – though since she can’t exist until she’s conceived in the TARDIS, I’d agree with @juniperfish that she’s travelling back from a point where the Doctor exists again. If you notice, she’s all in black – we don’t know it then, but she’s dressed as a widow. Until she can make Amy remember, her husband is dead.
Given that the Doctor clearly keeps remembering Rory throughout his non-existence, the suggestion (once we know the truth about River) is that she can also remember people who’ve fallen through the time cracks.
The time cracks themselves: given that the episode starts with exactly the same scene, the suggestion is that when things vanish, their effects don’t. What you end up with is the same history – with whacking great holes. Nothing makes sense; people are trying to work out how things have happened this way when there’s no longer a reason for them to have happened.
That is – why is there a duck pond if there never were any ducks?
17 August 2013 at 18:25 #16325@bahain – try tapping ‘Rose Doctor Who nickname’ into Google Search (other search engines are available).
17 August 2013 at 12:54 #16316@Shazzbot – I don’t think Daleks can go to Hogwarts. Even Slytherin wouldn’t take them; Slytherin may be a bunch of sneaky bar stewards, but some of them did end up fighting against You-Know-Who.
Which would be the equivalent of a Dalek fighting on the Doctor’s side. 🙂
17 August 2013 at 01:43 #16297@MadScientist72 and @tardisblue
Yeah, it’s in Islamic geometric art that you find the tradition of the deliberate mistake; especially North African art. Other religious traditions are the exact opposite – the final version of a sefer Torah scroll, for example, must have no mistakes whatsoever.
I have no idea whatsoever how to make this on-topic, so I’m not even going to try. 🙂
Classroom teachers, of course, only ever make deliberate mistakes … and a house point to Gryffindor for spotting it!
15 August 2013 at 13:48 #16230@juniperfish – that rumour’s been around for a bit. I seem to remember seeing it somewhere during Vincent and the Doctor, for example – and it may have been the reason for the bow tie joke.
That said, if someone turns it down, however good they are, they aren’t the right actor for the part. It doesn’t matter whether someone is a fan (don’t think Matt Smith was a fan when he got the job) – it’s whether they find the idea of playing the Doctor exciting enough to step on the huge rollercoaster that is being the current Doctor.
Because I think a key characteristic of the Doctor is that he is the sort of character who will try out the huge rollercoaster.
15 August 2013 at 13:24 #16229freely admit to not picking up much of the detail
@nick – okay, but honestly – it does make playing this game with you a bit like trying to play a game of chess with someone who hasn’t spotted that their bishop is missing. 😉
15 August 2013 at 12:35 #16225Running with your argument, then I agree Clara ought to have said something along the lines of “you’re familiar” at the beginning of the physic conference call, but I don’t think that’s necessarily definitive. Do we even know they could see each other (as opposed to feel their presence) ?
I’m beginning to wonder if you actually watch the show? Because quite often your arguments seem to depend on having nipped out for a cup of tea in the middle of the episode.
Talking about cups of tea, while making a cup of tea Clara says:
So who was she, then? The woman with the space hair.
If you can explain to me how she knew that River has ‘space hair’ without seeing her…
I think ‘the woman in the shop’ is a piece of smoked fish. It’s a mystery placed enticingly within the episode, and we’re meant to chew it over. But it’s not really a mystery at all: just another stable time loop. Clara was given the Doctor’s phone number so that she could contact the Doctor – because the person giving it to her knew that was the way she’d first contacted the Doctor.
The only reason I don’t think it’s River is because Clara’s now met her; if she meets Rose without recognising her as ‘Woman in Shop’ I will likewise cross her off my list. But whether it’s Rose or it’s River, the person would be interchangeable within the event. They are both time travellers who can easily travel back in time to give her that number. The only thing either of them need is for Clara to tell them what they did.
Given that the 50th Anniversary is probably going to be watched by people who have only watched the Christmas Specials, they’re going to need to demonstrate concepts like ‘stable time loop’ and ‘your future is fixed if you know about it’ within the Special. The woman in the shop, I think, might well be an example.
Clara sees, say, Rose – and goes “you’re the woman who gave me the phone number!” Either the Tennant Doctor or the Smith Doctor explains that – now Clara’s told her that – Rose has to go and do it. Recap of ‘if you know your future, it is fixed’ for the audience’, simultaneously with the idea of a stable time loop.
If it’s the Doctor’s Mum, otoh, it is a genuine mystery. Because that means the whole ‘Impossible Girl’ thing is some kind of long range plan.
14 August 2013 at 20:15 #16129
14 August 2013 at 20:02 #1612614 August 2013 at 15:52 #16095I just stick to the “if it’s not in the show, it didn’t happen” principle
It works pretty well – until they decide to import characters and/or plotlines from the other media.
My principle works as follows – there is no canon in Doctor Who.That said, what happened in the show happened – until it gets changed. Anything not in the show, but officially approved by the production team probably happened, until they decide it didn’t.
Anything not officially approved by the production team is a just a story told about the Doctor, and may not have happened. Or may not have happened to that Doctor. Or may not have happened in quite that way. Or may have happened and then been changed by the GI. And then changed back by Clara.
Any in-show reference to previous events that do not match those seen on screen are simply evidence of the time-line going a bit wibbley. And even wobbly. In particular, discrepancies between a show and its novelisation are due to the GI and Clara having a fist fight behind the scenes. Your guess is as good as mine on which is now the ‘official’ version.
The current producers reserve the right to change continuity at any time if they have a better idea.
😀14 August 2013 at 15:21 #16093there can be no guarantee that Clara would actually remember exactly who gave her the number of an IT support line even if she met her later on (I wouldn’t – would you ? in the circumstances).
The person who gave you the number of an IT line? Maybe not. But even in real life, I suspect you’d probably remember the woman who gave you the number that turned out to be that of an alien in a police box. Especially when you meet her again in equally strange circumstances, and then discover she’s pretty chatty for a dead person.
So, sorry, unless River was wearing a burka, I reckon she’s definitely the least likely suspect. Now Clara’s met her, the audience would throw stuff at the screen if Clara ‘recognises’ her several episodes later – after patently not knowing who the heck River was.
To be honest, Rose is the most likely; after all, she’s contacted present Companions before. Sarah Jane is also a good possibility – she has Mr Smith to search historical photos for the Doctor, so could well recognise Clara as a future Companion.
An older Claricle is a distinct possibility; if it’s a much older Clara, Clara either has access to time travel right into her old age or has met a Weeping Angel. I doubt the Weeping Angel; I really don’t think they’re going to get rid of Clara that way immediately after using it for Amy and Rory. Access to time travel isn’t impossible, and it would certainly imply an interesting future storyline.
The Doctor’s Mum? Could be, if they’ve booked Claire Bloom again.
There are two possible reasons for the GI not interacting with the Hurt Doctor. One: he’s in the time-lock, and the time lock applies within the time-line itself just as much as it applies to anything else. Two: if the GI wants to make the Doctor suffer, why change the actions of the Hurt Doctor? Those actions already make the Doctor suffer. And Three: the Hurt Doctor was imprisoned in the time-line, and the last three series have been one giant three act play about the escape of Doctor Zero.
🙂
14 August 2013 at 14:12 #16085This reminds me of the old joke that engineers make terrible boyfriends (their conversation tends to be a bit … detailed) but wonderful husbands (they see reliability as a virtue and they’re very keen on … detail).
13 August 2013 at 16:11 #16030@nick – yes, just about everyone. But I think we discussed it over on News. Or possibly the Sofa…
13 August 2013 at 11:34 #16012This particular bonkers thought seems to belong in the 50th Speculation rather than anywhere else: Clara’s fainting. Not on seeing the Hurt Doctor, but on being told that the Hurt Doctor is the Doctor.
Riffing off other people’s ideas: suppose Clara regards the Hurt Doctor as the person responsible for her mother’s death? Either because he came and took Ellie away – and then the family were told of her death; or because it’s the Hurt Doctor who is genuinely responsible for it.
That would certainly make you faint; you’ve just risked your very existence for the bloke who, it turns out, killed your Mum. And it would explain why Clara’s so insistent that she’s seen all the Doctor’s faces.
Another possible reason for the faint isn’t as dramatic; Clara already knows the Hurt Doctor, but only in the sense that she knows her mother knew him. I don’t think she knows him as ‘Grandfather’, for example, because she asks who he is.
13 August 2013 at 11:20 #16011Personally I think River is currently the most likely candidate.
River is probably the least likely candidate, because Clara met River in the Conference call – and didn’t say: ‘We’ve met before. You gave me the Doctor’s phone number.’
Currently, I’ve filed it as an oblique reference to the character of Sarah Jane Smith. The Maitlands seem to live reasonably close to Bannerman Road; if we later see a picture of Sarah Jane it will be a way of establishing that – while the actress who played her died – the character didn’t.
Clara, btw, is almost certainly named after Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith.
13 August 2013 at 10:24 #16010Given the Doctor’s jealousy of his wife’s superior piloting skills his comment on entering the Tardis could be easily dismissed.
@janetteb – indeed. But having dismissed the writer’s offered solution, don’t then go on to call it a loose end. 😀
@Shazzbot – I think I might have suggested Amelia’s parents have only just vanished at the top of this thread, but I don’t know if I was the first on this forum. The fact that she was alone in the house, the fact that she was scared enough to pray to Santa, the smiley face on the apple – all of them suggest her parents, or at least her Mum, have only just vanished.
@Stevethewhistle – ooh, good spot! Another reference to ‘zero’ in our Dr Who Tale. 🙂
12 August 2013 at 23:35 #16001@Shazzbot – well, you’d think that her aunt at least would notice the complete absence of any parents. Having a niece or nephew when you’ve never had a brother and/or sister is normally considered a bit of a puzzle. If we were back in the 1960’s, everyone would probably assume that Amy’s aunt’s ‘niece’ was her illegitimate daughter, but nowadays?
As to the ‘duck pond’. Yes, you can have something called ‘the duck pond’ when the ducks last visited in the winter of ’83 (that’s 1883). But we’re talking Amy Pond, here, and the Doctor’s very worried about that duck pond. The pond, one presumes, is a metaphor for the Pond. How can something be a duck pond if there never were any ducks? How can there be an Amy Pond if there never were any Ponds?
12 August 2013 at 22:54 #15999But it’s equally plausible that the line was simply a case of the Doctor looking for someone to blame.
@MadScientist72 – ah, but that’s a reading of a possible subtext. It’s not the literal sense of the line. Now you need to look for evidence to support that subtextual reading.
😉
12 August 2013 at 22:23 #15995In Flesh and Stone (repeated in Cold Blood), the Doctor told Amy “If the time energy catches up with you, you’ll never have been born. It will erase every moment of your existence. You will never have lived at all.” So, HTPBDET is correct in his assertion that the Crack swallowing Amy’s parents makes her a paradox. If her parents never existed, she never should have existed.
Good stuff. That’s certainly the literal interpretation of the line. 😀 In The Pandorica Opens the Doctor tells Rory, very specifically, that he was never born at all.
Okay, having looked at what people say, you now have to look at what happens when people drop out of time. In Time of Angels, the officer doesn’t remember his missing clerics. However, do you notice any other changes? Does something else vanish? Those clerics did quite a bit of shooting at angels – by the time the cracks finish, we’re down to Father Octavian, only. But seemingly, none of the angels got past Father Octavian by himself.
In Cold Blood, it’s Rory who warned the Doctor about Restac – then it’s Rory who pushes the Doctor out of the way when Restac shoots. Does the Doctor suddenly regenerate when Rory is wiped out of existence? Nope? We see Amy and Rory come to Wales to wave at their earlier selves. At the end of Cold Blood, we see Amy by herself. Seemingly, she’s taken exactly the same action she would have done with Rory. The only thing that’s changed is that there’s no Rory.
We can look at this in a bit more detail during The Big Bang, because we see an awful lot of people vanish. What I’ll leave you with now is: when little Amelia vanishes, Amy doesn’t suddenly vanish back into the Pandorica. Yet it was little Amelia who opened the Pandorica.
The conclusion I’ve come to is that while the people never existed, they’re cut out of time like a shape out of a piece of pastry. You end up with a Rory shaped hole. The things they did still exist. Amy’s parents had a baby – so Amy still exists.
The ducks are gone; there never were any ducks – but everyone knows that’s a duck pond. How can you have a duck pond if there’s never been any ducks?
Amy Pond is the ‘duck pond’. There never were any parents – but everyone knows that’s Amelia Pond. She’s the duck pond that has, seemingly, come into being without there ever being any ducks.
12 August 2013 at 20:54 #15986Nothing you say proves any aspect of your theory. You may well be right, but there is no proof for your theory in the programme. I admire your certainty about your thoughts.
@htpbdet – good. I will now explain why I see my solution as a more straightforward reading than your proposed solution. ‘Straightforward’ in a Moffatian sense, of course. 😈
If you choose to ignore the line in the BBC3 mini episode, and regard it as ‘not part of the main programme’, you can do that. It was certainly not broadcast on BBC 1 as part of a main episode. However, my case would be that the said mini-episode was commissioned by the Head Writer, produced by the BBC Cardiff production team and broadcast by BBC TV, using the actors from the current production. And in that mini-episode, the Doctor (played by Matt Smith) suggests that ‘River blew you up’. ‘You’ being the TARDIS. Equally, I’d argue that the ‘Pond Life’ minisodes are official, even though they were only ever ‘broadcast’ on the web.
That, to my mind, makes ‘River’ the simplest explanation for the TARDIS blowing up. It’s the literal reading of an production-team approved line.
Now, my certainty about my thoughts is always subject to the available evidence. If it turns out in a later programme that the Silence managed to sneak a load of semtex on board, I will happily accept that River didn’t blow up the TARDIS, that the Doctor was mistaken – and quite possibly that Steven Moffat had a better idea than the one he first thought of. 😉
In a similar way I fought very hard for the theory that Clara was the next Doctor – but now I know it’s Peter Capaldi, I’m not going to insist that Clara is still the next Doctor and Mr Capaldi is nothing but a red herring. Actually, I’m really looking forward to Mr Capaldi’s Doctor – yet again, Steven Moffat has thought up something that was better than my idea. 😀
I cheerfully admit that one thing that really annoys me is when there’s a line which explains a ‘loose end’ and because people don’t like that solution, they ignore it – and continue complaining about loose ends. There is a line. The Doctor thinks that River blew up the TARDIS. It was broadcast on BBC 3, it’s in the DVD extras. The line is not a theory; the line is a line.
All my theory does is explain how River blew up the TARDIS. It doesn’t come up with that idea: Steven Moffat came up with that idea. He uses the character of the Doctor to suggest that idea. Similarly, there’s a line that explains the loose end ‘when did Amy get kidnapped by the Silence?’ Before America.
In both cases we can come up with alternative explanations – but the alternative explanations are contradicting the text. To make them work, we have to come up with an alternative reading. Alternative readings are not the ‘simple’ solution.
To me, neither of your theories explain why ‘River blew you up’. If you can explain to me how they don’t require that line to be read as something other than its literal meaning, that would be great. My theory does explain why ‘River blew you up’ – and it is a perfectly straightforward reading. She quite literally blew the TARDIS up by becoming a bigger paradox than the TARDIS could cope with. It’s that simple – and it fits with The Big Bang, which is all about time paradoxes.
Some things have alternative explanations and always will have alternative explanations. The Maitland children finding the photos of a time-travelling Clara, for example. They found them at school. I suggested they found them because the GI ‘arranged’ things so that they found them, and I seem to remember that you went for the plain and simple explanation that they just found them.
And unless Neil Gaiman mentions it at a convention somewhere, either of those alternative explanations could be right. It might have been the GI, influencing the Doctor’s time line, trying to get the kids killed so that Clara won’t travel with him any more. Planting a photo so that Artie saw it in class.
Or it might just be that one of the photos coincidentally came up in a history lesson, Artie noticed – and then he and his sister spent some time doing an image search.
I prefer the GI theory – it seems the ‘interesting’ solution. You prefer the ‘coincidence’ – it seems the ‘simpler’ solution. Pick one; we’ll probably never know. 😉
12 August 2013 at 18:26 #15979@htpbdet –
Are there rules in the real world about what does or does not constitute a time paradox?
You may be approaching this from a scientific basis, whereas I am just thinking about it in terms of the story.Fine. So why are you ignoring the information given in Act Two of the story in favour of the information given in Act One?
Act One (Series 5) information – Rory has fallen out of the universe. When people fall out, some things remain (the Doctor talks about half eaten meals and voices in empty rooms). Things that remain from Rory are a) the engagement ring – not the fact that it was made, the fact that it was in the TARDIS. b) the photo – a photo of someone who never existed. Created before Rory dropped out of the world, it remains after he never existed.
Amy doesn’t have parents – but exists. She has a life that ‘doesn’t make sense’. Could there be a difference in the way the paradox affects inanimate objects and living objects? That would be a possibility – but we don’t need to make that assumption. All we need to say is ‘Amy is like the photograph. Created before her parents dropped out of the world, she remains after they never existed.’
More information: River is kept inside the TARDIS; not by the door refusing to open but by it being blocked when she opens it.Act Two (Series 6) information. River is the daughter of Amy and Rory, and she was conceived after the events of Act One – on their wedding night, in the TARDIS (A Good Man Goes To War). The TARDIS cannot cope with a massive paradox (The Girl Who Waited).
Further Act Two information (from an entr’acte) – the Doctor believes River blew up the TARDIS.
Conclusion: from the information given in Act Two, the massive paradox that was River (just before the Act One climax) blew up the TARDIS.I honestly don’t see why you appear to think this is incompatible with a force controlling the TARDIS – I’ve said several times in different posts that the force controlling the TARDIS is the real loose end. The force controlling the TARDIS seems to have trapped River inside – and trapping her inside caused the TARDIS to blow up (and Silence fell).
[The photo in Journey is quite possibly an entirely different case – note that the Doctor at the end of the story is wiping the console with Tricky’s rag from the beginning of the story. He seems to have made an off-screen visit to their ship]
12 August 2013 at 16:35 #15967The images from Doctor Who aren’t terribly good, but this is Peter Fraser, who played David Campbell in another part:
And this is Michael Dixon in role as Dave Oswald:
Then we’ve got Carole Ann Ford in role as Susan Foreman:
And Nicola Sian in character as Ellie Oswald:
12 August 2013 at 15:33 #15958Nick: for 1) The Doctor himself trying to keep her safe from the Time War, River with her time-bracelet because she knows Clara has to be born, or the Time Lords recruiting Susan for the Time War, then Susan ‘escaping’ or going undercover later on.
For 2) See Utopia. As long as a Time Lord is chameleon-arched nobody, including other Time Lords, can detect them as a ‘hidden’ Time Lord. You have to find the fob watch or equivalent thereof, and then figure out a) what it is and b) who it belongs to.
12 August 2013 at 15:26 #15957Good lord, I just had a bonkers thought – what if the Maitland children, and the Victorian children in Snowmen, are chameleon-arched Time Lords? That’s why a Clara and a Claricle were looking after them!
@Shazzbot – you’re not alone in that one. It’s occurred to me as well, but I think I thought it too bonkers for even this forum. We’ve had an awful lot of kids in the Moffat run; it would be fascinating if some or all of them turn out to be ‘hidden children’.
As for Susan – I don’t think you’d need dreadfully complex explanations. The Doctor’s said, several times that he’s a parent, he’s mentioned that he went to Akhaten with his granddaughter, we saw Susan herself in the Hartnell/Claricle clip. Given that, all you really, really need is some female Time Lord to say “Hello Grandfather,” the Doctor to say to Clara “This is Susan, my granddaughter” and Rassilon’s your uncle. Proceed with the rest of the plot.
🙂
12 August 2013 at 15:17 #15956If Amy’s parents have been removed from the timeline by the Crack then she is a paradox
@htpbdet – No, she isn’t. I really do feel a blogpost coming on, because this needs a diagram.
Broadly, when people are removed from the timeline, all memory of them is removed. All their effects, however, are not removed. You can see this from a) the engagement ring and b) the photo.
If Rory has been removed from the time line and all the effects of Rory have also been removed, then that photo shouldn’t exist. He shouldn’t have been in it. He wasn’t there to be in it. You can argue that the engagement ring was protected by the TARDIS – but not that photo.
But it exists. So, in a similar way, does Amy. The photo (a physical object) was in existence when Rory was removed, and so it stayed. Amy (a physical object) was in existence when her parents were removed – and so she stayed. Judging by Amy and the photo and the engagement ring, anything physical that’s not actually swallowed up by the crack sticks around. It’s just that people can’t remember how it got there.
Amy: I don’t have any parents. Just an aunt.
We took that to mean her parents were dead; Amy meant it quite literally. She doesn’t have any parents. She’s never had parents. She just has an aunt. Her parents were swallowed up by the crack: but she wasn’t. The paradox is not retroactive; the Grandfather paradox doesn’t apply if your grandfather is killed after your parent was conceived. Similarly, any paradox created by the Cracks is not retroactive. The people actually swallowed never existed; the people and objects they created still do. Well, until the universe finally blows up. 😀
River, however, was not in existence when her father was removed from the time-line. He is not there to create her – so she’s a genuine paradox.
There is only one time she pilots the TARDIS between Rory’s removal and the universe re-boot – and the TARDIS is distinctly unhappy. As @phaseshift has pointed out, she tries to explain why she’s so unhappy by taking River to Amy’s house, showing her that the Roman soldiers are all constructed from Amy’s memories – and showing her that the ‘Rory’ River has just met isn’t the real Rory.
River is becoming a paradox. While Amy’s alive, there seems to be a path through; a way for River to still be born. When Amy dies, however, the stars go out.
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