Things to go when Moffat leaves

[Mark_Nguyen]

You'd think an investigative reporter specializing in alien weird stuff like her would go over to where they were apparently still teaching, or at least pick up the phone, to inquire into two people who may be immortal. And while she was at it, quietly segway the "hey, I used to travel through time and space with a nice guy who was basically in love with me", and watch as they conclude it must be some OTHER guy from Gallifrey.

Mark

 

[The Wormhole]

Spoiler: Class spoilers

The existence of a "Barbara Wright memorial" at Coal Hill would seem to indicate they aren't actually immortal.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I never understood the taking of that line literally, anyway. When people say someone hasn't aged a day since whenever, they usually don't mean it that way. I thought it more likely referred to them not having lost their sense of wonder and enthusiasm since returning from their adventures with the Doctor. (Not to mention that William Russell has already appeared as an older Ian in framing sequences for home video releases of The Crusade, too.) We don't have indication of any other companions' aging being retarded by their travels in the TARDIS, either.

 

[Christopher]

I never understood the taking of that line literally, anyway. When people say someone hasn't aged a day since whenever, they usually don't mean it that way. I thought it more likely referred to them not having lost their sense of wonder and enthusiasm since returning from their adventures with the Doctor.

That's an interesting interpretation, but then, why would she say it only about them and none of the others? Anyway, Sarah Jane's exact line was, "Rumour has it, they've never aged. Not since the sixties. I wonder." That doesn't sound like she means it figuratively.

(Not to mention that William Russell has already appeared as an older Ian in framing sequences for home video releases of The Crusade, too.)

But it's not like that was canonical. Lots of new episodes have contradicted things from books and audio plays and comics and the like. Besides, as I recall, Ian was addressing the audience directly. I'm not sure that can be taken literally as something that happened in-universe.

We don't have indication of any other companions' aging being retarded by their travels in the TARDIS, either.

It could've been the result of some alien influence that Ian and Barbara encountered on their travels and nobody else did. (Maybe their Dalek time capsule took a detour somewhere before they got back to Earth?)

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

In non-television material, yes. It would be up to the writer to reference such material, but they couldn't use said material as necessary knowledge - I think it's the BBC's charter that prevents it.

Romana's history would probably be too involved to merely have it as a mention; it would probably need at least an A-plot to bring TV-only people up to speed.

And then there's explaining a non-Gallifreyan on Gallifrey (Leela) during the Time War. Plus maybe one or two K-9s to boot.

In my head, the K-9s are not involved. Most of the dialogue remains unchanged, just replace the General & his assistant with Romana & Leela. At that point, you don't need to explain it. All the new series fans need to know is that these are two high-ranking officials on Gallifrey that have some kind of familiarity with the Doctor. Meanwhile, I suspect that most of the classic series fans that would recognize them are either (a) hardcore enough that they've at least heard about what they've been up to in the audios or (b) casual enough that they wouldn't notice or care about the discrepancy.

Although I was pretty confused by Rassilon's resurrection when "The End of Time" established it...

Exactly. There's a precedent for this sort of thing. I remember being quite confused as to why Amy & Rory were no longer traveling with the Doctor in "The Impossible Astronaut" when both "A Christmas Carol" and the "Space"/"Time" Comic Relief special gave no indication that they were leaving. But I accepted it & moved on.

For a non-Doctor Who example, I was equally perplexed when Worf showed up as an Enterprise crew member in Star Trek: Nemesis when, last time we saw him in "What You Leave Behind," he had become the Federation ambassador to the Klingons. I guess there was a deleted line of dialogue to at least kinda explain this but Paramount figured it wasn't important because you had to be a super-hardcore Trekkie to actually care.

Although in The Sarah Jane Adventures: "Death of the Doctor," Sarah Jane implied that Ian and Barbara hadn't aged a day since the 1960s. Granted, though, she stated it as a rumor rather than a verified fact, so it wouldn't necessarily have been an inconsistency.

I ignore that line because it just makes no damn sense at all! (Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence!)

 

[Christopher]

I ignore that line because it just makes no damn sense at all!

This is Doctor Who. When has it ever made any damn sense?

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

It tends to have a seat-of-its-pants internal logic. But the notion of something affecting Ian & Barbara to make them not age is completely unsupported by anything seen on screen during the entirety of their tenure on the show during the William Hartnell years.

But then, RTD seems to have a poor grasp of the classic series in general. He retconned a degree of romantic tension between Sarah Jane & the 4th Doctor where none was actually present in "School Reunion." In "The Death of the Doctor," he had Jo imply that the Doctor dumped her because she got married, which completely twists the melancholy ending of "The Green Death" when she & Clifford left to find that South American mushroom. (I remember screaming at the screen, "You broke his hearts, Jo!")

 

[Christopher]

It tends to have a seat-of-its-pants internal logic. But the notion of something affecting Ian & Barbara to make them not age is completely unsupported by anything seen on screen during the entirety of their tenure on the show during the William Hartnell years.

Makes more sense than "Mawdryn Undead"'s misreading of the UNIT timeframe. "The Web of Fear" said that 1935 was "over forty years ago," putting Lethbridge-Stewart's debut appearance in at least 1976, and "The Invasion" was 4 years after that, so at least 1980. And yet "Mawdryn" said the Brig retired in 1977! (And, yes, "The Pyramids of Mars" had Sarah Jane say she was from 1980, so there was an issue there too.)

It also makes more sense than "The Two Doctors"'s pretense that the Doctor was on a mission for the Time Lords during his time with Jamie and Victoria, when we know he was still on the run from the Time Lords at that point.

In short, Doctor Who writers were forgetting the series's own history long before RTD came along.

But then, RTD seems to have a poor grasp of the classic series in general. He retconned a degree of romantic tension between Sarah Jane & the 4th Doctor where none was actually present in "School Reunion." In "The Death of the Doctor," he had Jo imply that the Doctor dumped her because she got married, which completely twists the melancholy ending of "The Green Death" when she & Clifford left to find that South American mushroom. (I remember screaming at the screen, "You broke his hearts, Jo!")

Actually Jo's line in "Death of the Doctor" is (emphasis added) "I only left you because I got married." Her sense of abandonment had more to do with the fact that the Doctor never tried to stay in touch after that. I agree with you about RTD's retcon of Sarah Jane's relationship with the Doctor, but I don't think he mishandled Jo.

 

[The Wormhole]

It also makes more sense than "The Two Doctors"'s pretense that the Doctor was on a mission for the Time Lords during his time with Jamie and Victoria, when we know he was still on the run from the Time Lords at that point.

Unless you buy into Terence Dicks's "Series 6B" theory that the Second Doctor did go on missions for the Time Lords after the trail in The War Games but before regenerating, even to the point that the Time Lords eventually allowed Jamie and Victoria to work with him. It was first introduced as a way to keep Doctor Who comic strips running while waiting for Pertwee's episodes to air, and has since been the basis for a few novels, usually written by Dicks. The Second Doctor's appearances in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors also take place during "6B" from his perspective, thus explaining how he knows about Jamie and Zoe's fates in The War Games in The Five Doctors.

 

[Christopher]

Unless you buy into Terence Dicks's "Series 6B" theory...

Yes, I'm fully aware of that, but the point is that the only reason that theory was required is because the original stories themselves contained major contradictions and plot holes. Doctor Who has never, ever, ever been a franchise that paid much attention to internal consistency. In the first season, in "The Aztecs," they insisted that history could never be changed, "not one line," and then a year later in "The Time Meddler" they were trying to stop the Meddling Monk from changing history. Dwelling on continuity in Doctor Who is simply not worth the effort.

 

[The Wormhole]

Dwelling on continuity in Doctor Who is simply not worth the effort.

Truer words have never been spoken.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Makes more sense than "Mawdryn Undead"'s misreading of the UNIT timeframe. "The Web of Fear" said that 1935 was "over forty years ago," putting Lethbridge-Stewart's debut appearance in at least 1976, and "The Invasion" was 4 years after that, so at least 1980. And yet "Mawdryn" said the Brig retired in 1977! (And, yes, "The Pyramids of Mars" had Sarah Jane say she was from 1980, so there was an issue there too.)

The difference with some of these issues is that they were created in order to tell the story at hand.

"The Two Doctors" seemed to be relying on the fact that, at the time, very few people would have remembered the status quo from 16 years earlier. There had been almost no reruns of the Patrick Troughton years up to that point and the precious few VHS releases had all been of Tom Baker stories. (Troughton's first VHS release, "The Seeds of Death," was released approximately 4 months after "The Two Doctors" aired.)

In the case of the UNIT dating in "Maydryn Undead," it's simply a matter of the writers not doing their homework. They assumed that the UNIT stories took place in the present, not 5-10 years in the future. (And that's assuming that the slightly addled, distracted Professor Travers gave the right time frame when he said "over 40 years ago" in "The Web of Fear." I'm not sure how well I'd trust him with specifics like that.)

That's a very different thing than concocting a line out of thin air about Ian & Barbara not aging, with no on-screen explanation or even vague indication as to how that happened!

Unless you buy into Terence Dicks's "Series 6B" theory that the Second Doctor did go on missions for the Time Lords after the trail in The War Games but before regenerating, even to the point that the Time Lords eventually allowed Jamie and Victoria to work with him. It was first introduced as a way to keep Doctor Who comic strips running while waiting for Pertwee's episodes to air, and has since been the basis for a few novels, usually written by Dicks. The Second Doctor's appearances in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors also take place during "6B" from his perspective, thus explaining how he knows about Jamie and Zoe's fates in The War Games in The Five Doctors.

It certainly explains him knowing about Jamie & Zoe in "The Five Doctors."

Meanwhile, in the novel "World Game," which seems to immediately lead into "The Two Doctors," it seems to indicate that Victoria never actually worked with the Doctor in Season 6B. It's just that, from Jamie's perspective, based on how the Time Lords have doctored his memories, this is right after they parted ways with Victoria.

As for "The Three Doctors," I don't think there's anything definitive about when this takes place during the 2nd Doctor's timeline. It would certainly make sense for it to take place during Season 6B. That would probably make it easier for the Time Lords to track him down at that point. But since "The Three Doctors" doesn't contain the same kind of glaring continuity errors as "The Five Doctors" & "The Two Doctors," there's a lot more freedom to place "The Three Doctors" anywhere you want so long as it's after "The Invasion." (He does remember fighting the Cybermen with the Brigadier and meeting Benton.)

In the first season, in "The Aztecs," they insisted that history could never be changed, "not one line," and then a year later in "The Time Meddler" they were trying to stop the Meddling Monk from changing history.

In "The Aztecs," I interpreted that as the Doctor telling her that she must not change history, not that she could not if she tried. After all, if history can't be changed, if it's all a big predestination paradox, why bother arguing the point with Barbara?

 

[Christopher]

In the case of the UNIT dating in "Maydryn Undead," it's simply a matter of the writers not doing their homework. They assumed that the UNIT stories took place in the present, not 5-10 years in the future.

Also because "Mawdryn" was supposed to feature Ian as the returning character, with the Brig put in his place when Russell couldn't make it, hence the incongruity of Lethbridge-Stewart being a teacher.

(And that's assuming that the slightly addled, distracted Professor Travers gave the right time frame when he said "over 40 years ago" in "The Web of Fear." I'm not sure how well I'd trust him with specifics like that.)

As an after-the-fact rationalization, sure, you can handwave it that way, but looking at it in terms of the writer's intentions at the time, they probably wouldn't have put those lines into the script if they hadn't meant for the audience to take them at face value. Exposition isn't deliberately misleading without a reason.

That's a very different thing than concocting a line out of thin air about Ian & Barbara not aging, with no on-screen explanation or even vague indication as to how that happened!

Oh, come on, it was a passing homage in a whole paragraph full of homages. The speech didn't explain how Ace got back to Earth either. It wasn't meant to be some important part of the narrative. It wasn't even an actual plot point. It was just a tribute to various past companions as a bit of nostalgia. And the bit about Ian and Barbara not aging was only presented as a rumor anyway. So you're taking this whole thing far too seriously.

In "The Aztecs," I interpreted that as the Doctor telling her that she must not change history, not that she could not if she tried.

"Barbara, one last appeal. What you are trying to do is utterly impossible. I know, believe me, I know." That sounds pretty unambiguous to me.

After all, if history can't be changed, if it's all a big predestination paradox, why bother arguing the point with Barbara?

Because it was dangerous for her and the others personally -- it might get them declared blasphemers and sacrificed. Or at the very least, because he didn't want Barbara to suffer the emotional letdown of striving to make a change and failing. By this point, they'd grown rather close, and the Doctor was trying to spare her from making the same mistakes he'd made. "I know, believe me, I know." That tells us that he has tried and failed.

Sure, again, you can handwave and squint and force things together after the fact. That doesn't change the fact that different producers and story editors in the history of the series had different ideas about how it worked. The original producers were trying to make an educational show about history. So naturally they wanted to ensure that history was shown to unfold the way the textbooks recorded it, and that required that the time travellers could make no changes. That was actually written into the series format documents, that no event in Earth history could be altered in any way, merely witnessed. (Although it was never explained why the characters were more free to meddle in alien worlds' histories.) But later on, the educational mandate faded and the science-fiction adventure emphasis became stronger, so we started to get stories about aliens in Earth's past, and the possibility of changing history was added as a potential danger to drive the adventure.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

It's in The Romans that the Doctor realizes he and his companions play an active role in history taking its documented course. It's not that they're changing it so much as fulfilling their necessary part in the way things are "supposed" to go, wittingly or unwittingly.

 

[Christopher]

It's in The Romans that the Doctor realizes he and his companions play an active role in history taking its documented course. It's not that they're changing it so much as fulfilling their necessary part in the way things are "supposed" to go, wittingly or unwittingly.

Yes, but again, that was changed just five serials later in "The Time Meddler," when it was now established as possible to alter history, and the need to prevent said alteration was what drove the whole story.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

That's what I mean. History turned out the way it did because the Doctor thwarted the Monk's meddling, even though the Doctor couldn't have known this before it happened. He and his companions were always part of the events behind the written history. It's the same scenario as him accidentally sparking the burning of Rome, except in The Time Meddler his crucial actions happen to be intentional rather than unintentional.

 

[Christopher]

That's what I mean. History turned out the way it did because the Doctor thwarted the Monk's meddling, even though the Doctor couldn't have known this before it happened. He and his companions were always part of the events behind the written history. It's the same scenario as him accidentally sparking the burning of Rome, except in The Time Meddler his crucial actions happen to be intentional rather than unintentional.

That's a rationalization after the fact. I'm talking about the changes in the intentions of the people who were writing the episodes at the time. The original rule -- which, as I said, was spelled out explicitly in production documents -- was that time travellers could never alter Earth history, because that would go against the educational brief of the show. By the time we got to "The Time Meddler," that rule had been dropped. It was the first of multiple stories that involved preventing time travelers from changing history.

And then, of course, in the modern series, we got the attempt to handwave the original series's inconsistent treatment of the issue (as well as its cavalier approach to continuity in general) by introducing the concept that some events could be changed easily while others were immutable "fixed points in time" -- with the fixed points being either known historical events like the eruption of Vesuvius, or events that needed to be immutable for story reasons like the Doctor's apparent death at Lake Silencio. Which has arguably made even more of a mess of things than the original approach of not bothering to explain the inconsistencies at all.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

That's a rationalization after the fact. I'm talking about the changes in the intentions of the people who were writing the episodes at the time. The original rule -- which, as I said, was spelled out explicitly in production documents -- was that time travellers could never alter Earth history, because that would go against the educational brief of the show. By the time we got to "The Time Meddler," that rule had been dropped. It was the first of multiple stories that involved preventing time travelers from changing history.

My point is that if you jump straight from The Aztecs to The Time Meddler the approach seems inconsistent, but when you take into account The Romans it forms a bridge from one to the other. The shift was an evolution within the framework of the show, not a sudden leap that came out of nowhere.

And I don't really think it ever became the intention that the show actually would alter familiar history. Wherever the prospect gets raised, it is ultimately averted. The toys have to get put back in the box by the end of the story one way or another, and that's by and large still true to this day.

And then, of course, in the modern series, we got the attempt to handwave the original series's inconsistent treatment of the issue (as well as its cavalier approach to continuity in general) by introducing the concept that some events could be changed easily while others were immutable "fixed points in time" -- with the fixed points being either known historical events like the eruption of Vesuvius, or events that needed to be immutable for story reasons like the Doctor's apparent death at Lake Silencio. Which has arguably made even more of a mess of things than the original approach of not bothering to explain the inconsistencies at all.

There have always been inconsistencies, sure, and exceptional situations with various specific explanations in-story, but the basic overall rule of thumb isn't all that complicated: Time can be rewritten, but you can't change history if you're part of it. (And to whatever extent you can, there is a cost, one which grows exponentially the more bites at the apple you try to take.)

 

[Mr Awe]

My point is that if you jump straight from The Aztecs to The Time Meddler the approach seems inconsistent, but when you take into account The Romans it forms a bridge from one to the other. The shift was an evolution within the framework of the show, not a sudden leap that came out of nowhere.

And I don't really think it ever became the intention that the show actually would alter familiar history. Wherever the prospect gets raised, it is ultimately averted. The toys have to get put back in the box by the end of the story one way or another, and that's by and large still true to this day.

This is absolutely correct. The show would never change familiar history because then it directly contradicts our reality. But, there was an evolution as to how they worked this idea into the series.

And, I'd just point to Earthshock as another example of how all of their efforts led to maintaining history as we know it!

Mr Awe

 

[Christopher]

My point is that if you jump straight from The Aztecs to The Time Meddler the approach seems inconsistent, but when you take into account The Romans it forms a bridge from one to the other. The shift was an evolution within the framework of the show, not a sudden leap that came out of nowhere.

Either way, it was a change, which is my point. Doctor Who has a history of inconsistency going back to the very beginning, so it's a waste of time trying to fansplain it into some rigorously reasoned-out history like we do with Star Trek or whatever. I've spent a lifetime trying to rationalize and reconcile things in Star Trek and other franchises -- that's a drive that comes naturally to me and a creative exercise I enjoy -- but for the most part, Doctor Who's continuity has always been so blatantly cavalier and inconsistent that I've never seen much point in even trying to pretend it fits together. It's easier just to be honest about the fact that it's a constructed story, a tall tale that's larger than life and isn't afraid to contradict the hell out of itself because it's just here to entertain us, not to be documentary evidence of something real. Heck, Moffat's run has frequently made metatextual commentary on that, like codifying the idea that history is constantly changing, and having UNIT characters overtly reference the dating confusion and the three incompatible Atlantises.

There have always been inconsistencies, sure, and exceptional situations with various specific explanations in-story, but the basic overall rule of thumb isn't all that complicated: Time can be rewritten, but you can't change history if you're part of it. (And to whatever extent you can, there is a cost, one which grows exponentially the more bites at the apple you try to take.)

I don't care. I'm not trying to talk about how time travel works in Doctor Who. I'm talking about the fact that it is one of the most unapologetically inconsistent continuities in all of genre-dom, and the only reason I brought up the time-travel thing at all is because it's one of the earliest examples in a decades-long string of inconsistencies. You're fixating on one tree and I'm talking about the forest.