Doctor Who - Series Six - Part II

[vdgg81]

@Galwegian

Have any of the Doctor’s companions ever just walked away in disgust before?

She didn’t walk off in disgust, but Tegan Jovanka, one of the Fifth Doctor’s companions, did leave because “it just isn’t fun anymore”. During her tenure in the TARDIS she witnessed the death of her aunt, the destruction of 1/3 of the universe, a regeneration by the Doctor, the death of her fellow companion Adric, the departure of her fellow companion Nyssa (who decided to nurse space lepers), many murders commited by Daleks and others and suffered mind rape by weird creatures of the unconscious who were also snakes (twice!). She is last seen regretting her decision and running back, but the Doctor had already departed.

On a personal note, she is one of my least liked companions, along with Amy Pond. Like Pond she was annoying, self-centered and seemed to lack any sense of wonder. Her era of the show had some good stories but I still disliked it strongly because of the stupid glorification of violence, gratuitous melodrama, needlessly complicated and ill thought out plots, excessive and annoying reliance on continuity, a version of the Doctor with serious flaws in characterization and a general disregard for what I consider to be the ethos of the show. Just like Pond’s.

If I were Rory I’d have told the Doctor to go do unpleasant things to himself and take me home. I mean, why shouldn’t he? When has association with the Doctor ever brought anything good to his life? I honestly don’t get why he doesn’t regard the Doctor as a lying, manipulative bastard who’s caused irreparable damage to his family.

[Galwegian]

@vdgg81

I honestly don’t get why he doesn’t regard the Doctor as a lying, manipulative bastard who’s caused irreparable damage to his family.

I think he sees that now.

[Gyrate]

That was some good Old School sci-fi - some bare-bones vague future-y stuff used as a framing device for a complex human moral dilemma. The ending, where we’re left without Rory’s answer to Amy’s question, was particularly cruel and poignant.

I’m torn about the presentation of Old Amy - on the one hand I would have expected someone left alone in a hostile environment for 36 years to have changed substantially more than that in terms of personality, but so much of the plot relied on the similarities between the two Amys that perhaps it was necessary. And I agree that I would have expected someone to have mentioned Rory’s wait (although he did volunteer for it) at least once.

As for the future, the argument between the Doctor (“That’s not how I travel!”) and Rory wasn’t resolved, just shelved for now, and will undoubtedly resurface in some form. For a guy with so much guilt over what happened to previous companions the Doctor still comes across as overly self-centered; either he really is a colossal jerk or this is a ploy to push Rory and Amy away for some reason.

[Nobody]

@vdgg81

On a personal note, she is one of my least liked companions, along with Amy Pond. Like Pond she was annoying, self-centered and seemed to lack any sense of wonder. Her era of the show had some good stories but I still disliked it strongly because of the stupid glorification of violence, gratuitous melodrama, needlessly complicated and ill thought out plots, excessive and annoying reliance on continuity, a version of the Doctor with serious flaws in characterization and a general disregard for what I consider to be the ethos of the show. Just like Pond’s.

You better not be putting down Davison’s doctor. Thems fighing words! :mad:

If you want to rag on anybody, rag on Mel and McCoy’s doctor.

[Smapti]

I, for one, am not buying the idea that i’m supposed to hate the Doctor for “causing” any of the things that happen to the people around him.

1. The Doctor didn’t TELL Amy to push the red button, or any button. That was Rory. Amy could have avoided the entire mess HERSELF by asking “Which button?”

2. Nor is it the Doctor’s fault that he couldn’t lock on to her timestream specifically, or that they landed on Appalappachea in a quarantine clinic in the middle of a plague - the TARDIS is an old machine with imprecise controls that the Doctor doesn’t fully understand.

3. Amy and Rory didn’t “lose their child because of the Doctor”. Their child EXISTS because of the Doctor - they never would have become a couple if not for the influence of Mels, who was only able to grow up with them BECAUSE their daughter was a Time Lord hybrid who was abducted and placed there by the Silence. Indeed, were it not for him “interfering”, they, and everyone else on the planet Earth, would have been exterminated by Daleks, Cyber-converted, enslaved by space-werewolves, Silurians, or the Master, wiped out by Sontarans, devoured by Sutekh the Destroyer, wished into non-existence by Rassilon, erased from history by the Black Guardian, nuked by Slitheen, perished in a holocaust resulting from the space-Titanic crashing into London, and other countless and sordid deaths dozens of times over, and you can add to that list every single potential armageddon that Torchwood and Sarah Jane Smith have helped to prevent, since neither of them would have been in the right place and the right time unless the Doctor had put them there either.

Steven Moffat is shoehorning a “The Doctor is evil” message into the story where it just doesn’t fit the Doctor’s character or the circumstances that he finds himself in. Sometimes, as in this episode, the Doctor has to make difficult choices in order to ensure that even a minimax victory occurs instead of a total defeat. Would it have been better if the Doctor had told the truth and neither Amy had made it out alive? I don’t think so.

[Nobody]

Maybe, partially, Moffat’s leading up to the birth of Valeyard.

[Galwegian]

@Smapti

I, for one, am not buying the idea that i’m supposed to hate the Doctor for “causing” any of the things that happen to the people around him.

Actually, I don’t buy that either. Moffat isn’t trying to make the viewer hate the Doctor.

I do think Amy and Rory are beginning to distrust and maybe dislike the Doctor. How may times have they heard Rule 1 at this stage?

@Nobody

Maybe, partially, Moffat’s leading up to the birth of Valeyard.

I don’t know much about the Valeyard except that he’s a future EEEVIL incarnarion of the Doctor. Maybe you’re right.

Was the timeline leading to the Valeyard in the original series averted, or is he still to be expected sometime in the future?

[chrisk]

Okay, I loved that episode!

Possibly my favorite bit was how they made the line “This is a kindness” so sinister with repetition. I was really expecting that at the end, Older Amy would actually say something along the lines of “Okay, go ahead and kill me with kindness!”

Oh, and as another fun thought, I expect that about five minutes after they leave, in green anchor timestream, an Appalappachean systems admin will come along to review the AI log, and basically go “WTF, how did aliens get inside the facility?”

[Enderw24]

Two issues with the episode and forgive me because I’m typing his on an iPod.

First, it was a choice. Old Amy chose to remain there when she was young Amy. She looked at her older self, knew what was going to happen, and made the choice anyway. You can’t put that off on the doctor. And you can’t blame the doctor all those years later for abandoning you.

Second, the paradox existed. Two amys could occupy the same time stream. We saw it happen. So you’re telling me that the one place in the universe where a time paradox cannot be sustained is inside the Tardis? Well that doesn’t make sense!

[Broomstick]

@msmith537

It would be interesting to see how they would react to the Doctor if he were put into another unwinnable position where he had to sacrifice someone for the greater good.

As we see this week, apparently he is willing to have someone else make the choice of who gets to exist and who doesn’t.

Did the Doctor even understand what he was doing to Rory? He just said, “She never existed” as though that was the end of it.

Yes, I think the Doctor understood exactly what he was asking of Rory. The Doctor has been making those sorts of hard choices for 900 (or whatever) years. You’re talking about someone who has had to make the choice between his entire species and the whole universe – twice. The Doctor knew he could save only one version of Amy. If Rory had not made the choice the Doctor would have had to make the choice, right?

@George_Kaplin

Terrific episode. 9 out of 10 for me. I’m deducting one mark, for Rory not telling old Amy to shut up and stop whining because 36 years is nothing compared to 2000!

And the response would be: “But Rory – you were plastic. You didn’t get old – look at me, I have wrinkles”

@aceplace57

I don’t know how they did such a great job aging Amy. She really, really, really looked like a 50 year old woman. Not that fake old person look like you see in Star Trek (when a virus makes everyone old). Prosthetics give that fake old age look.

That was like seeing another actress. The skin on the face had that middle aged sag. Lines on her forehead. I bet her tits sagged too without a bra. That was the best aged make up I’ve ever seen.

On her face, at least – she still had the hands of someone in their mid-20’s. Maybe I notice that more because, as a nearly 50 year old woman myself, I constantly see the job age has done on my hands. If anything, they look older than my face. Especially when she was hugging the door of the TARDIS and her face and hand are in close proximity, the mis-match was a bit jarring to me.

For a guy with so much guilt over what happened to previous companions the Doctor still comes across as overly self-centered; either he really is a colossal jerk or this is a ploy to push Rory and Amy away for some reason.

Or maybe the Doctor is getting tired of being the babysitter – instead of choosing which Amy to save the Doctor made Rory make the choice. The Doctor lied, yes, but if he hadn’t they might not have save either Amy. He actually treated Amy and Rory as adults, saying “YOU make this life and death decision for yourselves” instead of making it for them. Is that being a jerk, or is that treating them as if they’re equals? Would your prefer he make those decisions for them, as if they were children or (worse yet) pets?

Yes, they made the classic mistake early on of splitting the group. You know what? People make mistakes like that in real life, too. The plot is driven by them attempting to correct that mistake. It’s a hostile universe, sometimes it’s hard to fix things.

@Enderw24

Second, the paradox existed. Two amys could occupy the same time stream. We saw it happen. So you’re telling me that the one place in the universe where a time paradox cannot be sustained is inside the Tardis? Well that doesn’t make sense!

Maybe the two Amys could exist inside the TARDIS… but ONLY inside the TARDIS? Could the TARDIS have sustained that paradox across all of time and space? What if saving both Amys meant they’d essentially be prisoners forever in the TARDIS? Would that really be any better?

[Mahaloth]

Are Amy and Rory returning for the next series? I thought I had heard they were, actually.

Oh, if that is a big spoiler for some, would someone PM me what they know? I never consider contract renewals and so forth to be too spoilery.

[Don_Draper]

@Enderw24

…the paradox existed. Two amys could occupy the same time stream. We saw it happen. So you’re telling me that the one place in the universe where a time paradox cannot be sustained is inside the Tardis? Well that doesn’t make sense!

There were two Amys (Amies?) because the Doctor did some timey wimey thing in the TARDIS to cause that to happen. It’s just that the ship would not sustain that paradox. It just wouldn’t last, and since the ship had already landed and in essence grounded itself in old, bitter Amy’s reality, when the paradox ended it would likely have dispelled the young Amy.

[AlsoNamedBort]

@Enderw24

Second, the paradox existed. Two amys could occupy the same time stream. We saw it happen. So you’re telling me that the one place in the universe where a time paradox cannot be sustained is inside the Tardis? Well that doesn’t make sense!

I don’t think the paradox was being sustained at the facility. That’s what all that shaking around was about. It’s not an instant “Oh uh, paradox, universe is not erased.” It’s like that episode where Rose saved her dad’s life and the universe started falling apart.

[brianmelendez]

@Galwegian

Actually, I don’t buy that either. Moffat isn’t trying to make the viewer hate the Doctor.

Agreed. But Moffat may be trying to help the viewer understand why the Doctor loathes himself.

[brianmelendez]

@Nobody

So the Master could make the Doctor’s TARDIS into a paradox machine, supporting millions of beings killing their own ancestors, but the doctor couldn’t alter his TARDIS to support one paradox. :dubious:

Well, the Master probably knew how to fly a TARDIS.

[Morgyn]

One of the things I’ve gotten curious about is why there’s only one time the Doctor can tell someone his name.

What’s so special about his name? Presumably before he became “The Doctor”, he had a name that people used for him and that he introduced himself with, and it’s not likely to have been Theta Sigma since he didn’t get that nickname until college. So why is it a secret, and why is it the Doctor says there’s only one time he could even tell it to someone? What’s stopping him from saying it any time he feels like it?

[DSeid]

@Galwegian

I think he sees that now.

He’s seen it before. Remember the bit when he reamed The Doctor for what he makes others (read Amy) do as they try to impress him. Rory loves Amy and will do anything to protect her to the best of his capability. He’s never particularly been fond of The Doctor as much as he is rightfully awed by him. Rory doesn’t much need all of time and space - his complete universe is Amy - and having to make this choice is as traumatic an event as could ever happen to him.

[Nobody]

@Galwegian

I don’t know much about the Valeyard except that he’s a future EEEVIL incarnarion of the Doctor. Maybe you’re right.

Was the timeline leading to the Valeyard in the original series averted, or is he still to be expected sometime in the future?

In the original series they never did touch on the Valeyard again before it ended.

Some people are thinking that maybe the Dream Lord might be the beginning of the Valeyard. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if Moffat or a future producer follows up on that.

[Alan_Smithee]

Wow. I think they might have gone too far this time. I might hate the Doctor now.

Yes, I know that the choice had to be made, and that letting Rory and Amy make it was probably the right thing to do. I get that we all make choices and that every decision we make cuts off a possible future. The me that would have been a doctor never existed because I didn’t go to medical school. And all the people who would have met that me don’t exist either. And on Doctor Who, those other people aren’t just hypothetical; the Doctor has met them, has interacted with them and made promises to them, and if the Doctor meets college-age me, anything he says to me, any interaction he has involves deciding which of the futures he’s seen, which of the possible mes and possible yous, gets to live and which ones don’t. From the Doctor’s perspective, every action is a kind of genocide.

So yes, I get that, I think I’m fine with it, and I like Doctor Who exploring that idea.

But then he said one thing. When he was trying to convince Rory to choose young Amy, when old Amy was banging on the Tardis door, trying to get in, he said “She’ll never have existed. She’s not real.”

She’s not real. Did Amy hear that? Was her last thought before her timeline faded, “It doesn’t matter, I’m not real”? Rory heard it. “She’s not real.” While she’s out there, banging, desperate to live. Before the decision has been made. Before she never existed. (Just like Rory “never existed” once.)

None of us is real to the Doctor. It doesn’t matter how long he’s known us, how many promises he’s made, what we’ve done, what we’ve been through, what he’s caused. He can wipe it all out. Wipe out our whole world and everyone we’ve known, and then he runs away and tries never to look back. And it’s not like he has to. “That’s not how I travel.” What kind of excuse is that??? Why does he have to travel? He could live out his time on an asteroid at the end of time. He cold never have left Gallifrey. He keeps complaining about his guilt, but he doesn’t change his behavior, does he? (Because then the show would be over.)

I love this show, and I loved this episode, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to enjoy it the same way any more, because I don’t think I like the Doctor any more. And I’m don’t think he deserves to get a clean slate, to get a fresh start by wiping out his own future the same way he’s wiped out so many others. I don’t think there’s an ending to the season that will satisfy me because I don’t think anything can redeem him from “She’s not real.” It’s like when a friend makes a horribly cruel, racist remark. It doesn’t matter if they “didn’t mean it,” or if they had a reason for feeling that way, or if they try to make it up. It’s revealed a side of their personality that colors the friendship no matter what else they do or say. Doctor Who worked because I always wished I could be friends with the Doctor. I don’t think I want the Doctor to be my friend anymore.

[jackdavinci]

@Morgyn

One of the things I’ve gotten curious about is why there’s only one time the Doctor can tell someone his name.

What’s so special about his name? Presumably before he became “The Doctor”, he had a name that people used for him and that he introduced himself with, and it’s not likely to have been Theta Sigma since he didn’t get that nickname until college. So why is it a secret, and why is it the Doctor says there’s only one time he could even tell it to someone? What’s stopping him from saying it any time he feels like it?

Presumably it’s either part of getting married or on his death bed. One of which we know River was there for, and the other which has been hinted at.

There’s a lot of lore in other stories and religions about knowing someone’s true name giving you power over them. The Doctor must have had some childhood nickname that he used in public, just as he was Theta Sigma in college and The Doctor afterwards.