7X05 The Angels Take Manhattan (Grading/Discussion) (SPOILERS!)

[Starkers]

O'Dib wrote:

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Though, did people sent to the past in Blink get time locked when eaten by an angel?

Given that both the Doctor and Martha got zapped back to the past, I'm guessing not. It isn't about being time locked as such, it's about whether your story suddenly becomes a fixed point from the Doctor's point of view.

And Winnie, even I'll laugh at that

[Bob The Skutter]

Judge Death wrote:

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Given that both the Doctor and Martha got zapped back to the past, I'm guessing not. It isn't about being time locked as such, it's about whether your story suddenly becomes a fixed point from the Doctor's point of view.

And Winnie, even I'll laugh at that

Thing is there are so many ways around that particular paradox that you don't even have to think particularly hard to get round it. Which is what's so very frustrating about the last couple of series. Huge gaps in logic and lack of following through in the story, or just plain not sticking to the rules you already established. So "This is a fixed point" becomes "I cheated" then becomes "no really, this is a fixed point, no, Really really" without a convincing reason. Other than "these actors want to leave" of course.

[Starkers]

Thing is this isn't just about the last few series. Why couldn't the Doctor pop back to see Reinette? Why couldn't the Doctor travel back a matter of minutes to save Adric?

[Bob The Skutter]

Judge Death wrote:

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Thing is this isn't just about the last few series. Why couldn't the Doctor pop back to see Reinette? Why couldn't the Doctor travel back a matter of minutes to save Adric?

Well Reinette made at least some sense given the rules they'd set out because he knew for a fact he'd never visited her after he jumped on the TARDIS, but for Amy and Rory all we have is a gravestone. That tells him nothing but the gravestone is there. There doesn't even have to be bodies in there. Or if there are he could have brought them back there in their 80s and let them live their last few years there. The fact the gravestone is there means nothing at all in the life they had.

When it comes to Adric, well that much is obvious. He wanted the little prick to die.

[Starkers]

Winnie The Pooh wrote:

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Well Reinette made at least some sense given the rules they'd set out because he knew for a fact he'd never visited her after he jumped on the TARDIS, but for Amy and Rory all we have is a gravestone. That tells him nothing but the gravestone is there. There doesn't even have to be bodies in there. Or if there are he could have brought them back there in their 80s and let them live their last few years there. The fact the gravestone is there means nothing at all in the life they had.

When it comes to Adric, well that much is obvious. He wanted the little prick to die.

How do we know for a fact he never visited Reinette? Her letter? What does that prove? As I said upthread I can easily visualise Reinette and the 11th/12th/13th Doctor sitting down together to write it!

[Bob The Skutter]

Judge Death wrote:

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How do we know for a fact he never visited Reinette? Her letter? What does that prove? As I said upthread I can easily visualise Reinette and the 11th/12th/13th Doctor sitting down together to write it!

Her letter and her husband saying that she died waiting for him. Though I guess that's not "fact" but it's much closer than a name on a gravestone.

[Starkers]

I guess, though she could just be sneaking out behind the King's back...

[The Mirrorball Man]

Or the Doctor has an innate sense of time and he just knows these things.

[Starkers]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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Or the Doctor has an innate sense of time and he just knows these things.

Which is, rightly or wrongly, about the only thing that makes sense when you're dealing with a man who has a time machine.

[Bob The Skutter]

Judge Death wrote:

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Which is, rightly or wrongly, about the only thing that makes sense when you're dealing with a man who has a time machine.

Probably, but it's such a cop out. Basically it's just saying "or it only matters what the writer wants to do." which it is, but it also leads to unsatisfying stories. At least for me.

[Allyn Gibson]

Judge Death wrote:

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How do we know for a fact he never visited Reinette? Her letter? What does that prove? As I said upthread I can easily visualise Reinette and the 11th/12th/13th Doctor sitting down together to write it!

Do we know it for a fact? No. We only have the letter to go by.

But I think it lessens the emotional impact of the story to introduce a timey-wimey out as a way of getting around the story's ending. The point of the story was that Reinette was on the Slow Path while the Doctor wasn't. Stripping that away for the Doctor to come back for her doesn't make much sense.

[The Mirrorball Man]

Winnie The Pooh wrote:

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Probably, but it's such a cop out. Basically it's just saying "or it only matters what the writer wants to do." which it is, but it also leads to unsatisfying stories. At least for me.

You can write time travel stories with a rigid set of rules, but you won't end up with anything that looks or feels like Doctor Who.

[Bob The Skutter]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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You can write time travel stories with a rigid set of rules, but you won't end up with anything that looks or feels like Doctor Who.

Don't need hard and fast rules, just this ending feels so unsatisfying when they've already had 3 decent jumping off points in their relationship with the Doctor that were more satisfying and just the week before they had another opportunity to call it a day in a way that would have left them in a good place without any of this convoluted nonsense.

[The Mirrorball Man]

Winnie The Pooh wrote:

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Don't need hard and fast rules, just this ending feels so unsatisfying when they've already had 3 decent jumping off points in their relationship with the Doctor that were more satisfying and just the week before they had another opportunity to call it a day in a way that would have left them in a good place without any of this convoluted nonsense.

Alright but then you just end up with a value judgment. Me, I didn't think it was "convoluted nonsense" and I thought this ending was satisfying.

[Bob The Skutter]

The Mirrorball Man wrote:

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Alright but then you just end up with a value judgment. Me, I didn't think it was "convoluted nonsense" and I thought this ending was satisfying.

Fair enough. I just think that I've been left unconvinced by much of series 6 and 7, so these kinds of twists and turns that amount to nothing have left me jaded and unwilling to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy them as written. My score for this half series would be 2 decent, 1 good, and 2 that bugged me too much to let me really enjoy them at all.