How do so many people know about the Time War? (Spoilers)

[Starkers]

In their original appearance, cleverly and indicatively called The Time Warrior, the Sontarans are perfectly capable of nabbing people from 1980 and dragging them back to the 13th century with a damaged spaceship.

And yet they don't seem to have that technology any other time we see them, even going so far as to make a deal with Dastari and, er, Servalan to try and gain time travel technology in the Two Doctors. So either they had it and lost it (confiscated by the Time Lords themselves perhaps?) or else Linx is a Sontaran from the far future.

 

[EJA]

No amount of explaining can fix the jumbled, nightmarish mess that RTD and his toadies have created with this Time War gobshite.

 

[Sci]

No amount of explaining can fix the jumbled, nightmarish mess that RTD and his toadies have created with this Time War gobshite.

Right, because Doctor Who never, ever had weird and contradictory continuity before RTD. (Dalek origins, anyone?)

Personally, I don't care. I want the Time Lords gone and the Doctor the last of his kind, and if we have to shout "wibbly wobly timey wimey" till the crows come home to make it happen, I'm fine with that.

 

[EJA]

No amount of explaining can fix the jumbled, nightmarish mess that RTD and his toadies have created with this Time War gobshite.

Right, because Doctor Who never, ever had weird and contradictory continuity before RTD. (Dalek origins, anyone?)

Personally, I don't care. I want the Time Lords gone and the Doctor the last of his kind, and if we have to shout "wibbly wobly timey wimey" till the crows come home to make it happen, I'm fine with that.

Well you can if that's what you want. Personally, I prefer it when you don't have to rely too much on utter suspension of disbelief, which is what all this talk of "wibbly wobbly timey wimey" ultimately boils down to. If you ask me, RTD and his lot wanted to have their cake and eat it; they introduced a scenario throughout the new series that effectively prevents the old series from occuring, and then try to appease the long time fans by including all these references and characters from the old show (In some ways, NuWho isn't really all that different from Star Trek XI in these regards). For a while I myself didn't really notice, but recently I've come to realise how awkward and ludicrous it is. It might have been better if they had just done a straightforward reboot instead of referencing past continuity whilst simultaneously negating it.

 

[Kelso]

No amount of explaining can fix the jumbled, nightmarish mess that RTD and his toadies have created with this Time War gobshite.

The Time War is one of the best things to ever happen to Doctor Who. As far as wiping the slate clean goes, Moffat may rival it with his cracks in the universe that erase significant elements of 'the canon' from history... but we'll see if he follows through with it.

 

[diankra]

In their original appearance, cleverly and indicatively called The Time Warrior, the Sontarans are perfectly capable of nabbing people from 1980 and dragging them back to the 13th century with a damaged spaceship.

And yet they don't seem to have that technology any other time we see them, even going so far as to make a deal with Dastari and, er, Servalan to try and gain time travel technology in the Two Doctors. So either they had it and lost it (confiscated by the Time Lords themselves perhaps?) or else Linx is a Sontaran from the far future.

There's different types of Time Travel: In The Time Warrior, Linx has a fairly limited version that lets him 'teleport' into the future, and bring people back with him.
In The Invsion of Time, the Sontarans are formidable enough to invade Gallifrey (with a distcration ahead of them), in the hope of getting Time Lord tech.
In The Two Doctors, they're trying to get hold of time-tech which matches the Time Lord/TARDIS technology. They don't get it.

 

[Photoman15]

No amount of explaining can fix the jumbled, nightmarish mess that RTD and his toadies have created with this Time War gobshite.

Right, because Doctor Who never, ever had weird and contradictory continuity before RTD. (Dalek origins, anyone?)

Personally, I don't care. I want the Time Lords gone and the Doctor the last of his kind, and if we have to shout "wibbly wobly timey wimey" till the crows come home to make it happen, I'm fine with that.

Well you can if that's what you want. Personally, I prefer it when you don't have to rely too much on utter suspension of disbelief, which is what all this talk of "wibbly wobbly timey wimey" ultimately boils down to.

You realize a story about a Galifriean in a police box (that's bigger on the inside) that travels thru time is a GIANT SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF. What's a little more, especially one that eliminates crappy quality adversaries.

 

[The Wormhole]

Personally, I prefer it when you don't have to rely too much on utter suspension of disbelief, which is what all this talk of "wibbly wobbly timey wimey" ultimately boils down to.

You're watching a show about a human-looking alien who frequently changes his appearance travelling through time and space in a ship that has the exterior of a phone booth and an interior much larger, and it's the Time War that you find is "too much suspension of disbelief"?

The Time War by it's very nature is too complex for simple words to express. We know the end of it somehow cut off the Time Lords from the rest of the universe prventing them from ever being involved. The Doctors who exist after the Time War can't ever meet with them again. He can't turn to them when shit hits the fan, like with the events of Father's Day. They simply aren't around.

In fact, there are some theories that suggest the Shadow Proclamation is a creation of a timeline in which there are no Time Lords around. Makes sense, and would explain why the Shadow Proclamation wasn't around in the original show.

In some ways, NuWho isn't really all that different from Star Trek XI

Oh, wow. You didn't actually just say that, did you? Doctor Who may require suspension of disbelief, as you put it, but Trek XI requires you to actually shut off your brain because otherwise, you're stuck with the most illogical, nonsensical mess American flimgoers have ever been exposed to. And that's saying something. Besides, NuWho is actually good, and doesn't have two dozen lens flares going off ever 15 seconds.

 

[Photoman15]

Since we both agreed on the Time War, why don't you stop at that and not trash talk Trek XI.

And what was that blue lens flare by the duck pond?

 

[Starkers]

In their original appearance, cleverly and indicatively called The Time Warrior, the Sontarans are perfectly capable of nabbing people from 1980 and dragging them back to the 13th century with a damaged spaceship.

And yet they don't seem to have that technology any other time we see them, even going so far as to make a deal with Dastari and, er, Servalan to try and gain time travel technology in the Two Doctors. So either they had it and lost it (confiscated by the Time Lords themselves perhaps?) or else Linx is a Sontaran from the far future.

There's different types of Time Travel: In The Time Warrior, Linx has a fairly limited version that lets him 'teleport' into the future, and bring people back with him.
In The Invsion of Time, the Sontarans are formidable enough to invade Gallifrey (with a distcration ahead of them), in the hope of getting Time Lord tech.
In The Two Doctors, they're trying to get hold of time-tech which matches the Time Lord/TARDIS technology. They don't get it.

Well the impression I got from the Two Doctors was that Dastari was trying to built a very rudimentary form of time travel, not something comparable to TARDIS level tech...but I could be mistaken as I've tried so hard to forget the Two Doctors

 

[Starkers]

No amount of explaining can fix the jumbled, nightmarish mess that RTD and his toadies have created with this Time War gobshite.

Right, because Doctor Who never, ever had weird and contradictory continuity before RTD. (Dalek origins, anyone?)

Personally, I don't care. I want the Time Lords gone and the Doctor the last of his kind, and if we have to shout "wibbly wobly timey wimey" till the crows come home to make it happen, I'm fine with that.

Well you can if that's what you want. Personally, I prefer it when you don't have to rely too much on utter suspension of disbelief, which is what all this talk of "wibbly wobbly timey wimey" ultimately boils down to. If you ask me, RTD and his lot wanted to have their cake and eat it; they introduced a scenario throughout the new series that effectively prevents the old series from occuring, and then try to appease the long time fans by including all these references and characters from the old show (In some ways, NuWho isn't really all that different from Star Trek XI in these regards). For a while I myself didn't really notice, but recently I've come to realise how awkward and ludicrous it is. It might have been better if they had just done a straightforward reboot instead of referencing past continuity whilst simultaneously negating it.

But clearly the original series did take place. We've seen evidence throughout the new series. The Time War was just a convinient conceit to mean RTD and co didn't have to slavishly conform to what had gone before, which given the mess the TVM was (which tried to introduce everything to the viewer at once) I think it was a very good idea, plus it added the notion of the Doctor as last of his kind and (though it wasn't needed in the end) it would have provided a good excuse why we never saw the Daleks again if the BBC hadn't been able to make a deal with the Nation estate.

I'm not always RTD's biggest fan, but I think it was a clever way to bring back a series with so much history without having to reboot everything on one side, or slavishly kowtow to the fanboys on the other.

Looks like Amy's Crack (tm) is going to do the same sort of thing...

 

[EJA]

No amount of explaining can fix the jumbled, nightmarish mess that RTD and his toadies have created with this Time War gobshite.

The Time War is one of the best things to ever happen to Doctor Who. As far as wiping the slate clean goes, Moffat may rival it with his cracks in the universe that erase significant elements of 'the canon' from history... but we'll see if he follows through with it.

When a TV show, or any long-running piece of fiction for that matter, starts saying that large chunks of its past now never happened, it's crap. That's one of the reasons I've given up on DC Comics, they're changing loads of stuff all the time with all those damn "Crisis" things so that nothing makes much sense anymore.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Doctor Who may require suspension of disbelief, as you put it, but Trek XI requires you to hyperbole hyperbole hyperbole hyperbole hyperbole hyperbole hyperbole hyperbole hyperbole every 15 seconds.

You like one, you don't like the other.

 

[Pavonis]

When a TV show, or any long-running piece of fiction for that matter, starts saying that large chunks of its past now never happened, it's crap. That's one of the reasons I've given up on DC Comics, they're changing loads of stuff all the time with all those damn "Crisis" things so that nothing makes much sense anymore.

As long as the Doctor remembers the incidents as happening, then they happened. He did defeat the CyberKing in London in 1851, even if the cracks erased the incident from the current timeline.

I mean, come on, this is a show about time travel through mutable timelines! Some events are in flux, and some are fixed. The past can and does change for the Doctor, but he remembers it all, and so do the viewers. It all happened!

Hell, it's amazing we expect and get as much continuity as we do, considering that the show has the built in excuse of mutable timelines to explain all discontinuities that arise.

 

[The Wormhole]

Since we both agreed on the Time War, why don't you stop at that and not trash talk Trek XI.

And what was that blue lens flare by the duck pond?

Hey, I see an opportunity and I run with it.

And I do acknowledge that Doctor Who does frequently have a lens flare, but at least it's usually limited to less than 10 per episode. Trek XI had 10 in one frame.

it would have provided a good excuse why we never saw the Daleks again if the BBC hadn't been able to make a deal with the Nation estate.

Fun fact, RTD had a contingency on hand if BBC couldn't make a deal with the Nation estate. The Toclafane would have been introduced as the species the Time Lords fought the Time War against.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I've given up on this thread it's clear that EJA doesn't like the Time War for whatever reason...and when has anything that has happened in NuWho contradicted or "erased" what happened before? I find this grandiose statements from fans ridiculous and a nitpicky argument. It's like the people who dislike the "Star Trek" movie because it created an alternate time line...ugh...that doesn't mean the prime universe DOESN'T exist any more I'm pretty sure it does still and always will because I've been watching Star Trek The Next Generation for the last several weeks and it's still the same TNG I remember watching when I was a kid and it will still be the same TNG I remember when watching again.

 

[Nerys Myk]

EJA here's some advice for watching Doctor Who:

Turn off your mind, relax
and float down stream
It is not dying
It is not dying

Lay down all thought
Surrender to the void
It is shining
It is shining

That you may see
The meaning of within
It is being
It is being

That love is all
And love is everyone
It is knowing
It is knowing

That ignorance and hate
May mourn the dead
It is believing
It is believing

But listen to the
color of your dreams
It is not living
It is not living

Or play the game
existence to the end
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning

 

[EJA]

EJA here's some advice for watching Doctor Who:

Turn off your mind, relax
and float down stream
It is not dying
It is not dying

Lay down all thought
Surrender to the void
It is shining
It is shining

That you may see
The meaning of within
It is being
It is being

That love is all
And love is everyone
It is knowing
It is knowing

That ignorance and hate
May mourn the dead
It is believing
It is believing

But listen to the
color of your dreams
It is not living
It is not living

Or play the game
existence to the end
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning
Of the beginning

Ha ha, good one. Fortunately, I'm among those people who like to use their brains occasionally. Oh, and you do realise they were high on LSD when they wrote that, don't you?

 

[Bones2]

Yeah, I mean I don't want to argue with anyone and risk another plummet in popularity, but if the only way to enjoy something is to not think, then it's not doing it right. I doubt Bob Holmes had that bastardised reading of the Tibetan Book of the Dead in mind (whereby you should just turn your brain off and look at the pretty pictures) when he was writing his classics.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Yeah, I mean I don't want to argue with anyone and risk another plummet in popularity, but if the only way to enjoy something is to not think, then it's not doing it right.

This is absolutely true, but I think it should also be noted that seeing art exclusively as an intellectual challenge and blowing inconsequential plot inconsistencies out of proportion is missing the big picture.