Is It All Falling Apart?

SEASON 6 REVIEW/DISCUSSION (pre season finalae!)

Time Lords. You sort of wish they were still around really. Yes, they were a bit boring, but they sort of did some useful things - you know, keeping an eye on the laws of time, and, most importantly (from our perspective) keeping Time Lord time-streams in line with each other.

For example, in the ‘classic series’, the Doctor could never cross time lines with another Time Lord – they would always meet in a linear time stream – no bumping into the Master in his earlier regenerations for example, not like this River Song stuff. Say, for example, the Doctor did bump into a younger Master, and killed him, then what would happen to the older Master? I suppose it would explain his obsession to try and kill the Doctor. But surely he would disappear ‘and none of it would have happened’. A classic time-travelling story-telling loop-hole which we know can’t happen – more than a paradox, it’s a flippin’ “I woke up and it was all a dream” joke at our expense.

In the ‘new series’, our latest megalomaniac (hey, I am one – I know one when I see one!) producer, the Moff, has been flying dangerously close to this ‘don’t even go there’ scenario. In fact he’s probably pinned a tail on it and called it name. Yep, it’s more than wibbly-wobbly!

With just a day or so left until the final episode of this season, I’m having a good old think about what we’ve seen so far in an attempt to prepare myself for what is undoubtedly going to make me, and all of you out there, go… ‘What the f…? b.. bu. but he can’t do that!’. Without doubt I'm confused already.

And whilst I’m gonna keep most of my musings to myself, I can’t help but wonder about our lovely Amy and her plastic-fantastic lover. At the beginning of the Impossible Astronaut, we find Amy and Rory in a nice new house, the Doctor having disappeared to play silly buggers all over the place (shouldn’t he be trying to find baby Melody or something?). Invitations arrive and off they go to catch up with the Doctor in the good old’ US of A. But this Doctor is an older Doctor (despite the fact he decided to put one of his ‘younger’ jacket on – perhaps he thought someone might be watching), and he promptly gets himself killed. Then up pops ‘our’ Doctor, or, more to the point, ‘their’ Doctor, and off they go on a new series of adventures.

Now the other week, ‘our/their’ Doctor drops them off at a lovely new home, which they'd never seen before, presumably with the mortgage paid for (lucky buggers), and leaves them to it. Last week he pops into see his old mate what’s-his-name (I’ve tried to block it out of my Whoniverse, as I found it softer for than a gang of adipose), and pinches some envelopes – which he then uses to invite everyone to the little jolly at the beginning of the season.

So… what can we conclude from this? Well, at some point, obviously, ‘our’ doctor becomes the later Doctor, and a couple of hundred Time Lord years have gone by. Great. No problem there. And the Doctor we’re watching now is the ‘older’ one who we saw getting himself blasted at the beginning of the season… which again, I fine. [Although I’m still a bit confused as to how he’s converted the date of his death (in ‘Earth’ terms) with his timeline/age, if you know what I mean, so as to be able to know that its coming up soon… that would require some sort of Time Lord like relative time, which now they’ve all gone and been flushed down the toilet of the universe is a bit tricky…]

But… doesn’t this leave Amy and Rory in a bit of a time-loop, starting off in their lovely new home, catching up with the older, and then younger Doctor, who then, after the usual fun and games, drops them off at their lovely new house which they’ve never seen before…

Something’s wrong somewhere (probably in my head, but I know that), and I doubt the Moff is silly enough to try and pull the wool over our eyes – or perhaps he’s even confused himself? Not only have we been watching fake plastic Rory’s, fake flesh Amy’s, and divergent Doctors, but he’s been weaving a web of time-lines so complicated that it really does make one wish that those oh so boring Time Lords were still here. At least we new what was going on then!

Personally, I think we’re going to be presented with something so convoluted that it won’t answer any of these questions and will just leave an even bigger continuity hole for the Moff to try and dig himself out of next season. And we thought old RTD was making it up as he went along…

Wibbly Wobbly, timey wimey indeed...