Does rebooting the universe erase or change most of Series 5?

[Allyn Gibson]

And RTD has said in press statements about the upcoming fourth series of Torchwood that it's set in a world where everyone has known about aliens for some time, but that doesn't mean they aren't surprised when they appear or attack.

Sci, you're thinking as a fan, not as a television producer. As a fan, you want things to fit. That's natural; it's the fannish instinct. But RTD and Moffat are television producers, and their duty isn't to make things fit. It's to make the best damn stories they can make, and it's to get the biggest audience they possibly can. If Moffat believes that he gets the best possible Who by being consistent with RTD's Torchwood and SJA, then he'll be consistent with those shows. If RTD believes he can get the best possible Torchwood by being consistent with Moffat's Who, then that's what he'll do. But if either believes that the best thing for their show is to ignore the other, then that's what will happen. There's no reason that Who and Torchwood must absolutely positively be consistent with one another. Creativity and ratings are going to trump consistency.

 

[Sci]

Doctor Who is such a large, mainstream hit in Britain that I doubt most viewers are unaware of the fact that aliens are known to the public.

Well you say that. The Deadly Assassin got around 12 million viewers while Doomsday got 8 million. But you wouldn't expect a casual viewer in the 70s to be able to tell you much about Time Lord society. An average person watching an episode of new Doctor Who set on present day Earth (which is far more of them than I'd like) would expect people to be mostly in the dark about alien existence and not watching the skies every Christmas Day expecting the next attack. It's probably why big things like the huge Cyberman stomping around Victorian London and the Journey's End Dalekery were mentioned as not being remembered (though that was pre-The Big Bang, so make of that what you will).

And RTD has said in press statements about the upcoming fourth series of Torchwood that it's set in a world where everyone has known about aliens for some time, but that doesn't mean they aren't surprised when they appear or attack.

Yeah, I wondered how it would gel with the continuity of TW and SJA, but you'd have to ask Moffat. Here are the quotes from DWM:

Q: So, what exactly has or hasn't happened in the DW universe, now that the series is over? Are all bets off, as far as DW's 'history' as we know it?

A: "More like all bets that we feel like ignoring are off . The increasing problem in DW is that the people in the show live on a completely different planet from us. They're like "Look, more aliens, planets in the sky, ho hum!"

But history has wibbled. Without being too explicit about it, we can have characters surprised at the existence of aliens again. If we feel like it.

But let's be honest - it's only us fans that give a toss about all this.

So don't expect any "History Has Wibbled" scenes.

This is just a way for us all to justify continuity errors to ourselves, so we can sleep at night.

Don't all thank me at once. N'night."

In other words, they'll do whatever they feel like and have given themselves an excuse for it.

Eh, I'm unimpressed. I think the Whoniverse is far more interesting for humanity having learned of aliens than it would be if it were just like ours again.

ETA:

And RTD has said in press statements about the upcoming fourth series of Torchwood that it's set in a world where everyone has known about aliens for some time, but that doesn't mean they aren't surprised when they appear or attack.

Sci, you're thinking as a fan, not as a television producer. As a fan, you want things to fit. That's natural; it's the fannish instinct. But RTD and Moffat are television producers, and their duty isn't to make things fit. It's to make the best damn stories they can make, and it's to get the biggest audience they possibly can. If Moffat believes that he gets the best possible Who by being consistent with RTD's Torchwood and SJA, then he'll be consistent with those shows. If RTD believes he can get the best possible Torchwood by being consistent with Moffat's Who, then that's what he'll do. But if either believes that the best thing for their show is to ignore the other, then that's what will happen. There's no reason that Who and Torchwood must absolutely positively be consistent with one another. Creativity and ratings are going to trump consistency.

It's not that I'm particularly concerned about consistency between programs -- I hadn't considered the possibility that they'd deliberately contradict each other, but the idea doesn't bother me.

What bothers me is, from a creative standpoint, I don't like the idea of the people of Earth going back to not knowing about aliens. I like the idea of seeing how modern-day Earth evolves as a result of knowing that aliens exist and being exposed to or manipulated by aliens. I think it's a creatively superior idea to just doing "OMG there are aliens for real?" over and over again.

 

[The]

I don't actually think the problem is with humans on modern day Earth knowing there are aliens. I think the problem is that the creative powers/corporate marketing have done the alien/Dalek-invading-Earth so many times that they feel the need to come up with a rationale to correct the redundancy of it all. There is something inherently wrong when they don't just say : Hey, since we've done this a brillion times, let's focus on different storytelling angles and plots for a while and get away from 'OMG aliens are fer real?'

I think that would go a long way into helping that issue. At least for me, anyway...