Doctor Who/Headscratchers/2009 Specials

(Yes, the person who moved me does realise that "2008-10 specials" is technically the more "correct" term)

The Next Doctor

• So Queen Victoria's encounter with the werewolf in 1879 convinced her that there were alien beings with hostile intentions against Earth, and inspired her to found Torchwood to fight them. Was the appearance of a 500-foot-tall robot which crushed half of central London in 1851, before being blasted with an energy wave by a man in a hot air balloon and disappearing into thin air, not enough to convince her?
  • It's possible she was out of London at the time. Or the reports she received didn't make clear the giant robot was alien at all.
    • Time is in flux. All we know is Torchwood could now have been founded in 1851.
    • Both Children of Earth and Miracle Day, which aired after "The Next Doctor", maintain the 1869 date.
    • The fact that nobody, even the Doctor, remembers the 1851 events is lampshaded in the episode itself, so I consider it to be the seeding of a running plot.
    • The citizens were freaked out, so they blamed it on an opium binge. Humans have an amazing capacity of self-deception, because the public will always refuse the existence of aliens.
    • It's reasonable to assume that, without having witnessed it first-hand, and with no surviving evidence as to what actually happened, she wouldn't have a clue what went on. And, just no be nit-picky, the giant robot wasn't alien in origin, and nor, strictly speaking, were the Cybermen who built it.
    • He/she's right.
  • 500 feet? Closer to 90, 100 tops. Still noticably large yes, still a Humongous Mecha, but 500feet is silly. I can think of several mecha including Real Robots that size wise far outclass it... and if you include Super Robots its easy-peezy.
  • How did the Doctor recognise the Cyberking as a ship, when no such thing has ever been built by the Cybus Cybermen? Let's not forget, these aren't the Cybermen he's been encountering intermittently throughout his life; the only contact he's had with them was in "Rise of the Cybermen" and "Army of Ghosts".
    • Because it Looks like a Cyberking, and Cyberkings are ships.

• Okay, so Ten destroys the Cyberking and stops the Cybermen from upgrading the world. Fair enough. . But just how the hell is Earth's history not affected by a huge bloody robot stomping around 19th Century London?
  • It's likely that a crack in time erased those events from history.
    • Indeed. The Doctor all but confirmed that in Flesh and Stone.
    • Okay, now what? The explosion of the TARDIS has been undone.
    • It's possible that since the TARDIS explosion is now no longer a factor, people will remember the Cyber-King now; having not seen anything beyond 'The Big Bang', it's impossible to say for certain. Alternatively, in recreating the universe certain events might have been kept, and others lost; the Cyber-King incident might be one of those incidents which fell between the cracks, so to speak.

• In the beginning, the Doctor and the Next Doctor (or whatever you call him) grab onto a rope and get pulled around. At first they can't let go because they're midair, but later they're being pulled along the floor, and it's strongly implied that they're going to die, until Rosita cuts the rope and saves them. But why can't they just let go of the rope, seeing that they're currently on solid ground?
  • There's a quick close-up of Jackson's hands holding the rope, and the rope is tangled around his hands, so he can't simply let go.

Planet of the Dead

• When the bus ran out of fuel, why couldn't the Doctor have just asked for UNIT to send in some fuel in a metal box to protect it from the wormhole?
  • Because then the episode wouldn't have had a flying bus in it. One is forced to the conclusion that the flying bus is a Fixed Point In Time(tm), so the Doctor had to ignore any possible solutions (eg, tow the bus out with a steel cable or send in an armoured personnel carrier that might have been simpler but didn't lead to flying buses.
    • Or...seeing as how the bus was nearly ripped apart when it went through the gate, the likelihood of a metal box ripping open and thus spilling the gas all over the sand, rendering it useless, was too great for the Doctor to even consider suggesting it.
      • Then put the metal box with the fuel inside another metal box...
      • Oh, please, who thinks of that?
      • WE WILL TAKE AWAY THEIR METAL BOXES! Sorry, couldn't resist.
    • A box filled to the brim with enough fuel to power a bus tumbling through a wormhole. Can't imagine it would be TOO bad.
  • In the light of "The Waters of Mars", there's another explanation: The Doctor deliberately refused to ask UNIT to do any of these things, and didn't give them enough information to think of their own solutions, because in his growing arrogance he'd decided that he was going to be the one to sort the whole thing out single-handed, and no-one else was going to be allowed to steal his thunder.
  • The Doctor could also have just asked UNIT to push his TARDIS through the portal. Since it's completely indestructable, it'd get through the portal just fine. Then everyone can escape quite easily.
    • Hate to point this out, but the TARDIS isn't indestructable. It just has shields which protect it (which, for all we know, only work when the TARDIS is travelling). Plus, I think he knew that, if the TARDIS was pushed through the portal, who/what put it into the portal would also go as well, therefore killing/destroying it as well (how else did they manage to travel through the portal in a bus, if not protected by a magic bubble). I think he just didn't want to have more blood on his hands. Anyway, (I haven't seen the episode in the while, so I might be wrong here) I don't think the TARDIS was close enough to where he was for them to find it, explain why they needed to transport the police box (assuming the perception filter doesn't make it impossible to find it) and get it to his location before he had found a way back. I think that he knew how long it could take them to find the TARDIS and, as such, decided to only ask for it if there was no other way back.
    • The TARDIS can use shields without moving; we saw that in Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways. As for how they'd get the TARDIS through without killing anybody, they could just as well use a robot or, as a matter of fact, a bus. (Or more likely a metal truck, because you'd have to fit the TARIS inside.) UNIT does manage to retrieve the TARDIS by the time the Doctor gets back. I suppose that if they had retrieved it very recently then it didn't make a difference either way. But if they had been holding onto it for a few minutes then yes, they should have thought of pushing it through.
  • Another idea: UNIT could just send in a tank. It's metal so it gets through the wormhole. It's tough so it won't get damaged. It has big treads so it won't get stuck in sand. Send the tank through, have people get inside, and put it in reverse. Take multiple trips if you have to.
    • That of course assumes that UNIT could find a tank in time. The whole experience lasted less than an hour.

• Why is the Doctor able to use his psychic paper to convince the Oyster Pass (TM) Machine that he has fare money?
  • Rose used it to fool an ID-badge system in "Army of Ghosts". IIRC, the creators said during the Dr. Who Confidential for that episode that they had Rose do that specifically to show that the psychic paper works on machines as well as people. Therefore, working on Oyster Pass™ is "fine" because it has a precedent. Complain about "Army of Ghosts", the precedent, instead.
    • Oh dear. I missed Army of Ghosts, so I apologize. My point still stands though, I'm just shifting it to Army of Ghosts - why does the Psychic Paper Work on a machine?
    • Possible explanation- it's explained that the psychic paper projects anything the user wants it to- perhaps there's a barcode that acts like a master key that the Doctor uses on occasion and may have taught to Rose prior to Army of Ghosts.
    • It also made me think of the fairies in Torchwood. Considering that they can apparently choose to become invisible to security cameras, it at least sets a precident that there are ways to trick sensors. In this case projecting the image of what the user wants.
    • Because the paper itself is psychic. It doesn't just take an image from the user's, or indeed the victim's, mind. The paper can use its psychic ability to analyse the machinery and display information, barcodes, possibly even generate a magnetic strip, as required.

The Waters of Mars

• First the Dalek ignores a young Adelaide, despite there MO being the destruction of all of reality itself at that time. That alone is bad, as they were shown actively killing people who disobeyed them in The Stolen Earth, so why would it spare that one child?
  • Secondly The Doctor changes something which he's spent the entire episode deeming a set place in time. As in you can't change history. The kind of thing that, if changed, releases The Reapers, as shown in Fathers Day. Where were they after the Doctor completely changes the history of the human race?
  • For the first one, her death was a fixed point in time, and the Daleks were somehow aware of that and didn't want to screw things up for themselves by interfering. The second, well, The Doctor is INSANE at this point. There are probably Cosmic Horrors that would run away from him. It's also possible that, given she killed herself almost immediately afterwards, not much has changed. The other two were referred to as "Small people" meaning their existence probably doesn't have a big impact on the timeline.
  • I thought for the first one that the Dalek spared her life because of Davros ordering everyone back to the Crucible.
• So, Tricking Out Time wasn't an option in The Waters of Mars? Why does the universe care whether an astronaut dies (with the body never found) or gets TARDISed off to the 59th century?
  • Because the Doctor wanted to defy Time. Leaving history (apparently) the same as he found it wouldn't have been good enough for him in that mood.
  • I thought the whole episode was to show the Doctor that even if he is the only Time Lord, time will always snap back into place (that is, the event will happen) at those fixed points, whether he wants it to or not. Also, the Reapers were paradox eaters- ie Rose touching her younger self is a paradox, whereas the paradox for Adalaide was fixed almost immediately. Also, is it just me, or are they working up to a breakdown of Houseian proportions (hearing voices, seeing Ood Sigma)? WHO WILL BE HIS WILSON??

• OK, so the Doctor spends the WHOLE time essentially going on about how this is a fixed point in time and how it must happen before he decides to give everyone that is still alive a lift home to Earth... but why did he get so worked up about this ONE point. Presumably, he has been travelling for some time since the Time War and there have been other events where his hands were similarly tied... the Doctor has a big soft spot for saving people but really, he's known these people for five minutes and then all of a sudden has a mental breakdown, realises he's the God Damn Batman of Time and it's time to flip off the universe? SURELY there have been other points when he'd have more compelling reasons to mess around with the rules. Beyond going on about fixed points in time, there isn't much lead up to this - and not to mention, that he even cites precedent for this - the Fires of Pompeii - where he did something almost identical.
  • This is what happens when he doesn't have a companion to act superior to, bounce ideas off of, and tell him when he's gone nuts. He gets a little.. loopy.
  • Those other moments may not have affected him as much because he's rarely been close to breaking point before, as he is here. Sometimes people just snap.
  • Not to mention the prophecy of his own forthcoming death in Planet of the Dead. I suppose that by this point, the Doctor figures if he can stop even a Fixed Point in Time from occurring, he can avoid his own death. Fair (if desperate) logic.
  • He reveres Adelaide highly, she's one of his personal heroes. Imagine being given the chance to save one of your all time historical heroes (as he's done countless times before) with what seemed to be no negative consequences. Short work for the batman of time.
  • I just assumed that the Doctor doesn't go to fixed points in history; the TARDIS is specifically programmed not to land in those points because the Doctor wants to avoid situations like these where he's not supposed to change anything. Anytime he does land in a fixed point it's a freak accident, which is why he freaks out a bit when he realizes where and when he is. So the reason he hasn't been so worked up about similar unchangeable events is because he never personally experienced those events.

• Gadget was practically covered in the infected water on his way out of the station. Keep in mind that the Flood virus seems to transmit fairly easily from one source or form of water to the next, not to mention the great efforts that the Doctor and company had taken all episode to not come in contact with anyone or anything that had touched the stuff. So, naturally, when Gadget enters the TARDIS (touching the doors and control panel in the proces) or later rolls out of the TARDIS and onto the snow-covered ground outside Adelaide's home, this isn't brought up as an issue. And then the Doctor LEAVES GADGET. Sure, he's a bit out of it, what with Adelaide having just killed herself, but aren't there repercussions to leaving a robot that's still potentially covered in a dangerous virus in an environment that the virus thrives in??
  • Well, we can argue the canonicity of this, but one of the recent spinoff novels establishes that the TARDIS has an excellent filtration system that activates immediately once the door closes (capable of eliminating every last trace of ammonia within the entire ship within 30 seconds or so). It's likely that said filtration system could have eliminated the virus.
  • It's been suggested on TARDIS Wikia that the fire evaporated the water on Gadget.

• Does anyone else think that Adelaide's "importance" is a bit...arbitrary? Sure, she inspired her granddaughter to command the first starship, but if she doesn't, why wouldn't the ship simply be launched with a different commander? Unless she built the thing herself, Susie Fontana Brooke is no more vital to the timeline than Neil Armstrong.
  • We don't know the whole situation, but presumably it was something she did that nobody else would do that makes it important- hell, it was the first starship, maybe she was the only one crazy enough to do it. Plus all her descendants that go out there do important things too, as the Doctor points out- even a whole new species results from a Brooke. Presumably those are all fixed points that just have to happen.
  • For what it's worth, in the original ending Adelaide lived, and the Doctor told her to inspire her granddaughter in person, until RTD thought it wasn't dramatic enough and changed it.

• In the same vain as the previous querry, why does Adelaide's suicide "fix" the timeline? We learn that her grand-daughter went into space having been inspired by her grandmother's heroic death on Mars; committing suicide on Earth under mysterious circumstances is not going to have the same effect.
  • Here's my best understanding of how Doctor Who Temporal Mutability works. The Butterfly Effect is not nearly as much the case as scientists belive in the real world. Time (to the extent that it's correct to personify it) cares deeply that fixed events happen, and it doesn't care as much about the logic of their happening, even when one fixed event leads to another. So if "Adelaide's death inspires granddaughter Susie" is a fixed event, then by God it's going to happen, even if the logic of it seems strange. (Continued in next bullet)
  • I'll admit I don't find this system very narratively or logically satisfying; my intuitions about history are a bit more Butterfly Effect-driven. But I grant this ""Close Enough" Timeline" thing to the show, especially since the fundamental premise of hopping about from one famous event to another doesn't work quite so well without it. (In the very first story, the characters interacted with cavepeople; by my understanding of history, this would be very likely to mean that a specific distant-future event, like the Titanic, wouldn't happen in exactly the way we know it, unless You Already Changed the Past is in effect, which, in Doctor Who, it very often is.) (Continued in next bullet)
  • In any case, because the cause of the Bowie Base team's deaths (in the old timeline) had been completely mysterious, Susie Fontana Brooke didn't know whether it was heroic or not, so there's that. (Done. Whew!)
  • Actually, we have no confirmation that Adelaide's suicide "fixed" the timeline any moreso than her survival would have done. We know that her original death on Mars led to the standard future. We know that her new suicide on Earth leads to a very similar future. What we don't know is what would have happened if she just took the Doctor's advice and lived her life. We didn't have, for instance, a repeat of Father's Day, wherein the reapers start eating people until the timeline is (relatively) back in place.
    • That's true but even in Father's Day, the reapers didn't show up immediately and Adelaide killed herself within five minutes or landing, which is before Pete even got Rose back to his apartment.

• What was the Flood doing near the end of The Waters of Mars? Assuming Maggie (How did she survive the shuttle explosion, anyway?) was cracking open the glacier to free the rest of the virus, what would that have accomplished? The shuttle had already been destroyed, so they couldn't just load it with infected water and leave for Earth, and since the base was falling apart around them it wouldn't have been too long before they were exposed to Mars' freezing temperatures. The infected bodies couldn't be frozen as explained earlier, but wouldn't the rest of the Flood just freeze all over again, making whatever she was doing completely pointless?
  • It seems that the Flood has been frozen for a long time; millennia, if I correctly recall. It's possibly not really thinking far beyond "Finally! We get not to be frozen anymore for a while!"

• In "Waters of Mars" how does Adelaide commiting suicide still inspire her grand daughter to become an astronaut?
  • It's the same inspiration, there are things out there that are terrifying. So terrifying that Adelaide's granddaughter was determined to explore them? Whether it is because they killed her grandmother or she killed herself BECAUSE of them.
  • Susie's parents probably stressed her grandmother's heroism and actions and downplayed or concealed her suicide when talking about her; assuming how dedicated her parents were to building up this heroic impression of her grandmother, she could have probably gone well into young adulthood without finding out.
    • I doubt that. Adelaide's death, whicher way it happened, was really high-profile. Once she started school, she was going to find out even if they could keep it from her before.
    • Fair point, but that's easily where the 'stressed her heroism' part comes into it.

• Why does the Mars base have gigantic hallways between sections? First off, they're so long that the episode has a running gag about the need for bicycles. Adelaide mentions that they didn't bring bicycles, or anything else not absolutely necessary, because every pound of cargo requires three tons of fuel. But if their technology is limited enough that fuel is such a concern, why did they build these gigantic hallways? Seriously, they're big enough for a truck to drive through. There's no need for such capacity when the base only holds a few people, and obviously big hallways require more material to build that small hallways. So apparently they brought all these extra materials (and resulting fuel) just so they could build their hallways far larger than they needed to be. It's just bad design, is all I'm saying.
  • Not necessarily; it depends on how far ahead you're thinking. Presumably Bowie Base One is intended to be the foundation of a greater human presence on Mars—a larger facility, perhaps even eventually a colony—and is built in anticipation of future development with plenty of space to eventually accommodate upgrades, supplies and a larger population; they wouldn't have built it if it was only ever going to be for these ten (or however many) people. Since building materials presumably weigh more (and thus cost more) to send up than people and things like bikes, you're not going to want to be constantly sending building materials up, since that's going to cost a lot over time and decrease how many other useful things you can send up (such as more people, bikes, etc). If you build it big to start with, then it's built—it might cost a lot to initially get the resources up there, but once it's done you don't need to worry about sending any more building materials to expand it further until it reaches capacity, by which time you've presumably sent up a lot more people and other useful-but-nonessential tools (such as bikes), you've got a thriving community going and you can start drawing upon the resources around you (such as mining, terraforming, etc) to help you expand, thus lessening the amount which needs to be sent from Earth. Built it small initially and equipped solely for the first people there, however, and if you want to expand your operations then you need to send more building materials from Earth, which means less people and other things which could be useful, which means everything develops at a much slower pace. Bikes were presumably a nonessential item, since everyone on the crew could just walk to where they want to go.

• When the Doctor talks about the prophecy of the four knocks, he states that he "thinks [he] knows what that is, and [he] doesn't hear knocking, do you?". Considering that he was not aware of The Master, what did he think that was?
  • He presumably just thinks that when he hears 'four knocks', he's going to die soon after (he "thinks he knows what that is" is simply Death coming knocking for him, metaphorically speaking) -- and since he hasn't heard any knocks, he's confident that it doesn't apply to him just yet.

• Alright, I'm ready to face complaints of being part of a Fan Dumb or Misaimed Fandom or operating on Blue and Orange Morality or whatever, but this has been bugging me for over a week now and I just NEED to get it out. What is it with everyone acting like the Doctor crossed the Moral Event Horizon in Waters of Mars? That he has become some kind of monster that crossed the line or something? Because frankly, I don't see it. He went Screw Destiny to save some lives. That's pretty much a hero-exclusive thing. He went all arrogant and had a bit of an A God Am I thing going on, boasting about saving "unimportant people" and being the Time Lord Victorious (am I the only one who thinks that's an awesome title?), fine. But those were just words. He always had a thing towards the Badass Boast. I'd feel boastful too if I just defied the universe like this. People don't just change suddenly at the snap of a finger. He'd still be the Doctor in the future. Even if he decided to change future events, it'd be likely a nicer universe than one that sends Time-Dragons to eat everyone involved at an inconvenience. Then there's the thing that he risked a different future. So what? That it was a different future doesn't mean it would be a BAD future. YMMV if it's worth the risk I guess, but trying would make him a Well-Intentioned Extremist at worst. And as he said, Adelaide could've just inspired her ancestors by being alive and at home. It's not really so great a change that it could end up in the world being ruled by Daleks or something. And even then, the Doctor would find a way to fix it. Sure, maybe he'd eventually end up changing all of history, but if he had good intentions for it, that'd at least be somewhat acceptable. I don't see him as a future Evil God-Emperor or something, anyway. Now the "the rules of time shall obey me!" thing? Yeah, that's pretty arrogant, I admit and defies typical hero humility rules. But the Doctor always was a bit arrogant. Nothing wrong with that, as long as he stays a good person. Besides, I myself see it as a bit of a "Make the power your own to do good" thing. Similar to what Dark Is Not Evil people try to do? You're tropers, you should know what I mean. The point I am trying to make, even if he went a bit over the edge ego-wise, there is nothing in that episode to warrant everyone acting like he became a monster. If a classical hero is faced with the choice of letting people die for some rules or saving people and breaking the rules, most of them would screw the risks and try to save lives anyway. Again, the Doctor would be a Well-Intentioned Extremist at worst. Maybe that's not his style, but he's not going to turn into the Master overnight.
  • First, yeah, I know what you mean. He was a bit arrogant but overall his actions were justified; he was just trying to save people and he actually did it (though the suicide made it less of a triumph). Basically, the lesson of that episode didn't really mesh with the actual events of the episode, and the fans who say the Doctor did something evil here are mainly parroting the intended lesson. Second, obviously most fans don't think the Doctor is evil, even after this episode, because we're all still watching the show and we still love the Doctor.
  • This, I suspect, is going to be a bit of an essay, but I can't help but feel that some points are being missed in the above posts (and in a lot of these "oh, well Adelaide could have inspired her granddaughter anyway" style arguments in general) that I'd like to address.

Firstly, if nothing else, unintentionally or not the Doctor drives a woman to commit suicide. We can go backwards and forwards and quibble about whether Adelaide could have inspired her granddaughter in person or whether the future would have been the same or different, or whether she did it to spite him or whether she did it to teach him a lesson or whether she did it because she was broken by the uncertainty the Doctor's actions directly contributed or what her motives were. But fact remains, the Doctor's actions directly contributed towards Adelaide deciding to take her own life. That's pretty bad all by it's lonesome, and not just because it makes what he did 'less of a triumph'. Not surprising that people would take a dim view of the Doctor there.

Secondly, cliche or not, there's a reason that people say "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". People have gone on to do terrible things having started out with good intentions. The Doctor might not become evil (although I don't believe anyone is saying that he is) and he might not do so overnight, but good intentions or not, he is putting himself on a path that can lead to him committing great evil. Because even if 'all' he's doing is becoming a Well-Intentioned Extremist, that's still pretty bad. Because an extremist by his or her very nature can't see when too far is too far. The Doctor is becoming blinkered, and whether he starts off with good intentions or not, that can have terrible consequences. Because good intentions by themselves don't mean a damn thing; it's what the end consequence is, and the end consequence here is, well, as mentioned above a woman is driven to commit suicide. When your first supposed glorious triumph ends with a woman killing herself, it's hard to see how that bodes well for the future, or how any amount of good intentions makes that okay.

Thirdly, the Doctor does not just become 'a bit arrogant'. That's an understatement if ever there was one. It's very quietly done, but he essentially decides that being the last Time Lord means he's unquestionable lord and master of all of time and space. That he can do whatever he wants, even fundamentally alter history itself and change the fabric of the universe to suit his will, and if anyone doesn't like it? "Tough." "That's for me to decide." (Yeah, those are direct quotes from him when someone challenges him about all this. Should tell you everything you you need to know about the mindset of the Time Lord Victorious towards people with dissenting viewpoints). Anyone—even the Doctor—both having that kind of power and deciding to use it, quite frankly, a fucking horrific idea. Adelaide is right; no one should have that kind of power or try to use it. Because no one can be trusted with it. Not even the Doctor. There's a reason people also say "power corrupts".

Fourthly, know who else thinks and sounds like this? The Master. Yeah, the guy who's tried to take over the universe a few times (and oh yeah, once destroyed a huge chunk of it trying to do so) because (a) he's completely nuts and (b) he thinks it'd be better with him in charge. The guy who the Doctor's spent most of the series, old and new, opposing on general principle. When the Doctor starts thinking and talking and acting like one of his oldest enemies? That's not a good thing.

Fifthly, what makes all of this horrifying (and where I suspect the point is being missed)? As the OP points out, when he's doing all of this, the Doctor's not that different from what he usually does and how he usually acts. But the crucial thing is, he's clearly crossed a line. Yes, he saves lives, but there's a difference between saving lives because it's the right thing to do and saving lives because you want to make the universe and everyone in it your bitch and let everyone know that "I'm the winner!"—the former is admirable, the latter is kind of monstrous, particularly since it's heavily implied that the Doctor is just doing this because he's terrified of his own impending death and wants to prove that he can change it if he wants, not out of any genuine benevolence. There's a different between flaunting the fact that you're the cleverest person in the room and deciding that everyone—except for a few people who happen to impress you—are "little people" who aren't really that important. Who the fuck is the Doctor to decide who's meaningful and who's a 'little person'? There's a difference between boasting a bit about how good you are and calling yourself something like "the Time Lord Victorious"—and seriously, people, that's the kind of thing supervillains and mad dictators call themselves. If you're giving yourself a name that Josef Stalin or Kim Jung Il would have happily given themselves if they'd gotten the opportunity, you might want to rethink things. The point being, the Doctor's clearly gone from being a lovably arrogant know-it-all to someone who thinks he knows best for the entire universe. That can't end well.

Sixthly; it doesn't end well. That's the point. Not that the Doctor's gone evil, but that his arrogance and hubris has had terrible consequences. And the key redeeming thing about it is that the Doctor realises this. He realises he's gone too far, that whether Adelaide could have lived and inspired the future or whether TIME ITSELF interfered to kill Adelaide, he's let himself get out of control and that a good person has suffered and died—and worse, taken her own life—because of him. That for all his good intentions, for all that he dismissed Yuri and Mia, the irony is that they get to live and the big prize he was after, the reason he was all so glowy and triumphant and smug? Is dead anyway. His arrogance has resulted in exactly the same thing he set out to prevent happening (and remember, he wasn't interested in the slightest about saving Mia and Yuri when it came down to it, they were just the 'little people' he happened to catch as well), only it's worse now because it's directly his fault that it happened. And really, it all comes back to point 1 -- for all the arguments we can have about whether the future would or could have been the same if Adelaide had lived or died, ultimately, the Doctor's arrogance led to a woman deciding to kill herself. Even if nothing else, that's why it's bad.

The End of Time

• What crime did Lucy Saxon end up in prison for, considering that the previous timeline where the Master rules the Earth no longer existed? It would really depend how evidence of Saxon's misdoings still existed. If there is no evidence of the Master's plot to take over the world, then she is in prison for murder of a head of state, quite serious. If there is evidence left over that the Prime Minister was planning world domination using mind control and allying himself with a hostile "alien" race, then being married to the man isn't a crime, and she would be at most charged with Manslaughter and would be a hero for stopping it in any case. Even in the latter case, what evidence existed that she was involved in her husband's plot? She could just say that she didn't know anything was out of the ordinary. Wait, did the killing of the President of the United States still happen?
  • The killing of the president did happen, it's stated in the news broadcast after the Paradox is closed. Also, despite Saxon's misdoings, she did kill an unarmed captive who never went to trial. The real issue comes with the fact that the Valiant isn't in any real jurisdiction (which is why the Toclafane were met there).
    • Not exactly...the Valiant itself was considered neutral territory. However it could have been hovering in what is considered British Airspace.
    • Given that he was still the British Prime Minister, for all his actions (which never happened now for most of the world anyway) in such a situation the British would have probably had the most valid claim on her.

• How did seeing the Master('s copies) trigger Donna's memories of the Doctor, despite her never meeting him at all beforehand?
  • She says seeing them change is like the things that happened before. Seeing something that weird happen triggered her memories of the other stuff she saw and experienced with The Doctor.
  • From Journey's End:

Doctor: And how do you know that?
DoctorDonna: Because it's in your head. And if it's in your head, it's in mine.

• • In other words, she has seen the Master, in a way, and is intimately acquainted with him.

• In part two of "The End of Time", having turned almost all of humanity into copies of himself, the Master decides, "We can all hear the Drums, they aren't just in my head ... I can use triangulation to figure out where they come from!" Only, all of the Masters are basically gathered at a single location in spacetime. You cannot TRIANGULATE from ONE POINT.
  • Well, they're not quite at one point. Clearly a few thousand miles was enough in this case.

• In The End Of Time part 2 the Doctor dies from radiation. Why didn't he siphon it off like he did in the season 3 opening episode?
  • Also, why doesn't he just go to, say, New Earth or somewhen else with good enough medtech to heal him?
  • I'm guessing that the amount of radiation was too much for him to safely siphon away. but i was wondering that too
  • He received 500,000 rads. That's an awful lot of radiation.
    • Indeed. rad&a=UnitClash_* rad.* Rads-- About 5 times as much as you need to kill a cockroach instantly.
  • Simpler way: Go to the Tardis (it's in the same building) and travel so as to materialize around Wilfred, just like he saved Rose in Parting of the Ways.
    • And by the time he gets to the TARDIS, Wilf's already dead.
    • Not necessarily. The Doctor only said the radiation would be released if a button was pressed. At no point was any time limit mentioned. Also, assuming he can get to the TARDIS, there's another method: find Jack Harkness, and get him to release Wilf.
      • And Jack could be anywhere; as memory serves, he's not even on the planet by this point. Wilf's about to be irradiated, he doesn't have time to look for Jack.
    • ...You arguing guys DO remember that the TARDIS is a time machine, right?
    • The rooms act as a vent to channel the radiation through safely; presumably if the button isn't pressed, the radiation can't vent, it builds up and then BOOM. There's clearly a sense that pressure is building up while they're talking.
  • The type and quantity of radiation in a hospital x-ray machine differs from that in a nuclear reactor.
    • This. The specific kind of radiation the machine was generating was a kind he had "played with as a child."
  • The button was to release the other door, not the radiation. That was about to vent somewhere anyway and it could only really go into one of the two booths.
    • No, I'm pretty sure they said that hitting a button would release the radiation. There may have been a time limit in addition to that, but if so it was only implied.
  • Why couldn't the Doctor have found something heavy, like a book or something, and tossed it onto the button rather than going in and pressing it himself?
    • He'd have still had to enter the chamber to put the book on the button. And the door still shuts behind him. And if he'd thrown it on from outside it could have missed or slid off. And, of course, he probably didn't have time to piss around looking for books.
  • On a similar note, wtf was up the design of that radiation chamber anyway? Who builds something like that that can't be evacuated quickly?
    • Yeah, let's explore that. Who designs a system such that, in the event of excess radiation, it vents the radiation into the control booth? That's probably the worst possible place to vent the radiation, because it's the one place guaranteed to have a person in it. And yeah, it had special shielding and such so the radiation wouldn't get farther than that, but if that's what we need then why don't we vent the radiation into some other box with similar qualities? In fact, why don't we vent the radiation into the other half of the control booth?!?!. Just have a thing that automatically closes the door of whichever side of the control booth is currently unoccupied, and vent the radiation in there. And furthermore, why is the venting process waiting for a button press? If it can hold the radiation indefinitely until someone presses the button, why not just hold the radiation forever? And while you're at it, let the guy out of the control booth!

• At the ending of "The End of Time", since the Tenth Doctor met Rose at a point in her timeline before she met the Ninth Doctor, how did she not recognize Ten when Nine regenerated into Ten?
  • Because when we saw her interact with Ten for the first time, she hadn't met Ten before yet. Now she has had met him. Time travel is involved. Do not question order of events and memories. Unless you went to a Time Lord Academy, where they presumably learn about this sort of thing.
  • Plus the fact that he was standing in the dark. Besides, do you remember every drunk you spoke to on New Years Day?
  • My ex girlfriend made me watch The Craft about 20 times when I was a teenager. I watch The Mentalist regularly and never noticed that they share a main lead until it was pointed out to me. Pretty much that.

• Doesn't the Doctor feel even the slightest bit of remorse when he regenerates into Matt Smith I mean he was crying, sobbing "I don't wanna go" a few seconds previous, he even resisted the regenerative process and blew up the TARDIS!! Afterwards, not even a "geez I went a bit mad then" or "Well that wasn't so bad" Eleven seems awfully insensitive towards, y'know, HIMSELF. He carries on as if nothing has happened. What a Jerk!
  • He did check out how his new body was before being like "ok enough of that for now there's something else happening.... oh that's right the TARDIS is about to crash land". He probably wants to make sure he doesn't crash to much and risk ANOTHER regeneration. He can work out personality/body issues after sorting out the immediate situation.
  • Well that IS kind of what Ten discusses with Wilf in the cafe. I mean, a 'new man goes sauntering away'... like he doesn't even care about what he did a moment before, it's all like it never was, and that's why regeneration feels like dying. Stopped the scene being so amusing for me TBH.
  • I thought, from all the laughing and giggling, that he wasa bit crazy at the moment, and wouldn't really be thinking straight.
  • Regeneration's a traditionally destabilizing process; presumably he was a bit more concerned with making sure he had all the required parts and didn't die crashing (and if we're talking Jerkass behaviour, I'm sure if we flipped the situation around Eleven could probably have some choice words to say about Ten's self-indulgence and over-dramatic angst resulting in the fact that Eleven was now starting his new life in a death-dive) than angsting about his last self's death. In all seriousness, I'm not sure that going too far down this rabbit hole will be wise, since pretty much every Doctor who's just regenerated has at at least one moment where he's all but gone "God I'm glad I'm now me, and not that last version of me; he was the worst..." Particularly since Ten was equally chipper after he technically 'murdered' Nine—what a sod.
    • Murdered him? Not saying that the regenerations couldn't be nicer about the previous selves, but isn't that a bit like blaming a newborn for a mother who died in childbirth?
      • Tongue, meet cheek. I wasn't being entirely serious there. Although considering that the OP is asking why Eleven isn't feeling 'remorse' (suggesting guilt rather than simply sorrow)...
    • With how he first tries to convince Rose that he is still Nine with a different face if it really is that he was a "new man" it could be seen as Ten is thinking "ha I can use the last guy's (Nine) experiences with Rose to totally get in her pants!"
  • Also consider that by that point, Ten was pretty much insane. I interpreted his sobbing dread of regeneration as yet another symptom of how incredibly broken he was - and Eleven's ability to get on with, you know, not crashing immediately afterward as evidence that the regeneration had healed not only physical harm but also stabilized the Doctor's mental state.
  • Eleven's first episode is all about him discovering his new tastes and preferences. This indicates that his emotional centers were also completely re-wired. He retains objective memories of his life in previous incarnations, but loses any personal stake in them. This could be the reason why Ten made his rounds to all his previous companions before he died, because he knew once he regenerated, his emotional wounds would be healed along with his physical ones, and the only way to do that would be to wipe the emotional attachment that caused the wounds in the first place. As Eleven, he likely avoids thinking about Ten specifically because dwelling on it at all would break him again and he can't afford it.

• Why does the Doctor keep being surprised to find that he's got legs, arms, a face, etc. when he regenrates, when we've never seen a Time Lord who looks like anything but a two-legged, two-armed, ten-fingered human? Well, except when Romana screwed it up on purpose.
  • The Master in the movie regenerates into a gelatinous snake (not sure if that counts because the doc didn't see him, but it's still something)
  • He's just concerned about a one in a million chance. It's probably meant to evoke the way new parents immediately count the fingers and toes (and doctors immediately check for more serious birth defects). It's probably rare, but if anybody's going to regenerate wrong, it's the Doctor.
    • According to some Expanded Universe Material the regeneration process degenerates with age, maybe the Doctor is just concerned about that.
    • The Doctor is always incredibly loopy just after a regeneration, and they're all pretty eccentric anyway, so there probably isn't any logic behind it at all.
  • To be fair, he's just rearranged every single molecule in his body to essentially become a completely different man. That has to be quite disorientating and unnerving, and he probably just wants to check he's got all the bits he should have.
    • Also, recall that Ten died of radiation posioning. What's one of the main problems for children born to people exposed to dangerous radiation? Mutation and malformation. Since Eleven had, technically, just been born, maybe it makes sense that he'd be a bit worried about having all his limbs.

• I was sold on the Time Lord's plot in The End Of Time- in large part due to a brilliant performance by James Rassilon- until the White Point Star was brought in. Why can it follow the Sound of Drums to the Master? Why by throwing it at a hologram? Why as a shooting star? Why does hooking it up to the Immortality Gate- A Sufficiently Advanced medical device do anything at all, other than looking neat? And why oh why leave that vital part of the plan up to a man who blew up a quarter of the universe once as part of a blackmail attempt?
  • The episode does a pretty good job of explaining this as it is, but let me give it a shot. The gem in question acts as a bridge between time-locked Gallifrey in the Time War and modern-day Earth. Since it's from the former but is in the latter, the two time periods then have a connection. But the only way this works is via the drumming sound, which the Master realizes is a signal, and uses the mental power of six billion Masters focusing on the Whitepoint Star to allow the Time Lords to complete the "bridge" as it were and cross time to end up on Earth. As for the hologram/shooting star... well, that's just how they sent it to Earth. Without a knowledge of Time Lord tech, I can't really say exactly how that works, but it wasn't really a shooting star, it just looked like that until the Master discovered what it was. They don't really explain how connecting the Whitepoint Star to the Gate works, but I presume that as brilliant as the Master is, and with alien technology right there, he rigged it up to double as a literal gate for the Time Lords. As many of him as there were, they probably could have done that easily, or perhaps the Time Lords did something on their end. Finally, since you ask why the Master, it's simple- the prophecy was that the Doctor and the Master would have their final battle in the future, on Earth, so the Time Lords knew that the two of them would survive. Also, we know that the Master ran before the conclusion of the Time War, so the Time Lords probably implanted the signal in his head so that it would be safe until they needed it. The only other option was the Doctor, and of course he ran from the Untempered Schism rather than staring into it, so... the Master was the only viable option. Rassilon was so concerned about his own personal safety that he probably didn't really even care who it was that had to live with the drums.

• The End of Time Part 1. Not even San Dimas Time or the Rule of Drama can really settle this in a way that satisfies me. So the Doctor finds out from the Ood that the Master is returning, so, because he has no time to lose, he rushes back to the TARDIS and heads to Earth with all speed, only to arrive at the scene too late. Which would be fine. If he weren't flying. A freaking. TIME. MACHINE.
  • And the Doctor has been able to perfectly pilot and steer the TARDIS to his intended destination since...when, exactly?
    • Whenever the plot SAYS that he can.
      • Which is practically never.
  • They even reference this in-episode. As the Doctor is leaving the Ood, they mutter something about "events in the past are occurring now", i.e. there's some Timey-Wimey Ball stuff going on because the evil plot (if successful) will culminate in the end of time itself. Probably it's physically impossible for the Doctor to arrive at the scene at the proper time.

• Why did the Gauntlet of Rassilon (for lack of a better name) take so long to charge up when Rassilon tried to kill the Doctor? At the start of the episode he vaporized the Time Lady who spoke out against him in a second, and when he undid the Master Race he again did it with a simple gesture that took only a second, if that. So why does it suddenly take half a minute or so to warm up during it's third use?
  • Perhaps, it holds a number of "shots" and has to be recharged before it can be used again, and he used the last "shot" undoing the Master Race.

• Did the secret conspiracy that resurrected the Master in The End of Time actually know he was actually an evil Time Lord? They certainly weren't present on the bridge of the Valiant and they consistently refer to him as Harry Saxon rather than the Master. Even though Saxon is probably notorious in this planet for murdering the POTUS on live television (They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot?), why would there be a sinister cult dedicated to resurrecting a dead Prime Minister? I know that some ardent chaps in the Monday Club can get a bit obsessive about Mrs. Thatcher, but this is kind of silly (and not in the Camp Good Doctor Who Style Of Silliness).
  • They DID know he was The Master. When Lucy tells them that his real name isn't Harold Saxon the woman in charge yells they know that his true name is The Master. Presumably he also told them about his true nature...with a few embelishments to make sure they would stay loyal
  • It's pretty clear that they were worshipping him because they knew he wasn't just a dead Prime Minister, even if they didn't actually know he was a Time Lord. And let's face it, it plays right into the Master's ego to set up a cult devoted to worshipping him that he can manipulate if necessary.
    • Who knows what the mind control powers of the Archangel network can do?
    • Weren't the effects of the Archangel network reversed when Jack destroyed the Paradox Machine, though?
    • No, that had been going on for at least a year prior to the decimation. All the destruction of the Paradox Machine did was reverse the invasion of the Toclafane. The Network was what got Saxon voted in as Prime Minister in the first place.
    • And The Master can mind control people WITHOUT the Arch Angel network
    • True, the network just amplified it.
  • My theory is the Master has made a cult for himself ever since he arrived on Earth, during the 1970s. All for the purpose of ultimately extending his life. This was just the first time he needed them. Hey, if the Doctor is seen by some as a deity, the Master could do the same.

• After "The End of Time", was anyone else worried that there might now be a higher rate of cancer amongst the old companions?
  • I don't get it. What do you mean? The Doctor's already established as absorbing radiation into his system.
    • He's incredibly radioactive, and the last time he was radioactive he didn't absorb it, he expelled it. I think I was quite sleepy when I wrote that, though, so there may have been something I missed. Or it could have been from thinking about Watchmen right before hearing the Doctor Who theme, with no other underlying logic. The radiation should have been dangerous, though, since he went and visited all his old companions without first expelling the lethal-to-Gallifreyans level of radiation.
    • Although he did either keep his distance or keep the time he hung around incredibly short.
    • And with Time Lord physiology etc., maybe he's just "holding it in" somehow, so the radiation he's absorbed doesn't leak into the surrounding environment.

• In The End of Time Part 2, why does the Doctor suggest the Gate transformed the dead into clones of the Master as well? This bothers me because a) the Doctor didn't even know what the Gate was and had to be explained, and b) the Gate is designed to heal (or in this case mutate), not resurrect the dead. Is this another part of the Tenth Doctor's Guilt Complex, simply him apologizing all over again.
  • When did that happen?
  • The Doctor and Wilf were on the Vinvocchi ship, looking down on the Earth. Wilf said that his wife was buried down there and asked the Doctor if the dead had also been transformed into the Master. The Doctor response was: "I'm sorry" and Wilf said "It's not your fault." They didn't outright say it but it was obvious what they were both thinking.
  • I don't think that the gate ressurected the dead, i think it just changed them to make their bodies into the Master, so essentialy, its like digging into a grave and putting a mask over them. Defamation is the best word i can think of
  • Yeah, no-one said anything about resurrecting the dead from that speech, just that their physical cadavers were altered.
  • Probably the Doctor doesn't know one way or the other if the dead have been defaced. But there's significant chance that they have been, so he says "I'm sorry".

• In The End of Time, the immortality gate is used to turn humanity into copies of The Master. It is then used as the gateway for the Time-Lords to break into the current time-line. So how exactly was the Master supposed to use it to turn the Time-Lords into himself? Especially after telling Rassilon his plan beforehand.
  • I think it's stated he adds a "Time Lord template" or something to the machine once they go through, and then he presses go.

• It's been well demonstrated that The Master is a messy eater in his current state as of this story. So, why were those two skeletons at the start standing perfectly upright with no apparent damage at all?
  • I assumed he didn't actually eat them, rather he just absorbed energy from them like he did the cult at the prison. The completed process just left bones, since he didn't finish the cult thanks to Lucy's intervention.
  • He thought it was funny? It would fit his sense of humor.

• In "The End of Time," when Gallifrey starts to materialize, it looks to be about ten times the size of Earth. That means that Time Lords must have much stronger muscles than we do if they're able to walk and stand up and so on normally. Now given how much time the Doctor spends on Earth, it's easy to imagine that he decided it would be worth his while to train his muscles to exert only a fraction of their strength so he could move normally in a lower gravity; but, like Superman or John Carter of Mars, he should retain the ability to use his full strength whenever the situation calls for a very high or long jump, or something. We saw the Master jump around like he was on the moon for a bit, but we've seen many more times when the Doctor and other Time Lords seem as bound by Earth gravity as humans are. The only other explanation (and this works only for the Doctor) is that he's spent so much time in Earth-like gravity (on the TARDIS and almost every planet he visits, his human companions get along just fine) that his muscles have atrophied to the point where Earth gravity is all they can handle; in which case going to Gallifrey would cripple him, at least while he was on the planet. Not an issue these days, since Gallifrey's not there anymore, but as recently as the end of the 1996 movie returns to Gallifrey occurred regularly. Also, Time Lord bones must be much, much denser than human bones, or they'd be shorter than Sontarans. I can't think offhand of the Doctor ever having broken a bone, can anyone else?
  • Not necessarily, gravity goes by mass, not volume. Well yes it's logical to assume that a bigger planet has more mass, the fact that Gallifrey is bigger then Earth, yet all evidence says it's has Earth like gravity, means we can only assume that Gallifrey's mantle and/or core is much, much less dense the Earth's resulting in the two planets having roughly equivalent mass.
    • I had thought that, but Galifrey is a terrestrial planet the size of a gas giant. It looked to be about the size of Saturn, maybe a little smaller, and gravity on Saturn is far greater than Earth—and would be greater still if Saturn were a terrestrial planet; those are much denser than jovian planets because they contain a greater proportion of heavy elements. If there's any doubt of that, look at just how many odds and ends we see Time Lords use are made from metal; if Gallifrey were significantly less dense than Saturn, it would have almost no metal and the Time Lords would use it extremely sparingly. (Though I suppose they could mine it from other planets or asteroids or moons, but not until they'd managed to get into space in the first place.)
    • Gas giant? Saturn!? Unless you're pulling this from somewhere other than what we SEE in The End of Time, that's patently ridiculous. Saturn's easily ten or fifteen times larger than Gallifrey, if not moreso! (Also, Gallifrey barely looks more than three or four times larger than the Earth, but that's neither here nor there)
    • Two things. One: judging for what we see in the episode, Gallifrey is nowhere near the size of Saturn. Saturn has about 9 times Earth's radius. Gallifrey seems only about three Earth's radius, that will make it, knowing volume increases with the cube of the radius and asuming identical density, 3^3 = 27 times as masive as Earth. Two: Surface gravity not only depends on mass but also on radius, because a greater radius means you are standing a greater distance from the center of mass, and if you remember high school physics, gravity equals the product of the masses divided by the distance squared. So, three times more radius means nine times less gravity. This makes Saturn surface gravity, contrary to popular belief, a bit LOWER than earth's because it has a big radius and a very low density (even Jupiter's is only two and a half that of Earth, not the tens or hundreds of times most people believes). Concluding, gravity in the surface of the Gallifrey we see in the episode would be 27/9 = 3 Gs tops, and that assuming Earth's density. If we allow for half the density of Earth, it would be reduced to 1.5 Gs . This would make it only a little less dense than Mars, so it's not an impossible density for a rocky planet, not sure how much iron would you find on its crust though, less than on Earth for sure, but maybe enough for Timelords necesities. And a gravity 50% percent higher would be unconfortable but not bonecrushing for someone acostumed to earthlike gravity.
    • Heck, they're Time Lords. I wouldn't be surprised if they manipulated the planet's gravity to be different than the laws of physics would normally dictate.

• How is it that the Master can shoot electricity out of his hands, jump around like superman, etc.? Has he done that before, or are these new powers he got from his resurrection?
  • His resurrection got interrupted halfway through, he's leaking bioenergy.

• Dear god, why did it take the Doctor forty minutes to die at the end of The End of Time?
  • You don't necessarily die instantly because of radiation exposure, no matter how high it was. Some perfectly normal people kick around for years... There's still the odd person here and there suffering from Hiroshima, isn't there?
    • Perhaps, but they weren't at the bomb's ground zero, they were several kilometres away.
  • Because that's how long the radiation took to kill him. Hey, it took Five about four episodes to die, so... besides, did you really want the Doctor to regenerate immediately and without any emotional value or closure to the whole thing?
  • I personally think it took at least a day, since he had to do a lot of research first. Figure out where everyone is, determine a nice way of helping them out, plan out the actual helping process, and finally execute the helping. He probably released flying time monkeys at least once, incidentally: there's not really any way of knowing about Luke and the car without previously observing the event. Noticing the Sontaran may have required similar time travelling, or just plenty of running.
    • The TARDIS is alive though, and if you believe the theory that it knowingly takes the Doctor to points where he's needed, it may have chosen those points in time of its own accord.
    • Or—you're forgetting those TV-like things that allow you to watch historical events. They cropped up once or twice during the First Doctor's era, I haven't seen them anywhere/anywhen else but they could very well still be around. He could've found out about stuff that way.
  • The Doctor should have died almost instantly from this particular radiation, since all the facial wounds vanish due to regeneration immediately after he gets irradiated. The regeneration had started, which means the radiation had killed him already, essentially. The real question becomes "why did the regeneration take forty minutes to reach ultra-explody glowyness, and why was the Doctor outwardly unharmed by the radiation until the very end of that scene?"
    • Time Lords do have a certain amount of control over their regenerations (the Master was able to stop his and Romana could seemingly choose her new appearance). It's possible that the Doctor "held it in" for a while, releasing enough energy to heal his wounds and keep him stable while he said his goodbyes, and then released it all in one big burst. It'd also explain why this regeneration had enough energy to completely trash the TARDIS.
      • Think of it this way; it's like when you really need the loo. You can hold it in, you can fight for as long as possible, but it's going to happen. And the more you hold it in, the more forcefull it is. Metaphorically, the Doctor was just holding it in until he'd got some paper.

• In The End Of Time, one of the Masters tells the actual Master "Night has fallen on Earth." which is all nice and dramatic and they go do the Big Plan. But won't it be day on half the Earth no matter what?
  • Having just rewatched it, I'm pretty sure he only says "night has fallen." But the Master's vain enough to consider where he is to be the center of the Earth (or universe) anyway.
    • It wasn't just a metaphor?

• Also in The End Of Time, Wilf knows about the "knocking four times" prophecy. What would have happened if he'd considered that and knocked three times?
  • He would have slipped and bumped his head on the glass.
  • Odds are with all that had just happened, Wilf wasn't even thinking about it. And even if he was, the Doctor thought he'd just escaped the prophecy. They both thought it was referring to the Master, after all. But yeah, it was going to happen no matter what, so had Wilf tried to avert it, it would have happened somehow.
  • Wilf initially didn't actually know he was in danger; he had no idea he was in a Nuclear Reactor, he just thought he'd gotten himself locked in a room and the Doctor could easily get him out of it. Hence, he had no reason to think that he was risking the Doctor's life; hence, he had no reason to not knock four times. In any case, no matter how many times he knocked the Doctor would still have to get him out of there, and would still die doing so; it would just mean that the prophet in the earlier episode was slightly wrong.
  • Remember how in The Sound Of Drums it was a minor plot point that a side effect of the Archangel Network was to subliminally compel everyone to tap out that very beat? The conditioning just hasn't worn off yet.
    • There's probably a study out there or something about the average number of times people knock when approaching a door... I would expect four to be the average.

• The Doctor makes an awesome entrance through a glass roof in The End of Time. Except... the Fourth Doctor took a much shorter fall in Logopolis and had to regenerate.
  • Obviously he's worked out and done (shorter) practice falls to practice bracing himself since then to prevent losing a regeneration to something like that.
  • There's a number of reasons that could account for it- younger body being more durable, godlike forces keeping him alive until the final four knocks, regeneration causing him to be a more fall-resistant species, Four landing at a really bad angle...
  • In the radio drama "The Paradise of Death", Three survives a long fall by "bone relaxation". It was still an insanely stupid thing to do: if Ten had misjudged his jump even slightly, the Master and the Lord President would have wondered briefly what that strange splat on the roof was and then gone back to chewing the scenery.
  • I think his plan was to regenerate, and use the violent burst of energy to his advantage. The TARDIS was just outside the room, after all. Then he freakishly survived, which almost ruined everything because he was too stunned by the fall to fight.
    • Deaths after falling from a great height are in reality very, very tricky things. It's not always just about how high you fall, but also about how you land (stunt doubles are taught to fall on their sides where possible - because there are no important bits on your sides). Some people sruvvie falling from much greater heights, while others are killed toppling down a set of stairs. I've even heard of a woman who survived a parachute jump from 10 000 feet when her parachute failed to open, because she managed to hit a single telephone wire on the way down, slowing her down enough to avoid death, and only suffer a couple of broken bones (she also used the relaxing technique mentioned earlier) - incredibly lucky, but possible. And Ten hit a pane of glass. This makes a lot more sense than the radiation bit, I reckon...
    • ... and Four fell on his back, so probably hurt some "important bits" landing. QED.
    • ...but Ten fell onto his front, so he would also hurt important bits.

• How inane was the alleged Sadistic Choice in The End of Time Part 2? Shoot the Master, and Rassilon is sent backwards in San Dimas Time to be immediately killed by an earlier version of the Doctor. Shoot Rassilon, and Rassilon is shot. The only difference between the two options is whether the Doctor kills the Master and Rassilon, or just Rassilon. Why would he even consider shooting the Master? Well, aside from him being an Omnicidal Maniac, but we've established that that doesn't matter.
  • I presume you mean 'why would he shoot Rassilon?' since you yourself have established that he's got a valid reason to shoot the Master; to send Rassilon and the other Time Lords back into the Time War. As for 'why shoot Rassilon', after years of angst about being the Last Of The Time Lords and how he doomed his entire race to die, I'm not surprised that for all his talk he'd hesitate a bit before dooming them to their fate after laying eyes on them for the first time in years. He's probably tormenting himself with second-guessing loads of possible third options he can take ('maybe if I kill Rassilon, they'll become sane again and stop this madness about ascending to gods so I don't have to send them back to the Time War and I don't have to be all alone again', that sort of thing. Vain hope maybe, but I imagine it would be difficult to wipe your entire species out for the second time in a row in a cavalier fashion, no matter how inevitable.
    • The Master seems to think shooting Rassilon will also break the link; i.e. have exactly the same effect as shooting the Master, except without killing the Master. But that works as a Fan Wank if we assume the Master was wrong.
  • My query is...why didn't the Doctor just shoot the machinery/white point star right from the beginning?
  • My question actually comes from a different part of the same scene- Rassilon, to prove he's a real douche, decides that the Master has Outlived His Usefulness and prepares to kill him. Only the Master hasn't outlived his usefulness- the drums in his head are keeping the link open, and as seen several minutes later, breaking the link instantaneously dooms the Time Lords. So if 10 hadn't turned up at all then Rassilon would've Idiot Balled himself out of existance and taken the Master with him, and 10 wouldn't have died rescuing Wilf.
    • With the machine active, the Master might not have been integral to the link anymore. All we know is that when it was destroyed, Gallifrey and the Time Lords vanished. Whether killing the Master would really have done the trick is still an open question.

• It's been established that Donna must not remember anything about the Doctor, or else her mind will burn up and she will die. So Donna starts remembering, and her mind starts burning up...and then she zaps everyone around her somehow and then she falls unconscious. Then later she wakes up without memories, but oddly she only wakes up when the TARDIS makes its characteristic noise. How did this happen?
  • Ten erased her memories once, presumably that safeguard he told the Master about re-erased her memories if she ever started to remember. It is a coincidence that she woke up when the TARDIS started up.

• Was any one else pissed at the revelation that the Time Lords had tried to commit genocide? the Time Lords were, as Giles the Krillitane pointed out, a race of dusty old senators. They were essentially Star Trek's Prime Directive taken to the extreme; willing to borderline execute the Second Doctor for simply trying to explore the universe. Now we see that they were no better than the Daleks - how is it possible for us to now feel sympathy for the Doctor during his emotional speeches about Gallifrey and all it's wonders now that we know they were willing to destroy everything we hold dear? between this and the fact the Time Lords started the damn war (by sending the Fourth to end their creation) the Time War actually comes off as less heroic battle to save the universe from the Daleks and more the Daleks were acting in self defence.
  • Well I'm not sure on the specifics of what the Time Lords did when, but (a) the Doctor already called out the Time Lords for being dicks (in the old series), so it's established that Time Lord society is corrupt, and (b) Time Lord history goes back for a billion years (according to Rasillon), so all those emotional speeches could be referencing some previous time before the society turned corrupt, and/or certain aspects of that society which aren't as bad as the stuff referenced above. In fact, IIRC most of those speeches were about Gallifrey itself, with natural wonders like red grass and stuff. Obviously the red grass can't be blamed for crimes committed by Time Lords.
  • And it's hard to have sympathy for the Daleks, for obvious reasons. Even if they're involvement in the Time War was essentially self-defense, they've proven themselves to be Space Nazis on a thousand other occasions.
  • He's doing what countless bereaved relatives have done regarding their deceased loved ones; choosing to remember the good qualities rather than constantly tormenting himself with all the horrible stuff. And considering he's the one who stopped them from destroying everything we hold dear at great personal cost to himself, who exactly are we to bitch about how he chooses to remember them?
  • It seems like later seasons have retconned this a bit, perhaps realizing they'd gone a bit too far in death eating the entire Time Lord race. "The Day of the Doctor" shows the Time Lords as having done some very bad things, but not as the callous monsters "The End of Time" shows them as, and in "The Time of the Doctor" the Doctor's main worry about returning Gallifrey to the timeline is how it will renew the Time War and likely get all the Gallifreyans killed anyway, not that he'll be unleashing fresh monsters. Basically, just how bad the Time Lords were in this episode has either become canon discontinuity, or something that was unique to the Rassilon-controlled council and that once the Master took care of him, the rest of the Time Lords were worth saving.