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

[Ghost Bones]

Judge Death wrote:

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Unfortunately Who as a show falls apart if you think about it too much, I used to think it should have rules and canon, but now I understand what Paul Cornell said all those years ago, it's just impossible.

When did he say that?

There is a point to me asking.

[The Wormhole]

DWF wrote:

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There's nothing in the ep. to suggest that the graveyard scene was in the year 2020.

No one is saying it was. We know the graveyard scenes, just like the rest of the modern New York scenes were in 2012. We're just stating that Amy and Rory themselves were from after 2020.

[DWF]

The Wormhole wrote:

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No one is saying it was. We know the graveyard scenes, just like the rest of the modern New York scenes were in 2012. We're just stating that Amy and Rory themselves were from after 2020.

And there's nothing in the ep. to suggest that.

[The Wormhole]

DWF wrote:

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And there's nothing in the ep. to suggest that.

Logically speaking, they kind of have to be. There's the aforementioned fact that in 2020 they go to Wales to visit wave at their younger selves as they embark on their adventure with the Silurians as seen in The Hungry Earth.

But even if we ignore that with some sort of hand wave, the Doctor dropped them off and then hid, they were gangers or Tessalectas or whatever, we still have Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Rory tells his father he's 31, and sine Brian doesn't say anything like "you're only 23" we can assume that Rory really was born 31 years prior to that episode. Since we know from The Eleventh Hour and The Beast Below that Amy was 21 as of 2010 making her born in 1989 and we know from Let's Kill Hitler that Rory is the same age as her, that means Dinosaurs on a Spaceship hs to be set in 2020. Add onto that that The Power of Three spans a full year and Amy and Rory as seen in The Angels Take Manhattan can be from no earlier than 2021. It's all canon.

[DWF]

The Wormhole wrote:

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Logically speaking, they kind of have to be. There's the aforementioned fact that in 2020 they go to Wales to visit wave at their younger selves as they embark on their adventure with the Silurians as seen in The Hungry Earth.

But even if we ignore that with some sort of hand wave, the Doctor dropped them off and then hid, they were gangers or Tessalectas or whatever, we still have Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Rory tells his father he's 31, and sine Brian doesn't say anything like "you're only 23" we can assume that Rory really was born 31 years prior to that episode. Since we know from The Eleventh Hour and The Beast Below that Amy was 21 as of 2010 making her born in 1989 and we know from Let's Kill Hitler that Rory is the same age as her, that means Dinosaurs on a Spaceship hs to be set in 2020. Add onto that that The Power of Three spans a full year and Amy and Rory as seen in The Angels Take Manhattan can be from no earlier than 2021. It's all canon.

There's nbo such thing as canon on Doctor Who and in The Hungry Earth it was changed to only Amy standing on the hill since Rory was erased from time. And there's still no frame for the graveyard scenes. Of course since Chibnall wrote the Silurian two parter it's best to ignore it.

[Mr Awe]

Alidar Warlock wrote:

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Which brings me back to my other point that the Doctor has a certain sense of what a fixed point is. With his own death, he didn't quite realize it at first, but he figured it out (and he figured out that it did not merely involve using the tesselect, but that it required to fake his own death and maintain a lower profile). Here, he's figured out that the fixed point involves Rory and Amy growing old and dying.

Actually, it might be more helpful to think of this as crossing your own time stream rather than changing a fixed point.

If the argument is simply that the writers can cop out, I'm not disagreeing with you. If the argument is that the more logical result of the episode is that this isn't permanent, that's where the disagreement arises. Certainly, if the writers want to bring them back, they are welcome to use any reason they choose (including this one).

Where we differ is that I wouldn't consider it a cop out. It seems entirely consistent with what happened before. Although, having said that, I did think *that* was a cop out!

Mr Awe

[Starkers]

Ghost Bones wrote:

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When did he say that?

There is a point to me asking.

Here you go

2007...has he contradicted himself since then?

Couple of quotes from it.

Not giving a toss about how it all fits together is one of Doctor Who’s oldest, proudest traditions, a strength of the series. (And a No Prize to the person who points out the first ever continuity error in the original series.) It’s allowed infinite change, and never left the show crunched into a corner after all the dramatic options had already been done. Terrible continuity equals infinitely flexible format. It’s indefinability that results in that old ‘indefinable magic’. Much in the same way that there’s no one definition of what a ‘Doctor Who companion’ is that includes all of them, and so a new one can be whatever works.

So this is what those I yelled at above might get some comfort from. Those who say that because the New Adventures are canonical, therefore the TV series shouldn’t contradict them (and those people also are often inclined to abuse the opposition in search of false authority) are ignoring the fact that the TV series now has a licence to contradict itself, and has already used it, big time. (In the original series, it just did that without having any such device. Three different versions of the destruction of Atlantis, two of them irreconcilable. Perhaps simple time travel, rather than a Time War, is all it takes to make history, canonicity and continuity meaningless.)

Highlights mine.

Obviously at the end of the day this is just one guy's opinion, same as each of us have an opinion, and like I say I did rail a little against this the first time I read it many years ago, but its an interesting article to insert into the debate.

[The Wormhole]

DWF wrote:

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There's nbo such thing as canon on Doctor Who and in The Hungry Earth it was changed to only Amy standing on the hill since Rory was erased from time.

And since Rory's exisntence was restored, presumably he was standing with Amy on the hill again.

And there's still no frame for the graveyard scenes.

The modern day New York scenes are set in 2012. This is fact, stated in dialogue a couple of times. Rory's grave was seen when the Doctor and Amy left in the TARDIS to begin their attempt to get to 1938. At the end, after Amy and Rory are returned to the graveyard after their jump off the roof, there's a line like "we're back where we started" suggesting this is 2012. More concrete proof, after Amy and Rory are transported by the Angel the Doctor runs to Central Park to get the page he ripped out of the book, meaning that it must still be 2012.

[DWF]

The Wormhole wrote:

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And since Rory's exisntence was restored, presumably he was standing with Amy on the hill again.

The modern day New York scenes are set in 2012. This is fact, stated in dialogue a couple of times. Rory's grave was seen when the Doctor and Amy left in the TARDIS to begin their attempt to get to 1938. At the end, after Amy and Rory are returned to the graveyard after their jump off the roof, there's a line like "we're back where we started" suggesting this is 2012. More concrete proof, after Amy and Rory are transported by the Angel the Doctor runs to Central Park to get the page he ripped out of the book, meaning that it must still be 2012.

Fantastic, 2012 I can understand but I don't know the idea that it was set in 2021 came from. And since Rory and Amy died before 2012 their can't be a version of them from 2020 standiing on a hill in 2010.

ETA: I suppose the argument could be made that the Doctor took Amy and Rory from 2010 and put them on the hll to be able to wave to themselves, although that really makes no sense at least to me. But it also makes no sense for the Doctor to take the 2020 versions of Amy and Rory to Central Park in 2012. I guess it's just better not to think about it too much.

OTOH, I don't see a reason why River Song can't be his official companion now, since they are married.

[Alidar Jarok]

The reason to set it in 2012 is that it was filmed in 2012 (and, due to ongoing construction, would obviously not be 2020). Maybe they were going to see a show or something after that took place in 2012.

[Samurai8472]

Brian is not forgotten!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho...-and-the-Ponds

[The Wormhole]

DWF wrote:

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Fantastic, 2012 I can understand but I don't know the idea that it was set in 2021 came from. And since Rory and Amy died before 2012 their can't be a version of them from 2020 standiing on a hill in 2010.

ETA: I suppose the argument could be made that the Doctor took Amy and Rory from 2010 and put them on the hll to be able to wave to themselves, although that really makes no sense at least to me. But it also makes no sense for the Doctor to take the 2020 versions of Amy and Rory to Central Park in 2012. I guess it's just better not to think about it too much.

No one is saying it was set in 2021, just that Amy and Rory were from 2021 and the Doctor took them to 2012, which like you say makes no sense.

And really the whole dating thing makes no sense at all anymore. 2021 is conjecture based on admittedly flimsy evidence, but if you take into account everyhting that has been established in seasons 5 and 6, Amy and Rory can be from no earlier than 2016 in order to accomodate all the time jumping that has been going on.

Really, Doctor Who has never been too consistent with dating modern day stories. The only time any real effort was put into doing so was during the RTD era, and they still screwed things up. Still, I think S7 may be as sloppy as UNIT Dating.

[Pindar]

Samurai8472 wrote:

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Brian is not forgotten!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho...-and-the-Ponds

That was pretty good, too bad it was never filmed. It would have been a better wrap up to the episode.

[doubleohfive]

Here's the direct link to the video:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00zn6ff

Had they included this in the episode, the whole thing might not have sucked balls so hard as it otherwise did.

[Steve Mollmann]

I don't see why it's so weird that the Doctor would take 2021 Amy and Rory to 2012. In "Human Nature" he takes Martha (from 2008) to 2007! Ooh, exotic. At least Rory and Amy have had time to get nostalgic.