h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>Somewhere, in an alternate dimension, the Master is making a parody sitcom of the Doctor.<<

"They're not breasts..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-wDPoC6GM

>>then why all the angst about being the last timelord???<<

Because Russell T Davies was a crepe writer. he started all the 'last of the Timelords' stuff. I often get the feeling Steven Moffat would dearly love to bring them back just to show that the Doctor isn't really the last at all and p Russell off into the bargain. 'Time can be rewritten'. One the latest Doctor's first observations. That knowledge seemed to surprise him, as if it was something new. I think we're heading for a rewrite.

Incidentally, we still don't know why, in 'The Day of the Moon', all of the pictures on the dressing table, other than the one of Amy, were of the girl from Silence In The Library. The name of the hypnotherapist she was being treated by was 'Doctor Moon'...and the library was where River was 'saved' for future archiving or, possibly, downloading into an 'almost people' body by the Doctor.

>>>all of the pictures on the dressing table, other than the one of Amy, were of the girl from Silence In The Library.

Somebody said this at the time that episode was shown, so I watched it again. I'm pretty certain they weren't.

Sorry, that's a bit ambiguous. I'm sure that *none* of the pictures were of the girl from the Library.

Damn. I'll have to watch it again now...

But not long now until the last episode and the last Sarah Jane on Monday...

<BB<

Hi Taff,

>time lords when they die are removed from history, thats why there are no, pre time war time lords running around

I thought that was specific to the Time War - the weapons used were designed to remove Gallifrey from history.

That's the way it worked in the books. They also had a whole book devoted to what a powerful weapon the Doctor's body would be once he's dead...

Some of those books were *good*

Gif

I rationalized the thing about the Doctor not being able to meet any Time Lords from before the Time War as some kind of enhanced version of the rules about crossing your own timeline, applying exclusively to time travellers (or maybe just Time Lords). In my imgination, they have their own collective timeline, which none of them can cross to meet each other going 'backwards'. Paradoxically, this would mean that they are _more_ bound by linear time than us, because our linearity can be trumped by one of them taking us with them.

I thought that was quite good. Liked the unanswered question. Hidden in plain sight all along, couldn't be anything else really, could it?

Looking forward to new Sarah Jane too, but with mixed emotions.

Same here, I must admit I was expecting it to be awful after last week's episode but it was rather good.

Me three!

FB

In a very low-key way, that was absolutely fantastic. I really didn't expect it to be that good or that satisfying given how many questions needed answering and how little time they had. I'm not sure why, but I found the use of the Tesselector more satisfying than use of a Ganger - I guess it's because they've already told that story. I'm glad the Tesselector guys got a second appearance and a chance to give themselves a bit more subtlety.

What I really liked is I was continually led down the garden path to a place I really wouldn't have been happy with - at one point I thought Moffat was going to pull an RTD and have peoples prayers and imprecations save him, at another I thought we were going to see the end of River Song and make us miss the Singing Towers of Durillium (I *really* want to see that scene) - but no, I was wrong.

There's such a huge amount I liked - they managed to say goodbye to Rory and Amy without ruining the resolution of The God Complex and they gave the Ponds time together as a family ("I heard there was a falling meteor 2 miles away so I brought out a second glass...") which was one of my big complaints with this series. We had the cracks from last year explained (though still not who controlled the TARDIS in the Pandorica Opens) and that worked for me. The entire scene in Utah was explained beautifully (I choked up when the Doctor explained why he got the Ponds to meet him there) and a lot more of River was explained, like why she has no reservations about escaping from Stormcage as/when she feels like (a big part of me is relieved that my theory Rory was actually the good man River killed turned out to be nonsense). I think The Question was always a little obvious, I'd have been more surprised if it wasn't Doctor Who? but I'm fine with that, sometimes being a little obvious is good.

Moffat has been setting all of this up for years and it's all paid off and he deserves a huge amount of credit. Now give River her exit and us all a big cry - undercover Doctor and River Song and mutually contradictory ideas.

I'm a very happy chappy tonight.

<(a big part of me is relieved that my theory Rory was actually the good man River killed turned out to be nonsense).>

I also had that thought...not yet resolved...There's still more to Rory tho methinks...a certain look that occurred during the season...

So the ending was just "Stein;s Gate" (sic): the 'fixed point in time' was just what _seemed_ to happen _seeming_ to happen. The rest was the Doctor tricking everyone into thinking what _seemed_ to happen _actually_ happened. I think.
One upshot is that he can't rely on his reputation to get him out of things any more, which he's pulled a few times recently. He's meant to be dead, and he stated himself that he was getting too big and loud.

I admit, I had to get Mr Vip to explain that to me. I was rather confused with the whole thing, and that aspect seemed rather hand-wavy*. Let's set the whole thing up so that This must happen Then, when actually, all he needed to do was convince others that it had happened? Feels like a cop out to me.

Admittedly it does make him far less important than people/predictions had built him up to be, I guess, which is kinda nice. People ascribing massive importance to the event that actually wasn't a big deal. *scratched head* I think I need to watch it again. It still doesn't sit well in my brain.

Vip


------------------------
*My term for flapping your hands wildly, and proclaiming everything is
fixed, despite the fact it would be naff/impossible/out of character/stupid/not actually fixed at all.

Vip.


The fixed point in time was not actually the Dr dying but the Teselecta being shot which of course everyone assumed was the Dr being shot.

I don;t think it was an 'he just needs to convince people that it happened. From the point of view of everyone apart from just a few people the Dr was killed, the difficult thing was when River decided to mess up time and 'save the Dr' when he had managed to get the Teselecta to help him...that was the 'difficult' part and that really was the crux of the episode...loved seeing different timestreams mixed, we see Amy being well hard and also what she is capable of and we see Rory doing what he's always done: protect Amy and just be as brave as the Dr...even braver as the Dr can always regnerate..

Putting the Doctor in a situation where has to not be the 'most important man in the universe' is, I hope, Steven Moffat trying to reset the Doctor to a pre-RTD state. It's because Russell made a big thing about the 'Last of the Timelords' that he's been elevated in stature across the Whoniverse. By making the Doctor lie low he's returned him to more like his earlier 'Classic Who' status.

I hope the Moff starts concentrating now on creating a new race of Timelords (rather than bringing back the old ones). We've seen River get the Timelord regeneration ability by being conceived in a Tardis.

Now, if he plays on that and extends it a bit, a whole new race of Timelords could be created. It could be a moral dilemma for the Doctor, who remembers how his race were corrupted by the mastery of time, but it would also give him the chance to form a Timelord society that kept some sort of universal order, spreading the load from his shoulders in the fight against evil.

I think it would be a great direction for the Doctor to go. The teselecta people would be a good candidate for him to work with as potential Timelord material. They did say 'whatever you think of the teselecta, we're champions of Law and Order, just as you've always been'. That could get the Doctor thinking along the lines of their being the best candidates to take over where the Timelords left off.

He's already made several comments about how certain events would never have happened when the Timelords were around. I think he also made a comment once that it's inevitable for a race to one day rise and take their place as controllers of time and space. Maybe he would like to shape who that race should be.

I suspect Steven Moffat is already thinking along these lines. I'm think I'm now looking forward to the next series more than I was when the Christopher Eccleston series was about to debut.

I found it all rather unsatisfying ... old age is getting to my brain ... I can't deal with fractured narratives and cutting back&forth between different locations. Vague understanding of the story but I don't know how your average Saturday night viewer would pick that up if they hadn't seen the earlier parts of the series back at Easter.

RTG, yes I think you are right, RTD did go OTT with the Dr and changing him from a rogue, wierd Timelord sorting out discrete-ish problems to situations where the whole world was involved.

And looking at Torchwood he hasn't changed his writing and story types and went again for a 'whole world affected story' in the last two stories...luckily I totally avoided the 'no-one can die' series.

Bright Blue Shorts
<I found it all rather unsatisfying ... old age is getting to my brain ... I can't deal with fractured narratives and cutting back&forth between different locations. Vague understanding of the story but I don't know how your average Saturday night viewer would pick that up if they hadn't seen the earlier parts of the series back at Easter.>

Firstly, if someone can;t be bothered to watch the whole a series then they can;t moan that they don;t understand the story.

As for cutting back and forth and fractured narrative, the 'fractured narrative' is part and parcel of story-arcs and the cutting back and forth...well it is a show about time-travel...