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** It's possible she was out of London at the time. Or the reports she received didn't make clear {{spoiler|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 ''[[Torchwood: Miracle Day
*** 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 [[Status Quo Is God|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 {{spoiler|giant robot}} ''wasn't'' alien in origin, and nor, strictly speaking, were the Cybermen who built it.
*** [[Doctor Who
** {{spoiler|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 Robot
** 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 ''[[
* 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?''
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** In the light of "The Waters of Mars", there's another explanation: {{spoiler|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.
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*** 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 ''[[
*** 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.
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** For the first one, {{spoiler|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, {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|the Dalek spared her life because of Davros ordering everyone back to the Crucible.}}
* So, {{spoiler|[[Tricked
** Because the Doctor {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|Rose touching her younger self}} is a paradox, whereas the paradox for Adalaide was fixed almost immediately. Also, is it just me, or {{spoiler|are they working up to a breakdown of Houseian proportions (hearing voices, seeing Ood Sigma)? WHO WILL BE HIS WILSON??}}
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* 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?
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** 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
* 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
** 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:
{{quote|
'''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.
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** I'm guessing that {{spoiler|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. [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500%2C000+ rad&a=UnitClash_* rad.* Rads-- About 5 times as] [
** 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.
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** 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'
*** ''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)...
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*** 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
** 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
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* 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.
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* 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
*** 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.
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** 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.
***
** 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.
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** 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 [[Ron the Death Eater|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.
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[[Category:Doctor Who 2009 Specials]]
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