Rate 8x12: Death In Heaven

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Plus, I don't think they'll appear all the time. It depends on the situation, and given that Rose Tyler was the kind of person who benefited from the lack of father in her life to become the companion that'd have the most essential influence in his post-war life, that was a greater paradox than other paradoxes that the Doctor might have created when they relate to the fixed point in time situation.

 

[publiusr]

The Brig blew Missy away (unless it was a teleport.

I thought the same thing when I saw a commercial for Star Trek The Undiscovered Country where Kirk (actually a shape shifter) vaporized.

Cybermen even more Iron Man ish, and more zombie like. Moffat really likes his graveyards doesn't he ?

Did the raining on the graveyards remind anybody of the movie Return Of The Living Dead?

In my best cyberman voice:

"They're coming to get you, Clara!"

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I think the voltures thing from Father's Day has more to do with the essential time paradox that are created from crossing your own time stream. Like, Rose saving her dad created a paradox in how her earlier self and the Doctor essentially didn't see Pete dying. Thatas paradoxical, because it didn't happen, but couldn't not have happened.

And the scientist in Waters of Mars killed herself in the end. She fixed the timeline, probably just in time.

I agree except for the phrase "just in time." Given that we're talking about time travel, the important thing in my mind was that it was fixed. Rose, on the other hand, only fixed it because of the vultures. The timing, imo, was less important.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm guessing that the Master bolted all the doors and windows th reapers are prone to using, when he was setting up all that Tochlophane bullshit... Or he set off a few dozen bombs culling them back to a manageable number if not extinction.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

I am browsing through the transcript for "Father's Day".

Quote #1 (Doctor)

They can't get in. Old windows and doors. Okay. The older something is, the stronger it is. What else? Go and check the other doors! Move!

Quote #2 (Doctor)

There's been an accident in time. A wound in time. They're like bacteria, taking advantage.

Quote #3 (Doctor)

Police can't help you now. No one can. Nothing in this universe can harm those things. Time's been damaged and they've come to sterilise the wound. By consuming everything inside.

Quote #4 (Doctor)

No. Don't touch the baby. You're both the same person. That's a paradox, and we don't want a paradox happening, not with these things outside. Anything new, any disturbance in time makes them stronger. The paradox might let them in.

Quote #5 (Doctor)

The entire Earth's been sterilised. This, and other place like it, are all that's left of the human race. We might hold out for a while, but nothing can stop those creatures. They'll get through in the end. The walls aren't that old. And there's nothing I can do to stop them. There used to be laws stopping this kind of thing from happening. My people would have stopped this. But they're all gone. And now I'm going the same way.

Quote #6 (Doctor)

The inside of my ship was thrown out of the wound but we can use this to bring it back. And once I've got my ship back, then I can mend everything. Now, I just need a bit of power. Has anybody got a battery?

These are the relevant quotes from the episode.

This is my understanding.

Time has a "skin". When this skin is wounded by an accident in time, these baceteria enter into the wound and do local sterilization. This process can affect an entire planet. However, they have difficulty with entering structures that are been around a long time. Paradoxes, like the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, seem to increase their intensity. The Gallifreyans, especially the Time Lords, and their technology were able to heal these wounds before the bacteria appeared.

Accident in time has been mentioned twice in Doctor Who - "Father's Day" and "Hide". I think they are a separate thing from paradoxes. I think we have only seen one accident in time in televised Doctor Who - "Father's Day".

Maybe we can work together on defining what an accident in time is?

 

[Iamnotspock]

In Father's Day, the Reapers seemed to be summoned by a combination of the Doctor and Rose crossing their own timeline ("This is a very bad idea, two sets of us being here at the same time") and Rose saving Pete's life. Perhaps one or the other alone wouldn't have done it.

 

[The Wormhole]

In Father's Day, the Reapers seemed to be summoned by a combination of the Doctor and Rose crossing their own timeline ("This is a very bad idea, two sets of us being here at the same time") and Rose saving Pete's life. Perhaps one or the other alone wouldn't have done it.

Indeed. I don't believe the Reapers would have shown up had Rose saved Pete the first time around. It was the combination of there being two Doctors and Roses plus Pose saving Pete's life.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I think the voltures thing from Father's Day has more to do with the essential time paradox that are created from crossing your own time stream. Like, Rose saving her dad created a paradox in how her earlier self and the Doctor essentially didn't see Pete dying. Thatas paradoxical, because it didn't happen, but couldn't not have happened.

And the scientist in Waters of Mars killed herself in the end. She fixed the timeline, probably just in time.

I always thought that the message of Waters of Mars was to show you can't cheat time.

That said, the time reapers are like the Warp 5 speed limit in TNG, something that was just begging to be dropped and forgotten.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

According to "Father's Day", paradoxes exist within the time stream. The Blinovitch Limitation Effect is a paradox. By themselves, they don't cause an accident in time.

Saving a life that in one timeline would have died is a paradox. Again, this doesn't seem to cause an accident in time. (The Doctor and his companions saved themselves from dying - "The Space Museum". Rory was saved many times.)

What caused the accident in time? In the episode, the TARDIS is thrown outside the wound. Could this have caused the wound, like a bone fracturing and part of it breaching the skin? It seems the likely explanation.

The reason we haven't seen these "bacteria" (episode name for them) is that accidents in time are rare, and we have only seen one such event.

 

[Mr Light]

Maybe they only appear when the same person interacts with a different version of him/herself. This would explain why the Doctor crossover episodes are such a big deal and why it took all of Gallifrey's power to do it in "Three Doctors".

The Toclafane didn't count because they were descendants killing ancient ancestors not to mention the Master had the Tardis set up as a paradox protecting machine.

Waters of Mars doesn't count because Adelaide was not interacting with another version of herself.

But still it's a dropped ball

 

[Lakenheath 72]

For me, I would not rate "Father's Day" as a forgotten episode. It provided detail to the world of Doctor Who.

I think "Remembrance of the Daleks" is a forgotten episode. In that episode, I learned that the Doctor stole the Hand of Omega and buried it on Earth and destroyed Skaro. Both events are not remembered nor mentioned since.

I could cite at least two example of where two different versions of a person met who weren't the Doctor. However, both examples occurred when the Time Lords were governing and protecting the Time Stream. (I haven't seen nor remembered much of the new Doctor Who. I had to resort to Chakoteya's web site for what was said in "Father's Day".)

In "Three Doctors" and "Five Doctors", precautions were taken to ensure that the Blinovitch Limitation Effect wouldn't occur. This required tremendous power. What happens to a person where the precautions are not in effect? Example - the Brigader in "Mawdryn Undead".

 

[Alidar Jarok]

That said, the time reapers are like the Warp 5 speed limit in TNG, something that was just begging to be dropped and forgotten.

Yeah, from my perspective (not an in-show perspective) I found it to be an extremely unsubtle way to portray the problems with messing with paradoxes and I hope it's quietly forgotten. I thought they detracted from what was otherwise a very good episode.

 

[DWF]

Doctor Who has no offical canon, this is how Atlantis was destroyed twice over and why we have two histories of the Daleks. Things are changed all the time and then soemtimes reset.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I dunno, I don't find the Atlantis thing, at least when as far as the Third Doctor era only, that much of a continuity violation.

 

[Skellington]

^ They should do Atlantis again at some point.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ I wonder if the Beeb would be okay with that while their Atlantis show is running?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ I wonder if the Beeb would be okay with that while their Atlantis show is running?

It'd be awesome if the Doctor popped into different shows. Imagine the Doctor popped in on Merlin, runs from a dinosaur in Primeval, shows up in Atlantis, has a romp in Downton Abbey lol. I don't know what shows are the Beeb and what aren't but maybe they could do that for a holiday special or something.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^Primeval and Downton are ITV, the others are BBC.

IIRC, they once had McCoy's Doctor turn up in Albert Square, setting of Eastenders, for a Children in Need episode.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ Sounds familiar and I believe not well received but I think Eastenders and Who are probably not very compatible. I was joking around about it but really if a proper story was written a crossover probably could be fun.

 

[Skellington]

^ I wonder if the Beeb would be okay with that while their Atlantis show is running?

It'd be awesome if the Doctor popped into different shows. Imagine the Doctor popped in on Merlin, runs from a dinosaur in Primeval, shows up in Atlantis, has a romp in Downton Abbey lol. I don't know what shows are the Beeb and what aren't but maybe they could do that for a holiday special or something.

Something along those lines happened in the sitcom Chelmsford 123 many years ago. Sorry about the terrible video quality.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlQyF269spE[/yt]