Things to go when Moffat leaves

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Uh, with respect, to me it sounds like you're the one fixating on something here. I agree with you that the inconsistencies in DW are no big deal to sweat over. Of course it's all a constructed story that's changed hands numerous times. I do think you're overstating the case a bit as to how inconsistent it actually is compared to Trek or comic books (!) or whatever, especially since it comes with so many get-out clauses built into its premise, but I didn't come in here to argue with you, man. I just wanted to point out how The Romans nicely fits in as the (not) missing link between the The Aztecs and The Time Meddler, since that "issue" came up and I happened to notice this when watching DW from beginning to end a year or two ago. Look at it from an in- or out-of-universe perspective, whichever you like.

The UNIT dating thing is a much better example of a big inconsistency, but even that really just comes down to Mawdryn Undead making a gaffe by not remembering that Troughton and Pertwee's UNIT stories were set in the near future rather than present day. (Oh, and the overt jokes about that didn't start in Moffat's era by the way, but in RTD's. Not that it matters at all. No reason to make a big thing out of any of this, and I'm not trying to.)

If you don't care about how time travel works in DW or how things fit together, that's more than fine by me. If you don't want to talk about it, you needn't feel obliged to keep responding to me when I do so. It's not as if I've aimed my comments exclusively at you anyway. Personally, I find thinking about that stuff to be a lot of fun—at this point moreso than with Trek to be well and truly honest—and I bet at least a few others here might as well. I've loved how Moffat's run has focused on the various angles and mechanics of all that, and how it has worked to keep the show's long history alive and relevant and tied to its present, showing the repercussions of the Doctor's past exploits and so on. I like the joking self-awareness too. For my part, I hope these are all things that don't leave the show with Moffat.

 

[Christopher]

Uh, with respect, to me it sounds like you're the one fixating on something here.

No, I just feel that the larger point I was making was being missed because of the focus on a single example to the exclusion of the rest of the subject.

I do think you're overstating the case a bit as to how inconsistent it actually is compared to Trek or comic books (!) or whatever,

I never said anything about comic books. I generally don't bother trying to make sense of their continuities either. I tend to have two categories, continuities that are more or less consistent enough that it's worth trying to codify them and explain any logic holes, and those that are practically nothing but logic holes and that it would be a pointless exercise to try to justify. And I put Doctor Who in the latter category. Basically it's about which approach is more satisfying. It's enjoyable to imagine solutions to plot holes, but if the inconsistencies are so numerous or intractable that concocting rationalizations is more trouble than it's worth, then it's more enjoyable to go with the MST3K Mantra and just relax.

especially since it comes with so many get-out clauses built into its premise,

But only recently, though. As I said, the idea that history had actually changed and that such changes could explain past plot holes was something that never existed in the franchise until the RTD years (implicit in the concept of the Time War, with both sides repeatedly rewriting history and erasing or altering vast swaths of it) and the Moffat years (which was where we first got explicit codification of the difference between mutable history and "fixed points," and where Moffat overtly used the "cracks in time" changing history to wipe out elements of RTD continuity like events of "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" and "The Next Doctor"). It's the sort of self-referential retcon you'd only really get in a next-generation revival where the people making the show are longtime fans taking the opportunity to codify the fannish theories they concocted to explain the original show's plot holes.

But in the original series, none of this was built into the premise. They just made stuff up as they went and never bothered to address the retcons and errors and changes, because the old episodes were generally not available for viewing anyway, if they even existed anymore. They just assumed their young audience would be aging out every few years and replaced by new viewers, meaning that they didn't have to maintain consistency with the past.

The UNIT dating thing is a much better example of a big inconsistency, but even that really just comes down to Mawdryn Undead making a gaffe by not remembering that Troughton and Pertwee's UNIT stories were set in the near future rather than present day. (Oh, and the overt jokes about that didn't start in Moffat's era by the way, but in RTD's. Not that it matters at all. No reason to make a big thing out of any of this, and I'm not trying to.)

I don't remember any in-story jokes about the UNIT dating mess until "The Day of the Doctor." When did it get referenced in the RTD era?

If you don't care about how time travel works in DW or how things fit together, that's more than fine by me. Personally, I find thinking about that stuff to be a lot of fun—at this point moreso than with Trek to be well and truly honest—and I bet at least a few others here might as well.

I literally wrote the book on how Star Trek time travel works. I've done plenty of thinking about that stuff, in exhausting detail. In the context of Star Trek, it's barely possible to take it all and make sense of it. But Doctor Who is a different matter, because it's far more fanciful and far more inconsistent.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

No, I just feel that the larger point I was making was being missed because of the focus on a single example to the exclusion of the rest of the subject.

Can't speak for anyone else, but if I don't say anything in response to something you've said, or part of it, it might just as easily be because I agree with it completely and have nothing to add as it might be because I've missed the point. (Of course, it equally might be that I disagree, but don't feel like arguing about it. Or don't have the time and/or energy. It could be for a lot of reasons. I wouldn't jump to conclusions one way or another, is all I mean.)

I never said anything about comic books.

I'd have thought they would count as part of "genre-dom" but we surely all have our own definitions there, so fair enough.

I tend to have two categories, continuities that are more or less consistent enough that it's worth trying to codify them and explain any logic holes, and those that are practically nothing but logic holes and that it would be a pointless exercise to try to justify. And I put Doctor Who in the latter category.

I don't, but let's just agree to disagree for the moment instead of belaboring it further. It's simply a matter of opinion, and I've got no beef with yours differing from mine.

I don't remember any in-story jokes about the UNIT dating mess until "The Day of the Doctor." When did it get referenced in the RTD era?

First in the Sarah Jane Adventures story The Lost Boy, where her UNIT dossier reads in part:

"...presence felt in a golden period that spanned the sixties, the seventies, and, some would say, the eighties."

Then in the "The Sontaran Stratagem" came...

Donna: What, you used to work for them?
The Doctor: Yeah, long time ago. Back in the seventies. Or was it the eighties? It was all a bit more homespun back then.

I literally wrote the book on how Star Trek time travel works. I've done plenty of thinking about that stuff, in exhausting detail. In the context of Star Trek, it's barely possible to take it all and make sense of it. But Doctor Who is a different matter, because it's far more fanciful and far more inconsistent.

I like to think that within its fanciful context DW gives a better impression of what the results of time travel would really seem like to us if it were possible: messy, seemingly illogical, capricious, counterintuitive and confusing.

 

[Christopher]

I like to think that within its fanciful context DW gives a better impression of what the results of time travel would really seem like to us if it were possible: messy, seemingly illogical, capricious, counterintuitive and confusing.

Well, according to theoretical physics, if time travel really existed, it would follow "The Aztecs" rules: History cannot be changed, not one line. Or at most "Inferno" rules (so to speak), where any "change" would simply create a parallel history alongside the original. Those are the only mathematically valid possibilities.

And of course the original series didn't actually do stories about time travel all that often, in contrast to the Moffat era where timey-wimey weirdness is a constant theme. Usually time travel was just a way of getting from one setting to another, and relatively few stories had anything to do with the kinds of time paradoxes and history alterations that most time-travel fiction trades in.

By the way, I was wrong that "The Time Meddler" was the first story to show that history was mutable. That was two stories earlier, in "The Space Museum," where the crew "jumped their time track" and caught a glimpse of a future where they were killed, and the spent the rest of the story trying to prevent that future and ultimately succeeding. So that not only shows that time can be changed, it shows it actually being changed. That's the first instance of "timey-wimey ball" storytelling in the series too, as the crew invisibly wanders through their own near future -- though it's only in the cool first episode, and then the remaining three episodes are pretty dull in comparison.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^But the latter 3 episodes of "The Space Museum" include a guest appearance by the great Jeremy "Boba Fett" Bulloch as one of the alien student revolutionaries! (One of the nicest men I've ever met at an autograph signing.)

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.

At some point, I want to hear Capaldi's Doctor talk about the Brigadier, "He was a good friend of mine. He used to be a soldier. Then he retired and became a maths teacher... And suddenly I feel like I owe someone a big apology..."

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.

Yeah, but the idea that Ace somehow got back to Earth sometime between "Survival" & the 1996 movie could be easily inferred. Something magical like Ian & Barbara becoming eternally young requires a bit more foundation, IMO. Like, it's been suggested that this was somehow caused by the Dalek time machine that they used to get back home at the end of "The Chase." But this is not a property that Dalek ships are known to have, either in "The Chase" or in any other Dalek stories that I'm aware of. (If there is some mention of this in some ancillary material or in one of the missing Dalek stories, I'd love to know about it.)

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 think that is a good rule to explain most of the time travel on the new series at least. Although, even then, the show has pretty fluidly switched between grandfather paradoxes & predestination paradoxes depending upon which story they want to tell. For the most part, it was grandfather paradoxes during the RTD era and predestination paradoxes during the Moffat era. There were a few instances in the RTD era where we would see the effect precede the cause from the Doctor's perspective. Examples:

• References to Torchwood in "Bad Wolf" & "The Christmas Invasion" prior to the Doctor & Rose inspiring Queen Victoria to create the Torchwood Institute in "Tooth & Claw."
• Frequent offhand references to Harold Saxon in Season 3 before the Doctor traveled to the distant future, allowing the Master to steal his TARDIS and go back in time to the 21st century to become Harold Saxon in "Utopia."
• Old Queen Elizabeth I tries to have the Doctor executed in "The Shakespeare Code," referring to some grudge between them that the Doctor doesn't know about yet. Presumably, this refers to the Doctor abandoning her shortly after their wedding (seen in "The Day of the Doctor" and first referenced in "The End of Time").
• Professor River Song has a long established relationship with the Doctor that he hasn't experienced yet ("Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead"). Also, she seems to already know about Donna's eventual fate in "Journey's End."
• Assuming that Captain Jack Harkness really is the Face of Boe, he made his first appearance on the series in "The End of the World" long before Rose made him immortal in "The Parting of the Ways."

I've loved how Moffat's run has focused on the various angles and mechanics of all that, and how it has worked to keep the show's long history alive and relevant and tied to its present, showing the repercussions of the Doctor's past exploits and so on. I like the joking self-awareness too.

I keep hoping that, at some point, the Doctor will encounter an older Zoe in a much altered timeline from when he originally met her. Then, the Doctor admits that, while he's not sure what he did to trigger it, that he made some change at some point that inadvertently retarded the development of the British space program. Thus explaining why the British have now never sent manned missions to Mars in the 1970s/'80s as depicted in "The Ambassadors of Death."

I like to think that within its fanciful context DW gives a better impression of what the results of time travel would really seem like to us if it were possible: messy, seemingly illogical, capricious, counter-intuitive and confusing.

I really like this description. Works for me!

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, but the idea that Ace somehow got back to Earth sometime between "Survival" & the 1996 movie could be easily inferred. Something magical like Ian & Barbara becoming eternally young requires a bit more foundation, IMO.

It was just stated as a rumor. It was a passing bit of homage in a story that was about something else altogether. It wasn't saying "This Is An Absolute Fact And You Must Reshape Your Entire Life Around It," it was just a winking suggestion, a "Hey, this would be a nice thought, wouldn't it?"

Like, it's been suggested that this was somehow caused by the Dalek time machine that they used to get back home at the end of "The Chase." But this is not a property that Dalek ships are known to have, either in "The Chase" or in any other Dalek stories that I'm aware of. (If there is some mention of this in some ancillary material or in one of the missing Dalek stories, I'd love to know about it.)

What I suggested earlier in the thread was that maybe they took a detour on the way home in the Dalek time machine, and had an adventure that brought them into contact with some other alien phenomenon that had the effect in question.

Then again, who knows? We've seen instances (including the entire Sarah Jane Adventures series) of companions continuing to involve themselves with odd or extraterrestrial events even after leaving the Doctor. Maybe Ian and Barbara had some later encounter with aliens on Earth. Maybe some future comic-book or audio-play writer will tell that story.

There were a few instances in the RTD era where we would see the effect precede the cause from the Doctor's perspective. Examples:

• References to Torchwood in "Bad Wolf" & "The Christmas Invasion" prior to the Doctor & Rose inspiring Queen Victoria to create the Torchwood Institute in "Tooth & Claw."
• Frequent offhand references to Harold Saxon in Season 3 before the Doctor traveled to the distant future, allowing the Master to steal his TARDIS and go back in time to the 21st century to become Harold Saxon in "Utopia."

And of course the words "Bad Wolf" themselves being seeded through time before we saw the event that caused them to be seeded through time. And Donna Noble coincidentally getting involved with the Doctor because she was destined to be joined with him in the event that saved the universe. Every one of RTD's seasons had an ongoing thread that turned out to be retroactively caused by an event that occurred in the season finale. You could even count the "He will knock four times" prophecy and the Doctor sensing his end coming in the year of specials.

And Moffat pretty much continued that practice in more blatant form, with the cracks in time, the plot to kill the Doctor, and Clara's duplicates throughout time (basically a living "Bad Wolf"). While RTD was content to keep them as minor background hints that simply served to foreshadow the finale, Moffat made them the core elements of the whole seasons' narratives.

I keep hoping that, at some point, the Doctor will encounter an older Zoe in a much altered timeline from when he originally met her. Then, the Doctor admits that, while he's not sure what he did to trigger it, that he made some change at some point that inadvertently retarded the development of the British space program. Thus explaining why the British have now never sent manned missions to Mars in the 1970s/'80s as depicted in "The Ambassadors of Death."

I'd be happy to see Wendy Padbury return to the show. Ooh, make her Capaldi's next companion! Make it up to her for the Time Lords stealing her memories of her time with the Doctor.

Hmm... The thing is, though... The time-travel rules of the new show seem to include the fact that time travelers are aware of changes in the timeline while others are not. For instance, the Doctor remembered the Cyber King and the Daleks stealing Earth after they were wiped by the cracks in time, but Clara didn't know about them, because the erasure happened before she began time-traveling. So is it possible Zoe would be aware that the timeline had changed around her? Or would the Time Lords' erasure of her memories have negated that ability?

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I like to think that Zoe would be vaguely aware of the difference but perhaps didn't put it together until she met the Doctor again.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Thinking about other stuff associated with the Moffat era, I think it's interesting that he's yet to do a genuine Doctor-lite episode. We've had some companion-lite episodes like "The Lodger," "Closing Time," "The Woman Who Lived," & "Heaven Sent." We've had a few episodes with perhaps slightly less Doctor than we're used to like "The Girl Who Waited," "The Crimson Horror," & "The Magician's Apprentice." But neither Smith nor Capaldi have ever been so completely absent for an episode as Tennant was in "Love & Monsters," "Blink," & "Turn Left."

I don't know if it's due to judicious scheduling on Moffat's part or what but I wonder if Chibnall will be able to maintain that?

 

[The Wormhole]

^^It's likely scheduling. RTD did the Doctor-lite episodes because of the Christmas specials being filmed with the seasons. Eccleston's season didn't have a Christmas special and didn't really have a Doctor-lite episode, though the Doctor and Rose do have reduced roles in The Long Game to give Eccleston and Piper a bit of a breather.

Since Moffat took over, this hasn't been an issue, Christmas specials have been filmed separately from the seasons, plus in Capaldi's term the seasons have been reduced to 12 regular episodes.

 

[TommyR01D]

It's difficult to tell now where one season ends and the next begins, nor where the Christmas specials fit.

 

[The Wormhole]

It's difficult to tell now where one season ends and the next begins, nor where the Christmas specials fit.

I grant you season 7 takes a bit of work, but otherwise, the seasons are pretty straightforward, and the Christmas specials are always between seasons.

 

[Stevil2001]

^^It's likely scheduling. RTD did the Doctor-lite episodes because of the Christmas specials being filmed with the seasons. Eccleston's season didn't have a Christmas special and didn't really have a Doctor-lite episode, though the Doctor and Rose do have reduced roles in The Long Game to give Eccleston and Piper a bit of a breather.

Since Moffat took over, this hasn't been an issue, Christmas specials have been filmed separately from the seasons, plus in Capaldi's term the seasons have been reduced to 12 regular episodes.

There has been the occasional episode with a reduced role for the Doctor to allow them to record two episodes at once: "Flatline," for example, was only a couple days' filming for Peter Capaldi, since he spent (nearly) the whole thing on the TARDIS set.

 

[Christopher]

Interesting to compare the modern "Doctor-lite" or "companion-lite" episodes to the early days of the series, when they'd rehearse and shoot one 25-minute episode per week nearly year-round. In order to give their cast members vacations, they'd write the stories so that one member of the cast would be sidelined or absent for one or two episodes. Sometimes they'd have that actor do film inserts in advance that would be played back during taping, so that the character would still be in the episode. For instance, in consecutive serials, there was the Doctor skipping a couple of stops ahead of the rest of the team during their quest in "The Keys of Marinus"; Susan being enrolled in (pre-filmed) Aztec charm school in "The Aztecs"; Barbara being inexplicably left behind on the orbiting ship while the others went down to the planet of "The Sensorites"; and Ian being locked in a separate (pre-filmed) cell from the others in "The Reign of Terror."

The use of pre-filming to ease the actors' schedules or allow overlapping productions got even more extensive in the Second Doctor's era. The most extreme example was the second-last Patrick Troughton serial, "The Space Pirates," where the regular cast's role in the serial was not only diminished but 100 percent pre-filmed; they didn't participate in the studio recording at all, because they were off doing the extensive location pre-filming for the epic "The War Games" while the guest cast was doing "The Space Pirates" in the studio. Although "Pirates" has been mostly erased, so we only have a limited idea how that played out onscreen. It was because of things like this that the production decided to abandon the "as-live" recording process in favor of shooting out of sequence like most film and TV productions, starting with the Third Doctor.

 

[Jedman67]

And Moffat pretty much continued that practice in more blatant form, with the cracks in time, the plot to kill the Doctor, and Clara's duplicates throughout time (basically a living "Bad Wolf"). While RTD was content to keep them as minor background hints that simply served to foreshadow the finale, Moffat made them the core elements of the whole seasons' narratives.

I liked RTD's Series', there were a few eps that didn't quite work out for me, but much better than the lead up to the "Missy" 2 parter; that was bludgeoning the foreshadowing with a club.
Overall I liked Matt Smith but half the time he was playing a teenage Doctor and the other half an old man in a young mans body. When Smith was just being "himself" with some added gravitas he was at his best. Capaldi is much better at playing a range of ages, IMO.

It was because of things like this that the production decided to abandon the "as-live" recording process in favor of shooting out of sequence like most film and TV productions, starting with the Third Doctor.

When I was a kid, I always imagined that there was a studio somewhere with a full-size Enterprise D, full of corridors, bridge, other rooms etc. rather than a soundstage with some sets and cameras

 

[Christopher]

When I was a kid, I always imagined that there was a studio somewhere with a full-size Enterprise D, full of corridors, bridge, other rooms etc. rather than a soundstage with some sets and cameras

I got my first copy of The Making of Star Trek when I was 7 years old, IIRC, so I didn't have that illusion for long.

 

[Mr Awe]

When I was a kid, I always imagined that there was a studio somewhere with a full-size Enterprise D, full of corridors, bridge, other rooms etc. rather than a soundstage with some sets and cameras

I was a kid in the years between TOS and TNG and had imagined that about the TOS Enterprise for a short while. Then, I started noticing the limited number of sets, etc. I pieced it together myself before too long. Like Christopher, I read The Making of Star Trek, but not until I was in Jr. High School!

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Soak]

For Firefly, they made the complete ship, although the two levels were seperate sets.