Series 5-7: all the timelines, plot holes, and ways to fill some of them

[ibishtar]

I’ve attempted to make sense of the plot of Series 5-7 of Doctor Who (up to and including The Time of the Doctor). I’ll have to heavily summarise this in order to put it in infographic form, but here’s the full version of my write-up in case anyone’s interested. I’ve pointed out all the timeline changes as long as they pertain to the series arc (

Comments

[aylinn]

re: matt not being surprised at seeing tom - because at that point he has HOPE that he will succeed and might then be given a set of regenerations as a reward. (you can sort of see this ticking behind Matt's eyes as he goes "I never forget a face...")

Then when he comes to trenzalore in the christmas special, he loses that hope because he can't see the timelords doing that unless he lets them through. which he can't do because it will start the time war up again which is the one thing he WON'T do.

re: nine's memories - guilt can convince you of many things. he knows he had the moment, it's now gone. he knows he meant to destroy gallifrey - it's now gone. he's freshly regenerated. SOMETHING terrible must have happened. Plus, it overlaps with his memories of the things he did as the war doctor.

However, the fact that the war wasn't really "timelocked" explains how Dalek Caan WAS able to get back into it. Not to mention how many Daleks escaped in the first place. (the metaltron, the cult of skaro, the ark & the emperor.)

The other question is - Which faction of the timelords gave him the regenerations? was it the Woman? was it (whispers it quietly) the Master? was it Romana? I don't see it as being the High Council/Rassilon because the Doctor was acting against their direct wishes - both by using the moment and during End of Time. What price is the Doctor going to have to pay for his new lease on life?

*grin*

[ibishtar]

That's a good explanation for the Four thing, thanks.

LMAO the idea of Nine just assuming he must have done it although he can't actually remember it is so dodgy to me, I'd rather not go there.

No, the Timelock definitely did happen, it's referenced in The Day of the Doctor and is an important part of the story in The End of Time, where the Time Lords are trying to escape it, so it's not a wrong assumption by the Doctor.

That's another thing, if Gallifrey is frozen in another Universe 'like a painting', then how does the decision to give the Doctor more regenerations happen. Nevertheless it's fun to think who made that decision and why and how.

[aylinn]

>LMAO the idea of Nine just assuming he must have done it although he can't actually remember it is so dodgy to me, I'd rather not go there.

not so much assuming because he can't remember as assuming because he doesn't WANT to remember. PTSD. remember, 10 is the one who regrets. 10 is the one who thinks things over. remember - 9 is very shortlived and very irrational and very PTSD. look at the lone dalek episode. 9 just blanks it all out & runs. and returns to what 8 was doing to try & clean things up from the war. (I refer you to the beginning of his conversation with the nestene consciousness in "rose")

Then who did the timelock? it wasn't done by the moment's detonation because she didn't detonate. the timelords? given how hard Rassilon was fighting to get back into existence (which still holds up as using the whitestar diamond & the master's link to pull them back from "outside the universe" rather than "inside the timelock") I rather doubt that. that would leave the daleks - and if they had that capability wouldn't they have used it sooner? unless the Moment was REALLY playing games & decided to go back with gallifrey and timelock instead of detonate?

how much was the Bad Wolf involved? or her Ladyship the Tardis? remember - the Doctor wasn't the only one present in 13 incarnations! *grin*

[ibishtar]

But 10 has the same memories of the Time War as 9 and if he is the one who thinks things over he would also have noticed the gaps in his memory of that day. Also, lines from the Dalek Emperor in S1:

"You destroyed us, Doctor. The Dalek Race died in your inferno, but my ship survived, falling through time, crippled but alive."

The Dalek Emperor witnessed and barely survived that moment of destruction by the Doctor, it would have noticed if it had been a case of Gallifrey disappearing and Daleks destroying each other in crossfire. It also corroborates the 9's description of what happened: "[The Daleks] all burnt, all of [them]. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second. [...] I watched it happen. I made it happen. [And the Time Lords are] dead. They burnt with [them]. The end of the last great Time War. Everyone lost."

There's other arguments for the aborted timeline theory, but when I look at Christopher Eccleston's and David Tennant's portrayal, I don't believe there's a chance the Doctor's memories of that day are hazy at all.

[knightowl85]

Also, in TDotD when the official Time Lords ask the Doctor(s) why they should let him put them in the bubble universe Ten specifically says that the only alternative is that Gallifrey burns and that he has seen that future and doesn't want it repeated. So that does imply that in another timeline Gallifrey did burn or that at the moment Gallifrey was saved, a branched off timeline was created.

However, Eleven also says that he kind of remembered meeting himself before jumping back in time. This points to it being the same timeline where Gallifrey burned....Ugh...or maybe the Fez is really just a big red universe reset button that Eleven presses every time something doesn't go his way.

For a moment during tDotD I thought Ten, Eleven, (and de facto Nine) were going to end up sacrificing their incarnations because the War Doctor could never have become those men without the emotional ramifications of the Time War. I thought that timeline would be erased and the Capaldi Doctor would be rebooted as a ‘grown up' guilt free Ninth Doctor, thus also skirting the number of regeneration left question as well.

Honestly, the lost of Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctor's timeline would have been the logical result of saving Gallifrey. I cannot believe Nine and Ten, as we know them, would have had the strong reactions they had without actually witnessing the destruction of Gallifrey. It didn't seem like vague guilt over something they barely remembered. However, the fans (including me) would have had a fit if they erased from the ‘canon' all three of the ultra popular NuWho Doctors, so the War Doctor had to conveniently forget what happened (even though the majority of the action and the changes occurred within his timeline and not Eleven's.)

[ibishtar]

However, Eleven also says that he kind of remembered meeting himself before jumping back in time. This points to it being the same timeline where Gallifrey burned....Ugh...or maybe the Fez is really just a big red universe reset button that Eleven presses every time something doesn't go his way.

I think you've hit on the truth XD

Honestly, the lost of Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctor's timeline would have been the logical result of saving Gallifrey. I cannot believe Nine and Ten, as we know them, would have had the strong reactions they had without actually witnessing the destruction of Gallifrey. It didn't seem like vague guilt over something they barely remembered. However, the fans (including me) would have had a fit if they erased from the ‘canon' all three of the ultra popular NuWho Doctors, so the War Doctor had to conveniently forget what happened (even though the majority of the action and the changes occurred within his timeline and not Eleven's.)

Yeah, agree with this completely.

Sorry it took me so long to reply.

[somniumdraconae]

If you look back at the End of Time as the time lords trying to escape the bubble universe, rather than a time lock, it makes sense. I mean, the Doctor thought it was time locked. So thats what he called it. But the bubble universe is obviously just as tricky for them to escape, right? That's why they were calling for his help through the crack.

[ibishtar]

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply. Only now have I had the chance to continue going through comments.
I see the Time Lock and the Painting Manoeuvre as two different things that happened one after the other?

[iscariotjones]

Another explanation for Eleven's lack of confusion at seeing the Curator might just be that the Doctor meeting his future self is always only a potential future. River and the Doctor have lines like that from time to time, that just because one of them remembers a later (for the other) adventure, that doesn't mean the present one can't kill them and negate that. Time can be rewritten, and so on.

[ibishtar]

Ah, true, that's how I explained it to myself after watching TDotD (the answer to why Eleven is still worried about going to Trenzalore even though he's met his far future self) but I had forgotten.