Just watched the 2nd episode of the new Doctor Who series. Once again, I liked it. However, I have a problem with it…
The Doctor said that his planet is dead and that he is the last remaining Time Lord, thus explaining why he is wandering the universe. This seems to be in direct opposition to previous canon about the Time Lords and Gallifrey. I wonder how they’re planning on reconciling the two…
I don’t know how how to do the spoiler thing - so look away now if you need to…
The whole series is based around the Dalek Wars (which are coming). Galifre got mashed in this war (this is the war that was being referred to in the first installment).
I believe that there is some kind of rule that the Time Lords must obey about how they themselves can move through time and how it affects them chronologically.
I can’t remember what it is, but it rationalises some of the potential paradoxes that thinking about the Doctor Who universe can so frequently bring forth.
Another good episode. But the fact that I know this Doctor is only doing one series spoils it for me.
It is a bit of a doozy of a paradox, isn’t it. Doctor cheers up Rose by making it easy for her to phone home through time, even as the Earth is about to die, to demonstrate that her world still exists, just in a different time. But then he gets all upset about the fate of his own planet as if the same principles didn’t apply.
It’ll be interesting to see if it isn’t addressed in some way in the coming weeks.
A good episode, though you have to wonder if the event was such a big draw, with such important people, why did we only see a handful of them? If it was so important the place would be flooded with hangers on, flunkies and lesser sight see-ers. The dilemma at the end, with the magic-button-that-saves-everything but in such an inconvenient location, was also a bit contrived. And I’ve a feeling there was some kind of ‘message’ intended about the last human, but am unsure what it could be. Don’t do plastic surgery, kids?
The spoiler in the OP seems to indicate that:
Many of the events of the series of novels might be cannon. Note I said, might be, not are.
I too was puzzled by the point raised in the OP. [ * unboxed spoilers ahead * ]
“The Doctor said that his planet is dead and that he is the last remaining Time Lord, thus explaining why he is wandering the universe.” But he is also wandering around in time, so a phrase like ‘last remaining’ doesn’t make sense. If he wants, he can go back to a time when his planet isn’t dead and there are still time lords around.
And if the time lords know how to build a device like the TARDIS, how could one ever intelligently make a comment about their becoming extinct? For any given observer, at a given point in time and space, there could be any number of time lords whizzing around way into the past and way into the future.
The phrase ‘last remaning’ only makes sense from the point of view of someone who cannot travel through time.
Digression: you know there’s one thing I’ve always wanted them to do on Dr. Who that I don’t thnk they’ve ever done. Just once, I’d like them to pull off a really smart special FX shot showing that TARDIS is larger inside than it is out. Any old fool can just cut between scenes obviously shot on different ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ sets. With today’s FX technology, you could show someone (Rose?) having a really good look all the way around the TARDIS, with the camera following her around the entire ‘outside’ of the box, and then push through the doors and into the vast interior… all done in one smooth, continuous shot with apparently no cuts or joins.
Ianzin, they did attempt that in a TV special about The Doctor, sometime in the early 90s. The TARDIS was on the banks of the Thames, too, which was a particularly clever way to prove there wasn’t any set behind it.
A bit primitively executed, though.
Well, they are Time Lords. Perhaps they have some kind of existence outside of what humans understand (or are even able to experience) as time. And with reference to that existence, the Doctor is the last of them. And at some point in the future this becomes common knowledge to post-humanity. The Doctor is the last Time Lord. Due to Gallifrey being destroyed in some utter, irrevocable extra-temporal fashion. In a war. Hopefully with Daleks. In a two-part episode.
“Jade, nooooooo! You’re made of wood!”
Priceless. 
That sounds interesting, although as a reader of the novels and listener of the CD audion adventures I was hoping that they would be tied together.
With the Doctor mentioning a war it seemed that they might tie it in to the Lawrence Miles spin of with a war between the time lords and an unidentified enemy (not the Daleks).
Have you got a cite for the Dalek war info?
No cite but a pal of mine is insanely interested in this and he told me (he takes part in messageboards and goes to conventions etc, so i take his word for it (and yes he is gay).
Mind you he also told me that the next Doctor was going to be that bloke from the League of Gentlemen
Given the fact that Ecclestone is quitting he may end up being right.
the bloke concerned (stephen gattis) is a huge who fan and has written a couple of Doctor books. However he’s a bit too “kooky” for my taste. I still think it will be the Casanova bloke (in an ideal world the Bill Nighy rumours would be accurate)
The next episode looks interesting. It is set in Cardiff in 1869 , features Charles Dickens (played by Simon Callow) and a whole lot of corpses coming back to life. The writer is Mark Gatiss from* The League of Gentlemen* and is called The Unquiet Dead
That’s the fellah i meant by the next doctor. My pal (who works for the BBC and is a part of that whole gay mafia thing they have going) is convinced he’s next.
Huh? What’s him being gay got to do with anything?
It’s not the fact that he is gay, it’s the fact that he is part of “This thing of ours.”, a gay mafia, metaphorically speaking, meaning that more than one person connected to the New Who is gay, weather by being a producer, or by being a fan who is not ashamed to admit it.
You may not be aware of this but in Britain (and maybe elsewhere) the majority of die-hard Doctor Who fanantics are gay.
Really? Cite? I have been a Doctor Who fan for years (since the Pertwee era), I’m not gay, nor have I encountered a large number of fans who are (not that I have a problem with their sexuality), maybe I move in different circles.
Although I do recall a big outrage from the gay community at the kiss in the 1996 movie, so maybe you have a point. Perhaps I’m just not that much of a diehard.
In the context of the series I thought that making the Doctor non-sexual seemed kind of a good idea, as he comes from a civilisation billions of years in advance of us, so sexual relations with a human (of any sex) would be a bit like shagging a chimpanzee. It happens, but you don’t encourage it. From a cynical point of view, other than the obvious use of a human assistant to keep the viewers attention, I always thought of the assistant as a pet of sorts. But perhaps I’m assigning shadier motives to the Doctor than the series warrants. It’s probably due to all the virgin books series in the '90s.