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* [[Doctor Who/Headscratchers/Series 1
* [[Doctor Who/Headscratchers/Series 2
* [[Doctor Who/Headscratchers/Series 3
* [[Doctor Who/Headscratchers/Series 4
* [[Doctor Who/Headscratchers/2009 Specials
* [[Doctor Who/Headscratchers/Series 5
* [[Doctor Who/Headscratchers/Series 6
* [[Doctor Who/Headscratchers/Series 7
▲* [[Big Finish Doctor Who (Radio)/Headscratchers|Big Finish Doctor Who]]
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=== Classic series and show in general ===
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**** Especially on the subject of shipping - Tom Baker seems to be just a bit of an old perv, really.
*** Besides it wouldn't have to be overtly romantic to be very intense. Micky Smith was totally changed by his time with the Doctor (going from a Series One scene in which he yelled after a retreating Rose to go to the Doctor, since "it's always going to be the Doctor, it's never going to be me!", to an exchange in Series Two where he virtually reiterated his dialogue from the earlier conversation - only this time telling the Doctor to go after Rose, bitterly stating that "it's never going to be me, is it?") and he was straight and had all of two days actually traveling in the TARDIS.
**** Wait, I may be missing a scene here or something, but at no point during this episode do I remember a romantic relationship being outright stated... Sure, "you were my life" and "getting your heart broken" can be ''interpreted'' as romantic, but... we're not exactly talking about two normal people in a tv soap opera here. We're talking about people who travelled all of time and space together. That's got to broaden your interpretations of language a bit...
***** There aren't many other ways of interpreting it, and it does seem to be the writers' intention to claim they were in a relationship.
****** Jack Harkness would probably disagree with your saying "there aren't many other ways of interpreting" it. And there's at least ONE other interpretation: a deep, loving but primarily platonic relationship (read, the word relationship obviously does not just refer to romance) which came about as a result of their having seen all the wonders (and terrors) of time and space together. I think people are reading too much into this, I don't think they've ever done more than vaguely ''implied'' this stuff.
******* I just thought they meant it as a very intense Romantic Friendship, which I get a very firm vibe for from pretty much every single episode with 4 and Sarah with no other companions...
******* Why Jack Harkness?
******* Becaue he clearly has more complicated (or simplified, depending on how you look at it) ideas about hiow romance and love work. By his time period the kind of relationships that are considered strange or otherwise unusual amongst many cultures seem to be easily accepted. It probably works the other way around too. Present day television always seems to present Love as being a 'one or the other' thing (you're either romantically involved, dealing with UST or both, or you're entirely platonic). Nothing concrete, but I doubt Jack would see it that way.
***** Sarah Jane started her run with the 3rd doctor on his show. The romantic relationship was implied with the fourth doctor. One of the things that shows how important she was to the Doctor is Sarah Jane got K-9. The Doctor cared about her so much she got advanced tech that would protect her. That in the old series. In the new one they were just fleshing out what had been implied with looks and so on.
****** She got ''a'' K9. Romana and Leela got K9s, too. For those keeping count that's every companion the Fourth Doctor had parted company with before he regenerated. Plus she was the last to get one, too. Seems less special in that light.
******* Harry Sullivan didn't get a K-9.
****** Except that K9 Mark I ''chose'' to stay with Leela; the Doctor merely relented in that case. And in Romana's case, K9 Mark II ''had'' to stay with Romana in E-Space, because if he ever returned to normal space, the damage done to him would end up destroying him. It should also be noted that we never see the Doctor travelling with K9 Mark III, which suggests that he built him ''for the express purpose of sending him to Sarah Jane.''
***** Considering that K9 was planned by the writers as being sent by the Master, and ended up actually being from the Doctor only because there was no K9 and Company series to continue the plot thread, that's unlikely. Any series contains "looks" and gestures and random plot elements and random dialog that can be used by sufficiently motivated fans to conclude that there's something romantic between just about any two
***** ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' made it explicit that it was never a romantic relationship.
== Sarah and Harry don't sleep ==
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* So whatever happened with Ace?
** In the EU, Ace either:
** a) Dies heroically as a teenager saving the universe in some way or another (in a ''[[
** b) Circa her mid-twenties, after a career as a combination of [[Dark Action Girl]] and [[Nineties Anti-Hero]] when by most fan accounts she turned into [[The Scrappy]], parts from the Doctor, who gives her her own time motorcycle and polices the timeline of Paris (according to the novel ''Set Piece'' by Kate Orman).
** c) Changes her name to Mc Shane and still travels with the Doctor and another companion named Hector or "Hex" (in the ongoing audio plays from [[Big Finish]]).
** d) Or eventually becomes the last-but-one of the Time Lords after the death (and we mean literal ''death'') of the Doctor in the [[Elseworlds]]-ish webcast ''Death Comes to Time''. (Another Time Lord, the Minister of Chance, carries on for the Doctor.) (This last came out prior to the new series revival.) Obviously, the [[Expanded Universe]] contradicts itself a lot. Most notoriously in the case of Ace.
** e) Had the series not gotten cancelled, script editor Andrew Cartmel favored turning into a Time Lady.
== Time Lords predating Time Travel ==
* It's been established that the Time Lords didn't start out as such; their mastery over time was cemented by the likes of Rassilon and Omega, with technology such as the Eye of Harmony. So, who or what were the Time Lords ''before'' they were Time Lords? What did they call themselves? How did they develop such things as the "time sense" that the Doctor mentions in {{spoiler|''The Fires of Pompeii''}}, among others? This Bugs Me.
** The natives of Gallifrey are referred to as "Gallifreyans", and their ancestors as "Ancient Gallifreyans". Only a very few of them get to become Time Lords. All Gallifreyans have telepathic powers, including being sensitive to time. My source is the following labour of love: [https://web.archive.org/web/20131106000637/http://meshyfish.com/~roo/docwho1.html Gallifrey Stuff].
*** ''Technically'' it's mostly based on [[Expanded Universe]] stuff (i.e. it's of arguable canonicity), but it's a very interesting read nonetheless.
**** The thing many people forget about [[Expanded Universe]] stuff is that, in the absence of other information, it's the best anyone but the writers/creators have to go on. Thus, in many cases, questionable canonicity items, if they're officially branded and approved, can be considered canon until proven otherwise. Canon is mutable even within the original universe, after all. The most recent information concerning something should be considered the most canonical.
***** Except the bits that [[Break the Cutie|do nasty things to]] or [[Back for
== The ''Genesis'' Decision ==
* People often state that the fourth Doctor refused to wipe out the Daleks. But this is not what happened at all! After watching the serial there are two points where The Doctor could have blown up the Dalek embryo chamber. The first time he hesitates, unsure, before he can make up his mind he is told that Davros has given in and as such the explosives would be needless vandalism. The second time, after the Daleks start mass killing, he was going to until he was forced to take cover and the Dalek chasing him completes the circuit and kills them anyway. So not only did he not refuse to commit genocide (he never made up his mind) but all he needed to do was in fact done!
** Well, in the second instance, he wired up the explosives, but then hesitated before touching the wires together to set them off. He talked to Sarah and Harry about the moral choice before him, and when the Dalek appeared, he could quite easily have touched the two wires together - it would only have taken a fraction of a second - but instead elected to drop the wires and run. It's deliberately left ambiguous, I think, but there's a case for saying that he refused to commit that genocide in dropping the wires rather than touching them.
** And the reasons he gives for hesitating are more complicated than just "refusing to commit genocide"
** Furthermore, his mission's parameters included introducing some weakness into the Daleks to lessen their threat. Although he didn't intend to, fanon says that he did so by enabling Davros to survive when his creations turned on him. When he was later revived by the Daleks, he proved a profoundly divisive element that caused violent schisms that plagued the Daleks for centuries.
** Something also usually forgotten: he also kept the Daleks entombed for an extra few ''thousand'' years. I don't know about you, but I think most civilizations would put up a bit more of a fight if they've had an extra millenia or so of existance and progress.
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== Time Lord mass problems and regenerating in the TARDIS ==
* When a Time Lord regenerates, how do they change size? Where does the extra mass go after, say, Tom Baker regenerates into Peter Davison, and where does it come from when Peter Davison regenerates into Colin Baker?
** You're trying to apply logic to a process where a dying man completely changes his look and personality?
** I think that one of the Doctors said that the TARDIS was required for the process. If it's dimensionally transcendental, I'm sure it can take or give a few pounds.
** The TARDIS is required, yes. Also, Time Lords possess the technology to transmit energy and convert energy to matter and vice-versa. The TARDIS is powered by a stabilised black hole, meaning that they can get as much energy as needed for the regeneration, or dump any extra back into it.
** Also, there's an enormous release of glowy, orange energy when the Doctor regenerates which could at least partially explain changes in mass.
** In ''The Doctor's Daughter'', {{spoiler|Jenny doesn't have a TARDIS, so she shouldn't be able to regenerate. If she took energy from the Doctor's TARDIS, she would have done a full regeneration, not just an energyburp, and the Doctor would have noticed if someone just stole some energy anyways. And when the Doctor regenerated last, he only enerygyburped because he absorbed the heart of the TARDIS. The Master's regeneration into Harold Saxxon shows us that these aren't necessary for normal regeneration...so why did Jenny energyburp?}}
*** Because she got her power from the Source. The energy that escapes her lips looks like the gaseous form that escaped the globe with the Doctor threw it onto the ground. Think [[Star Trek III:
*** Perhaps they need to stop using that same gas effect because to me it looked like effect used in "The Christmas Invasion" that was drawing the pilot fish... er Santas, so I've always thought that it looked more like {{spoiler|Jenny was "still in the first 15 hours" window and was simply healed rather than fully regenerating.}}
**** Nope, different gas effect.
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**** Seven to Eight, as mentioned before, was nowhere near the TARDIS. He was actually in the morgue.
**** I think this whole deal is just because the TARDIS is just about the safest place in the universe, so when the Doctor regenerates (read: in his most vulerable state) he prefers to be there.
**** This, and the fact that it's his
***** I don't think a TARDIS is necessary for regeneration, but it does appear to have a stabilizing effect on a newly regenerated Time Lord (especially when it has places like Zero Rooms). Didn't seem to help the Tenth Doctor, though ...
** It's likely that the Time Lord either transmits the excess energy into the local area (as shown when Nine turned into Ten and practically exploded into a ball of light and plasma) or absorbs extra energy from the local area (as shown when Seven turns into Eight, complete with ''Frankenstein''-like electric pulses). The Rassilon Imprimatur (which I think is some kind of addition to Galifreyan DNA) supposedly handles regeneration (likely in a same way that the Heisenberg Compensator ''
*** The answer, as of "Day of the Moon", is a resounding "no". {{spoiler|1103 Doctor starts his regeneration cycle with no TARDIS in sight, and somehow I doubt a little girl, even if she's a little River Song, would be able to apply for a TARDIS, especially not one which the Doctor himself failed his exams at}}.
** Here's an
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****** Since he was the Sixth, at least.
*** The odd thing is, is that in the old series The Doctor was not exactly fond of his people. In one episode he actually claims they are worse than Daleks and Cybermen because they have all this power and sit around and do nothing. As it is implied that it was the Doctor himself who killed his own people, however, it's entirely possible he feels REALLY bad about his feelings and in an attempt to make up for it, he overcompensates on the one Time Lord left, ironically the only Time Lord who would have deserved the destruction of Gallifrey.
**** Also, the Master is the only other Time Lord left. I'd be damn lonely and inclined to forgive someone if they were the only remaining human.
*** Exactly! He forgives the Master because if he doesn't he'll destroy the Time Lords AGAIN! He can't bring himself to destroy his own species a second time.
***** The show is also pretty open that it doesn't necessarily endorse what he does. It may be completely irrational that he'd value the life of the last living Time Lord regardless of how dangerous that person is, but he's not necessarily a purely rational person. After all, he pretty much destabilized the entire government of England and allowed the Master to get into power in the first place out of petty revenge against Harriet Jones.
****** I didn't think this was petty revenge, I thought it was wanting to get someone who would commit mass murder without batting an eyelid out of power. That didn't turn out too well.
******** Mass murder against the race of psychopathic voodoo using alien monsters that were planning to loot and pillage the Earth and murder everyone who got in their way. Oh yes. How terrible of her. Clearly they should have been allowed to live to kill some more innocent people.
******** So you're saying it's okay that Harriet Jones had basically "proven" that humanity were backstabbers who would break their own deals, thus scaring off potential alien allies, and irritating anyone who could actually pose a threat (which is oh, roughly 60% of the species in the universe)? I'm not saying what the Doctor did to her was ''right'' (if Harriet were still in power I'm pretty sure Children of Earth would've been a different kettle of fish) but Harriet showed she was quite willing to commit genocide again and again, rather than choose a peaceful solution, just because the aliens still posed a potential threat. That's Cold War talk: firing a nuke at the retreating soviet warships because they "might" come back (sorry for the blunt analogy, it was that or [[Godwin's Law]]). Harriet was thinking mostly of the safety of humanity, and she was obviously right to not utterly depend on the Doctor's help in every crisis, but her actions would've had consequences, not least of which was making us look untrustworthy. Plus the Doctor probably knows far more about the "future" of humanity than she does. The human race is going to be around long after she's gone and eventually we're going to get involved in the diplomacy of the galaxy. And thusly, we will now be remembered as "Humans? Oh. ''Humans''! That's the species that murdered a retreating army and then kept the person who ordered it in power... Um, maybe we should go trade with someone else/not defend them in case they stab us too". I like being alive and all, but I wouldn't want our so called Golden Age to be built on that kind of origin.
******** The Sycorax were already ''fleeing''. Of all the monsters he fought, I don't think the Doctor ever struck one who had already ''backed down''. Sure, this doesn't explain why he didn't get Davros and the Master, who aren't likely to ever be convinced of retiring from the Destroy/Take Over the Universe business, out of the picture for good.
**** Agreed. There are several examples of the Doctor clearly not being in the right, including his ridiculous actions in Journey's End, Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords and, most noticeably, Family of Blood/Human Nature where he puts an entire village of innocent people at risk just so he doesn't have to get his hands dirty killing the bad guys, then proceeds to trap them in a LIVING HELL just because they killed a few people he cared about (Compare this to how he's happy to forgive the Master and Davros, people who have slaughtered BILLIONS. But hey, they weren't people he knew personally so no harm done, right?)
**** I don't agree. Oh, I agree how bad those things are, but I don't think the writers meant it that way. It's easy to explain any inconsistently written character by saying "the character is really a hypocrite and doesn't keep his own principles". Except for Harriet Jones, I think the way these actions were presented screams "the writers didn't think about that". It's [[Fridge Logic]]
***** No you're not, Joan quite openly called the Doctor out on exactly how many people he'd gotten killed by choosing to hide in their village as a human and openly turns down his request that she travel with them at least in part based on that. Donna did a simialr thing during that bit with the Racnoss Queen.
****** Harriet was many things (including rather stupid, thanks for Children of Earth there, Doctor, Harriet wouldn't have stood for that giving away the kids crap) but I really don't think petty revenge was one of them (I do think he was personally affronted but that wasn't the motivator behind his actions - he was personally affronted about Jenny, too, but he made a point of not shooting the guy who killed her). By shooting someone when their back was turned (and effectively committing genocide, which is always gonna get the Doctor's goat) Harriet showed that humans were untrustworthy and violent and would probably have done so again, thus scaring potential allies off, and irking even more powerful enemies. The Doctor also knows more about time and space than she does, while I feel her actions were somewhat justified, I don't think she was seeing the bigger picture quite as well as she thought she was (or rather she was seeing the bigger picture in so far as their survival depended on the Doctor, but nor about earth's future on a whole).
***** The writers in Family of Blood most certainly did think about the implications of the Doctor's actions, since one of the characters gives the Doctor a pretty big [[What the Hell, Hero?]] at the end of it all. However, one has to keep in mind that the Family where the last of their kind, and while the Doctor could easily deal with them, doing so would be a genocide. Since we already know the Doctor really hates committing genocide, even when the lives of billions may depend on him doing so, his gambit of going to ground and letting them die out naturally makes perfect sense. It's not that he didn't know there would be risks, but he decided the risk was worth running in order to avoid being responsible for an atrocity. Unfortunately for the people in town, the Doctor lost his bet.
****** We also have to think about what the Family would have done had they gotten hold of him: chaos and death throughout the galaxy. They were dangerous, we saw that in the episode. it was either stop them, or let them get hold of a Time Lord which was heavily implied could have had ridiculously bad consequences for all of time and space, rather than just one village (yes, yes I know morality doesn't work according to numbers but one village vs. many many villages all over time and space). He chose a fairly unlikely hiding place (he could have picked anywhere but it had to be somewhere he and more importantly Martha could at least blend in, which limited him mainly to earth) and did his best to prevent an even ''worse'' tragedy happening than even the slaughter of a village.
***** I also want to point out that the Doctor was ''highly unstable'' throughout his time as Ten, with the culmination of his "degeneration" of character hitting right at the time of his death. I actually believe all the things he said and did were because he was afraid to regenerate again, knew he would eventually, and led himself down a road of destruction via [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]] - the evidence is all there: a) His attitude with the Rachnoss AND his actions if Donna hadn't been there in Turn left. b) His reaction to the Sycorax leader who yielded then tried to backstab him. c) The way he was terrified of being possessed in Midnight (he would have in his other regenerations either stopped talking to the creature, or talked to it in a way more likely to help it understand, but only made a passing effort.) d) His method of dealing with the victim of the absorbaloff - instead of trying to get her out of the stone, he just leaves her? Not the sane doctor we know. e) Waters of mars. All of it. His delusions of grandeur were him losing his grip on reality. f) Donna. If he had hypnotic powers and could block her mind, he could also reduce a lot of that Gallifreyan/time lord knowledge WITHOUT "killing" her memories of him and her times together. It also meant he wouldn't need the bloody "booby trap" which would be a lot more work to do mentally on a person, than to just remove the knowledge.
***** Ten may have been unstable, but some of your points don't add up. In Midnight, ''of course'' he was terrified of being possessed. Who wouldn't be? And he ''did'' talk to the creature in a way to help it understand; it's just that this was a very strange creature so his efforts didn't get very far. Regarding the absorbaloff, obviously he left the girl in stone because it was ''physically impossible'' to restore her completely. There's no ''way'' he left her in stone-form just for kicks. You've got Waters of Mars backwards, too. The Doctor's actions involved gradeur, but few illusions. The end result of his actions was that two people were alive who otherwise would have died. It would have been three, but the third one committed suicide. It's not like the Doctor made things any worse. As for Donna, just because the Doctor has psychic powers does not mean he can erase Donna's knowledge in this particular instance! What gives you the impression that he had that specific ability, especially considering that nothing similar to Doctor-Donna has ever happened before?
****** Leaving Ursula a stone slab with a face may not have been the kind action he was intending. She'll never be able to talk with anyone who isn't Elton, Elton will never get to have a normal life, there's this expectation they'll be together forever or Ursula is screwed even though they hadn't even started to date yet, and she might be trapped as an unaging piece of concrete FOREVER. What's she supposed to do once Elton dies? She's helpless and she's a secret. That he considers this a happy ending and a good thing to do doesn't speak well for his sanity and this was before he lost Rose! And yes, the end result of his actions on Waters of Mars might be a mostly unchanged history but that is because Adelaide had the courage to commit suicide to keep time on track and he got very lucky there. If she hadn't killed herself or her killing herself hadn't been enough to restore the time line, who knows what might have happened? He was careless and reckless and playing hard and fast with human history even though he ''knew'' it was a fixed event. The Doctor's actions there aren't meant to be applauded or defended. He went off on a rant about being the Time Lord Victorious, after all, and he was supposed to clearly be in the wrong.
** Yes, why ''doesn't'' the Doctor kill the Master after all that? ([[Foe Yay|whistles innocently.]])
*** Aside from the intense sexual tension, the Doctor himself said it best: "Everything that John Smith was capable of, so am I." It's possible, after a lot of work, and a little love, he could have brought the Master back to his Professor Yana mindset.
**** Sexual tension?? What are you talking about> There's some attraction between them, but nothing sexual. I'm not even sure if the Doctor feels sexual towards ''anyone''. It just doesn't seem to be a part of his personality. (Rose may be an exception, but even then it was romantic rather than sexual)
***** Well, it certainly looks like it will go there with River.
*** Yes, all genocidal sociopaths just need a cuddle.
*** Are we talking about the Master or the Doctor?
**** Let's be honest here, they're both genocidal sociopaths.
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***** The nice but criminally negligent one.
****** Criminally negligent IS nicer than maliciously negligent!
** What we need to remember when thinking about things like this is that the Doctor's a complicated guy. He's ruthless and merciful, passionate and cold, old and young. The decision of whether to kill isn't an easy one. Each time he makes it the different aspects of his personality are at war inside of him. Sometimes he's ruled by his head, sometimes his hearts, sometimes by logic, sometimes emotion. Is it really any wonder that his behavior is inconsistant? He's just like a human in that regard. Maybe that's why he's both fascinated and disgusted by humanity: he sees himself in us, just like we see ourselves in him. And is this really such a bad thing? We've seen individuals and entire races without this inner conflict, who have no problem deciding whether they should kill. The result isn't pretty. EXTERMINATE!
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*** This was even confirmed in-show when Jack hitched a ride with the TARDIS by clinging onto the outside. It showed him holding on for dear life while the swirlies buzzed around him and the TARDIS.
*** Although it doesn't happen too often in the new series, the TARDIS used to take quite a while to "lock in" on a landing point in the old series; during the Baker era, he'd often wait for the randomizer to actually find a landing spot.
**** "Often"? The randomizer only saw service from the end of "The Armageddon Factor" to "The Leisure Hive," where the concept was swiftly
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*** Although this doesn't explain why the Doctor's clothes apparently regenerated with him that time.
**** ''[[Justifying Edit|Well]]'', if Romana's regeneration is any indication, a Time Lord's regeneration can include change of clothing...if you're good at it. The first regeneration seemed to go off without a hitch, explaining the above. There seems to have been a spanner thrown into the works since then, because all the others since have been...[[Painful Transformation|problematic]].
** Practically the first thing the Doctor does after regenerating is don a new costume. There was a ''Doctor Who Magazine'' comic strip in which, when the Doctor apparently regenerated, he immediately headed to the TARDIS wardrobe muttering "These shoes don't fit at all" (a [[Continuity Nod]] to the Eighth Doctor's line "These shoes fit perfectly!") Although, it later transpired he wasn't really the Doctor at all.
*** The [[Big Finish]] ''Doctor Who Unbound'' alternative third doctor (played by David Warner) says the same thing at the end of his story.
** Alternative explanation: Time Lord clothes are bigger on the inside...
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== Doctor preventing universe destruction in ''Logopolis'' ==
* In Logopolis, why doesn't the Doctor go back in time to before the entropy field is created to prevent the destruction of a large chunk of the universe?
** Perhaps a more important though smaller scale version of the same question: If Rose is stranded because he can't cross over after the rift closes, why can't he go back in time to a day when the rift was open, cross over then, and then return to the present on the other side? (He'd have to modify his Tardis to work there, but it sure beats burning up a star to send a message through when the rift's not open.)
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**** Look, people, if the Doctor could do this, he would just do it every single episode. Which would be a rather boring series. In the "classic" series sometimes they would mention the "Blimovitch Limitation Effect" whenever a character would say something like "why can't you just use time travel to . . .(whatever)". In the Fox TV Movie, at the end {{spoiler|he goes back in time to save the lives of his companions, which is one of the many things that made us die-hard Doctor Who fans very angry at the Fox TV movie.}} In the "new" series we had the episode "Father's Day" which showed what happens if you muck around to much with time. --KEVP
***** Come on. We have ''no idea what the hell was going on'' in the Movie. We see the words "Temporal Orbit" on the monitor, and then ''magic glowyness emerges from the eye of harmony and flows into Grace and Lee''. The Doctor doesn't ''do'' anything. Saying that he went back in time to save them is a big stretch. Exactly what the connection is to "temporal orbit" is never made clear, but the visuals don't indicate that the Doctor somehow rewound time. Some confluence of "Temporal Orbit", flying with the eye of harmony open, and the TARDIS being a "sentimental old thing" caused it to puke up magic resurrection-sauce. [[Timey-Wimey Ball]].
***** The ''Faction Paradox'' novel "The Book of the War" (basically a big encyclopaedia regarding this time war between The Enemy and the <s> Time Lords</s> Great Houses) has a neat little entry about the "Protocols of Linearity", about how going back into <s> Gallifrey's</s> The Homeworld's own past may cause the universe to unravel. So, yeah, [[Timey-Wimey Ball]], is the answer.
***** There's also always the possiblity that the rift exists in it's own moment, separate from the rest of time. Once it closes it is, and always has been, closed.
***** The Doctor has actually said that once he's involved in the events of a certain place and time, he can't just go back and change things he's already done. Which makes sense, really. Think of it this way: Let's say the Doctor goes back in time and stops the Master from turning on the silence. Now he doesn't need to go back in time ''because'' he went back in time. The Doctor has now fundamentally changed his own past actions, making his current circumstances impossible, and now he's got a paradox on his hands. Typically if the Doctor has a problem to solve, he needs to use his brain, in this case, adapting the Logopolitans' program for use in the Earth's Pharos computer. And with respect to the people who died, unfortunately, there's really nothing the Doctor can do for them without screwing up the timeline. He can't always save everyone, no matter how much he wants to. If you boil it all down, trying to come up with a solution in real time and just going back in time to prevent the problem from happening is the choice between possible death and certain death. Which makes you wonder what the hell he was thinking when he went back the second time at the beginning of ''Father's Day''...
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*** They look at a guy with two hearts wearing a multicoloured patchwork coat or a twelve-foot scarf or a question mark jumper or whatever and who's babbling about all kinds of insane things about aliens and the end of time and space and the fact that he's just changed his appearance, and reason that, okay, the fact that he just calls himself 'Doctor' is about the ''least'' odd thing about him. Besides which, if they did always question him as to this, then we'd have that "Doctor? Doctor who?" joke nonstop, thus making it even more irritating.
**** What? They can see that he has two hearts?
** Also note that he doesn't always say "my name is the Doctor"
** It's one of his superpowers: "Regeneration", "Shared Instant Translation", "No Questions Asked" (no-one ever asks his name, or if they do ask, they don't press the matter), "Appearance of Authority" (whole armies will follow his orders even if they have no reason to), and "Uninterrupted Monologuing" (when the Doctor is talking, no-one, not even Daleks or non-sentient creatures, ever interrupt him).
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**** Nine came back to earth several times before meeting Rose in 2005. Remember the [[Conspiracy Theorist]] in ''Rose'' who had evidence of Nine appearing on Earth at several points in the past. Since he was by himself, it would mean this was all before the point in Nine's time-line where he meets Rose.
** The seventh Doctor said he'd had 900 years practice. It's easy enough to fit any number of years between 'Trial of a Time Lord' and 'Time of the Rani', but they doesn't quite fit with the tenth Doctor being only 900. [[Fan Wank|Squint a little]], and the new series comments can be interpreted as referring to how long he's been travelling in the Tardis, but this still leaves Pertwee's apparent claim to be several thousand years old to be explained.
*** The Seventh Doctor actually gives his exact age. It was in the 920s.
**** Actually, it's 953, given in "Time and the Rani". He mentions that the Rani is the same age.
** The Doctor has lied about his age in the past- Romana's called him on it, although she wasn't exactly innocent in that herself...
** We don't know how long the Doctor and Romana traveled together, and both of them were Time Lords, so they both age slowly. On fact, you could make a case for the Doctor and Nyssa traveling with each other for a long time, considering that we don't know how long Trakenites live and how fast they age.
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** [http://comics.shipsinker.com/?id=23 This comic] is probably the best explanation.
*** Also [http://comics.shipsinker.com/?id=18 this one]
*** He was measuring in Gallifreyan years.
*** Alternatively, due to the chaotic, nonlinear nature of his life, the Doctor lost count of his age, so he picked a plausible number and started counting from there.
** Steven Moffat has publicly given the opinion that the Doctor has no bloody clue what his age is any more. And since he's in the top job right now....
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* Why is the Doctor so rarely seen saving aliens? [[Fridge Logic|Logically]] [[Most Writers Are Human|authorial species bias]] shouldn't apply to a protagonist who's a [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] with the powers of a god, so why make him apparently [[Fantastic Racism|speciesist]]?
** As the Doctor himself noted in "The Ark In Space", "It may be irrational of me, but human beings are quite my favourite species." Small wonder then that he should show some favoritism.
** Bothers me, too.
*** Just because he likes humans the most doesn't make him negligent to other species; I'm pretty sure the writers are just going for relatable cast members, and therefore is going for humans first instead of aliens, assuming (wrongly or rightly, I don't know) that we would find non-human entities less relatable. Also, less make up involved.
*** In the Original Series he saved quite a few aliens. It's just that most of them were Human Aliens.
** The recorded Doctor Who stories are only a small portion of the Doctor's adventures, even if you factor in all the expanded universe stuff. Probably the Doctor does visit totally alien planets often, we just don't get to see it.
** Note that the Doctor does try to save Aliens when they aren't the antagonists. He tried to save the two crewmen in Planet of the Dead (failed but tried) and Voyage of the Damned could arguably count. (Alien planet, humanoid appearence). Not only that but in The End of the World he saved a bunch of aliens. He just doesn't hang around other aliens much.
*** On this note, I am more bothered by the lack of non-human companions. Or for that matter, c=human companions who are ''not'' from present-day earth. Can we have some more aliens and time variations in this show now, please? There ''are'' plenty of eras to choose from.
**** On that note I'd like to point out that he does get them from various eras. Katarina, Leela and Jamie McCrimmon were from past eras, Zoe Harriet (I think) was from the future.
**** Leela was actually from the far future. Katrina, Jamie and Victoria were from the past. Vicki, Steven, Sara Kingdom, Zoe, K9 and Captain Jack were all from the future. Some companions blur the line by being from (what was then) the near future, Grace Holloway from the TV movie for example, she appeared in 1996 but she's from 1999. And then there's Liz, Jo, Sarah Jane, Harry Sullivan and the whole UNIT dating controversy. Alien companions, again all of whom are Human Aliens, start with Susan and then there's a fourteen year gap until Romana who was quickly followed by Adric, Nyssa and Turlough.
*** Technically, every companion between Adam and Donna (in series 4) are from a year or more into the future.
*** What about the Ood? He saved them. What about the glowy thing in "Fear Her"? He saved it. What about the Vashta Nerada? He didn't kill them, and understood they needed a breeding ground, so he let them stay instead of obliterating them. Or the Star Whale, and how he agonized over his choice? He might be a jerk at times, but he ''does'' have compassion. Also look at the above entry for the Fly Beings from Planet of the Dead.
** The serial "Galaxy 4" involves two species (the Drahvin who are [[Human Aliens]] and the Rill who are [[Starfish Aliens]] trying to escape a dying planet. The Doctor wants to help both of them, but the Drahvin's one sided hatred of the Rill prevents him from doing this, so he only saves the Rill.
== The Doctor pre-doctorate ==
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** We hear that that was his nickname in "The Armageddon Factor". In the Doctor Who gamebook "The Garden of Evil", it's revealed that all students at the Time Academy are referred to by two Greek letters, representing their physical and mental abilities. (In the book, you play a student called Delta Delta.) A gamebook is about as far from canon as you can get, but it ''was'' written by David Martin, who also wrote "The Armageddon Factor".
*** I've heard they came up with "Theta Sigma" because ?? looks sort of like "WHO"... or "WO" sideways at least. Probably unintended, though, was that ?? (with an overline) was an [[wikipedia:Nomina sacra|ancient Greek code for "God"]] (that is, THeoS minus vowels).
****** And, as a side note, funnily enough that was exactly who the writer of Silver Nemesis was hinting that the Doctor really was. Yes really.
** Maybe he was The Master before he got his PhD... oh boy, there's a WMG...
*** And before that, [[The Bachelor]]?
**** And even BEFORE that, [[The Graduate]]...
** Joking aside, the Doctor does have a real name, he just never uses it, and almost no one knows what it is (the viewer included). Part of what makes him mysterious.
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**** Or in that scenario, without Donna there to pull him out of his dark place, he just preferred (like the Master) to not regenerate.
*** I could be wrong, but from what I recall Regeneration is used to ''save'' a Time Lord from death, not overcome it (okay, yes, the movie does explicitly that, but lets not confuse ourselves). If the Doctor was ever hit full in the face with a Dalek ray, for example, that's it. Finito. All the times the Doctor has regenerated previously, he's been dying, not dead (..except the TV Movie. Stop bringing it up).
** In the commentary for "Smith and Jones" [[Russell T. Davies]] mentions they set 'guidelines' and one of them is that Doctor would die and not regenerate if shot in the heart. Um- one of them.
** Time Lords in the [[Expanded Universe|EU]] can be taken out immediately, permanently, and irrevocably if you stab them through both hearts.
** Time Lords can be killed by stuff that kills instantly. Dalek exterminations kill instantly, as is demonstrated practically every time they shoot someone. The Doctor is hit by a Dalek extermination. He is not killed, or, apparently, physically harmed at ''all''. Wha?
*** What do you mean not physically harmed? The Tenth Doctor was struck at the side (not hit head-on like most Dalek cases) and began to partial-regenerate, while the Eleventh was hit by a ray from a severely weakened Dalek, and was still incredibly short of breath and injured when the gang found him in the Pandorica.
*** All of this aside, isn't it said that regeneration is ''not'' a foolproof process (at his impending death the fifth doctor says that he "might" regenerate, but he's not sure.) Maybe sometimes it just doesn't work.
** "The Caves of Androzani" had the Doctor, poisoned, say that he "might regenerate", implying that with too much damage, regeneration is not certain and he could just die.
** In "The Impossible Astronaut" it's stated that a Time Lord who is killed again ''while regenerating'' is down for good.
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** Resisting a Cyberman gets you immediately "deleted", but surrendering gives you until they get you to the conversion chamber to act. Fighting a Sontaran means dealing with them on their terms, terms that are very much in their favor, but surrendering might put them off guard long enough for you to think of something clever. With Daleks, on the other hand, it's the other way around - ''surrendering'' gets you immediately exterminated with extreme prejudice, whereas ''baiting'' them, especially if you're their long-established enemy, might confuse them long enough for you to get out of the situation.
** My theory? The Doctor's filled with such hatred for the Daleks by this point that it's more powerful than any fear he might feel towards them.
** Re: The Cybermen. Personally, I think it's because of the [[Squick]] factor involved in creating Cybermen and the inherit [[Body Horror]] of the concept. To an invidivualist like The Doctor, the concept of a monster [[And I Must Scream|that turns you into a mindless drone while still leaving you technically alive has got to be a horrifying idea]] - far worse than the simple extermination you'd face at the hands of a Dalek. As for the Sontarans, The Tenth Doctor - more than most incarnations - was a [[Technical Pacifist]] who had serious issues with military authority. The Sontarans bothered him because they were even more of a mindless soldier race than the Daleks. Put simply, Sontarans are generally too single-minded to be fast-talked, unlike the much more paranoid/scheming Daleks.
** Sarah Jane observed in The Mask of Mandragora that the more worried the Doctor is, the worse his jokes get. When he's not joking, he's not really worried.
** In "Dalek" Nine looks at the severed head of a Cyberman and gets downright nostalgic, calling it an old friend before correcting himself "More like an enemy--the stuff of nightmares, really. I must be getting old." When he sees the Dalek, though, he starts pounding on the door and begging and pleading to be let out of the room until he realizes it's disabled. (Yes, the decapitated Cyberman head was disabled, too.)
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== First Doctor longevity ==
* Way back at the very beginning, the first Doctor had survived for goodness knows how long without regenerating. The second the show's time-line begins Doctors start dropping like flies and he racks up ten regenerations in just a few decades. I get that it's just a TV show and some suspension of disbelief is required, but how did he survive for 900+ years without having to regenerate until relatively late in his life?
** Possibly because the show's starting point marks the time the Doctor began hanging out with humans? Companions tend to cause a lot of trouble for the Doctor, and now he's got friends to protect. Any adventure becomes more dangerous when you've got a bunch of hangers-on who constantly need rescuing.
** The Doctor never dies without companions. Between companions, he adventures for months (or years) before picking up another. The months rack up. Simple enough.
*** I like the idea this brings up of a Doctor-companion Death Range :D
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== Molten ice? ==
* There's an old Third Doctor episode, "[http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Planet_of_the_Daleks Planet of the Daleks]", where the Doctor stops a [[Human Popsicle|frozen Dalek army from reviving themselves]] by triggering an "ice volcano". Apparently, this floods the cavern they were in with "molten ice". I might be missing something, by isn't ''molten ice'' essentially ''water?'' An entire army of unstoppable death creatures were put out of commission by getting a bit wet?
** What they say in the episode is that it's an allotrope with a much lower freezing point, so that it's liquid at sub-zero temperatures. The Daleks were being brought out of hibernation by increasing their temperature; immersing them in supercold allotropic water reverses that process.
*** So something like liquid nitrogen, then?
*** More like the cryomagma expelled by [[Real Life]] cryovolcanoes on outer-planet moons like Titan, Enceladus and Triton.
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*** Possibly the controls are for the "robomen" that'd appeared in one of the early Dalek stories.
** Same reason Time Lord tech in the new series can only be worked with Dalek plungers, presumably.
** THEY WILL EXPLAIN LATER! * Curse of the Fatal Death Referance.*
** Possibly Daleks don't bother to build ships from scratch, if they can retrofit the vessels of beings they've wiped out.
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== Master in the TARDIS without unlocking it ==
* If Chang Lee had the only key, how the hell did the Master get into the TARDIS in the TV Movie? Did he find the spare key, or what? It's certainly plausible, but he probably wouldn't put it back when he was done.
** Well, let's see. The first time we see him in the TARDIS it's as that blue snake thing and that's because the Doctor's giving his ashes a lift off of Skaro. The second time, he was with Lee, who had the key on him from when he gave the Doctor a lift to the hospital. In fact, ''the Doctor'' ended up having to use a spare key, which he kept in the POLICE BOX sign right behind the P.
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** [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Timey-Wimey, Wibbly-Wobbly]].
** In "Time Crash," Ten saved both his and Five's TARDISes in the nick of time. When Five asked him how, Ten said, more or less, "When I was Five I watched me do what I just did, and I've remembered it all these years. Now you'll remember it when you're Ten." [[Fridge Logic|However, Ten also says "By the way, I just fought the Master," and even though he remembers the exchange from Five's perspective, he's still surprised that the Master survived the Time War.]]
*** Well, there was quite a long time between Five and Ten. There's nothing unusual from Five's perspective about fighting the Master and at most he'd be like "God, he is never going to quit, is he?" By the time the Time War happens and he kills all the Time Lords, he's not going to remember every little (seemingly) unimportant detail of a meeting with his future self. Ten might have even completely forgotten about it until it happened again. Even if he didn't, more information about how the TARDIS works is going to be of a little higher priority than details about his life five regenerations hence.
**** I guess, but a lot happened in that intervening period to bring it to the Doctor's attention. Before he met Rose, Nine spent a lot of time thinking about how lonely he was with his species extinct, and surely he would have had at least a fleeting "Oh wait, that's right." Neither is there such a moment when Nine and Ten are so very frequently moping about their Last of the Time Lord status. Not even when Ten looked in the mirror for the first time and presumably thought "I've seen that face before . . . This must be the life in which that exchange took place." And "You Are Not Alone" didn't ring any bells. Also, in the movie both Seven and Eight seem to think the Master's gone for good. Eight in particular had the amnesia thing going, and both of them could have the concerns you describe, but you'd think the postwar Doctor would think be reminded of the comment at SOME point, given how often his "last of my kind" status comes up.
*** Because "Time can be re-written." The Doctor probably just assumed that the Time Lords' getting eliminated from the normal flow of space and time would also eliminate any future interaction he would've had with any of them.
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== Changed My Jumper ==
* Why does no one ever question the Doctor or his companions' clothes? Sure, I can accept that a suit is pretty multipurpose, and maybe that nobody would notice it doesn't quite fit current styles, but why doesn't anyone react to Martha and Rose running around in pants, or Amy with a lot of leg exposed, when they're in Elizabethan London or Renaissance Venice? Or Four's mile-long scarf, for that matter?
** They do comment on it occasionally, but most of the time they are concerned with more pressing
*** Yeah, they do comment on it occasionally. I specifically remember an episode called "Tooth and Claw" or something.... Where they call Rose a naked child (due to the fact that she was wearing short-legged overalls and a t-shirt), and The Doctor makes a comment that Rose is a feral child. LOL!
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*** Actually, the Doctor specifically says that if the TARDIS can't translate the letters, they must be a very ancient language. So that seems to confirm that the TARDIS translates whatever languages he doesn't understand.
*** That, and the Doctor is still able to speak English when seperated from the TARDIS.
*** My understanding is that The Doctor is able to personally understand most languages telepathically and it is the TARDIS that allows him to share that ability with his companions at will. This would also explain the occasions where The Doctor speaks to someone in a foreign language (i.e. The Third Doctor speaking Chinese to a fellow Time Lord, who is also fluent in the language) but his companions do not understand what is being said.
** Do note that in The War Games, the Doctor had not yet learned French.
*** Also, in Planet of the Dead, The Doctor says he speaks every language
*** Though if he really does or if the TARDIS just translates for him is debatable.
** For what it's worth - since most people don't take the books as canon - one of the novels has the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory stranded in France, and the Doctor states that if they lose contact with the TARDIS entirely "you'll have to learn French and I'll have to learn English".
*** Would that mean that the Doctor already knows French?
*** According to Susan, he's a big fan of French history... maybe some time after The War Games he made the effort to learn the language?
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** Not sure if it's official, but if you wanna accept that Jack is the Face of Boe, the Doctor met the FoB first, then Jack.
** Most other companions only ever travel in time together with the doctor, which I guess makes it easier for him to keep their timelines in sync (perhaps the TARDIS herself keeps that straight for him). River Song has traveled back and forth quite a bit through other means, which probably scrambles their history together. Though other time travelers seems to stay in sync, but since The Master and The Doctor grew up together on Gallifrey I suppose their timelines sticks together. Only Jack Harkness seems to be completely without an excuse.
*** If you want to accept the Jack is the Face of Boe theory, then he has a [[Stable Time Loop|legitimate]] [[Timet Wimey Ball|excuse]]. The Doctor meets the [[Fo B]] with Rose. [[Fo B]] tells Martha and the Doctor last message. When they end up at the edge of the universe, Martha reminds the Doctor of Fob's message, with Jack standing right behind her. Later, after the Master is defeated, Jsck mentions to the Doctor and Marthathat Face of Boeshane was a nickname from when he was younger. Eons later, when Jack is the Face of Boe, he meets up with The Doctor and Rose to finish his side of the time loop. Also, Jack has the time manipulator, which works as the plot demands.
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** The very first TARDIS was deliberately 'wrong' as a police box in many ways - the door opened inwards, the lock was on the wrong door, and there was a St John's Ambulance logo on the door. I think this was to suggest that the Chameleon Circuit, even when it was working, was an unreliable as the rest of the TARDIS.
*** Further research shows that real police boxes usually weren't made of wood either, so this seems to make a lot of sense.
** I always thought it was just part of the disguise. The TARDIS doors open inwards, but the sign itself was simply copied from a Police Box. Or maybe the sign prevents people from stumbling inside. When they pull to open it they can't, so they assume it's broken and move on.
** If it was an accident, it's a very persistent one. Every time the TARDIS has been redesigned the words 'Pull To Open' have got slightly larger, as though she's trying to get the Doctor's attention. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130906125250/http://4.asset.soup.io/asset/1910/4788_0acc.png
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== Invasions the Doctor hasn't thwarted yet ==
* If something only happens when the Doctor goes and experiences it, why is the world not in ruin from all the alien invasions the Doctor has yet to stop?
** That's not true. River's gone through all sorts of things that the Doctor hasn't yet. And even if that were the case then presumably those invasions also didn't happen until the Doctor showed up if he were a part of the events at all.
== What happens to people who experience events that have been internal-retconned? ==
* If time is in flux, then are people vanishing in and out of existence? For example, the Cyberman invasion in the 80s must not have happend, so what happend to the people who went through that?
** [[Timey-Wimey Ball]]. That's the best explanation you're going to get,
** If the Doctor were here, he'd probably be able to give an explanation, not that we would understand it at all.
** Multiple time-streams. Take the effects from the Cracks, for an example: They wipe out ''everything'', but that doesn't mean they wipe out what people ''do''. Amy was still born, but her parents were not. River Song still existed in an universe without the Doctor, so did Amy, and pretty much everything. Only the events were retconed, the number of people is probably the same. People who died are still dead and people who were still alive probably are still alive. Now, the guys who were still alive probably formed other time-streams, different from the original one, by the Multiverse Theory. So yeah... [[Timey-Wimey Ball]].
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* Why was UNIT changed from being a UN set up? Another troper on the 2005 Headscratchers said "complaints", but why?
** I haven't heard any specific complaints. I think they were just concerned that there might be something to complain about in the future, so they decided to head things off and make the change now.
*** Considering that Tosh's origins in ''[[
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== The Daleks succede in exterminating everything, now what do they do? ==
* The Daleks' mission is to exterminate every other creature in the universe and prove their own superiority, but what are they planning to do once they've accomplished that? What happens to them once their sole reason for existing is gone?
** Nothing. All they care about is the extermination of other life, they don't really plan beyond that. Maybe they wait for new life to evolve and then exterminate it.
*** So the Daleks are the first [[Mass Effect|Reapers]]?
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== Classification of the Time Lords ==
* The Time Lords -- [[Humanoid Abomination
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*** Harriet Jones used a weapon Torchwood stole from aliens to attack other aliens. If she'd used a human-built guided missile, that might have been more acceptable to him as a species defending itself with its own technological resources. And, despite what he said to her, he wasn't the one who ''removed'' her from power; he didn't bad-mouth her publicly or charge her with a war crime or even vote against her in an election. He simply acted to plant doubts in the minds of a few humans from her own political party, and let ''us'' decide if those doubts were sufficient cause to supplant someone ''he'd'' inadvertently helped place in authority to begin with. If anything, it ''reduced'' his own level of interference to depose her, as she'd still be a minor local figure if they'd never met. As for getting off the planet, by Time Lords' standards that's barely any greater an advance than our learning to cross the oceans; maybe when ''we'' start time-traveling by our own means, he'll consider us ready to fend for ourselves against technologically-superior exploiters.
*** Based on the Doctor's own statement that he could bring her down with just a few rounds (and how she was brought down was ridiculous enough) he clearly expressed the opinion that he could and should interfere in U.K politics. Beyond that, what is humanity supposed to do after the events of season 6? Based on that the Doctor {{spoiler|is going into hiding}} and the planet (or at least the U.K [[Creator Provincialism|which is the same thing]]) has been left with the impression that the Doctor has taken over Earth's security and will bring down politicians that he gets angry with.
** This is a problem you're going to run into with time travel, Time Lord Victorious or not. Sometimes bad things happen, and we need to be able to learn from them. Let's say the Doctor (or any time traveller, really) goes back and prevents the Holocaust. He's saved millions of lives, but he's also erased it from humanity's consciousness. So what's to stop someone else from committing similar or worse atrocities in the future, with no one being able to recognise the warning signs? With that in our recent history, it will be really hard for someone else to try and kill their way to the top like that without someone saying, "Hey, does this guy remind you of [[Adolf Hitler|anyone]]?" Evil will always exist, and with experience comes the ability to recognise it when we see it, and hopefully put a stop to it. For a more technical, timey-wimey explanation, the events you mentioned pretty much all had a huge impact on history. If you go around changing major historical events, you're going to seriously screw up the way things develop. Six million is a huge number of people, and their collective fate is going to have a huge impact on the world depending on what happens to them. The more people who's fate you change, the more likely it will be that there's going to be a huge change to the future, and you'll have no idea whether the changes will be good or bad. The reason the Meddling Monk was seen as a villain was that despite his good intentions, he was recklessly changing history with no regard for the consequences. The sad reality is, you can't always save everyone.
== Questions about River Song ==
* It's heavily implied that River is running into the Doctor in a completely reverse order, e.g. the first time he kisses her is the last time she kisses him. If that's the case, then what's the point of comparing notes with the TARDIS journal? If their timelines are completely reversed, there would never be a case where they already shared the same adventure in their own personal pasts since any event would always be in one participant's past and the other's future.
** I have a feeling it's not ''completely'' reversed, only as a general rule. Not to mention that 1103 Doctor's meeting kind of fudges that.
*** Exactly. It’s mostly ‘back to front’ and in general. from their perspectives, the Doctor and River keep meeting younger versions of each other, but there is a ton of wiggle room. For example we know that an older version of the doctor (probably 11 possibly 12) who knows River very well, visits her and gives her his screwdriver just before 10 meets her for the first time in the Library.
*** I assume some ambitious fan out there has compiled (or will soon) a list entitled "episodes in order from River Song's POV". If anyone creates or finds such a thing, please link it here. kthx.
**** Chart: [https://web.archive.org/web/20120331154805/http://chzsetphaserstolol.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/dpxeg.jpg
*** Here you go:
*** {{spoiler|Melody Pond: ''A Good Man Goes to War''}}
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*** {{spoiler|Mels: ''Let's Kill Hitler''}}
*** {{spoiler|River Song: ''Let's Kill Hitler'', ''Closing Time''/''The Wedding of River Song'', ''A Good Man Goes to War'', ''The Impossible Astronaut''/''Day of the Moon'', ''The Pandorica Opens''/''The Big Bang'', ''The Time of Angels''/''Flesh and Stone''/''The Wedding of River Song'', ''Silence in the Library''/''Forest of the Dead''}}
**** {{spoiler|Actually, River Song shows up twice in the same episode, but not necessarily around the same point in her time stream. The final appearance in ''A Good Man Goes to War'' seems to be set after ''The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon'', she's wearing the same dress, which she got from the TARDIS wardrobe, while birthday!River Song seems to come from before the events in the season premiere.}}
**** Which she got from where? When?
* What's to stop the Doctor and River from just traveling together and cutting out all this back-to-front business? Why doesn't River just hop aboard the TARDIS and they can be together just like it is with all the usual companions, and then they'll experience things in the same order? And why does River keep going back to prison, of all places, when she could easily just stay free?
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*** Maybe she feels like she has to be punished for what she did and thus goes back to her prison. I guess it's a bit of psychology playing here.
** I guess the deal is that, somehow, the back-to-front meeting order has "already" happened. At any point, all events in their relationship (past and future) have already been personally experienced by one of them. If they try to muck that up, they'll end up causing some kind of time paradox and the Reapers won't be happy about that.
*** Yes, it's all already happened for at least one of them IF you go by the ''exact'' back-to-front meeting (which the existence of diaries and ritual comparisons seem to suggest is not the case) but there's still free will involved for both parties within limit. The Doctor can never tell River how she dies as she didn't know when she got to the library, for instance, but if Rever decided to go around traveling with the Doctor (assuming she hasn't been told she never will) then that will have always been the case.
*** [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey]], so basically it's [[Doylist|whatever the writers want to do]]
** Speaking of the "First Kiss/Last Kiss" thing, we know that the Doctor takes River to the Singing Towers of Darillium sometime after this episode (from her perspective) and before she goes to the library. Wouldn't, at some point, he kiss her then? So this wouldn't be her last kiss, it would be at Darillium.
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* So now that the Doctor and Amy know that River is Amy's daughter wouldn't you think he would mention that he saw River die in the Library? True she isn't strictly dead thanks to a [[McGuffin]] Sonic Screwdriver but you would think Amy would find it pertinent information.
** The exact same reason why Amy and Rory didn't want to tell the Doctor about his death. Yes, the Doctor knows about being invited now, but that was an accident.
*** Good point, but thinking further I unfortunately have some other problems with this situation. We now now that River can regenerate; so doesn't that make her death in the Library problematic? it also makes a farce of the fact that the Meta Crisis Tenth Doctor explicitly claims that he can't regenerate because he only has one - those are his exact words. Seeing as we know River only has the one, wouldn't that logically mean that either River shouldn't be able to regenerate ''but can'', or the Meta-Doctor can't regenerate but ''should be able to?''
**** She specifically says in the Library that the Doctor wouldn't be able to regenerate from this type of death. That now implies that neither could she.
**** Does River only have one heart? Anyway, you're forgetting something - Handy was the result of the metacrisis, whereas River is a human who has begun the process of evolving into a Time Lady because of her conception inside the vortex, just like the early Time Lords. She isn't a half-human, half-Time Lord hybrid, she's a proto-Time Lord. Plus, according to the classic series, Time Lords are as they are now because Omega or Rassilon, or one of those ancient Time Lords, I forget which, diddled with their DNA, presumeably that's why they now have Two Hearts. Actually, it might have been EU stuff rather than classic series. Presumeably he did that to make regeneration more likely to occur, or to impose the limits, or because he likes drums or something.
***** The first Doctor only had one heart before he regenerated, didn't he? I always thought that their second heart grows during their first regeneration.
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***** Ten or Eleven, he's still the Doctor. I don't think she meant "my Doctor" in the way we use the phrase. He was still the man she loved, even if he hadn't yet grown into the person he would become. And she flat-out stated that she refused to let him change her past by dying.
** I think that Eleven still hopes that somehow he would be able to save River, that's why he said "Time can be rewritten" in Time of the Angels. Plus he doesn't want to upset Amy without any point. Plus Amy might be long dead by the time River dies.
*** River is already dead from some perspectives and Amy is most certainly dead by the 51st century but with all the time travelling that doesn't really matter. She can still find out about it from the Doctor or by going to the future and hearing about the death.
* Why the secrecy - why didn't River reveal herself as Melody right from the start? or indeed, why does she refer to herself as River and not as Melody? the Tenth Doctor, past Eleventh Doctor, past Amy and past Rory wouldn't know who she was anyway... she could have called herself Betty and it wouldn't have made a single bit of difference.
** She's called River Song because that's her adopted name for most of her life due to translation-wation and "the only water in the forest is the river", or whatever it was.
*** Her whole name/title now makes perfect sense. Doctor River Song. As was pointed out by River Song, Doctor means 'Warrior' to the people who raised her. (Which makes all those quips where people would ask her 'doctor of what?' and she would just smile and evade the question all the more meaningful.) I caught the name similarity as soon as The Doctor said 'Melody Pond' that there must be some connection, but didn't make the big reveal any more dramatic.
**** She's quite open about the fact she's a doctor of archaeology. But...if the Doctor came to that soldier's planet when she was young and they have 'doctor' mean warrior because of what the Doctor did then, why was she surprised when Amy said he wasn't a warrior because his name means warrior to them? The Doctor came and acted like a warrior so they define 'doctor' as 'warrior' but why should that mean that the guy who introduced them to the word doctor referred to himself as the Doctor ''because'' he was a warrior. She seems to be mixing up cause and effect.
**** I'm finding it really hard to parse that sentence, but it's Lorna, not River, who assumes the Doctor is a warrior, and she may not know that he's the whole reason the word "doctor" means that in her language.
***** Lorna does have a quote along the lines of "If he's not a warrior, then why do they call him Doctor?", however River Song's the one that tells the Doctor how because of him and his actions, Doctor does not mean medic or wise man, it means warrior. You have to remember that the only characters actually speaking English are Rory and Amy, and that etymology can be quite different in another language, even if the word roughly means the same thing, the 'back meaning' of a word might not be relevant (this is why jokes are rarely funny when translated, because double-meanings are lost)
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** Do you realise how that may affect her timeline? It could delay her...erm, beginning, and another child could have substituted. Even if that doesn't happen, it would alter her own history. For an example, her life suggests she was a [[Child Soldier]] for quite some time. When mommy and daddy learn this, they will do all they can to prevent this. River changes her timeline, leading to a completely different person. And then [[Clock Roaches|the Reapers descend.]] Now is likely the only possible date she can tell them this without creating a massive paradox. Indeed, it could lead to a [[Stable Time Loop]] where an earlier River meets her parents and they know who she is. Their surprise and questioning makes her realize the next time she meets them, she will tell them who she is.
*** So the River that just confessed she's Melody doesn't explain anything so the next time they run into her they pester her about everything? That seems pointless because any questions that a past River can answer, the current River can answer.
** As of Let's Kill Hitler, it seems that River got her name (well, both names) as a result of a [[Stable Time Loop
* Why didn't she know what was happening in Impossible Astronaut/ Day Of the Moon if she'd already been there as the little girl; why didn't she immediately recognize the time and place of the phone call and her suit, and why was she surprised when she (or at least her old suit) shot the doctor? Is she just ''that good'' of an actor?
** The same reason she didn't gush over seeing Amy and Rory (her parents). Alerting them to the future would endanger her own existence.
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*** The ending of ''Closing Time'' confirms that it is River in the spacesuit, in her familiar third body. ''"Tick tock goes the clock, 'til River kills the Doctor..."''
** Well she's regenerated since then hasn't she, so she's a different person, one that might not feel the same way about Amy and Rory because of that.
** That entire event involved the
** She ''did'' know. She later said she was lying to maintain {{spoiler|the illusion of the Doctor's death}}.
* If River really is Amy and Rory's daughter why is she in "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang"? Wouldn't she have been erased from time?
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* In regard to River Song being raised {{spoiler|to kill the Doctor}} and the {{spoiler|spaceman suit}}. I thought that she was selected for this purpose because of the fact she's {{spoiler|part Time Lord or whatever}}, and that she would have been carefully trained for the task, and appropriately brainwashed. Yet the in the episode where {{spoiler|she actually shoots the Doctor, she's put in a spaceman suit that she can't control and does all the killing for her - or intends to, anyway}}. Surely they didn't need River for that at all? Couldn't have just put any random person {{spoiler|in the suit}} and let it do its thing?
** Wasn't it stated that Utah was kind of like a linchpin for making fixed points? Maybe the Silents and Madame Kovarian wanted to get as many Time Lord-like people in that area just as extra insurance that it happened. The Doctor is known for being trick, after all.
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**** "Want to see my time machine?" is an awful chat-up line though.
**** Not if they believe it, it isn't. And he wouldn't want to bother with the ones who don't anyway.
**** [[The
* Why hasn't Captain Jack Harkness gone insane from dying so many times? For god's sake, he was buried underground for almost 2000 years, and lived through a large part of it. How does he manage that?
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* Now that the Pandorica has reset the entire universe, Amy has had parents who have taken care of her her entire life. Why haven't they checked up on her? Yeah, I understand that they're involving time travel and they could be back before they actualy left, but Rose, Martha, and Donna all had episodes that involved the people left behind picking up the pieces. Especially considering her '''childhood imaginary friend''' just materialized out of thin air in a relic from the 1960s, danced like a raver at their wedding, and then appeared to kidnap both of them on their wedding night. It just seems jarring that Amy hasn't gotten a frantic "Where the hell are you!?" call, that Eleven hasn't gotten one of his "Mother Slaps" yet, and that Rory hasn't had to awkwardly explain how Amy has already conceived, gestated, and delivered a child.
** Amy presumably got the whole imaginary thing explained away satisfactorily enough between Eleven materializing and everyone dancing at the wedding. In series five, Amy was only gone for five minutes between going off with the Doctor and picking up Rory which proves that it ''is'' possible to just not be gone for very long. Martha, too, went half a season before stopping back at home the morning after she left. It was only when she spoke with her mother on the phone a day or few days later that it was established that Martha was gone for longer than a few hours. Obviously, no one would think that they were kidnapped on their wedding night as they did say goodbye and for all we know the Doctor dropped them back off the next morning after who knows how much adventuring. Remember, Amy and Rory comment on how the Doctor dropped them off two months ago at the beginning of season six so they have had time to sort out any misunderstanding involving the wedding couple leaving the wedding (though people probably assumed honeymoon) and continuing to live their lives. Since Amy and Rory haven't contacted home yet, we don't know when they will return. Perhaps they will return five minutes after they left. And don't forget, not only do Amy and Rory not actually live with their parents so they can be gone for a few days without everyone freaking out but they had also travelled to America and presumably informed people of their intention to do this. For all their families and friends know, they're still on vacation in America. And when, exactly, should Rory have explained anything about the baby? He only found out about it right when Amy was dissolved and then it was more important to build an army to go after her than to check in and after he went after her, the episode ended so he hasn't had an opportunity to. Assuming Amy gets Melody back to raise and returns home, she'll need to be gone a year thus inviting questions and worry, claim Melody is adopted, or explain what really hapened. And for that matter, does either Amy or Rory even have a phone that's been modified to call anyone at any time?
* Does Rory have any kind of extended family? Amy at least had a mention of how odd it was that her parents weren't around and she didn't seem to remember them, but Rory's had nothing. Not even after sitting around for two thousand years does he mention missing anyone but Amy. I guess not everyone has to be close to their family but that all of his emotions seem to be focused entirely on her strikes me as a little odd.
** That's how it was with Mickey up until their first trip to Pete's World. I think Rory is the production team's attempt to redo Mickey without turning him into a complete [[Butt Monkey]]. Thus far they haven't done too well, though since he's married Amy at least he's not a complete and total third wheel.
** Also, after Amy said "Hey, cool, my parents are back!" she hasn't gotten in touch with them since. Neither has she reached out to the aunt who raised her, even in the episodes where they were in contemporary London anyway. Maybe they're trying to move away from the heavy familial involvement that Rose, Martha, and Donna all had and are instead playing with the [[
*** Even ignoring the fact that her aunt probably doesn't live in London (Leadworth's closer to Gloucester), I'm still not entirely sure what you mean by "in contemporary London". The only story to my knowledge set in "contemporary" London was part of "The Big Bang" (which was still 14 years in the past) and "The Wedding of River Song", and even the latter's London scenes focused on the Doctor and Winston (not to mention Amy technically not being Amy).
*** We don't really need scenes of Amy or Rory visiting relatives. While Martha's family never knew until the Master showed up and Donna's mother found out around the time Donna lost her memory, they implied that Rose visited her mother more often than was spelled out on screen. Amy in series 5 couldn't really visit her family as it all took place in one night. Amy and Rory had two months after their wedding to spend all the time they wanted to with family and as they keep traveling they might stop back and say hi at some point.
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** The Racnoss Queen's reaction to the word "Gallifrey" proves other people remember the Time Lords too. I got the impression that anything they did in their own subjective timeline before the Time War still holds, but they can't have any ''new'' effect in any era. It depends on the entire universe working on something like [[San Dimas Time]] (so time marches on, even for time travelers), but it's the only explanation I've found that sort of works.
** The first season stated that while the 'Higher Races' (whatever ''that'' means) retained some memory of the Time Lords, to most of the universe it's as if they never existed. Prying too far into how this interacts with the Earth and the Doctor sounds like a recipe for killer flying time monkeys.
** It's all about the [[No Ontological Inertia|Ontological Inertia]]. Gallifrey wasn't part of normal spacetime to begin with. The Time Lords fail to have ever existed, but in such a way that anywhere they actually interacted with the universe at large, the interaction still
*** And, as a result, I like to think that the reason the Doctor survived is because, thanks to his travels out in the normal universe, he had a substantially greater Ontological Inertia than the rest of his
**** The "greater Ontological Inertia" bit is canon. "Invasion of the Dinosaurs." Even when {{spoiler|the entire history of humanity has already been erased}} the Doctor still has a few seconds left to act before history catches up.
*** EVERYONE remembers the Time Lords. From talking trees to the Shadow Proclamation. They weren't erased from history they were just wiped out. And, because it was a "Time War" this apparently means it's no longer possible to travel to points where they still existed. Simple.
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***** OR it becomes impossibe to travel back to see it.
***** It makes perfectly good sense to me. The Time Lords ''weren't'' erased from history; everything they did time-travel-wise before still exists, but they can't create any new effects.
****** I agree. I think of time travel in Doctor Who (and specifically the part about not being able to go back on nd Jones". He could have been consequence of a time traveller travelling in one MORE dimension than exists. So, just as a topo map is a two-dimensional trace of a three-dimensional landscape, a video is a three-dimensional trace (two dimensions + time) of a four-dimensional
******* Actually, this entire explanation makes no sense within the model of time travel used in BTTF. (Note that after Biff changed the timeline, 2015-A ''replaced'' the original 2015 - so Marty and Doc departed to 1985-A ''from 2015-A''. [[Word of God]] asserted this as well.) Marty ''could'' have warned himself not to buy the almanac, but it would have created a paradox. There's a lengthier explanation for ''why'' exactly it would have created a paradox, and I could write it in detail, but I'm leaving it out as it isn't relevant to this page.
***** You need to read more Pratchett and Gaiman. The idea of the past being malleable is an old one. Both feature variations on a shop that appears out of nowhere, but has always been there, prompting people to ask "I know it's always been there, but had it always been there ''yesterday?''" If you can't suspend your disbelief and accept that kind of logical illogic then you might as well give up on the series as a whole and go read some Arthur C Clarke.
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** Personally, I actually prefer the lack of explanations about what exactly is up with the Time War. It makes it feel like this vast, mythic event
*** Sort-of like the Eon War during a random Marvel Comics time traveling event during the fourth Captain Marvel comic series.
{{quote|
**** let's be honest here: The Dalek's would SLAUGHTER the Time Lords. A bunch of jumped up old men in fancy robes, with about half a brain cell between the lot of them, versus the ultimate killing machine, BORN to destroy everything and anything that doesn't have tentacles and a plunger for an arm. It's no wonder they needed the Doctor to save the universe. An average Time Lord couldn't change a light bulb without express written consent, signed in triplicate, let alone fight a decent battle.
** I wouldn't be surprised if the Eternals took sides during the war too. I can see Death (no, not of the Endless) wanting to give the Dalek's a little nudge in the right direction, in the interest of sending more work her way.
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**** As a side note, the "time lock" has been known of eighteen months earlier in "Journey's End" (or was it "The Stolen Earth"?.
* How can ''all'' of the Time Lords be dead? If the Master managed to flee to the end of the universe, wouldn't some other Time Lords have fled as well? I'm pretty sure a whole bunch of them would've done that. Not to mention, what would have happened to Time Lords vacationing right before the Time War? Did the Council, douches that they are, conscript the whole race? And not leave any contingencies?
** The Master didn't just survive because he fled. He survived because he fled ''and'' turned himself human so that when all the Time Lords were wiped out he was immune. Sure, there could be more surivors but they'd probably be trapped as humans with no idea that they should open that old thing they've had forever but never really looked at.
** Considering the incredible threat that the Daleks posed to the Time Lords (and thus the rest of the universe), it's not hard to imagine that the council conscripted every Time Lord to help fight (whether on the front lines or just helping with supplies and such). They were so desperate to win the war that they weren't really thinking about contingencies. And besides, whoever would've planned for a scenario where ''both'' sides lose and get trapped in a Time Lock?
** Well, it depends on how you define a Time Lord. After River dies, there's still Jenny left.
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**** I think that's probably the best explanation, although it still leaves the "The Christmas Invasion" plothole: why didn't Torchwood nab the Doctor while he was chatting to Harriet Jones, <s>MP for Flydale North</s> Prime Minister? Oh well, probably because they were busy firing the giant laser.
** I assume Torchwood (or, for that matter, any British government agency) would have had a rough time trying to observe the Doctor due to technological limitations (no CCTV in London, etc) until he came back to Earth during the era of CCTV London and did some cool Timey Wimey stuff to get noticed.
*** They answer to Queen Elizabeth and have contacts with the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, but Torchwood aren't a government agency.
** The answer to this one is amazingly simple: messing with the Doctor at any point before the Tenth would potentially cause Torchwood to cease to exist; obviously an outcome they would rather not have. Additionally, we know from ''Torchwood'' (the series not the organization) that Jack Harkness was associated with Torchwood 3 from the turn of the twentieth century and even if ''they'' were dumb enough to try and create a paradox, Jack certainly would be smart enough to realize just how monumentally bad that would be for both the Earth and himself personally. He probably tried his hardest to try and protect the past Doctors; maybe even going as far as to explain the whole ''destruction of the universe'' thing to Torchwood 1 during Third's stay with UNIT. Finally there is the question on ''how'' they would have messed with him; I get the impression that Torchwood was never particularly large - their power came from their vast connections to the British government more than anything. Attacking/kidnapping Three would have meant getting through the Brigadier and his ability to amass a very powerful army at a moments notice - he ''would'' have found Torchwood and he ''would'' have caused some serious damage before the British government told him to back off. Every other Doctor had a fully working TARDIS and, like stated above, without CCTV or GPS, finding an out-sized blue box would be next to impossible.
** Then there's the fact that he's rarely in one place long enough for Torchwood to get their hands on him. As for the big exception to that pattern, can you imagine the shitstorm that would ensue if they tried to nab a UNIT employee? I imagine there's sort of an unspoken rule that the various major alien-fighting organizations don't interfere with each other, lest they wind up spending more time and resources fighting each other than the aliens.
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* Okay, we know an image of an angel is an angel. But how exact need that image be? Unless televisions in the future have infinitely fine resolution, there's obviously some room for approximation. Would a detailed painting create an angel? Would a doodle? Could someone who had never heard of the weeping angels depict something that happened to look enough like an angel to create one?
** The most straightforward answer I can think of is that it's the same threshold as "observing" an angel, whatever that may be. Forgetting about the "image" thing for a moment: if a totally blind person is near an angel, they're screwed. Someone who needs glasses but doesn't have them on hand is probably okay. It should be similar when it comes to the detailed-ness of the image, only in reverse (the ''less'' detail you can percieve, the safer you are). Still, it's not totally coherent how this works anyway.
*** It may have to do with intent too. The book can't have illustrations, since even if you make them abstract you still mean for them to be an angel, it's like not thinking of the word Hippopotamus. Wheras the statues on Earth that just happen to look like angels are harmless, we hope, because there was no intent to make them a Weeping Angel.
**** If you look back at Blink, Sally gave the doctor a photo of an angel.
**** Maybe since the photo was only from the waist up, that eliminates it. Maybe the whole "image of an angel is an angel" thing only works if it's a complete (however abstract) image of an angel. The looped video clip began with a full body image.
**** As for the pictures in "Blink" not coming to life, I just figured that there are multiple subspecies of angels. So the angels we meet in Time of the Angels just like to kill people, but the angels in Blink like to send people back in time. Similarly, the angels in Time of the Angels have the special power of "that which takes the image of an angel itself becomes an angel", but the angels in Blink don't have that power.
* OK, Moffat has stated that he's tried to work in a scene that mentions being able to trick the Angels with a mirror. So, with a little patience, we'll have an answer to that theory. However, there's another fan theory that consists of basically "Have someone look at Angel until it's stone. Grab large sledgehammer. Pound on Stone Angel until Stone no longer has shape of Angel." I could see an Angel recovering from losing a limb, but what if it's pounded to dust?
** It's often been theorized that the Angels don't actually turn into stone; it just ''looks'' like stone. The actual material is this weird "quantum locked" stuff that is literally indestructible. (Well, Angels can lose their form after awhile as we saw in The Time of the Angels, but that's the result of starvation rather than being smacked by an external force) This makes sense when you remember that the freezing-solid thing is supposed to be a defense mechanism. How can it be an effective defense if it allows your opponent to just stand there and smack you to death? (Unless all your predators are cat-like in that they have trouble perceiving a motionless object, of course). The obvious answer is that standing still isn't the defense mechanism. The defense mechanism is making yourself indestructible, and standing still is just a side-effect of the indestructibility. (Heaven help us if they ever develop a way to be indestructible and mobile at the same time.)
* Seriously, why don't people wink when they're keeping an eye on the angels?
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*** Amy tried in "Time of the Angels." It's not as easy as it looks, you have to actively remember to do that (as opposed to blinking, which is something of an automatic response.)
* If an Angel sent someone back in time to feed on their potential energy, what happens if they got a hold of a time machine and went into the future and lived out their lives there? Would there be a pull of energy from the Angel, weakening it?
* So, watching "Flesh and Stone", I couldn't help but
** Remember, the Angels are extremely fast, even the scavenging ones in Blink. Just blinking would probably get your neck snapped right away.
** Also, a lot of things in the Whoniverse are [[Immune to Bullets]] anyway. And who says the Angels become ''flesh'' when they move? For all we know, they turn into pure energy. (Which would help explain their speed, incidentally...)
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** Personally I've always assumed that the Silence we're talking about on this page are not The Silence that Calvierri was talking about- for one, it doesn't explain that bit at the end when all noise stops, and neither does it explain the TARDIS being taken over. More likely, it's some sort of mysterious, powerful, and literal Silence that represents, um, silence.
* As of [[Doctor Who/Recap/S32
** {{spoiler|Maybe people of any species can join the religious order, and when they do they convert themselves into proper Silents like we've seen before.}}
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== Questions about the TARDIS ==
* The Doctor gets shot at. Alot. [[Deflector Shield|Why doesn't he get himself some kind of personal force field. Good for avoiding random Daleks while you're doing a meadow run, or say, when you land in the middle of SanFrancisco (he really could have used it then).]] Hell, during ''The Parting Of Ways'', Nine did put a forcefield on the Tardis when he [[Storming the Castle|busted onto the Dalek ship to save Rose.]] [[What Happened to
** It was still attached to the TARDIS console in ''Journey's End'', where it proved to lack the power to block a tractor beam capable of moving planets. No idea what's happened to it now that the TARDIS control room has regenerated.
** As for why The Doctor doesn't use a personal force-field, I can think of two good reasons. First, a force-field would - in theory - require a massive amount of energy to run reliably and that much energy flowing around a person would attract attention that The Doctor would prefer to avoid in the high-tech futures where unusual energy signatures are probably monitored at spaceports like metal detectors are used at airports today. Secondly, most of The Doctor's regular enemies use weapons that no force-field could reliably defend against for long. It's much more economical to just RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!
** And if there's one character who would consider a personal forcefield a bit of a cheat, it's the Doctor, who is after all a bit of a thrill-seeker.
* Speaking of the TARDIS, you're telling me an advanced Sentient spaceship that can take any form and travel in time has no autopilot that allows it to conviently materialise over The Doctor's body when say, A Sontaran decides to go Sontar Ha! on his face? That would be a good way to more easily escape certain situations. I mean really Doc? You've never tried any of these things? You're much smarter than that.
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== Aging ==
* Why do the older versions of characters always look ''taller''? They are fully grown adults, apart from Amy in ''The Eleventh Hour'' and River in ''Let's Kill Hitler''.
** In ''The Girl Who Waited'' Older!Amy is at least 1/2 an inch taller than Present!Amy.
*** Older!Amy may have been wearing thicker shoes, as part of her armor.
** In ''The Wedding of River Song'' the Doctor seems to have grown by about 4 inches. This is never explained.
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== Misunderstanding the Reapers ==
* Why do so many people misunderstand the presence of the [[Clock Roaches|Reapers]] in Father's Day? The reason they showed up is that Rose caused a temporal paradox - she had
** Because of the [[Butterfly Effect]]. The further you go back in the past, the more likely that you change something about your own life. If you change ANYTHING on earth more than a 1000 years ago, chances are more than even that it'd affect your own personal history.
*** Changing your history is fine just as long as you don't lose your reason for time traveling to when and where you did.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Doctor Who]]
[[Category:Headscratchers]]
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