How old is the Doctor?
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
- Start date
Well, not totally ignored, RTD brought it back for jokes. Like in The Runaway Bride:
Doctor: "Are you human?"
Donna: "Is that optional?"
Doctor: "It is for me."
Or my favourite, from an early draft of The End of Time:
Cactus Lady: "So Mr. Saxon isn't human?"
Doctor: "No."
Cactus Lady: "Right. And neither are you?"
Doctor: "No. Well, I was. Briefly. New Year's Eve, 1999. But I got over it, like a bug."
Although, at the very least he has to be 400 years older than the War Doctor in order for that thing with the screwdrivers to make any sense.
Not only must it be hard to measure your age whilst time traveling, but I guess it'd be impossible to keep track in a war where time itself is used a weapon.
That's one of the things I've liked about what I've seen of Moffatt. He seems to really understand the nonlinear potential of a time traveling character. I mean, the whole "last of the Time Lords" thing? Pfah.
I can think of at least a dozen Time Lords running around--Romana, the Master, the Meddling Monk, Cho Chee, Professor Chronitiwatsit, the Rani, the Doctor's mate from the last Key to Time story. The War Lord. OK, that's only, like, 8, but I made a list once. He could run into any one of them.
The Master's a very good example. If the Doctor happens to be in the early 1970s there's a very good chance of him bumping into the Master. Or in the distant future when he was trying to cop the Doomsday Machine in "Colony in Space." Heck, for that matter, he could cross swords with one of the Master's 11 previous incarnations. It isn't like he was sitting around collecting stamps on Gallifrey until he turned into Roger Delgado.
I can think of at least a dozen Time Lords running around--Romana, the Master, the Meddling Monk, Cho Chee, Professor Chronitiwatsit, the Rani, the Doctor's mate from the last Key to Time story. The War Lord. OK, that's only, like, 8, but I made a list once. He could run into any one of them.
The Master's a very good example. If the Doctor happens to be in the early 1970s there's a very good chance of him bumping into the Master. Or in the distant future when he was trying to cop the Doomsday Machine in "Colony in Space." Heck, for that matter, he could cross swords with one of the Master's 11 previous incarnations. It isn't like he was sitting around collecting stamps on Gallifrey until he turned into Roger Delgado.
The Doctor is wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey years old.
I think there's a sort of consensus that Timelords' timelines remain sort of concurrent to each other and they very rarely encounter past versions of each other's incarnations.
Obviously in the real world, this is because you can't have Peter Capaldi appearing opposite Roger Delgado or John Simm facing off with Patrick Troughton. I suppose it could be done in novels but as far as I know - and others will know better than I do - this rule has largely been adhered to.
Interestingly, the novel Legacy of the Daleks has the Eighth Doctor going up against the Delgado Master, whose fate at the end of the novel sets up his appearance in The Deadly Assassin.
I believe that is the real reason the Daleks executed him, they are against stamp collecting.
No really, that's a good post. I've noticed that right from the start with The Eleventh Hour. Previously, the TARDIS just seemed to drop them somewhere and it frequently wasn't even mentioned or seen til the end. With Moffat, they can be going all over time in just one short story, like Hide.
Until a few years ago it was pretty rare for the show to use the concept of time as a plot device. The closest I can remember is The Space Museum and City of Death.
Yup. And even "City of Death" gets it wrong. After Skaroth gets away the Doctor and company frantically rush across Paris to get to the TARDIS so they can get back to the event in time to ensure it goes as it was supposed to.
Given that they have a TIME MACHINE, they can have a leisurely walk across Paris, continue their sightseeing, maybe have something to eat, pop off to the 19th century to see the opening of the Brighton Pavilion, and still get back in time to stop Skaroth before he even arrives.
Given that they have a TIME MACHINE, they can have a leisurely walk across Paris, continue their sightseeing, maybe have something to eat, pop off to the 19th century to see the opening of the Brighton Pavilion, and still get back in time to stop Skaroth before he even arrives.
They needed to be able to track Skaroth to the exact space/time coordinates he went to, presumably following a temporal trail through the Vortex, if they were to have a chance of stopping him. The longer they waited, the colder/more dispersed that trail would get. They couldn't just set the controls for exactly 400 million years ago and hope for the best. Not to mention - ala Back to the Future - the longer they waited, the more likely the ripples of Skaroth correcting his earlier self's error would catch up to them. No, there wasn't a moment to lose.
Day of the Daleks was also a story that actually was about time travel. But, yeah, classic Who definitely didn't delve into the concept of time travel that much. Hell, neither did the RTD era outside of Moffat's scripts. Well, there's Father's Day, I guess.
Was Legacy a limited print, or just very popular? I see a few used copies in the $8-$15 range, but some used ones from $80 to over $600.
The Time Travellers also makes use of time travel in a way I've never seen in the series. The First Doctor travels to 2005 and its a war-torn hellhole because of events he hasn't taken care of yet as the second doctor.
It was printed the best part of twenty years ago, so chances are it's been out of print for about fifteen years.
I'd like to see them do stuff like this on tv but I realise that it may be tricky to sell to the general audience.
Yes, it basically presents a more complex handing of time-travel than the series in that to the Doctor the war-torn future is perfectly normal because at this point in his time-line it is that as he hasn't interfered and
He hasn't defeated WOTAN yet and that kicks off a chain of events and moreover he hasn't had certain earth based adventures as the third doctor
Its also a fairly dark novel with various bad things happening to Ian.
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