Fixed points in time sometimes don't make sense.

[Candleicious Ghost]

So can someone help make sense of this?

I'm thinking back to I think the 11th Doctor or could have been the 12th but anyway they showed a clip of a Dalek killing people and then it passed over one person and the Doctor says because they are a fixed point in time, so how does that even work? How would the Dalek not be able to fire its gun at this special fixed point in time person? That scene stuck with me and I have always wondered how that works, was the Dalek confused I mean what happens with it in that situation?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Eh, the whole fixed point in time business was always very silly from the get go. I didn't like it in its introduction ("The Waters of Mars") and I don't think it was ever really utilized well. I usually rolled my eyes and ignored the term whenever The Doctor mentioned it.

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

Eh, the whole fixed point in time business was always very silly from the get go. I didn't like it in its introduction ("The Waters of Mars") and I don't think it was ever really utilized well. I usually rolled my eyes and ignored the term whenever The Doctor mentioned it.

Yeah I remembered what scene. It was when Adelaide Brooke was a child during a Dalek invasion it was looking right at her but then ran off and didn't bother with her. None of them tried to shoot her. You see that during The Waters Of Mars

 

[camdudetenger2018]

i think the doctor who 2005 verison of time travel is sometimes very complex

 

[Set Harth]

Eh, the whole fixed point in time business was always very silly from the get go.

The Flash: "hold my beer"

 

[The Wormhole]

So can someone help make sense of this?

I'm thinking back to I think the 11th Doctor or could have been the 12th but anyway they showed a clip of a Dalek killing people and then it passed over one person and the Doctor says because they are a fixed point in time, so how does that even work? How would the Dalek not be able to fire its gun at this special fixed point in time person? That scene stuck with me and I have always wondered how that works, was the Dalek confused I mean what happens with it in that situation?

It's consistent with how RTD depicts Time itself as some sort of entity that makes sure things go a certain way. IE, in the case of that scene, it's Time itself that is exerting some sort of divine influence to prevent the Dalek from shooting Adelaide Brooke, just as at the end of the episode, Time itself compels her to kill herself now that it is her time to go. RTD took this idea to some rather ridiculous lengths, like when he said in the DVD commentary that Peter Capaldi's character from Torchwood Children of Earth was descended from the family in Fires of Pompeii, and that Capaldi's character murdering his own family and then committing suicide was Time itself correcting the mistake of that family surviving Pompeii. It apparently takes Time itself two thousand years to correct the "mistake" of a family surviving disaster. Yeah, okay.

Eh, the whole fixed point in time business was always very silly from the get go. I didn't like it in its introduction ("The Waters of Mars") and I don't think it was ever really utilized well. I usually rolled my eyes and ignored the term whenever The Doctor mentioned it.

Fixed points in time were introduced before Waters of Mars, just prior to then they were just the excuse the Doctor gave for not intervening and preventing actual historical disasters from happening. Waters of Mars was just the first time a fictional event was declared a fixed point.

 

[David cgc]

I have to say, the "mavity" runner kind of puts paid to the idea that Doctor Who can't survive changing real history.

On the other hand, the show has stopped, so maybe that's actually what did it.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Fixed points in time were introduced before Waters of Mars, just prior to then they were just the excuse the Doctor gave for not intervening and preventing actual historical disasters from happening. Waters of Mars was just the first time a fictional event was declared a fixed point.

Ah, I stand corrected. But that explains why "The Waters of Mars" stands out in such a manner...and why I dislike it so much.

I have to say, the "mavity" runner kind of puts paid to the idea that Doctor Who can't survive changing real history.

On the other hand, the show has stopped, so maybe that's actually what did it.

I'm one of the few people who liked the mavity arc...until Davies never actually addressed the subtle change in reality.

I thought "The Reality War" was going to be an excellent follow-up on it and how those ripples in reality allowed the rise of the Pantheon of Discord.

Instead, we got that horrible clusterfuck.

Like almost all of Davies big arcs and grand finales, he creates fantastic set-ups but with shitty follow-throughs.