A question about "Turn Left"...and the Titanic

[gastrof]

We see the Titanic, without the Doctor's influence, crashing into London.

Umm...

Wasn't the Titanic spaceship in the future? I mean, there were humans on it, so I assumed it was in Earth's future.

Why would it have crashed in modern day London, leaving Donna's family without a home?

[Brendan Moody]

No, it's present-day Earth, which is how Wilf is in the scene where they beam down as tourists, and how Queen Elizabeth II is shown in the gag near the end.

Those aren't humans on the Titanic; they're human-looking aliens. Davies mentions in his book The Writer's Tale that they put a lot of thought into how to indicate that they were aliens, rejecting a number of ideas before giving up, and only realized when it was too late that having them talk more about "the humans" would have done the job.

[14thDoctor]

No, the Titanic wasn't in the future.

This should be apparent from the Doctor meeting Wilf during that episode, as well as Donna referencing it in the very next episode.

[Cutter John]

We've seen plenty of human looking aliens over the shows history, so its not that unusual.

[SonicRanger]

Surely in the Whoverse, there have been humans transported in the past to other worlds.

[PorthosShadow]

SonicRanger wrote:

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Surely in the Whoverse, there have been humans transported in the past to other worlds.

From The Beast Below...

Amy: "You Look Human"
The Doctor: "No, you look Time Lord. We came first"

[The Borgified Corpse]

More significantly, in "Voyage of the Damned," I thought they were saying that, if the ship crashed, its engines would explode and cause a chain reaction that would wipe out all life on Earth. But in "Turn Left," when the ship does crash, only London seems to have been affected.

[14thDoctor]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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More significantly, in "Voyage of the Damned," I thought they were saying that, if the ship crashed, its engines would explode and cause a chain reaction that would wipe out all life on Earth. But in "Turn Left," when the ship does crash, only London seems to have been affected.

Evidently, Astrid, Midshipman Frame and Bannakaffalatta were able to minimize the destruction somehow, but at the cost of their own lives.

Similarly, someone in America (Grace Holloway and Chang Lee?) confronted the Adipose, but they weren't able to stop them from converting millions of people and escaping.

[Samurai8472]

This episode just annoyed me. RTD'S made it look like humans were stupid and couldn't even wipe their own noses.

They all needed the holy time lord to save them.

"We need the doctor..."

*gag*

Whereas with Moffat modern London,christmas day, and the world can take care of themselves

[Steve Mollmann]

If the world could take care of itself, what would be the point of Doctor Who?

[gastrof]

Thanks for the reminders, guys. It's been a while since "Time Crash" and what followed.

[Sci]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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More significantly, in "Voyage of the Damned," I thought they were saying that, if the ship crashed, its engines would explode and cause a chain reaction that would wipe out all life on Earth. But in "Turn Left," when the ship does crash, only London seems to have been affected.

No, the episode makes it clear that much of southern England was wiped out and the rest of the country economically and environmentally devastated as a result.

[Brendan Moody]

No, actually, there's nothing about southern England being "wiped out," only (well, not only) flooded with radiation. Like The Borgified Corpse says (quibbles about the meaning of "affected" aside), only London is specifically mentioned as being destroyed, which does indeed contradict "Voyage of the Damned." But RTD didn't have a spinoff cast to kill off in mitigating that crisis, so it goes unexplained.

[Cutter John]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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More significantly, in "Voyage of the Damned," I thought they were saying that, if the ship crashed, its engines would explode and cause a chain reaction that would wipe out all life on Earth. But in "Turn Left," when the ship does crash, only London seems to have been affected.

Okay, so maybe he overestimated the damage. He was in a hurry.

Still, killing several million people and irradiating most of southern England is no small matter.

Actually come to think of it, how do we know what long term effect fallout from the explosion might have on the rest of the planet?

[Steve Mollmann]

I've decided that without the tenth Doctor's TARDIS there to crash into, the Titanic crashed into the fifth Doctor's TARDIS instead-- we know they were in the same area thanks to "Time Crash." So in the "Turn Left" universe, the fifth Doctor does his best, but it's (as usual) not good enough, and as the Titanic plunges onto the Earth, and he can't do anything to stop it, he jumps into his TARDIS, murmuring "There should have been another way..."