Predictions for the Chibnall Era

Look a diversion. *Runs away*

I didn't know Marty McFly was on this forum! 

That that counts as "establishing" is the problem.

Again, though, this only depends on how much a given viewer values consistency.

It was established that every cell in a Time Lord's body changes during regeneration. It was never a huge stretch to conclude that that meant that gender can change. The fact that the Doctor never asked Missy how she became a women pretty much confirmed that gender-change regenerations were not unheard of.

I find it really bad that a showrunner is throwing everything,including the kitchen sink, into Doctor Who.
The Corsair gender changed was knowledge prior to NuWho, and the Doctor half human was known in 1996.
RTD sensibly pushed it to the side, and left it there.
Along with everything else Moffat has thrown at us, he's making a huge mess for himself and Chibnall.
Hopefully, Chibnall, at the very least, won't expand on anything and leave it in the shadows. So, that big fans know its there, but doesn't get in the way of the story telling.

1. The Romana thing was a gag intended to mirror Tom Baker's clothes-changing gag when he first started out. It was presented precisely as a gag and then ignored, because the Classic series at least knew how to joke about itself without "taking the piss" (if I understand that expression correctly).



2. As for answering my own point, no, I said the complete opposite. I cannot fathom why anyone would expect a show to present a list of everything that will never be allowed to happen in the show. What would they do, scroll it with the credits?

Of course not. So, as I reasoned, if a show goes 50 years (a hell of a long run time), you tend to expect that if a major thing like sex-change regeneration isn't mentioned for the first 50, it isn't going to ever happen unless there's some reason for it to happen. (I don't count wacky banter as such a reason).

You disagree. Very well. But that doesn't mean I answered my own point. I explicitly disagree with your view of that which sets the show's boundaries.



3. I'd also note that the other persons who support the notion of sex-change regeneration are not being terribly consistent. Go look in the thread paulmorris started on it. Oh, sure, give us a female Doctor, but by no means select someone who isn't British or Scottish. Say.....what? How can someone logically and consistently say having a female doctor for the first time doesn't contradict the show's history but, somehow, having a non-British Doctor does?

I hope they don't make Rassilon into yet another returning bad guy.



I do want to see the discontinuity between everything the new series said about the Time War and Hell Bent.

For the first eight seasons, the Time Lords couldn't be brought back because "hell" (the Time War) would immediately return. This was a war in which "every point in the universe is burning", necessarily meaning the Daleks - who had time travel before the reboot, no? - were capable of tracking down Time Lords at all points in spacetime. We also know that the Daleks survived and expanded to the points of (1) helping lock the Doctor in the Pandorica, (2) fighting humans in all-out conflicts, (3) rebuilding Skaro, (4) fighting the seige of Trenzalore for several hundred years and being the last remaining baddies on the scene, and practically winning it but for a cheap out.

And now what? Gallifrey is back and nobody notices? It's still there at the end of time? Really? I don't care if they say it's now placed at the beginning of time or end of time or in a generally overlooked corner of the universe, I am not buying that suddenly the Daleks cannot find them. They are waiting for them to return and they're bloody well itching to go back to war. That was the entire driver for the plot of Time of the Doctor.

Am I supposed to just assume there was some kind of stalemate/cease fire silently agreed to off-screen? Or, as I fear, am I just not supposed to notice because this is now light casual entertainment where stuff just happens because a writer/showrunner thought it would be cool to have happen, consistency be damned - to forget about the importance of Gallifrey returning and the Time War reigniting because, oh look, we're bringing another dead person back to life because why should things like death matter?

I hardly think things like introducing regeneration instead of canceling a popular show compares even the slightest bit with saying, 50 years later, "oh, hey, actually they can change sex during regeneration" just to set up a potential female Doctor.  (For the same reason, the notion of granting extra regeneration cycles cannot reasonably be objected to because the only other choice was canceling the show.).

You mention things like traveling without a TARDS - time ring, yes? - that is a counter-example. That supports me. There was an in-story reason, that actually lasted through a few stories, for doing that. Further, it wasn't inconsistent by way of past omission: one would expect people capable of building TARDISES to be capable of building other time travel technology but would not necessarily expect it to be mentioned until there was an in-story reason. The Doctor already had a TARDIS. (For the same reason, a Vortex Manipulator didn't seem jarring when added).

In contrast, I would very much expect to hear about sex-change regeneration after 50 years of episodes dealing with Time Lords, episodes on Gallifrey, and regular talk by the Doctor about Time Lords in general. It's one of those rather important things about the species and its society, much like being hyper-intelligent.

Further, in light of my other statements, I suspect I wouldn't be nearly as irked by the addition if Moffat hadn't shown such complete disdain for continuity in general, his own continuity. Gallifrey coming back will restart the Time War! Nevermind, the Daleks are now stupid and forgot that Gallifrey is trying to come back; can't find it because they can't think to scan all of time now and then. Never, or at least only in the direst emergency, cross your own timeline! Nevermind, let's try to bring adult Clara to little Clara's house, just to test a pet theory out. You cannot rewrite a fixed point in time! Nevermind, you can, as long as you cheat and it only looks like you did to the rest of the universe; also, nevermind, you can have the Doctor die on Trenzalore but then change his own past (Name of the Doctor) without creating a paradox by giving him another regeneration cycle. The Doctor must erase himself from "every database in the universe" for the latter point and generally to avoid getting "too big" again. Nevermind, he'll go around taking on the same people and winning, while calling himself The Doctor, thereby making himself "big" again AND undoing the cheat that rewrote his death. Rory's dead and erased from history! Nevermind, he's back. 1939 cannot be traveled to after Angels take Manhattan and the Doctor cannot see them ever again once zapped back to 1939! Hey wait a second: that's no barrier. All he'd have to do is travel to 1940 or 1941, etc, pick them up, make sure River's book gets published, and plant a fake gravestone. History won't notice that their names appearing for real on the gravestone was replaced with a fake one, because otherwise S6's closer would be invalid. Or, he could simply visit now and then, so long as it wasn't 1939. But no, we're supposed to ignore all that because we need a sentimental exit that stops short of actual death.

On and on and on....

The cumulative weight of these nonsense continuity re-writes irks me. And the worst thing about it is that for the last several seasons, so many of the episodes and plot arcs rely on "timey-wimey" stuff and complex plots, which you're supposed to follow closely as a viewer to fully understand. If you demand close attention in order for people to get what your episode is about, I think you should make sure you aren't contradicting yourself.

(Don't get me wrong: I recently marathoned S5-S8. There are quite a few episodes I enjoy and some I enjoy immensely. It's when I step back to discuss the show overall that all these things really come popping out)



Anyway, I don't really want to argue about it further, so I will try not to. It's something that happens now because Moffat said it happens now, and nothing any number of fans think is going to change what already happened. Plus, I tend to end up griping about Moffat's vision for Who in general, which I tend to dislike.

I just hope that if he or another showrunner picks a female doctor, it's for a good in-story reason and not simply because someone decides it would be desireable for real-world reasons. (For example to make a political statement by adding more female leads....like the Ghostbusters "reboot" or whatever it is)

That's a false analogy because there's a difference between keeping the show's cultural DNA alive, though evolving, and choosing to be racist or misogynist.  The problem with this entire female Doctor discussion is we can't separate the show's external cultural history from the internal secondary world.  So quite frankly we get arguments like: if it hasn't come up in 50 years...etc when that 50 years is influenced by the external world which was definitely sexist and racist in 1963 and is only slowly getting better, and not as fast as we'd like.  

Now I'm against a female doctor for two reasons (see above somewhere) but if those two were satisfied then I am not against a female doctor as long as they're damn good and not cast just because they're female. 

Show's cultural DNA? Amend that to: not necessarily English/Irish/Welsh/Scots but to someone who "gets" it.  It's more likely you'll get it if you happen to be one of the first four and that makes for a good shortcut.