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Post by icecreamdf on Dec 9, 2015 19:46:53 GMT
The Daleks don't know that the Time Lords are back though, and even if they did, they don't know what era they are in. One of the novels describes the Epoch of Mass Time Travel, as the periods of history where time travel is common. Gallifrey is now well past this period, and history is huge. The Daleks wouldn't know where to look. Well, first, I don't think what some random novel says makes my critique about something on the official show wrong. Anyway, as with other point, further argument may not be productive. I'm simply not buying that the Daleks, who fought a war across all of space and time to the point of defeating the Timelords (and would have won but for Day of the Doctor), who also knew for a fact that the Timelords were trying to get back - the entire plot driver of Time of the Doctor - AND who can find the Doctor anywhere in spacetime with ease....just....... ....forgot and became clueless. The sudden incompetence of the Daleks and the silent disappearance of all horrors from the time war contradict multiple episodes penned in both RTD and Moffat eras. I think that's bad. This is literally the only show on television where I have to make a bunch of stuff up that didn't happen on-screen to explain this kind of inconsistency. (Also, the original series and BF audios manage to avoid tripping over themselves like this) The novel is what described the Epoch of Mass Time Travel, but it isn't the only thing that shows it exists. There have been episodes of the show where the Doctor goes to the distant future or the distant past and says something along the lines of "even the Time Lords never made it this far." The Time Lords have gone way out, past the end of most civilizations. The Daleks found the Doctor by checking places where he can be expected to go, and then they presumably found him the same way Clara and Missy did. The Time Lords aren't drawing attention to themselves by playing a guitar on top of a tank. They are hiding. The Daleks would have to search all of time and space if they wanted to find the Time Lords. Time and space are both very big.
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Post by randomjc on Dec 9, 2015 19:51:35 GMT
Well, first, I don't think what some random novel says makes my critique about something on the official show wrong. Anyway, as with other point, further argument may not be productive. I'm simply not buying that the Daleks, who fought a war across all of space and time to the point of defeating the Timelords (and would have won but for Day of the Doctor), who also knew for a fact that the Timelords were trying to get back - the entire plot driver of Time of the Doctor - AND who can find the Doctor anywhere in spacetime with ease....just....... ....forgot and became clueless. The sudden incompetence of the Daleks and the silent disappearance of all horrors from the time war contradict multiple episodes penned in both RTD and Moffat eras. I think that's bad. This is literally the only show on television where I have to make a bunch of stuff up that didn't happen on-screen to explain this kind of inconsistency. (Also, the original series and BF audios manage to avoid tripping over themselves like this) The novel is what described the Epoch of Mass Time Travel, but it isn't the only thing that shows it exists. There have been episodes of the show where the Doctor goes to the distant future or the distant past and says something along the lines of "even the Time Lords never made it this far." The Time Lords have gone way out, past the end of most civilizations. The Daleks found the Doctor by checking places where he can be expected to go, and then they presumably found him the same way Clara and Missy did. The Time Lords aren't drawing attention to themselves by playing a guitar on top of a tank. They are hiding. The Daleks would have to search all of time and space if they wanted to find the Time Lords. Time and space are both very big. Didn't the Daleks find the Doctor by Following Clara and Missy?
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Post by mrperson on Dec 9, 2015 20:17:42 GMT
Well, first, I don't think what some random novel says makes my critique about something on the official show wrong. Anyway, as with other point, further argument may not be productive. I'm simply not buying that the Daleks, who fought a war across all of space and time to the point of defeating the Timelords (and would have won but for Day of the Doctor), who also knew for a fact that the Timelords were trying to get back - the entire plot driver of Time of the Doctor - AND who can find the Doctor anywhere in spacetime with ease....just....... ....forgot and became clueless. The sudden incompetence of the Daleks and the silent disappearance of all horrors from the time war contradict multiple episodes penned in both RTD and Moffat eras. I think that's bad. This is literally the only show on television where I have to make a bunch of stuff up that didn't happen on-screen to explain this kind of inconsistency. (Also, the original series and BF audios manage to avoid tripping over themselves like this) The novel is what described the Epoch of Mass Time Travel, but it isn't the only thing that shows it exists. There have been episodes of the show where the Doctor goes to the distant future or the distant past and says something along the lines of "even the Time Lords never made it this far." The Time Lords have gone way out, past the end of most civilizations. The Daleks found the Doctor by checking places where he can be expected to go, and then they presumably found him the same way Clara and Missy did. The Time Lords aren't drawing attention to themselves by playing a guitar on top of a tank. They are hiding. The Daleks would have to search all of time and space if they wanted to find the Time Lords. Time and space are both very big. So the entire premise of Time of the Doctor is meaningless? The statements about the time war horrors in the End of Time were just lies we should ignore? The Daleks fought a war across all of this "very big" time and space - a war so vast it threatened to destroy the entire universe - and would have won but for the Doctor, but now they're incapable of looking? If they can't detect things across all of time and space, how did they fight a war across all of it? Contrary to Moffat's suggestion, I am not going to "just accept it."
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Post by icecreamdf on Dec 9, 2015 20:55:58 GMT
The novel is what described the Epoch of Mass Time Travel, but it isn't the only thing that shows it exists. There have been episodes of the show where the Doctor goes to the distant future or the distant past and says something along the lines of "even the Time Lords never made it this far." The Time Lords have gone way out, past the end of most civilizations. The Daleks found the Doctor by checking places where he can be expected to go, and then they presumably found him the same way Clara and Missy did. The Time Lords aren't drawing attention to themselves by playing a guitar on top of a tank. They are hiding. The Daleks would have to search all of time and space if they wanted to find the Time Lords. Time and space are both very big. So the entire premise of Time of the Doctor is meaningless? The statements about the time war horrors in the End of Time were just lies we should ignore? The Daleks fought a war across all of this "very big" time and space - a war so vast it threatened to destroy the entire universe - and would have won but for the Doctor, but now they're incapable of looking? If they can't detect things across all of time and space, how did they fight a war across all of it? Contrary to Moffat's suggestion, I am not going to "just accept it." In The End of Time, Gallifrey was going to come back right in Earth's solar system. In Time of the Doctor, Gallifrey was going to come back through the crack on Trenzalore. The Daleks would be able to find them easily enough in either place. I don't see why the Daleks and Time Lords would need to be capable of viewing all of time and space to fight a time war. If that were the case, both sides would be omniscient. Finding a single planet in the entirety of time and space would be impossible, unless the Daleks already knew where to look.
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Post by mrperson on Dec 10, 2015 1:07:14 GMT
Finding a single planet in the entirety of time and space would be impossible, unless the Daleks already knew where to look. "Impossible": Our fundamental disagreement is that I cannot understand how that can be true given the vast unimaginable picture of the Time War that has been presented. I don't think we're going to convince each other to change our minds....at least I doubt I will on this particular point. Even while typing the second sentence during this edit, I thought "I can't believe that neither side imagined hiding at the end of time and building up forces for exactly this reason. The Doctor has called the Daleks 'geniuses.' What kind of genius doesn't think of using time-travel shenanigans to start calculations on how to hide a planet at the end of the universe, before the Time War began?" Here we are, humans, speculating about what entities purported to be vastly more intelligent than us would or could not think of? If the reboot is going to present the Daleks as a brilliant evil species capable of defeating the Time Lords*, I refuse to make up off-screen excuses for how they could possibly have failed to be vigilant for Gallifrey's return. *(but for only one of them: the Doctor) __________ Also, as far as I recall, the references in the End of Time and other episodes were not about or solely about Dalek re-ignition of the Time War (alone). There were references to monsters/weapons/etc deployed that should never have been deployed, which would be unleashed on the universe were Gallifrey to return.
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Dec 10, 2015 1:26:40 GMT
Surely Daleks (at the "present moment in continuity") haven't found Gallifrey because as far as they know they already destroyed it? Boom, gone. Move on to the next whatever, or their survivors have. Analogies: If I look for my keys and find my keys I don't keep looking for my keys. If I destroy something I either have to buy a new something or do without. I don't look for the something, why would I? It's gone. Correct me here guys, is there a scene or info drop that tells the Daleks that Gallifrey is back? And it ISN'T in The Time of the Doctor because I just rewatched it to check.
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Post by icecreamdf on Dec 10, 2015 1:31:51 GMT
Finding a single planet in the entirety of time and space would be impossible, unless the Daleks already knew where to look. "Impossible": Our fundamental disagreement is that I cannot understand how that can be true given the vast unimaginable picture of the Time War that has been presented. I don't think we're going to convince each other to change our minds....at least I doubt I will on this particular point. Even while typing the second sentence during this edit, I thought "I can't believe that neither side imagined hiding at the end of time and building up forces for exactly this reason. The Doctor has called the Daleks 'geniuses.' What kind of genius doesn't think of using time-travel shenanigans to start calculations on how to hide a planet at the end of the universe, before the Time War began?" Here we are, humans, speculating about what entities purported to be vastly more intelligent than us would or could not think of? If the reboot is going to present the Daleks as a brilliant evil species capable of defeating the Time Lords*, I refuse to make up off-screen excuses for how they could possibly have failed to be vigilant for Gallifrey's return. *(but for only one of them: the Doctor) __________ Also, as far as I recall, the references in the End of Time and other episodes were not about or solely about Dalek re-ignition of the Time War (alone). There were references to monsters/weapons/etc deployed that should never have been deployed, which would be unleashed on the universe were Gallifrey to return. Reboot? Anyway, nobody's making off screen excuses. The Time Lords specifically said they were hiding at the end of the universe. Even if the Daleks knew to look at the end of the universe, that is a vast stretch of space and time. In the End of Time, all the horrors of the Time War would have returned because the Gallifrey was going to break through the time lock. Now that Gallifrey survived the war, the time lock is not an issue. In Time of the Doctor, Gallifrey's return would have reignited the war, because the entire universe knew where they were coming back. This time, they've had the sense to do things quietly.
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Post by Ela on Dec 10, 2015 6:49:49 GMT
Why would you think that the Sisterhood of Karn wouldn't know where Gallifrey is? That wasn't actually my point. My point was that if the Doctor was really so upset at the end of last season about not finding Gallifrey, then at the start of this season he's seen to visit Karn... he should have known they would be the ones to ask in the first place, really. And even if they didn't want tell him, I don't think he'd settle for that if he really did want to know. Maybe the Sisters didn't know at the point of time that he saw them at the start of the season. Maybe they found out later.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 7:18:53 GMT
That wasn't actually my point. My point was that if the Doctor was really so upset at the end of last season about not finding Gallifrey, then at the start of this season he's seen to visit Karn... he should have known they would be the ones to ask in the first place, really. And even if they didn't want tell him, I don't think he'd settle for that if he really did want to know. Maybe the Sisters didn't know at the point of time that he saw them at the start of the season. Maybe they found out later. Maybe... no hang on, ignore me. This one's going to take some rationalising.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 7:43:57 GMT
Maybe the Sisters didn't know at the point of time that he saw them at the start of the season. Maybe they found out later. Maybe... no hang on, ignore me. This one's going to take some rationalising. This all kind of fits with my own theory that the Sisterhood created the Renegade (a.k.a War Doctor) as a troubleshooter for the War, before he chose to leave or abandon them in favour of covertly fighting for the Time Lords. In other words, he became an ultimately unreliable double agent. Following this theory, it's possible that Ohila is pulling a Kreia from KotOR II: The Sith Lords where she's been telling him half-truths since their reacquaintance and the Doctor has been playing a verbal game of cat and mouse with her in order to tease out any information she or her sisters might have about Gallifrey. To varying degrees of success of course. The road to Karn would have been an interesting one to see actually because I very much doubt that a post-War faction would allow themselves to be easily discovered by creatures like the Daleks. Oh, hey has anyone seen the movie Throne of Blood? I'm totally seeing a Macbeth-style encounter of three witches spinning tales about the future to the Time Lord for their own benefit.
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Post by icecreamdf on Dec 10, 2015 15:32:02 GMT
That wasn't actually my point. My point was that if the Doctor was really so upset at the end of last season about not finding Gallifrey, then at the start of this season he's seen to visit Karn... he should have known they would be the ones to ask in the first place, really. And even if they didn't want tell him, I don't think he'd settle for that if he really did want to know. Maybe the Sisters didn't know at the point of time that he saw them at the start of the season. Maybe they found out later. They found out billions of years later.
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Post by Ela on Dec 10, 2015 17:11:56 GMT
Maybe the Sisters didn't know at the point of time that he saw them at the start of the season. Maybe they found out later. They found out billions of years later. That would make sense.
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Post by constonks on Jan 23, 2016 14:29:32 GMT
Gallifrey is literally positioned at the end of the universe. Probably all the Time War Horrors that came through with it either got lost in the pocket dimension or lost in empty space.
If it's the end of the universe, after everyone's dead but Ashildr, the humans from Utopia and the humans on Ember, why would the Daleks look then? Are they especially known for their creativity?
As for Karn, Night of the Doctor and The Magician's Apprentice might be pretty late in the universe's timeline. They could just naturally wait to find out. We don't know much about the longevity of the Sisters - or whether they could time travel or enter suspended animation in some way.
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Post by mrperson on Jan 24, 2016 22:13:11 GMT
Anyway, nobody's making off screen excuses. The Time Lords specifically said they were hiding at the end of the universe. Even if the Daleks knew to look at the end of the universe, that is a vast stretch of space and time. In the End of Time, all the horrors of the Time War would have returned because the Gallifrey was going to break through the time lock. Now that Gallifrey survived the war, the time lock is not an issue. In Time of the Doctor, Gallifrey's return would have reignited the war, because the entire universe knew where they were coming back. This time, they've had the sense to do things quietly. Well, 1., again: we simply disagree. I think the idea that the Daleks were capable of fighting a war across all of time and space - AND were about to wipe out the Timelords - but somehow, they can't find Gallifrey "hiding near the end of time". I could have swallowed it if the two races and their war weren't discussed in such grandoise terms: the higher dimensions ruffled, every point in time and space is burning, stop the war to save reality, etc. But they were and because they were, the excuse of "well, our eternal and implacable foes just haven't noticed us yet" does not fly for me.
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Post by mrperson on Jan 24, 2016 22:18:48 GMT
Gallifrey is literally positioned at the end of the universe. Probably all the Time War Horrors that came through with it either got lost in the pocket dimension or lost in empty space.
Well, that second sentence is what sticks in my craw. If you're comfortable assuming something necessary to resolve a seeming contradiction, what I complain about won't bother you. If you're like me and would rather prefer not to have to assume explanations like that to resolve contradictions, what I complain about will bother you. For me, there's only so much "just accept it" in a program. Actually, I should take ten steps back. What sticks in my craw isn't this little inconsistencies in their own right. What sticks in my craw is that since someone took over, plots and season arcs are presented in a really complex fashion. The presentation communicates to the viewer: you should pay close attention and think about these things if you want to get what happens. But what happens ends up being internally inconsistent, and the only way to resolve that inconsistency is to make up possible resolutions for it. Neither the old show nor BF do this to the viewer. Anyway....my main rant (despite the effort expended on this one) is actually that the return of Gallifrey was seriously muted and this episode made about Clara, and the grant of potentially eternity-minus-one years of life.
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Post by constonks on Jan 25, 2016 3:56:56 GMT
Oh I agree with all of that. I still liked the episode but yeah several of those points are enraging even if the final product still worked for me overall. Although the second it stopped being about the Doc running Gallifrey, I too lost hope about it being an Amazing Episode.
The previous post was more a fan coping mechanism stroke in-universe theory than an actual narrative excuse.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 20:04:09 GMT
(I reckon that Rassilon must've caught that nasty constant-regeneration disease of off Borusa.....) As well as that unfortunate habit of regenerating into a doddery old bloke
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 21:11:11 GMT
Okay, these last two episodes were good to watch but after thinking about them all of the flaws that others have pointed out come out more and more for me.
The whole taking Clara out of time and letting her loose... that actually didn't bother me that much. I like "hard" science fiction but Dr Who, and time travel in general, is not that. It's fantasy with a scientific veneer... and I guess I only like fantasy when it sets out it's rules and lives by them. The Laws Of Time as laid out in Doctor Who though, are a swiss cheese rulebook. And that does bother me at times, but the fact that Clara was taken out of time like that, doesn't actually bug me.
Now, I would have rather liked someone to have mentioned the name Charlotte Pollard to the Doctor before he left Gallifrey... a very similar situation, but this time he did it intentionally. And we don't know what the consequences of it are going to be this time. (in Moffatville, probably nothing)
One really big thing that bugged me was how the Sisterhood of Karn showed up. Really. So they not only knew where Gallifrey was, but had the means to get there easily. And they didn't tell the Doctor. Right.
I actually have no idea what Gallifrey's timeline is on NuWho now. I don't even want to discuss it in detail because I can make no sense of it. I don't know if should bother to go rewatch the Gallifrey-related stories before listening to the War Doctor set. Somehow I don't think it would help.
Anyway, the other big problem I've had with this whole season is about "Me" - the whole story of her immortality. The Doctor saves here by cobbling up some convenient materials he had at hand and, basically, creates a immortality machine. I cannot fathom that "Me" survives until the End Of Time without others coming to know about her "condition" - and once a thing is known to be possible, it makes it more likely to be duplicated. So don't tell me she managed to not get studied, poked, prodded etc over the millennia... in fact I'm surprised she hadn't been taken apart atom by atom at some point to get at her secret. And with that secret out, I'm surprised there was not a huge crowd of immortals waiting there at The End, not just "Me".
About that immortality... one thing that bugs me is that, well, nothing lasts forever. Yes it was a good plot device to have Ashildir's memory not able to keep up with the passage of time (but that also makes her End Of Time encounter with the Doctor a bit dodgy, she speaks too comfortably about events from a gazillion years ago, even if she re-read that chapter in her diary constantly), but I just can't imagine that the device the Doctor created to keep her going would last until the end of eternity like that. And despite the memory loss, I can't see anyone wanting to live that long... (Douglas Adams addressed that humorously with his Wowbagger The Infinitely Prolonged). I would almost tend to guess that Ashildir didn't live out all those years but used some other form of time travel (suspended animation or a time machine of some kind) to bring her to that point quicker. But I just cannot accept that entropy would allow her to exist truly as an immortal.
But it's amazing at how much I'm willing to overlook by having the Doctor steal another TARDIS with a Type 40 1.0 Desktop Theme. I did like the sound design they did for that TARDIS, even if some sonic elements, like the door, are from later on in the series (actually, I wouldn't have minded the 1980s-era "arrival chime" when they landed at the End Of Time)
I've never "loved" the sonic screwdriver, I see it the way JNT did, it makes things too easy for the Doctor. But I quickly came to hate the sonic shades. I hope they stay on that counter in the TARDISDINER forever... Not sure if I like the look of this new sonic screwdriver that his TARDIS spat at the Doctor, but I'll take it over the Ray-Bans any day.
Okay, enough babbling.... I agree with nearly all of this, except I like the shades, and mentioning Charley would have been a bit much.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 21:16:00 GMT
So do we think any of this will get followed up on in Season 10 or will Moffat do something completely new. I'd really like him to tie up what felt like a lot of loose ends.
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Post by icecreamdf on Jan 27, 2016 0:02:34 GMT
So do we think any of this will get followed up on in Season 10 or will Moffat do something completely new. I'd really like him to tie up what felt like a lot of loose ends. My guess is that he will do something completely new (or involving Missy) in season 10, and Rassilon will be the main villain in season 11.
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