Mainly it’s due to the TARDIS being very finicky. For example, all the way back to when Rose was first a companion, he accidentally dropped her off one year after she first left. No one knew what happened to her.
Also, some adventures are on Earth in the present day (just like this one). I don’t think they can go back to when the adventure first started; paradoxes and all that.
I don’t recall exactly, but wasn’t there still a problem with going to Gallifrey, even after it had been brought back? Somehow I didn’t think the Doctor could just go for a jaunt home for the holidays…
It’s still stuck in that pocket universe, so it’s not easy to get to. And the time lords can’t leave it either. Mainly because if it;s brought back to our universe the Time War will just start right up again.
I was so certain that they were going to somehow tie it to the Cybermen when Barton was giving his big speech. I’m glad they didn’t, but I ended up not not really getting what the light aliens plan really was. Did they ever answer why they were killing all of the spies?
They were getting too close to The Plan.
That, and the Master wanted the Doctor’s attention, and talked his allies into doing something so dramatic that MI6 would call the Doctor in.
Since The Master had to get from the 1940s to 2020 the hard way, did he get turned into The Master when everyone got turned into The Master?
The Masterification only affected humans (the Doctor and the other aliens in that episode weren’t affected).
If he wasn’t clued in on the plan, that had to have been a weird experience.
Oh, wait–he was (probably) from after that.
Is there a thread for the rest of the season, or should I bitch about Orphan 55 here? Because man, what a load of poorly-scripted rubbish (and I don’t even mean the hit-you-over-the-head message of it all).
To be fair, it was also very poorly directed.
Yeah, but it got partially redeemed by the best line of the season so far:
Tech guy: You can’t build an ionic membrane from scratch!
Doctor: If I had crayons and half a can of Spam, I could build you from scratch! Now get out of my way!
Now *that’s *the Doctor I know and love!
I think the best way to treat Orphan 55 is to never mention it again and try to forget that it ever happened.
I was wondering if we were going to discuss it or purge it.
Yes, except for some of the Doctor’s arrogance, in just the right way, I was disappointed by this episode.
I started a big rant of things that bugged me and if we start discussing it, I can post it. Otherwise, maybe we just move along and hope for better next episode.
Thanks for the discussion!
Yes, but if we never mention it again, we can’t complain about it. I am conflicted.
LOL! Me too! I seriously had nine points already before I thought better of going down that rabbit hole! 
I kept checking for a thread on “Orphan 55”, because I couldn’t believe no one wanted to talk about what a crappy episode it was.
Okay, then–what the hell happened with this episode? Possibly the top thing that stands out to me (okay, in the top five) was how the central plot of a big chunk of the episode was finding the old guy who was then
off-handedly given a Poochie death. I mean, what could have happened? Did they forget to film half the scenes? Did the actor die mid-filming? What could possibly have lead to “Oh, your fiancé? Yeah, I killed him off-screen. Don’t worry, he wanted it.”
The thing is, it was as monumentally bad as episodes like Kill the Moon or The Forests of the Night, because the degree of stupidity in episodes like those two requires a certain amount of demented imagination and misguided confidence. Orphan 55 was just incompetent at all levels.