Should they do a ep of "Doctor Who" about "Children of Earth"?

[auntiehill]

I think that Jack and The Doctor will have to discuss it at some point; Jack is bound to be furious, since he had to sacrifice his own grandson. But I can see The Doctor saying, "You brought this on yourselves by giving into them the first time. It was already an event fixed in time."

Or something like that.

 

[Worf2DS9]

^ I don't think Jack has any right to be furious at the Doctor for not showing up, or even for Jack to expect that the Doctor might show up. Otherwise, when a crisis like this happens, Torchwood would not operate at 100% because of the expectation that the Doctor will show up and make things right. The Doctor isn't the guardian of Earth, after all. Might Jack be disappointed the Doctor didn't show up? Sure. Might Jack believe a different outcome would have transpired had the Doctor show up? Definitely. But he has to operate with the expectation that the Doctor won't show up. After all, the Doctor never showed up for all the Series 1 & 2 catastrophes Torchwood faced, so why should the 456 situation be any different?

 

[Mr Light]

^ Placing irrational blame on someone else to deal with guilt about his own actions wouldn't be out of the question, though.

 

[Jim Steele]

^ Yeah, he's not Superman, after all.

"What?! Earth is in crisis again? Blimey, but we were just there! I'd really rather save the inhabitants of Moldavon XIV from the warring worms in the year five billion. Wouldn't you? Moldavon XIV. Happy people, lovely weather, peaches the size of pumpkins..."

But he does have a time machine. No reason he can't do both.

(note: This is not all directed at you, but rather the notion that the Doctor could or even should have popped up)

Which is an oft brought up argument, but one which doesn't fit with the model of time travel/personal timestreams explicitly used by the show.

He can be in earth's past whilst this is happening in its future. From the perspective of his own timestream, and that of his companions, it's happening at the same moment. The show tells us this all the time. Perhaps the 456 event is timelocked, or it *needs* to happen for the sake of history. Blahdy blah blah.

I can quite accept that The Doctor may simply have been unable/unwilling/unmotivated (unaware) to turn up, because the alternative is that he *does* show up (which he didn't) and that would have been fucking rubbish. Every time someone complains that he didn't save the day I almost die a little inside, because the show gave us the arguably some of the best hours of science fiction television in a decade, and some people think it could be *improved* with a shitty, nonsensical, deus-ex-machina conclusion which would have served no decent dramatic purpose and cheapened the whole damn thing.

Rant over. It's 4:10am and I'll be surprised if any of that shite made sense.

 

[Starkers]

^Made perfect sense to me, Jim

 

[Bacl]

Keep in mind the Doctor doesn't know EVERYTHING. From his perspective, all he might know about this event was that in 2009 a bunch of kids died from vaccine treatments, and that there were tons of conspiracy nuts pointing at aliens and the government and saying there was a coverup.

 

[shivkala]

If Jack really wanted to the Doctor there, couldn't he have found a way to contact Martha on her honeymoon and use her cell phone? There are plenty of ways that the writers could have called in the Doctor, if need be.

I think it's a little bit of Jack's shame at what he did and hubris in thinking he could stop this.

 

[DWF]

^ Yeah, he's not Superman, after all.

"What?! Earth is in crisis again? Blimey, but we were just there! I'd really rather save the inhabitants of Moldavon XIV from the warring worms in the year five billion. Wouldn't you? Moldavon XIV. Happy people, lovely weather, peaches the size of pumpkins..."

But he does have a time machine. No reason he can't do both.

(note: This is not all directed at you, but rather the notion that the Doctor could or even should have popped up)

Which is an oft brought up argument, but one which doesn't fit with the model of time travel/personal timestreams explicitly used by the show.

He can be in earth's past whilst this is happening in its future. From the perspective of his own timestream, and that of his companions, it's happening at the same moment. The show tells us this all the time. Perhaps the 456 event is timelocked, or it *needs* to happen for the sake of history. Blahdy blah blah.

I can quite accept that The Doctor may simply have been unable/unwilling/unmotivated (unaware) to turn up, because the alternative is that he *does* show up (which he didn't) and that would have been fucking rubbish. Every time someone complains that he didn't save the day I almost die a little inside, because the show gave us the arguably some of the best hours of science fiction television in a decade, and some people think it could be *improved* with a shitty, nonsensical, deus-ex-machina conclusion which would have served no decent dramatic purpose and cheapened the whole damn thing.

Rant over. It's 4:10am and I'll be surprised if any of that shite made sense.

I don't think anybody's implying a deus ex machina ending but this as the scond time it happened, but I do think the Doctor would've hung his head in shame over the fact that they just gave up. Giving up isn't in the Doctor's nature nor does he feel that humanity should ever give up, that there's always a way out.

 

[Jim Steele]

I don't think anybody's implying a deus ex machina ending

On the contrary. In the CoE e05 grading thread, there were 3-4 people calling for exactly that, who said that the Doctor not turning up actually ruined it for them.

 

[DWF]

I don't think anybody's implying a deus ex machina ending

On the contrary. In the CoE e05 grading thread, there were 3-4 people calling for exactly that, who said that the Doctor not turning up actually ruined it for them.

And the Doctor himself is somehow a god?

 

[Mr Light]

Boy you'd think when Martha goes on her honeymoon she would leave her Doctor Summoning Cellphone with UNIT or something

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I don't think anybody's implying a deus ex machina ending

On the contrary. In the CoE e05 grading thread, there were 3-4 people calling for exactly that, who said that the Doctor not turning up actually ruined it for them.

And the Doctor himself is somehow a god?

I think anyone who watches "Last of the Time Lords" can be forgiven for thinking that, as the story does treat the Doctor in an apotheosistic manner.

 

[Starkers]

Two points re the Doctor not being contactable.

First- The Stolen Earth proves that it is possible to jam communications to the Doctor.

Second- Even Timelords forget to recharge their mobile from time to time

Hell for all we know his mobile was sitting in the TARDIS ringing and ringing whilst he was outside defeating the bog monster of Zurk...

"Blimey 300 missed calls!"

 

[Jim Steele]

I don't think anybody's implying a deus ex machina ending

On the contrary. In the CoE e05 grading thread, there were 3-4 people calling for exactly that, who said that the Doctor not turning up actually ruined it for them.

And the Doctor himself is somehow a god?

You do realise that to qualify as a deus ex machina, a dramatic conclusion doesn't literally have to feature a supernatural deity?

Besides, if the shoe fits... we've had enough messianic symbolism draped over the Doctor's mythos in recent years that you'd be hard pressed not to draw the obvious parallels.

 

[DWF]

On the contrary. In the CoE e05 grading thread, there were 3-4 people calling for exactly that, who said that the Doctor not turning up actually ruined it for them.

And the Doctor himself is somehow a god?

You do realise that to qualify as a deus ex machina, a dramatic conclusion doesn't literally have to feature a supernatural deity?

Besides, if the shoe fits... we've had enough messianic symbolism draped over the Doctor's mythos in recent years that you'd be hard pressed not to draw the obvious parallels.

The Doctor is an alien from another planet some supernatural being though and he's mere presense doens't make hmim a deus ex machina. He's brought about alot of death and destruction on his own so not everybody gets to live most of the tiem at any rate.

 

[Jim Steele]

And the Doctor himself is somehow a god?

You do realise that to qualify as a deus ex machina, a dramatic conclusion doesn't literally have to feature a supernatural deity?

Besides, if the shoe fits... we've had enough messianic symbolism draped over the Doctor's mythos in recent years that you'd be hard pressed not to draw the obvious parallels.

The Doctor is an alien from another planet some supernatural being

I don't quite understand what you're saying here, as there appears to be a few words missing. If you're saying he's *not* a supernatural being, then agreed. If you're saying he is, then disagreed. With the caveat that it depends on one's outlook. I'm sure cellphones would be considered supernatural by anyone from 35AD.

though and he's mere presense doens't make hmim a deus ex machina.

I didn't suggest for a moment that it did.

Him turning up at the end of CoE to save the day (as some people were suggesting should have happened) though, arguably would qualify as a Deus ex Machina.

 

[Sci]

On the contrary. In the CoE e05 grading thread, there were 3-4 people calling for exactly that, who said that the Doctor not turning up actually ruined it for them.

And the Doctor himself is somehow a god?

I think anyone who watches "Last of the Time Lords" can be forgiven for thinking that, as the story does treat the Doctor in an apotheosistic manner.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Last of the Time Lords" undermines theistic conventions by virtue of the Doctor specifically identifying his power as coming from the Human race, not from him.

 

[Starkers]

And the Doctor himself is somehow a god?

I think anyone who watches "Last of the Time Lords" can be forgiven for thinking that, as the story does treat the Doctor in an apotheosistic manner.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Last of the Time Lords" undermines theistic conventions by virtue of the Doctor specifically identifying his power as coming from the Human race, not from him.

Yes the Doctor's power comes from the human race, but only by virtue of him having his "apostle" spread his "gospel" to the human race so that they would have faith in him and worship him so that he could then save them. The human race were just sheep like pawns in the Doctor's plan.

One could argue that any god's power comes from his worshippers, what use is a god without followers? We've probably all seen Who Mourns for Adonis after all

 

[bryce]

A quick line explaining why Jack and/or Martha couldn't contact the Doctor via Martha's moble "because XYZ..." - would have been nice...

Jack: "Well, the world as we know it is about end....either descend into chaos, or lose 10% of it's children...and I'm gonna have to kill my own grandchild to save it, and I really am in over my head here and could use some help...but I really would hate to bug Martha on her honeymoon..."

Yeah.

Better; "The 456 are jamming all comunications from the Earth...even martha's mobile can't get through. The Doctor can't save us now...we are on our own."

(Still...I would like to have seen what the Doctor would do if he realized sacrificing the child was the ONLY solution...doubtless if this had been a Who story, he would have found another way...built some fancy gizmo...but what *IF*....)

 

[Sci]

A quick line explaining why Jack and/or Martha couldn't contact the Doctor via Martha's moble "because XYZ..." - would have been nice...

Jack: "Well, the world as we know it is about end....either descend into chaos, or lose 10% of it's children...and I'm gonna have to kill my own grandchild to save it, and I really am in over my head here and could use some help...but I really would hate to bug Martha on her honeymoon..."

Yeah.

Better; "The 456 are jamming all comunications from the Earth...even martha's mobile can't get through. The Doctor can't save us now...we are on our own."

(Still...I would like to have seen what the Doctor would do if he realized sacrificing the child was the ONLY solution...doubtless if this had been a Who story, he would have found another way...built some fancy gizmo...but what *IF*....)

Frankly, if the Doctor had been there, I imagine that he would have pulled something akin to his handling of the Sontaran invasion attempt. He probably would have used the TARDIS to track down the 456 ship and then boarded it to find a way to blow it up or disable it or something.