DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Forgot about that. Yet another reason that Amy's name should have been on that grave the entire time.
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Doctor Who Series Seven |OT| The Question You've Been Running From All Your Life
- Thread starter Mr. Sam
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Forgot about that. Yet another reason that Amy's name should have been on that grave the entire time.
Hot Coldman
Banned
He did the physical act of writing them down, but there's no actual source for the Q&A, seeing as the questions and answers are created as a result of each other.
The logic of time travel in Who is that perfect circles are very much a thing.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Technically I think this follows the same rules as Blink did. The Doctor gets his information from Sally, who tells him that Kathy has to live in Hull of the past, that Billy will tell her about the list just before he dies an old man. Once he's reunited with the TARDIS he could go grab them, but doesn't because that would mess up the timeline.
Same thing happening in AtM, he's seen the grave and read the book, so there's no paradox-free way to change things. I find the excuse that going near Rory and Amy will cause a big rift justifiable within the confines of Doctor Who-logic.
Honestly the freakiest thing about last night's episode was the implication that the Angels typically send you back just far enough so that you'd live until just after you "died". Billy lasted a few hours after being zapped, Rory just a few minutes, and the guy in the intro was still kicking for a bit.
The problem is that it has to make sense within the fiction, which it didn't.
Yea, there were some great Matt scenes in the episode with the sort of emotion from his Doctor that I would expect from being in that situation.
10 as the joking goes wasn't so good at emotion I found unless he needed to look mopey about something, but you can really see the anger and frustration behind the eyes of 11 at a situation he can't fix.
The explanation above seems to make sense to me.
You also have to remember, this is Doctor Who. There are so many different eras and stuff, things might make sense in one, but not in another, especially when dealing with time travel.
Interesting. Though Kathy had been dead for 20 years when she got sent back, and we don't really know how long Amy and Rory have been dead at the end of Angels Take Manhattan.
That explanation seems okay, yes. It's still terribly written. It would've been successful if we didn't fight over how it makes sense or doesn't and come up with plot holes till tomorrow. It should've distracted form all these things by making sense in terms of what the previous episodes have built towards and and character history. And the whole thing still felt rushed to me and not at all well paced throughout series 7. Previous years had a much better build-up.
ScreenSplitter
Member
I still think River is criminally underused. As the wife of the Doctor, as the daughter of Rory & Amy, as a frigging part Time Lady. There's just so many fantastic stories we could hear about her, and how she feels about everything going on around her, but all we have is anecdotal stories about those adventures whilst she walks around with her tits out being badass and making cryptic remarks.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
This was my favorite use of River since Silence in the Library. Really well done. Even though her parents are gone, I hope she does show up often. I like how they pretended to hint at her being the next companion when he asked her to come with him (I mean she's his wife...ish!) and her saying she can only travel occasionally.
Still find it funny that The Doctor is technically Amy and Rory's Son-in-law. That's funny.
Still find it funny that The Doctor is technically Amy and Rory's Son-in-law. That's funny.
One of the better moments of the episode, I felt. Which makes his not having any on-screen interaction with the Angel that did it that much more jarring.
Here's what bothers me:
The Doctor is SO SURE that Time cannot be changed, but he tells River to do it anyway, and she does and the whole plot overlooks it. Up until that point you're lead to understand that the Doctor has to break River's wrist, but then SHE breaks it and not him. And then Rory and Amy cause the paradox which temporarily frees both of them. So if Time is changed at least once in that episode, with Amy and Rory's paradox, why is seeing his name on the gravestone suddenly inescapable? And if River can time travel with that wrist watch thing, why can't anybody else?
BETTER YET. Didn't Miracle Day show Jack Harkness being in NYC around this same time? Why doesn't the Doctor call in a favor and ask Jack to, you know, bail Amy and Rory out? Like he goes back to whenever the safest point around that time is that Jack would be, gives Jack River's Time thing, then asks Jack to get them out of NYC and then travel back to the present?
Escape from New York Doctor Who style would have been great.
Pretty much. Of course, Reinette is also a "girl who waited." I do think that as much as I enjoy Moffat's stories he kind of comes back to the same thematic wells over and over again.
Yea ... wanna do a count of how many times Rory and Amy died for each other/waited for each other/"sacrificed" their life for each other to drive home the point that they love each other? I love those moments but once you dry your eyes and reflect on them you realize you've seen that moment many times already during their character arc.
Smelly Tramp
Member
watched it earlier today. thought it was absolutely dreadful.
the angels, which were previously terrifying, were ruined. no sense of dread, no terror. i mean river song laughing and cracking wise when an angel has her by the arm, it's all just a bit poor really.
as for rory and amy, i've never liked either of them, so just did not care for their story.
and river song? her character is just plain bad. she sounds annoying, looks annoying. when she was saying HUSBAND, and MOTHER it just sounded so horrifically forced. the ham fisted dialogue of YOU CANT BE ALONE, by both river, and by amy in the afterword of the book just took me out of the moment as well.
the only episode i've truly liked out of this half season was the first episode. i dunno, maybe i'm just not a fan of moffat's Doctor Who.
but then again, every now and then an episode comes out of the blue and shows me how strong a writer he can be some times. not this season though :/
the angels, which were previously terrifying, were ruined. no sense of dread, no terror. i mean river song laughing and cracking wise when an angel has her by the arm, it's all just a bit poor really.
as for rory and amy, i've never liked either of them, so just did not care for their story.
and river song? her character is just plain bad. she sounds annoying, looks annoying. when she was saying HUSBAND, and MOTHER it just sounded so horrifically forced. the ham fisted dialogue of YOU CANT BE ALONE, by both river, and by amy in the afterword of the book just took me out of the moment as well.
the only episode i've truly liked out of this half season was the first episode. i dunno, maybe i'm just not a fan of moffat's Doctor Who.
but then again, every now and then an episode comes out of the blue and shows me how strong a writer he can be some times. not this season though :/
Dr Zhivago
Member
A Blink-style ontological paradox is relatively self-consistent, a magical new rule that prevents time travel is the sort of arse-pull that people criticise Davies for.
Count me in on not really liking the episode.
5 minutes after the episode I was just shocked, mainly because of Amy and Rory going out in such a chump way. A full day after though, and reading GAF, I definitely don't like the episode. Too much wrong with it.
This is how you conclude Amy and Rory? REALLY?
5 minutes after the episode I was just shocked, mainly because of Amy and Rory going out in such a chump way. A full day after though, and reading GAF, I definitely don't like the episode. Too much wrong with it.
This is how you conclude Amy and Rory? REALLY?
Davies?
Congratulations, you successfully moved the goal posts.
For the record, I'm a harsh critic of RTD and it's not something I criticize him for. The rules of time travel in this show have always been wibbly and convenient.
ScreenSplitter
Member
Shit, speaking of River, I love Matt Smith's subtle little "Travel with me then" to River. Knowing that she can't. Knowing that like Amy and Rory, she has her end too.
Future Foundation
Member
I'm willing to bet the last eight of Series 7 will be much better than the first five. I dunno why, but I'm much more confident in that end being really awesome.
Hot Coldman
Banned
I think we won't see her any older than she is in this (besides her appearance in the Library, of course). Next time she pops up, I bet it'll be just after she "kills" the Doctor.
Hell, do we even know what becomes of her after that? Do the Silence just throw her to the wolves and that's how she ends up in jail? To be honest I don't quite understand why they didn't kill her afterwards
ScreenSplitter
Member
Everything so far has been better than the pile of crap that was Series 6 (bar The Doctor's Wife and the Girl Who Waited).
Hm depends. There's so much wibbly going on with River, and since she doesn't age as fast as human companions, Moffatt could keep her going on for ages. Though of course it prolongs the inevitable... the emotional scene with The Doctor giving her a sonic screwdriver and taking her to an... opera is it? Been a while since I watched Silence in the Library.
lunarworks
Member
I'm actually happy with the ending. I went in expecting Moffat to stomp on our hearts and kill one or both of them, but in the end the two of them lived happy, normal lives well into their 80s.
Still sucks for the Doctor, but it was a much happier ending than it had the potential to be, so I was satisfied.
Still sucks for the Doctor, but it was a much happier ending than it had the potential to be, so I was satisfied.
The Elite
BOSS
Just watched it a second time and found that I enjoyed it a lot more. It was much easier to buy into The Doctor not being able to go back this time around, at least to New York and up until the time Amy writes her Afterword. It's heartbreaking and fantastic. Glad they are gone though, it was the right time.
He can visit Zapped people all he wants but it's something about that particular moment (1938) in time that is messed up. Also, The Doctor really doesn't know when they went back to. We all assume it's 1938 but that isn't necessarily the case. As The Doctor says, he has no idea when the Angel will send them - nobody knows! The situation is a real mess.
The Doctor doesn't know when they are. The tombstone doesn't give a date of death either. All we know is that she used a typewriter to type up the Afterword. They both could have been zapped back to the late 1800s for all we know and she typed that up later in life.
He can visit Zapped people all he wants but it's something about that particular moment (1938) in time that is messed up. Also, The Doctor really doesn't know when they went back to. We all assume it's 1938 but that isn't necessarily the case. As The Doctor says, he has no idea when the Angel will send them - nobody knows! The situation is a real mess.
The Doctor doesn't know when they are. The tombstone doesn't give a date of death either. All we know is that she used a typewriter to type up the Afterword. They both could have been zapped back to the late 1800s for all we know and she typed that up later in life.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Funny thing about River Song, is that it seems to go oft-forgotten that she's not actually "dead".
She's alive in the Library's computer along with her team, mindstates resurrected.
She's been there ever since then, but on screen at least, the Doctor has never gone back. Let's be honest, this is Whoverse - there's a hundred ways to give someone's mind a new body, including just allowing Digital River to operate a remote created out of The Flesh.
One possibility there is that the Doctor couldn't go back to contact her yet, until he had lived properly through River's eventual trip to the Library as a researcher. Which, this episode foreshadowed with River out of prison and working for a university. It feels as if her time is drawing (subjectively) near. I'd say the reason the Doctor hasn't gone back isn't due to any direct paradox, but because Digital River still knew his future.
After he passes by her departure to the Library and her physical death there, there's nothing I can see to stop him from returning to contact or rescue her from the Library computer. He would then be living in synch with her rather than crossing paths at odds with one another's timelines.
She's alive in the Library's computer along with her team, mindstates resurrected.
She's been there ever since then, but on screen at least, the Doctor has never gone back. Let's be honest, this is Whoverse - there's a hundred ways to give someone's mind a new body, including just allowing Digital River to operate a remote created out of The Flesh.
One possibility there is that the Doctor couldn't go back to contact her yet, until he had lived properly through River's eventual trip to the Library as a researcher. Which, this episode foreshadowed with River out of prison and working for a university. It feels as if her time is drawing (subjectively) near. I'd say the reason the Doctor hasn't gone back isn't due to any direct paradox, but because Digital River still knew his future.
After he passes by her departure to the Library and her physical death there, there's nothing I can see to stop him from returning to contact or rescue her from the Library computer. He would then be living in synch with her rather than crossing paths at odds with one another's timelines.
The Singing Towers of Darillium
Anyways the fixed point in time excuse seems a bit weak to me. It was just last season that the Doctor managed to prevent his death which was a fixed point in time. Also I still don't understand why he can't just see them but not remove them from their timeline or something. Ain't no paradox to just pop in for some tea.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The more I think about this the more...unsatisfying it feels? I dunno. Meh.
Future Foundation
Member
(TGWW was on again last night, it's still so good. Had McRae done any Who before that one?)
I've liked Series 7, but some things feel kinda flat. It felt like we were biding time until TATM. But like I said, I bet things pick up at and after Christmas. New companion, possibly two Neil Cross episodes, maybe Gaiman this year, and most importantly,
Vastra, Jenny, and Strax!
The Elite
BOSS
It's having the opposite effect on me. lol
King of the Potato People
Member
Hey I know it's not perfect but at least Amy didn't open the tardis with a yellow lorry then turn into a goddess.
Not really, the fixed point was River shooting the 'Doctor'. When she changed it, she almost destroyed the universe.
And if Amy wrote that she didn't see the Doctor again, him popping in to see her would be a paradox.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Someone pointed out that the thing that was the actual fixed point in time wasn't the Doctor's death. It was River Song pulling the trigger by the lake side. As long as she pulled the trigger, everything worked out as it should and the authorities charged her with shooting the Doctor, since he hid the truth of his survival at that time, hiding inside the robot ship.
I suppose from that point of view, the Doctor's sudden inspiration was predicated on the idea that he'd been looking at it all wrong; he assumed his literal death was required to maintain the fixed point, when in fact as far as history was concerned all the mattered was River shoots someone whom the universe is convinced is the Doctor, and then goes to prison for it.
Edit: Diablos beat me to it.
ScreenSplitter
Member
I really thought
Strax had passed away quietly at the end of AGMGTW, so that's excellent news. Can't say I care for the lesbian Victorian slayers, but I don't mind them
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Napoleonthechimp
Member
Seeing your name on a gravestone would not cause a paradox because there is no absolute guarantee that it is you, and that there ever was a body in the coffin. The Doctor could always go back, rescue them, place the gravestone there to make sure he goes back and then continue on their merry adventures together.
It was just a quick and easy excuse for the show to explain away their permanent disappearance.
It was just a quick and easy excuse for the show to explain away their permanent disappearance.
But they just got out of that other paradox just fine!
Don't have it all thought out yet and it might be obvious, but considering the mechanic of the episode, Amy's entire life was a fixed point in time. If the Doctor told little Amy her entire life story, then her end was unavoidable since she was already told the ending when she was little.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
What a terrible, terrible review.
Closer to the actual topic, you know, there are going to have to be some logical inconsistencies with every Doctor Who ending, or else they would all end super, 100% happy. Otherwise, the end of, well, anything the question comes to mind "why doesn't he just go back in time to prevent it." We accept that in dozens of episodes, until we suddenly don't. The show's internal logic doesn't change, because frankly, there really isn't one in that regard.
Well, I guess... But the Doctor does prefer to avoid paradox's like that. Plus, the whole 'knowing the future means it must happen' thing. I dunno, some of you are thinking this through way too much
.Now this is a good spot, I didn't even consider that. Amy is a very complicated space time event person, so it would make sense her life was a fixed point, just like (I think) The Doctor's life is.
Uh, no, why would it?
ScreenSplitter
Member
It's wibbly wobbly indeed. The show adheres to paradoxes at certain times, then does away with it at others... sometimes very shortly after. Surely Eleven going back to little Amelia and telling her cryptic stories about her future self would create some form of paradox?!
Napoleonthechimp
Member
You can get around the "paradox" quite easily if you apply a bit of thought to it. There is absolutely no reason why the Doctor couldn't place that gravestone to make sure he went back to rescue them. He's done things like it before in other episodes (and the book is an example of it happening within this episode).
At the very least it is a way to bring them back if ever they wanted to come back to the show.
At the very least it is a way to bring them back if ever they wanted to come back to the show.
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