Grumbling about Doctor Who continuity...it's a sort of madness.

[jinxed_wood]

On the whole, I really enjoyed this episode, and the few quibbbles I have have been neatly covered by others. But there is one continuity issue that irritates me.

Comments

[persiflage_1]

Gallfrey was destroyed though - as was Skaro - so kinda hard to see how they could be continually Time Locked in an eternal war.

Mind you, Moff's been sticking two fingers up to RTD's Time Lord/Gallifrey canon throughout...

[jinxed_wood]

I though they were trapped in time moments before they reached mutual destruction, wasn't that the whole point of the RTD season 4 finale? That Gallifrey was 'coming back'?

My brain, it hurts.

But if Moffat brings Romana back, all is forgiven :-P

[persiflage_1]

Yeah, but other RTD storylines features Gallifrey being blown up, so, who knows?

I don't know why RTD had to write that Gallifrey had been destroyed. If he didn't want to include it and the TLs, he just could've not mentioned them!

[bugeyedmonster]

One of my fave bits of the Old Who was the friction between the Doctor and the Timelords.

[jinxed_wood]

A possiblity, yes - but if the timeline is different, does that mean Gallifrey is also free of the Time Lock? Has the entire back story to New Who changed and we're not in on the joke yet?

Moffat-tiem is messing with my brain, dammit!

[jinxed_wood]

Hee! I can't wait to see what others think in the reaction post. I get quite nerdy about this sort of thing!

[ithildyn]

I can't keep track of DW at all. I can't even really remember how last year ended. So, yeah, I'd forgotten about the timelock thing entirely, probably because Daleks keep showing up regardless.

[jinxed_wood]

I handwave a lot of stuff in the Moffat era because Moffat is rather good at writing pretty dialogue and, as we all know, I'm a sucker for pretty dialogue!

Of course, this could all be foreshadowing for another epic Timewar (because the last one got wiped by that whole incident with Amy's 'crack') but, if so, where are all the Time Lords hanging out?

My ackey, achey brain...

[idontlikegravy]

Maybe the Master's mucking about with the timelock somehow protected it from being affected by the crack and so Gallifrey is still stuck (oh, sweet irony etc,etc). Whatever it is, I'm sure there's a grand plan at play and Moff will reveal all in his own sweet time. Don't forget, we were all wondering what the hell he was playing at last season with Amy being weird and time not seeming to make sense but it all did in the end.

I refuse to accept that the man responsible for the Weeping Angels and half of Sherlock simply hadn't thought about it. That would just be silly. *g*

[jinxed_wood]

Trust in the Moffat, eh?

It would be fun if it were all leading up to a Master story. I'm curious as to how he'd handle the character. Very differently to RTD, I imagine.

[matgb]

I can't remember Skaro being locked in the time war, I may be not remembering a reference, but Gallifrey was locked away, as were the Daleks themselves, but I don't recall Skaro being mentioned-it makes no sense that it wasn't and Gallifrey was, but...

And then we had the whole victory of the Daleks thing where some of them came back and then went off to rebuild, and Amy's Crack remaking the universe based on how she remembered it not on how it actually was before, and the whole "time can be rewritten" thing and and and.

Frankly, I have no clue. But I will get to find out what the 8 year olds think when I get back to work on Wednseday.

[jinxed_wood]

My brain gets all bendy when it comes to this sort of thing but I've always got the impression that the way the Time Lock worked was that it subtracted all the elements that made up the Time War from our universe and locked it up. The premise sold to us in the first series, was that nobody but him even remembered the Time War. There was the occasional arcane and mysterious reference to it but it wasn't a fact.

There were ways of getting around the Time Lock, of course, like the Master becoming human, or the Daleks wriggling through an escape hatch of narrative convenience ( :-P) but we're supposed to now technically live in a universe where the war didn't happen so a war torn Skaro just doesn't make any sense to me.

So far, the 'time can be rewritten' theory seems to be the only explanation - but the possible repercussions could be catastrophic.

[matgb]

I watched the Bad Wolf two parter a few days back, there was clearly knowledge of the Daleks, and one of the going-to-die-soon characters says something like "didn't they all die in some war long ago" or something. But, y'know, Rusty never really did actually explain the time war properly, so none of it ever made much sense anyway.

We shall see, I definitely think Moffat's trying to undo as much of Rusty's cannon changes as possible without actually saying he's doing it, can't say I blame him there.

[snorkackcatcher]

That sounds about right -- I think Skaro was meant to have been wrecked long before the Time War ended (maybe even before it started as part of Evil of the Daleks?)

Also, that first downloadable interactive game was in effect supposed to be an extra Amy episode, wasn't it? They went back to rebuilt!Skaro where the new Technicolour Daleks were based and wrecked the place again. So maybe that was what the reference was to if anyone was keeping score at home!

If the Time Lock subtracted all the Time War elements, that would work -- it would put the Daleks back to where they were before, time travel capable but not out and out Time War capable.