Doctor Who S33E15 "The Time of the Doctor" [Spoilers]

[PREDATOR490]

3. Time war restart, wah wah wah. I mean this starting the Time War shit doesn't make sense. Ok, so the Daleks might be weaker than their Time War versions, and they certainly aren't fielding 10 million saucers any more. But why would you be scared of the Time War starting again? Wouldn't the Time Lords just kick arse this time with the Daleks less numerous? The only way I can think of this is that the Church was more afraid the Time Lords would dominate, and that this claim of the Time War restarting is just an excuse.

The Time Lords were apparently in stasis, so they haven't fully recovered either. We don't know for sure, but it seems like they don't have any TARDIS's left to use apart from the Doctor's. I think your idea makes sense: the Timelords have been missing for hundreds of years and other species are now used to the fact that they are no longer around. They probably ganged together to try and prevent the Timelords from rebuilding.

That dont compute.

If Gallifray is in stasis - how are they sending a message or able to react to Clara's plea for help ?

If Gallifray is NOT in stasis - They have had an unknown amount of time to figure out what is going on.

The latter seems to be the idea since they DO react to a plea for help and the Doctor's bullshit exposition suggests the problem is not 'We cant get through' but 'Is it safe ?'

The episode even makes it look like Gallifray is capable of making cracks on command and they know what is going on.
They managed to target a crack right at the Doctor and react in minutes from Clara's plea suggests Gallifray is somehow operating on the other side of that crack. Either they are operating in 'real-time' or they are moving at a faster rate inorder for them to react like they did.
Either way - Hundreds of years sitting at the crack for the Doctor was just as many or more for Gallifray on the other side. How is that not enough time to get their shit together ?

Otherwise your telling me they pushed a button to give the Doctor new lives and randomly managed to select the EXACT point in space where the Doctor was to deliver it in the space of moments while they were supposedly 'frozen'.

The situation with the standoff was silly to begin with: They are threatening to burn the planet to a crisp if the Doctor lets Gallifray return, is the episode saying that if the Doctor speaks his name RIGHT there and then, an entire planet is going to instantly pop through that crack ?

Not even sure what Gallifray even wanted with the Doctor with this situation:
Hey, we need to know if it is safe on the other side so we will ask the only Timelord on the other side to tell us and broadcast that message throughout time and space. We dont know if the Doctor could be alive on the other side of the crack or how exactly this helps us determine the right universe to return to but put our eggs all in one basket... just because.

Since the question is: Is it safe to come through, I find it rather hilarious Clara's reply is: Your asking the wrong question
They want to know if it is safe to return and they have the right IP address for their home - seems like a pretty valid question

Throw in the rest of her bullshit about loving the Doctor - I can only imagine anyone on the other side of that crack being stunned at this bullshit because from their perspective some random woman is bleating at them to help the Doctor without any details of what is going on. The whole premise of the question is to identify their own reality by getting their Doctor to signal them but somehow the Timelords fight past Clara's vague bullshit and figure out something is wrong to close the rift to help the Doctor.

Kinda makes you wonder why the Doctor did not just fucking tell the Timelords that in the first place and phone back at a more convenient time.

Watching this shit a second time only made the premise even more stupid with the amount of inconsistent bullshit being fielded. But hey... at least we can look forward to Peter Capaldi spending the next 10 minutes of the next season trying to justify why the Doctor magically forgot how to fly the TARDIS after Matt Smith said he will remember. I cannot fathom how anyone could write that shit and realize they were setting themselves up to shoot any sense of dignified exit with that garbage routine.

[NecronLord]

3. Time war restart, wah wah wah. I mean this starting the Time War shit doesn't make sense. Ok, so the Daleks might be weaker than their Time War versions, and they certainly aren't fielding 10 million saucers any more. But why would you be scared of the Time War starting again? Wouldn't the Time Lords just kick arse this time with the Daleks less numerous? The only way I can think of this is that the Church was more afraid the Time Lords would dominate, and that this claim of the Time War restarting is just an excuse.

The Time Lords were apparently in stasis, so they haven't fully recovered either. We don't know for sure, but it seems like they don't have any TARDIS's left to use apart from the Doctor's. I think your idea makes sense: the Timelords have been missing for hundreds of years and other species are now used to the fact that they are no longer around. They probably ganged together to try and prevent the Timelords from rebuilding.

And yet they're not showing this level of concern about the daleks. I mean what's the worst thing the daleks might do?



The idea that the daleks are equally bad neighbors whether or not there are Time Lords around seems to have been forgotten in this episode. It's like people are happy having the Daleks around unchecked.

Of course, so was the fact that the Silence are freaking TARDIS builders.



Something that they really ought to have shown in the whole fighting sequence, as it would have made it much more credible that these guys can fight the Daleks.

[Tribble]

Let's face it the episode was terrible... but its also canon. Is there any way to come up with a plausible explanation for what happened without a voodoo shark? Perhaps the other groups were hoping that in the process of taking out the Time Lords the Daleks would weaken themselves to the point where they could be defeated in turn. No honour among villains and all that.

And your right, the Timelords are clearly not in stasis even though we were specifically told there were essentially in a giant "stasis cube." The previous episode showed that you could move around while within a stasis cube, so perhaps from the Time Lords' perspective they are moving in real time while to the rest of the universe they appear to be in a standstill. I guess the concept could be vaguely similar to falling into a black hole: from your perspective time moves as normal, but to an outsider your image would appear to be slowing down the closer it got to the event horizon.

[PREDATOR490]

Let's face it the episode was terrible... but its also canon. Is there any way to come up with a plausible explanation for what happened without a voodoo shark? Perhaps the other groups were hoping that in the process of taking out the Time Lords the Daleks would weaken themselves to the point where they could be defeated in turn. No honour among villains and all that.

The other groups were sitting around ready to destroy a planet if the Doctor brought back Gallifray because it would start a Time War between the Daleks and the Timelords... so they end up fighting a 300+ year war with the Daleks in order to make sure the Daleks dont fight a war with the Timelords that kills everyone.

That is some fucked up logic going on there.

Even if you assume everyone up stairs is full of shit and really just want to make sure the Timelords do not dominate - The Daleks are literally parked in orbit with everyone else and have a self-stated goal of domination that started the Time War. You want to stop the Time War by forming an alliance with the power that caused the Time War, will cause the next AND is actively trying to exterminate you ?
If the Daleks can take on everyone else - Why the hell wont the rest of the universe go after the Daleks for being way too powerful ?

Even more funny when you follow the dialogue about the other races retreating while the Daleks called for reinforcements - So the war was only happening in orbit of this planet or did everyone else fuck off after year XXX and the Daleks sat in orbit clueless for centuries while the rest of the universe ignored the gigantic gathering of Dalek forces ?
Alternatively, this episode basically suggests the Daleks won the war and left a single ship in orbit while the rest of the Daleks were doing... what ?

Ugh,

No amount of explanation is going to dig this episode out of the shit pile it has created and I fully expect we will be fed plenty of rubbish in a few years that will try.
Kinda funny this episode makes a jab at Journey's End only to make a bigger clusterfuck out of their nostalgia tour.

Incidentally, this episode even screws up regeneration thanks to that jab.
The Doctor changes more than just his face when he regenerates so... this episode tells us that when Tennant changed he regenerated into a new Doctor with the same face.
On the one hand... maybe that explains why Tennant's last season was a load of horseshit and he dumps Rose Tyler like a sack of bricks. He was a different Doctor.
On the other... that change was seamless so that noone noticed... thus why the fuck does every Regeneration end up with the Doctor having weird personality fits like forgetting to fly the TARDIS ?

And your right, the Timelords are clearly not in stasis even though we were specifically told there were essentially in a giant "stasis cube." The previous episode showed that you could move around while within a stasis cube, so perhaps from the Time Lords' perspective they are moving in real time while to the rest of the universe they appear to be in a standstill. I guess the concept could be vaguely similar to falling into a black hole: from your perspective time moves as normal, but to an outsider your image would appear to be slowing down the closer it got to the event horizon.

That still does not work. The Timelords cannot be frozen or moving much slower because they react to Clara's plea within minutes. If they are moving slower... that would mean it would take longer for them to react.
If anything the opposite is true, the Doctor Who universe is the one moving slower than Gallifray because it stretches stupidity even further that an entire civilization gave up their attempt to call home in seconds based on the voice of some random person. Never mind, how they would go about setting up their intervention.

[FaxModem1]

Also, aside from fighting the Daleks, wouldn't the Time Lords just return to being isolationists, as they're wont to do anything that doesn't concern them? Or has everyone else filled the power vacuum and everything concerns them now?

[mr friendly guy]

Ok, I will try and explain away some of the flaws, although really, the episode wasn't actually good with more plot holes big enough to fly the Death Star through.

1. The TARDIS can't breach the forcefield. Except it can straight after.

Explanation - it needed to lock onto a source, in this case the Doctor's key. Yeah ok, its weak, but not irredemable

2. Weren't the Time Lords in stasis?

Explanation - they found a way to undo it off screen. Since the stasis worked by only having a moment of time, maybe they had technology to add time (Faction Paradox : Book of war) or move even when time appears to have stopped (trial of a time lord)

3. Why didn't the Time Lords enter the universe

Explanation - infighting between the High Council, and the War Council, and each other. The more conservative ones weren't willing to take the risk, especially if they needed to give the Doctor energy to defeat the Daleks, it might not be safe. This of course doesn't explain why they closed the breach. Even if they had the technology to reenter (and its clear from the End of time they can easily transport their entire world), it would be still easier for them to go into where the "cracks in the universe" are.

The other problem is, if they can scan the Doctor, they should be able to gauge that the Daleks only had one fucking ship. Gallifrey should have been able to deal with one fucking ship.

4. Why the hell did everyone find the unknown message so compelling that they should come?

The Doctor its easy enough to explain. He is curious. Everyone else... yeah I got nothing. Because everyone apparently felt something, or so the priestess implied.

Now if the message was deposited throughout all time and space, even if you don't feel anything you would most probably want to investigate it. Because the technology to do so is impressive and you would scramble to find out who could do such a thing. Are they friendly or antagonistic? This explanation makes more sense.

5. How is it the Daleks won and had one ship left?

Explanation - they must have had other battles elsewhere, so they couldn't field more than a few ships. I also postulate they can no longer field numbers anywhere near the 10 million saucers they did in the Time War.

Having the Daleks field thousands and only one ship at the end of the battle remaining sounds implausible. Having them field only a handful and one ship survives is more believable.

6. Why didn't the Doctor recognise the Gallifreyan language.

Explanation - must be a type of code in the TARDIS data bank rather than spoken language. That way only the Doctor would be able to decipher it. If they spoke in their own language, chances are other alien species may recognise it.

7. Why did the Cyberman head broadcast the message to everyone?

There is nothing that can possibly explain away this stupidity.

[mr friendly guy]

Also, aside from fighting the Daleks, wouldn't the Time Lords just return to being isolationists, as they're wont to do anything that doesn't concern them? Or has everyone else filled the power vacuum and everything concerns them now?

The TL were mainly concerned with other races having time travel. Clearly its not only the Daleks, but the silence have it as well. So did the organisation Jack Harkess originally worked for. In the classic series a few others had it and were on the verge of it. In EU spin off, several had it and the TL ended up dealing with them in treaties. So they may very well intervene in this strange new universe.

A Gallifrey with a more assertive foreign policy would IMO make interesting stories.

[Vaporous]

I will accept absolutely any stupid obvious retcon explanation for everything they stretched in this episode as long as I don't have to hear about the Time War ever again.

[jollyreaper]

The sad thing here is that they are incapable of telling a coherent, self-consistent story. The greater the stakes, the worse the story will be. It ends up becoming numbing. There's no time for any character development, no time to care about what happens.

I watched some earlier episodes. They were good. My tastes haven't changed, the material was better.

[Soontir C'boath]

Unless my memory is purging the episode pretty quickly, one Dalek ship which seemed to have the voice of the Emperor in Transalore's atmosphere doesn't mean there were no other ships in orbit. Aside from the scene when all ships started to fight, we didn't get to see what happened in orbit 300 years later. He could have very well done a "Bad Wolf" and took out the rest of the fleet off-screen.

Edit: Clearly the budget was blown on making that wooden Cyberman.

[NecronLord]

The sad thing is, having the episode suck less would be so easy.


Dispense with all the Christmas crap, beyond Clara's christmas dinner; none of it needs to be there and it takes away from the seriousness o the production. And if the production needs to be Christmassy, maybe you just can't have a big arc episode as a Christmas special, hmm?

Make Trenzalore a monastery of the Silence.

The Doctor (alone!) detects a signal from the Time Lords, and on the heels of last episode, goes to find it hopefully. He lands on the planet, and arrives at a monastery, where he's confronted by monks. When asked who he is, he's forced to answer by a Truth Field, ("I'm a renegade Time Lord from the planet gallifrey who stole a time machine...")

Naturally, being the Silence, they prepare to kill him, but for [reason, possibly they want his time lord secrets, tie in their time machines here] they imprison him instead. Possibly at this point if you want Clara to return home she could escape with the TARDIS?

Things change when the daleks decipher the Time Lord message, too, and the silence have to ask for the Doctor's help in fighting them.

The details I'm not sure about, but this would be a cheaper episode and less scattershot.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Indeed that would have made a lot more sense.

Incidentally, NecronLord, that picture you asked about whether it was a field gun or a Dalek tank? I think it might be wreckage from one of those gunships the Daleks were using on Trenzalore and at Arcadia.

[Scrib]

I never thought I'd say it but I actually prefer RTD's stuff now.

I know right? I don't necessarily agree but the turn-around among the fans has been hilarious. Not sure how I got from loving S5 to this. Don't know what it is about Moffat, every one of his "big" episodes has something that just seems...off, hovering between plot hole and just mere inanity. So strange.

[Starglider]

I never thought I'd say it but I actually prefer RTD's stuff now.

That's only because you are actively blocking out all memory of 'The End of Time'. Clara may be head girl at the Mary Sue academy but Donna in that episode is the cannonised patron saint of Doctor Who Sues.

This and the Day of the Doctor both illustrated the Moffat writing style of 'think up some "powerful" character moments, then a couple of neat visuals, then at the last minute string together some sort of story that will justify those scenes'. Making sense is optional, canon nods good but worldbuilding is not relevant. Day of the Doctor is what happens when he gets lucky and the flaws are minimised, this is what happens when he doesn't and the story just fails to make sense.

[Soontir C'boath]

I think at one point I said to myself, I'd prefer JNT. I might have to rewatch his tenure just to make sure...

[Starglider]

That's only because you are actively blocking out all memory of 'The End of Time'.

Gah I mean Journey's End. Although 'The End of Time' is exhibit B.

[Crazedwraith]

Ok, I so I saw it. It wasn't as bad as I expected from this thread. Or I was braced for the bad or whatever.

There's some good stuff in this episode. Drowned by hamfisted explain-aways of Eleven's plot arc and tell-not-show stuff. The scene with the cyber-head slowly dying and Doctor reflecting on at last he's found somewhere he can't run from. Cool.

They coped on out answering 'Doctor who?' Though. But like the regeneration fix this was expected.

Okay, the silents are super powered confessionals. Doesn't explain the 'you do what we say' aspect of their power.

I had Tennat's extended regen. But I'm glad Smith got one, so he could have his goodbye with out the age make up. Capaldi's wackiness of a lot more subdued than it could have beenn. But I can't help but wish for a really good, timey wimey regeneration story. Where the doctor and his successor are both involved with in the same crisis. With the new Doctor initially appearing behind the scenes and then as the focus in a 'once more with clarity' style.

But I guess that would have allowed them to cram answers for unresolved Eleven stuff in there.

[Tribble]

I agree that Donna was incredibly annoying when she was the Mary Sue on steroids, but like Rose it was only for a brief time. Clara is a Mary Sue in pretty much every episode she's been in. And even Donna's antics can't compete with Clara being secretly involved in every single adventure the Doctor has had so far. Oh, and she's such a "perfect companion" that apparently even the TARDIS is jealous of her. Please.

I have nothing against the actress though, I think she's done a good job given the material she works with.

[Gandalf]

I did not enjoy Steven Moffat's tribute to the work of Steven Moffat.

A Gallifrey with a more assertive foreign policy would IMO make interesting stories.

The Doctor can go anywhere in an infinite universe. If they need to bring Gallifrey in to have more interesting stories, they're already screwed.

[Parallax]

... and really that's a bit of the problem the classic series ran into.
When the Time Lords were first encountered, they were damn near omnipotent and the Doctor only contacted them with great reluctance.
Later stories reduced them to a bunch of near incompetent bureaucrats, simply because if the Universe needs saving ... then either the Time Lords are sitting with their thumbs up their asses or are genuinely useless.

If the Time Lords do return, then they'd have to be used very carefully indeed. Too powerful and the Universe doesn't need the Doctor. If they sit back and do nothing, then they're boring and there's no point in them anyhow.

The only way I can think of using them is if they're kept busy keeping other time technology in check. Time Vortex Police which, with more races using such tech since the Time War, would keep them busy for a bit. Even this, however, takes away a part of the Doctor's role.

[mr friendly guy]

I did not enjoy Steven Moffat's tribute to the work of Steven Moffat.

A Gallifrey with a more assertive foreign policy would IMO make interesting stories.

The Doctor can go anywhere in an infinite universe. If they need to bring Gallifrey in to have more interesting stories, they're already screwed.

Well they can tell interesting stories with the Doctor travelling. However with the Time Lords they can tell different type of stories.

The type of stories I am thinking of are
a. Doctor as a TL agent
b. Doctor is feared because he is a TL
c. Big bad epic threat which the Doctor needs to team up with the Time Lords (or any other powerful force) to stop.

The first type of story was used to some extent in the Jon Pertwee era to allow the Doctor to leave Earth even though he was exiled there. These stories didn't have much difference vs a story where the Doctor just happened to arrive on a particular planet and intervenes and does what he thinks is right. However since I am suggesting the TL in this post time war universe, might want to intervene more, they could utilise the Doctor and wash their hands off the affair. A potential plot conflict is that the Doctor might agree with the end result, but not with how the TL want it done. Or he could find out that the TL have been lying. The most obvious example of this type of story is the Two Doctors.

The other plot development the TL return brings to the table, is that the Doctor could be distrusted purely because he is a TL especially if the TL do intervene. For example the minoside night of the Doctor.

For part c, well I don't think short of the Time War (which was sparsely shown) did Who utilise this type of plot. Joss Whedon apparently loved doing this with Buffy. In fact the term "Big Bad" came from him. Star Trek also did this to some extent with the Dominion and to a lesser extent Species 8472. Given the amount of material in Who from the classic, NuWho and the EU, there is plenty of scope to create an epic bad guy, besides the Daleks who have been overused.

[Steve]

So... doesn't this invalidate the entire bit at Lake Silencio where it was believed the Doctor could regenerate again and had to be shot mid-regeneration? Granted he tricked his way out of it, but still...

[Crazedwraith]

Well out of universe, I'd assume that was because War Doctor hadn't been created yet.

in-universe... timey-wimey!

[Tribble]

Well, River transferred her regeneration energy into the Doctor, so perhaps people assumed there was enough energy available for at least one regeneration. Even if the Doctor couldn't regenerate he still had some regeneration energy in his body, because he used a bit to heal River's wrist.

River's sacrifice could have been the excuse for resetting the Doctor's regeneration count, and I'm surprised it wasn't used. They could have even had him think he could no longer regenerate, yet he does so anyways and realises in the process that River had given him one final gift. IMO that would have been better than "Time Lords shoot energy beam from the sky - problem solved!"

Incidentally, we still don't know the circumstances which led to River learning the Doctor's true name, though given all the explanations that were thrown around for things this episode that's probably for the best.

[Crazedwraith]

No using River would have been even more stupid and made her even more of a mary sue. Time Lords being granted new regenerations on Gallifrey has been canon since they did it for the Master to get him to fight in the Time War.

Doing it from the other side of the universal crack was a little silly and the regenablaster is a lot silly.