The Pointlessness of the Doctor's "death"

[PorthosShadow]

Presumably The Silence know The Doctors history up until the incident on The Fields Of Trenzalore. So they chose a specific time and place (Lake Silencio) to kill The Doctor so that he can't continue onward to The Fields Of Trenzalore. Now even though he cheated his own death the events leading up to The Fields Of Trenzalore remain unchanged. Basically, The Silence were trying to cut him off at the proverbial pass.

They know where and when he is going between Lake Silencio and The Fields Of Trenzalore. So that is what The Silence hoped to achieve by the aforementioned cutting him off the pass.

Now I think The Doctor hoped by faking his death that he could keep stay out of trouble or change the history The Silence are aware of. Really he wanted to live and is just trying to get by hoping The Silence won't care so as long as he never reaches The Fields Of Trenzalore or causes to much trouble.

So not pointless but rather a desperate gamble to continue living or as another famous science fiction Doctor from Kentucky once said "What you always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live"

 

[Mister Fandango]

Maybe it's a bit like the time cracks... They erased Amy's parents from history but Amy is still here even though that should be impossible.
Also time crack erased people CAN be remembered. Amy subconciously remembered Rory and could actively be reminded of him.

Time Lock could work in a similar way. Gallifrey is still there, we know that much, but hidden behind a nearly impenetrable wall of timelock. Gone from the perception of lesser beings. Suspended in a single moment of (non)time (no causal connection to any other moment in time).

The timelock is not unbreakable, Dalek Caan did it and the Daleks are back in full force.

The Timelords nearly did it by finding that one thread left to the rest of the Universe and using it as a lifeline.

I appreciate the speculation, but it really doesn't jibe with me. Amy's situation was obviously unique and something the Doctor didn't understand at all until after some investigation, and even then all it required (a bit of hyperbole there, as it was obviously more complex than that) was for her to remember things and poof, everything was back. Even things she had no clue about, like, oh, everything. Hell, one of the things she did know about was the Time Lords courtesy of the Doctor announcing his race to her.

And, again, there's the massive paradox about all the things the Time Lords did throughout all of space and time prior to the Time War just <snap> being whisked away into oblivion. Hell, it took everything the Doctor's TARDIS had just to maintain a tiny paradox on Earth for a few months. What could possibly maintain one that extends throughout every moment in time and every inch of space?

To be honest, I don't understand why RTD got rid of all the Time Lords to begin with. Eliminating stories involving them seems a bit crippling to me, especially if you're just going to introduce some anyway.

 

[Starkers]

I think it made a lot of sense really at the time, bringing back Who to an audience, a large proportion of whom weren’t yet alive when the TV movie aired, let alone when the Doctor and Ace walked off into the sunset, by stripping the character down to the bare essentials. Eccentric alien called The Doctor who travels in a police box.

I have a lot of issues with some of the choices RTD made over the years, but sometimes I really don’t think he gets as much credit as he deserves for bringing back a show with that much history without either A/ rebooting it completely, or B/ avalanching the viewer with so much information early on that they give up before you have a chance to hook them. Removing the Timelords from the equation was part of this, and added an interesting ‘last of his kind’ vibe.

That said, given the ease with which the Daleks came back, I would like to see more Timelords in the future.

 

[ClayinCA]

as another famous science fiction Doctor from Kentucky once said "What you always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live"

He's from Georgia, surely?

I have a lot of issues with some of the choices RTD made over the years, but sometimes I really don’t think he gets as much credit as he deserves for bringing back a show with that much history without either A/ rebooting it completely, or B/ avalanching the viewer with so much information early on that they give up before you have a chance to hook them. Removing the Timelords from the equation was part of this, and added an interesting ‘last of his kind’ vibe.

Entirely agreed. And as RTD said, the whole point of the Time War/Last of the Time Lords thing was to give the new series its own, distinctive mythology apart from that of the original series. I think it did this splendidly, and frankly I think the Doctor is much more interesting as the only Time Lord in existence (depending on whether or not the Master is around that week) than he was as one of a whole planetful.

Having said that, I do miss Romana....