Doctor Who

Significance is that it filled a MAJOR void of long time fans. We never saw the 8th regenerate. Hurt is the 9th, but because the other Doctor's don't consider him "one of us" they omit him. But he is still regardless the 9th incarnation of that Time Lord. Ecclestone was the 10th, Tennant the 11th, and Smith the 12th. Which is why Smith's Doctor told the Cyberman something like "I can regenerate, but god only knows what we will get next." Meaning the Valeyard perhaps.

In any event, it's a pretty earth shattering mini-ep. And proof to me that McGann would have made one hell of a Doctor.


edit: The Timelock isn't a prison. It just means that EVENT is locked from other timetravellers going to it and changing events. The 9th Doctor aka Hurts Doctor is the one who destroyed Gallifrey, Skaro, and quite a bit of other things based on everything said the past 9 years. Tennants Doctor admitted to killing millions in The Doctor's Daughter.

Yeah seeing Paul McGann was in and of itself shocking, then you have the reaction to meeting a Time Lord of sheer terror / hatred followed by the Sisters of Karn (the 4th Doctor story "Brain of Morbius" is sadly not currently available for streaming). To top it off McGann says the name of all of his companions from the Big Finish radio dramas thus legitimizing at least elements of those stories as now being canonical.

So much geekgasm in a 7 min episode.

Yep. I'm pretty sure there was a Sister of Karn in the End of Time. She was the one making the prophecies about the Doctor and the Master. But that's more of my personal opinion and not really relevant. Just glad we got to see Karn again, and listen to the 8th Doctor mock their Flame.

And a big "fuck you" to FOX by being forced to omit Grace as a companion due to the rights.

Jait_sl said:

Significance is that it filled a MAJOR void of long time fans. We never saw the 8th regenerate. Hurt is the 9th, but because the other Doctor's don't consider him "one of us" they omit him. But he is still regardless the 9th incarnation of that Time Lord. Ecclestone was the 10th, Tennant the 11th, and Smith the 12th. Which is why Smith's Doctor told the Cyberman something like "I can regenerate, but god only knows what we will get next." Meaning the Valeyard perhaps.

In any event, it's a pretty earth shattering mini-ep. And proof to me that McGann would have made one hell of a Doctor.


edit: The Timelock isn't a prison. It just means that EVENT is locked from other timetravellers going to it and changing events. The 9th Doctor aka Hurts Doctor is the one who destroyed Gallifrey, Skaro, and quite a bit of other things based on everything said the past 9 years. Tennants Doctor admitted to killing millions in The Doctor's Daughter.

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ok i wasnt sure. Timothy Dalton head gallifray dude was all salty about being stuck in there and i assumed the timelock was a prison. my next question is how the fuck did the doctors split up into separate entities? are they going to all join up through their own timelines to stop The War Doctor then head on back to where they left off?

Yeah, I think you're right. Dalton did send the diamond because they were stuck.

I guess I prefer to think of them being stuck on Gallifrey surrounded by Daleks and "The Moment" which the prophet told them the Doctor would use to destroy them, and not inside the Time Lock. The Time Lock really shouldn't affect anyone during the Events themselves because they are a part of it. The Locks exist (imo) to prevent others from changing outcomes that cause the current Universe/Causality to exist.

tl/dr Timey Wimey.


edit: Nevermind. Dalton never mentions the Timelock. He just wants to survive the Moment, and discovers that two Time Lords survived the War and can be used to pull Gallifrey out of the war. No time lock ever mentioned.

Timothy Dalton had to know something was up and it made him send the diamond?

I thought "The Moment" referred to The Doctor being able to somehow get control of the fall of Gallifrey being timelocked, so that they couldn't time travel out of it. Could be connected to glowy gem thing.

"Day of the Doctor" probally means it's the story of how the future Doctors turn war Doctor good again, since "Night of the Doctor" was the mini episode showing how he went bad (no more sexy companions since everyone hates Time Lords!)

Yeah, the prophet told him this was the last day of the war and nothing could change it. Gallifrey would fall and no one save for two would survive. Using the Master he hoped to escape the War and enact his Final Solution.

Also back when End of Time aired I said the other Weeping Time Lord was going to be Matt Smith when they finally showed the Time War. (Look at the hair!!)

So I'm not entirely sure we wont see Rassilon, Romana (I refuse to think Claire Bloom was playing anyone else), and that final scene all over again from Gallifrey point of view. Maybe even some John Simm goodness as well.

That was pretty amazing. I went and looked up the Sisters and got reminded how deeply weird the early history of the Time Lords was.

I've been wondering if the Master would turn up. On the one hand he could be a distraction from the Doctors own story, but I'd love to see the interaction between Simms and Hurt.

That seven minute mini episode was more enjoyable than the whole series of Agents of Shield so far.

I don't know much about cannon. It seemed to me from watching those episodes that the time lock was exactly what it describes. Time itself is dislocated for whatever events. No time travel in or out of some period defined by the moment. For Time Lords, that basically is prison.

Dr. Who basically grounded them. But instead of sitting in the corner thinking about what they've done, they get a planet eternally about to be invaded by Daleks. A period or moment in time which is both static and ongoing, self contained and divergent. The penultimate zen and the art of tardis recalibration time paradox that only a time lord would understand how that's even fucking possible, and of THEM apparently only Rassilon and the Doctor themselves understand how is feasible.

Basically he retconned the entire universe somehow, and trying to explain it more explicitly is probably a bad idea.

He's sorta got to be The Other (or whichever the 3rd one is called that was there with Rassilon and Omega and the start of time lording).

Not sure if this has been said but my interpretation is that the "time lock" refers to any time and space that the time war occurs.

Example: If there is a battle on the north side of mars on stardate xyz at abc time, then that particular space/time point is not available to anyone because it is part of the time lock.

if that makes any sense

was it ever explained how the doctor implemented the timelock? because that would have come in handy when all the doctor's enemies locked him in the pandorica and it nearly destroyed the universe.

Newp. Never explained. But remember that Toshi from Torchwood created one used in Journey's End.

So I guess even Humans can create small mundane ones

My impression was that the time lock resulted from the rampant abuse of time travel during the war, so the lock was more of a natural "hardening" of time like scar tissue.

Grimey_sl said:

My impression was that the time lock resulted from the rampant abuse of time travel during the war, so the lock was more of a natural "hardening" of time like scar tissue.

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That was my take on it as well. The Time Lords and the Daleks kept refighting battles over and over attempting to reverse any defeat throughout history until eventually past events became fixed - which is why the Doctor couldn't go back and alter the outcome even if he wanted to. It could also be why the Time Lords became more and more desperate, having become used to defeating adversaries by simply changing the course of events before they became a threat (Google the Divergence).

Whatever he did, we can confirm it undid most of the damage from the war. The mini-episode made it clear that the war had destroyed most of the universe.

Yeah, that's the thing. Time scars make plenty of sense. More sense than the other. I like that explanation. But the problem is that we know The Doctor actually DID something. He had an active part in the time lock, wtf-ever a time lock is supposed to be. We've had two full doctors of strong subplots involving him atoning for a nameless guilt over the resolution of some dilemma he faced/faces/will face.

It seems that since Eccelstone when there is a conflict between the two pathos wins, and the inexplicable moment is more emotionally satisfying.

I'm hoping they explain it in the special. It's definitely one of those head scratchers we ultimately chalk up to being "timey wimey".

another question, how did the Time War destroy any part of the universe? i thought it was just between the time lords of gallifray and the daleks of skaro? you would figure the first things to be destroyed would be those 2 planets.