the 11th doctors "death"

[BlackFire3]

warning, possible spoilers


after the episode where the Dr. "dies" and after he says he's going to play things quieter (not introducing himself as "the doctor" anymore) my question is why would he care? he's a time traveller. you know "wibbly wobbly, timey whimy" sure he "died" but from everyone else's perspective he's pretty much everywhere anyways and they can't be sure if his "present self" is from before or after his death as no one but him can really track his regenerations for a reliable time line either. the only thing people know is that he was killed and they really can't do anything much anyways.

 

[Methos]

depends really...

we know other races get time travel tech eventually, so it's not just The Doctor roaming about it time... just like the Tesselector thing moving through time... so with him playing possum so to speak, he's limiting how much future factions can come back and notice him, or how much of a dent he makes in history...

thats how i see it anyway lol

M

 

[JB2005]

I'd imagine that's why he told Amy he was 1100 odd when he died - if the 900 year old thing is to be believed (and personally I believe it's a giant crock of...)

I seriously doubt he spent 200 years in between leaving Smithy and "dying", more likely he said that so there was a big gap of subjective history to fill to dodge suspicion?

 

[davejames]

Well I think the show tries to pretend those other Doctors aren't still out there roaming around in different time periods.

Plus, even though he jumps around in time a lot, he still spends the BULK of his time in the present, or so it seems to me. He might make a quick little visit to the 1600s or 23rd century, but most stories seem to take place in whatever the "present day" for that Doctor is.

And I suspect the universe sees it the same way. They realize previous incarnations of the Doctor might still pop up in different places later on, but for all intents and purposes, he is now "dead."

 

[23skidoo]

Well I think the show tries to pretend those other Doctors aren't still out there roaming around in different time periods.

It's one of those "don't ask, don't tell unless you're planning another Five Doctors" sort of thing. It's one of the conceits that is mandatory to believe in order to accept Doctor Who and make it work. Sort of like how the entirety of Star Trek - or indeed virtually any space-based SF involving travel beyond the solar system - collapses as a storytelling construct unless one accepts that it's possible to go faster than light without relativity issues. (And which the jury may be out on the first given what's happening at CERN, the 2nd issue) has yet to be addressed.

And such it is with the Doctor "dying". It's only the "present" Doctor to which this applies - there's nothing saying the Third Doctor and Jo Grant might not have landed on Earth in the middle of Miracle Day. Or that in the Whoniverse the First Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian didn't pop in to see the London Olympics. But the point is the First Doctor wouldn't be recognized by near as many people/entities as the Eleventh. That's what comes from "fnarg" years of meddling in time and space.

But I don't think for one minute the Doctor "laying low" will last very long. Just as Superman, Batman, Captain America, the Human Torch, etc were never killed off for real in the comics, the Doctor will reemerge in the "public eye". After all, "The Fall of the Eleventh" doesn't sound very incognito.

Alex

 

[davejames]

And such it is with the Doctor "dying". It's only the "present" Doctor to which this applies - there's nothing saying the Third Doctor and Jo Grant might not have landed on Earth in the middle of Miracle Day. Or that in the Whoniverse the First Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian didn't pop in to see the London Olympics. But the point is the First Doctor wouldn't be recognized by near as many people/entities as the Eleventh. That's what comes from "fnarg" years of meddling in time and space.

Yeah, it's mostly just the 10th and 11th Doctors that people in that world are probably familiar with; before that, he had a much lower profile and wasn't out saving entire galaxies.

Hell, even the people who DID encounter the Doctor on the old series didn't seem terribly impressed by him-- certainly not to the degree people on the new series are. They just regarded him as some strange, odd little man, who meddled about for a little while and then was never heard from again. Most never even seemed aware that he was an alien, let alone a time traveler.

 

[timelord1010]

Also, The Doctor in the old series had to keep a low profile because of the Time Lords who had the non interference rule (unless it was a benefit to them, like Genesis of the Daleks). At least until the 3rd Doctor's exile on Earth was over, then he was allowed some freedom.

 

[CaptainMatt]

Good point. The current Doctors do have a tendency to be over the top personalities who gett he attention of almost everyone they come across.
The Doctor seems rather careless about this in his old age!

 

[DWF]

We went though something like that in The Two Doctors when it was thought that the second Doctor had died, but of course since it wasn't true there was no worry. If the current Doctor dies of course there'd be no future Doctors to care about it.

 

[ThankQ]

Good point. The current Doctors do have a tendency to be over the top personalities who gett he attention of almost everyone they come across.
The Doctor seems rather careless about this in his old age!

I think timelord1010 has a good take on it. Now there aren't any other Time Lords out there to smack him down if he goes too far.

Look at Tennant at the end of "Waters of Mars".

 

[CaptainMatt]

Yes, he did get high and mighty in that episode's climax. kind of frightening, really, and even more over the top than normal for that specific incarnation.