Can we discuss those pesky "fixed points in time?"

OK here's one that bugs me more because of the new who. They didn't really do this stuff in the old series but the whole "fixed points" stuff. I don't think they ever made a big deal of that in the classic series. However I am happy to be proven wrong if there were examples given of this notion in the old show.

But moving on why it bugs me is its very nature. A fixed event can be anything including a person. I think there was mention of a Dalek not killing someone because according to the Doctor "somewhere deep down it knew they were a fixed point in time" and I think that was the child version of Adelaide Brooks from Waters Of Mars.

What exactly stopped the Dalek from shooting her beyond "she's a fixed point in time" which I really do feel sometimes is all bollocks.

How does that work? Is there some supernatural force stopping the Dalek?

 

I had to force myself to think of them as a way to limit the Doctor's options, nothing more. I mean, in The Shakespeare Code Martha argues that because she's from 21st century Earth it means that the world can't get destroyed in the past and the Doctor then says that time can be rewritten and so the survival of the Earth isn't set in stone. But if later events such as Adelaide are fixed points then that makes no sense.

So it's much easier to just ignore the fixed points outside of their respective stories. Otherwise you'll just give yourself a headache.

 

Yup, exactly that. There isn't much point in searching for temporal logic in anything, let alone Doctor Who. At the end of the day, it's all just a bundle of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff anyways.

 

Its an obstacle for the plot to only overcome when the writer decides it can be so. Its just another plot mechanism.

 

Did I have a hand in this when I reviewed The Aztecs? Just noting that Barbara goes to lengths to save that guy from being sacrificed, and he jumps to his death anyway. Doc says "aha! you can't change history so don't ever try". The old show never said the "fixed points" thingy, but it's implied there just as it is in the newer show. Yes, it is employed to further plot.

 

The Fixed Point in Time is basically a plot device to explain why the Doctor doesn't try to change actual historical events. They're Fixed Points which have to happen. Waters of Mars decided to make something fictional a Fixed Point to tell its story about the Doctor deciding to rage against this rule without messing with actual history.

As for the whole thing with the Dalek refusing to kill young Adelaide Brooke, I guess you can modify the whole "Life will find a way" line from Jurassic Park as "Time will find a way." Adelaide Brooke had to grow up to become a noteworthy astronaut, meaning when the Dalek had her in its sights, it was compelled not to kill her. Just as years later, even after the Doctor rescued her from Mars, it was still her moment to die, and therefore she was compelled to kill herself.

Time being some sort of force that compels people to act at a particular moment is something of a recurring theme in the RTD era. Though not canon, there is RTD's backstory about Peter Capaldi's character from Torchwood being a descendant of Capaldi's Roman character from Fires of Pompeii. The character in Torchwood killed himself and his family because Time compelled him to do so in order to correct the mistake created by the Doctor saving the character and his family from Pompeii. That one seemed a bit silly to me though. If that family was supposed to die in Pompeii, couldn't Time intervene and kill them shortly afterwards? Time had to wait a couple thousand years and kill their descendants? Then again, the Lockdown Sequel to Fires of Pompeii last year completely ignored the idea, for the better really.

 

See I like that. I just wish they'd explore of of "time is a force" in the show.
Does time have a conscience, or is it manipulated by one outside of the universe, that kind of thing?

 

It's a new series explanation for inconsistencies in the earlier series.

 

In the particular example of Adelaide, possibly the Dalek is aware that she is a historical certainty, so leaving her alone is preferable to, say, having itself get inexplibably blown up just before it can shoot her. That is roughly how the prologue to The Crusaders would do it: if someone is essential to history, just leave them alone as history will off you to save them.

 

I expect points get more fixed the closer you get to them. So it's easy to change Waters of Mars from Elizabethan England if the change is large enough (blow up the planet). But once you get right up next to them you don't have enough "leverage".

 

Not if you blow up the planet, or will something make the bomb malfunction?

 

The Daleks are masters of time and space, on level with the Timelords so they must be genetically engineered with the same kind of timelordyness.

 

The original series was inconsistent on this point.

In The Pyramids of Mars, Sarah Jane was sure that Sutekh would fail because she was from 1980, and well, the world was ok in 1980.

So the Doctor takes her back to 1980 (in which the Earth is totally devastated) and tells her that this is how 1980 will be if they don't stop Sutekh.

 

My Waters of Mars retcon is that the Dalek knows - if all Daleks know the big plan, which is an if - that once the reality bomb destroys the entire universe all bets are off, but until then prefers not to take any risks that might mess up the big plan.

 

But the reality bomb is a really stupid plan..... Blow up everything and nothing is left to rule

 

Yeah, much like how the "deadlock seal" is an arbitrary weakness to stymie the sonic screwdriver for plot's sake, "fixed points" help explain why someone with a time machine is beholden to existing historical events.

I like this explanation. It's a bit arbitrary but no more so than anything else in this conversation. And there's a certain elegance to it.

The new series has come up with several ways to fill in the plot holes that would otherwise be caused by the simple fact that they have a time machine! One of Eccleston's early episodes had Rose ask why they couldn't just use the TARDIS to go back to before the catastrophe started and he just said, "We can't. We're part of events now." And then there was the exchange between Amy & Smith in "The Angels Take Manhattan": "Time can be rewritten." "Not if you've already read it." I like both of those explanations better than the "fixed point" stuff.

While the classic series never spoke about "fixed points" per se, Hartnell's Doctor did seem particularly perturbed whenever someone tried to change history, whether it was Barbara's attempts to reform Aztec society in "The Aztecs" or the Meddling Monk attempting to turn away the Viking invasion in "The Time Meddler." But there were other times when he seemed to get caught in predestination paradoxes, like when he inspired Nero to burn down Rome in "The Romans" or when he & the Daleks inadvertently caused the crew & passengers of the Mary Celeste to abandon ship in "The Chase."

As for "Waters of Mars," I wonder if Adelaide Brooke would have killed herself if the Doctor hadn't kept mentioning the fixed point stuff to her. First he acts so fatalistic and uses the fixed point to explain why he's going to let them all die. Then, when he finally does save them, he screams like a madman about how time will obey him. That's bound to confuse anyone into making rash decisions.

But I also thought that Adelaide Brooke's suicide never made much sense. Originally, she was an inspiration to her granddaughter because of the mystery and romanticism of dying in space. But when she kills herself, how is that supposed to inspire anyone? If anything, I'd think that it would make her granddaughter go, "Space? Oh, you mean that thing that made my grandma go crazy and kill herself? No thanks. I'll pass." I mean, I expected there to be some kind of UNIT cover-up at the end of the episode to conceal the Doctor's involvement in the whole thing. Like, they would just pretend that Adelaide had died on Mars and keep the surviving astronauts in seclusion for a few months, then pretend that they had used the rocket to return to Earth.

 

It wipes out anyone who isn't a Dalek. Stupid, but consistent with their mindset.

 

I like a scripted scene that wasn't filmed but included in The Writer's Tale that elaborated on this by making it basically an overly elaborate suicide attempt by Davros. Davros knew that once the reality bomb went off he'd be dead either way, if not killed in the detonation, then killed afterwards by the Daleks who felt they no longer needed him. Davros welcomed this fact, feeling death would finally bring him peace.

 

If he wanted to off himself there were many options

 

Right, but he was also insane and murderous, so simply killing himself just wouldn't have done.