# Doctor Who - Series Six - Part II **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 24, 2011, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860 "2011-08-24T03:38:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/581 "2011-10-03T12:48:02Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Which this episode has set up. We know the question (“Doctor Who?”, which presumably means “What is the Doctor’s name?”) and where and when it will be answered (on the Field of blahblahblah I can’t remember what it was). We’ve been told that he **must** answer, so presumably this is the only time he could say it. We don’t yet know why this is such a big deal or how it will manage to avoid being either a cop-out (we don’t get to hear the name) or an anticlimax (“My name is…REINHOLD!”\*) but I’m sure we will be told in due course. > > - Bonus points for anyone remembering which TV character’s name turned out to be “Reinhold”. Dan Fielding. Come on, make it a hard one. Anyway, I think you might be a bit literal on the whole “Doctor Who” thing. I mean, why could Blue Head care about his name? I think it’s more philosophical. “Doctor Who?” as in, “The Doctor - which is he, Doctor The Healer, or Doctor The Warrior?” -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/582 "2011-10-03T15:19:28Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Marlitharn, I think you are looking for a causal line where it’s really a stable time loop with hidden information. But either way, really.To lie to you. > > Good grief, I’ve seen this objection repeatedly. The show tells you, “The Doctor lies.” You think that some bit of dialogue is telling you the truth. Moffat is known to lie about future plot developments. You whine about it. You lot would probably cry if you read a detective story where the culprit lied about being the culprit. > > Canton Delaware was sent by the Doctor to tell you he was dead. How does he know that? He doesn’t. The Doctor told him to say that. Canton’s there to make the Silence think they’ve succeeded. Rather as the Doctor’s speech to the children outside Craig and Sophie’s house was. It’s a trick, it was always going to be a trick, and now you’re upset it was a trick? > > It’s like Trekkies who insist that Vulcans don’t lie, due to not really paying attention to the episode that introduced that trope. Of course Canton was there to lie to _us_. The idea that his motivation _in story_ is to lie to River and Amy and (by extension) the Silence is one I hadn’t thought of. There’s no reason they would give his statement any special credence, but then again, he _did_ sound very confident, didn’t he? As for being upset that the whole thing was a trick, well … yeah. Sorry if that bothers you. Like I said, it’s the equivalent of a _deus ex machina_ or an it-was-all-a-dream reveal. There’s nothing illogical about either of those resolutions, nothing _wrong_ with them _per se_, except that they aren’t very emotionally satisfying. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/583 "2011-10-03T15:32:24Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Like I said, it’s the equivalent of a _deus ex machina_ _Deus in machina_, you mean. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/584 "2011-10-03T17:31:31Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#): > > …but he doesn’t need to ‘fool time itself’, he just needs to make sure that history is unfolds as it was recorded. Okay… So one more question. What did River know and when did she know it? For example, didn’t River on the beach have to know that the Doctor was a Teselecta? If so, then was her reaction including the follow up, “this is cold, even for you,” was just an act? ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/585 "2011-10-03T17:41:53Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > Okay… So one more question. What did River know and when did she know it? For example, didn’t River on the beach have to know that the Doctor was a Teselecta? If so, then was her reaction including the follow up, “this is cold, even for you,” was just an act? It would have to be. The Doctor she was speaking to was 200 years younger and had no idea what was going on. Spoilers! ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/586 "2011-10-03T18:52:22Z")
Finally got to see the final episode after having been away all weekend. Moffat has a million ideas all sparking off each other, and for the first part it was glorious, with time all happening at once. The later parts, I think, were necessary to reduce the show, and The Doctor, down to something a bit more manageable, less a God Emperor, and more a crazy man with a blue box. The Doctor needs to fly under the universal radar for a while. This has been a good season, perhaps not as good as the last one, but still good. I hope Amy and Rory are still around next year - I like them a lot. I think River’s story has pretty much been told. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/587 "2011-10-03T18:55:23Z")
Loved the shout out to Nicholas Courtney. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/588 "2011-10-03T19:02:02Z")
I really like the next? to last episode when he visits his old “roomie” with the baby “Stormageddon” and moms away for the weekend and of course there are cybermen in the department store… Not so much the episode but two things about it. That he was going to visit THAT “little” guy in his last days/hours. And even more touching to me, that he used what could have been his last hours cleaning up the guys place for him. Sometimes the Doctor is just a simple unselfish unpretenious"nice guy"… ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/589 "2011-10-03T19:10:38Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > _Deus in machina_, you mean. _Doc in machina_, actually. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/590 "2011-10-03T19:40:42Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > Okay… So one more question. What did River know and when did she know it? For example, didn’t River on the beach have to know that the Doctor was a Teselecta? If so, then was her reaction including the follow up, “this is cold, even for you,” was just an act? I need to rewatch, but wasn’t there a line about River not being able to remember afterwards, because the silents had screwed with her memory? The whole memory altering thing gives moffat quite a lot of leeway when it comes to continuity ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/591 "2011-10-03T19:51:49Z")
When asked about River spending all her days in prison for killing him, the Doctor does say, “Her days, yes, her nights… well, that’s between her and me.” And what is the b.s. the doctor is saying about her going to prison for a crime she may not remember? Every time they meet she knows damn well why she’s in prison. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/592 "2011-10-03T20:00:11Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > When asked about River spending all her days in prison for killing him, the Doctor does say, “Her days, yes, her nights… well, that’s between her and me.” > > And what is the b.s. the doctor is saying about her going to prison for a crime she may not remember? Every time they meet she knows damn well why she’s in prison. So Far… ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/593 "2011-10-03T20:02:02Z")
One more thing… If it was all a lie, what was all the fuss about? Why was the Doctor so convinced that his death was necessary and inevitable and that his “time had come”? Yeah he was feeling old and useless, but like I said, the Doctor having to fake his own death is a much easier problem than having to actually die, and there was no reason for him to be all that fixated on it at all. However you spin it, the fact that the solution came as “Oh, well, since you mentioned it, Mr. Tesselecta Captain, I guess you _could_ help me avoid death” is just lame and undramatic. There was no sense that he had to work up the determination to _ **fight against time itself** _ or anything like that. The solution (and even if the Tesselecta hadn’t offered, I have to think there were tons of ways he could have faked his own death) was within his grasp all along. He just had to decide that, you know, he didn’t feel suicidal after all. All of this is made much worse, IMO, by the fact that Moffatt actually went to the trouble of setting up a genuine, non-cheating, non-deus-ex-machina solution to all this. More than one in fact. First, he had the Ganger Doctor, who was established as being just as much the “real” Doctor as, you know, the real Doctor. They also established with Amy that a Ganger could replace someone for quite some time, even without the person themself being aware of it. The Doctor could easily have been a Ganger for the whole season without knowing it, so that when he died, it was really the character we’d been following all year. It would also have added poignancy to the Doctor’s decision to kill Ganger Amy if it was revealed that that Doctor was himself a Ganger who would have to die for the sake of his other self. Then there was the whole thing about Old Amy being “killed,” and the Doctor saying she was “not real” even as she cried and suffered and railed against the dying of the light. What if the Doctor had to create an alternate timeline in which he died. What if it was in fact the “other” Doctor who lived, the one we hadn’t been following? Would he feel as cavalier about letting someone die because they weren’t “real” when it was his own ox being gored, or would he have some sort of epiphany that gave him a redemption from that (rather disturbing) moment earlier in the season? Compared to either of those endings, the ha-ha-it-wasn’t-me-it-was-a-robot-and-btw-I-was-never-in-any-real-danger-I-just-wasn’t-sure-I-felt-like-living-anymore-and-was-going-to-let-them-win-but-now-I-feel-better ending that we got … well, it just sucks donkey balls, frankly. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/594 "2011-10-03T22:44:57Z")
OK, OK, look at the whole season as setting up a way the Doctor can wear a hat without River shooting it off. Well, until the Teselecta fell over. In that spirit, I think it works pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/595 "2011-10-04T00:16:56Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#): > > I need to rewatch, but wasn’t there a line about River not being able to remember afterwards, because the silents had screwed with her memory? The whole memory altering thing gives moffat quite a lot of leeway when it comes to continuity Except that she did remember, didn’t she? Re: the conversation with Amy and Rory in the garden… \*After the Doctor “died” and the alternate timeline that was created was reverted, Amy remembered everything and sat in her garden, despondent about both the Doctor’s death and the fact she had killed Madame Kovarian in a cold-blooded fashion, until River, from just after the crash of the Byzantium arrived to cheer her up. River told Amy the truth about the lies she’d had to tell up until that point and revealed the truth of the Doctor’s “death” to her, causing Amy to cheer, until she realised that she’d been destined to be her best friend’s mother-in law since she was eight. (DW: The Wedding of River Song) \* [Tardiswiki](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Amy_Pond) ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/596 "2011-10-04T00:23:58Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > - Bonus points for anyone remembering which TV character’s name turned out to be “Reinhold”. > [@Merijeek](#): > > Dan Fielding. Come on, make it a hard one. _Reinhold?_ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/597 "2011-10-04T01:10:06Z")
Named after the show’s creator, Reinhold Weege. For years I wondered why anyone would choose the showbiz pseudonym “Reinhold Weege” to work under. Eventually I came to learn the sad and shocking truth: he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/598 "2011-10-04T03:03:22Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > Except that she did remember, didn’t she? Re: the conversation with Amy and Rory in the garden… > > \*After the Doctor “died” and the alternate timeline that was created was reverted, Amy remembered everything and sat in her garden, despondent about both the Doctor’s death… Here’s where I fell off the tracks: when in the Doctor dead and Valhalla’d timeline did Amy have a chance to go home and get despondent? Lake Silencio, dead Doctor, burn body, go off to the Middle of the Desert cafe for post-funeral burger platters, find somewhat younger doctor, haul off to 1969 and…at some point back to London for melancholy and wine? The only thing I can think is that while time re-ravelled during the bride kissing part, River and the Doctor disappear, Rory and Amy end up in corrected time, but sitting on top a pyramid. Try explaining that to the Cairo police. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/599 "2011-10-04T07:18:13Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > All of this is made much worse, IMO, by the fact that Moffatt actually went to the trouble of setting up a genuine, non-cheating, non-deus-ex-machina solution to all this. More than one in fact. First, he had the Ganger Doctor, who was established as being just as much the “real” Doctor as, you know, the real Doctor. They also established with Amy that a Ganger could replace someone for quite some time, even without the person themself being aware of it. The Doctor could easily have been a Ganger for the whole season without knowing it, so that when he died, it was really the character we’d been following all year. It would also have added poignancy to the Doctor’s decision to kill Ganger Amy if it was revealed that that Doctor was himself a Ganger who would have to die for the sake of his other self. I don’t think that would’ve worked at all – it’s completely against the ‘message’ of the whole Ganger thing. As you said, it was established that the Ganger Doctor is just as real as our Doctor; having him then sub in at Lake Silencio in order for the _real Doctor_ to be saved would mean reneging on this, and making it pointless in retrospect. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860/600 "2011-10-04T08:57:31Z")
So if he has to operate in the shadows, does that mean that he’ll call himself other names than the Doctor? “Hello, I’m the Do…uhm, I mean Collin\*. Nice to meet you.” - I just picked this name at random. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-who-series-six-part-ii/593860.md?page=31)