End of Series 3: If the year hadn't been reset...

[RoJoHen]

One of the things I like about Doctor Who is it exists in a universe where things have consequences. The big alien encounters don't get covered up; they are acknowledged by the whole world, and it becomes a part of history.

I was a little upset at the end of Series 3 when the year reset itself.

Would you have rather had that not happen? Or would that be too grim?

 

[David cgc]

It would've broken Torchwood and Sarah Jane, too. And they did kill an American president and an insane Prime Minister.

I thought this was going to be about how the Master would've reacted when the stars started going out. Davros would've gotten quite a surprise when he pinched the Earth only to discover a fleet of black-hole powered rockets shooting up his ass.

And, come to think of it, I wonder if Rose was popping up in the Year That Never Was, as well.

 

[Candlelight]

I would prefer there not to be consequences and there not to be events that don't exist in our timeline (or was known to exist) like much of the classic series.

That said, Earth was never invaded in 1986 by the Cybermen, so there you go...

 

[wamdue]

It would've broken Torchwood and Sarah Jane, too. And they did kill an American president and an insane Prime Minister.

yes I was going to say similar, how on earth would a CBBC show be allowed to be set in that timeline, during or even after. Earth would be choas.

however not unlike what we saw in Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith

 

[23skidoo]

I thought the reset worked fine because it was NOT a reset. Yes, most of the world had no idea what happened. But who cares about them. It did not erase the memories of the Doctor, Jack, Martha, her family, the Master, and - this is key - Lucy Saxon.

Had everyone been returned to status quo, it would have been a cop out and disappointing. But it wasn't. You can't compare this to the infamous reset buttons of Star Trek Voyager - or the worst one of all time, Bobby Ewing's "it was all a dream" season on Dallas. In those cases no one learned anything, and there were no consequences. The Year That Never Was is a misnomer. It most certainly WAS, for the people who - in the context of Doctor Who - really mattered. In particular it set in motion the events leading to The End of Time.

Something else, too. Doctor Who as a franchise has shown great restraint in not doing stories that undo events like this. Stories like Turn Left don't count because those are alternate timelines and thus those events still happened. For a series to go 44 years as of 2007 and not do a major rewind, I think they were owed one.

And they couldn't have left things un-reset with the Year That Never Was because it would have wrecked future Earth events featured in episodes going back to the 60s and collapsed the whole "fixed point in time" philosophy that the show is built upon.

Alex

 

[David cgc]

Also, philosophically speaking, even thought the Doctor saved Earth, the Master still really kicked his ass. The Master allowed the humans at Utopia to become insane kiddy-Daleks, killed the president of the United States, screwed up Martha something awful (seriously, she rebounded onto Mickey? Not to mention becoming the poster child for Davros's assertion that the Doctor turns his friends into weapons), ruined Lucy Saxon (though not as much as it may have appeared, given how lucid she was in "End of Time") and denied the Doctor the company of his oldest friend, and the only other person of his kind.

He was right. He won. Which is karmically acceptable, as the Doctor would've never found him if he hadn't tried so hard to abandon Jack again.