Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Blink: Difference between revisions

Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Blink (edit)

Revision as of 19:49, 4 January 2014

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responses and minor edits

Craigysa

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 {{discontinuity}}
-*I am currently in the middle of a later episode (no spoilers) where they mention paradoxes. Person A has killed Person B so they want to kill an earlier version of Person A so that he will never go on to kill Person B. But that won't work because the only reason they had the notion to stop Person A was because Person B was killed. So, in this episode the only reason the doctor has the conversation notes is because Sally transcribes the conversation notes because she has already had the conversation and can give it to the doctor who then goes back in time and reads the transcription. See the problem there? That means that the conversation itself materialized out of thin air. Nobody had an original thought. The only reason either of them said anything is because they knew what the other person said/was going to say. If that is not a paradox then I don't know what is.
+*I am currently in the middle of a later episode (no spoilers) where they mention paradoxes. Person A has killed Person B so they want to kill an earlier version of Person A so that he will never go on to kill Person B. But that won't work because the only reason they had the notion to stop Person A was because Person B was killed. So, in this episode the only reason the doctor has the conversation notes is because Sally transcribes the conversation notes because she has already had the conversation and can give it to the doctor who then goes back in time and reads the transcription. See the problem there? That means that the conversation itself materialised out of thin air. Nobody had an original thought. The only reason either of them said anything is because they knew what the other person said/was going to say. If that is not a paradox then I don't know what is.
 ::Yes, this is a classic example of an ontological paradox (something exists whose ultimate cause is itself). But not all paradoxes affect the Whoniverse the same way. Some kinds of paradoxes are no problem at all, some are only a problem if they're observed, some are always a problem; some undo themselves automatically unless you provide energy to sustain them, some cause unstable alternate timelines to pop into being, some rip homes in spacetime, and some destroy the universe; some can be accomplished with no effort, some are difficult, and some are impossible. The details of all those distinctions aren't perfectly clear (or even consistent), especially if you only stick to the TV episodes, but the fact that there _are_ differences definitely is. And it's been pretty well established that ontological paradoxes, especially those only involving information, are easy to create and cause no problems.
 :::One wonders why the Doctor wasn't able to bring Billy back to his own time via the TARDIS, but was still free to move after being sent back by the same Angels. If there's some kind of potential that they consume permanently, this hasn't been a problem for the Doctor. This makes sense, considering he doesn't age, but what about Martha? She's a human who got sent back, but she somehow gets a free pass for just being with the Doctor. Perhaps it's some effect of exposure to the Time Vortex? If you really wanted to stretch things, you could imagine the ontological paradox as the result of the displacement of the Vortex's energy snapping back to its proper place (seeing as the Angels apparently use other means of transport). Just a thought.
 ::::Well, time is wibbly-wobbly. I think that time gives you a "get out of paradox free" card if you don't make it ''physically impossible'' for you to have gone back. For example, if Person B didn't get killed, Person C (the time traveller mentioned in the original thing) still could've imagined Person A killing Person B, and so then they would've still gone back in time. However, if Person A is the time traveller, and they go back and kill themselves, ''then'' it rips a hole in time and space, because it would be physically impossible for them to have gone back.
 :::::Someone mentioned below that maybe he was only looking at her responses and responding ad lib, thus creating the words themselves and avoiding a complete paradox.
+::The key difference is between a paradox that is self-sustaining and one that is self-destructive.
 *Sally sees the Weeping Angels on the edge of the building across the one she is in. She blinks, and they have moved to the edge of the building she is in now. There a lots of cars and people around, surely one of them would have seen?
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 ::Interestingly, this is the first thing Amy tries. Because she's amazingly clever, or because Moffat hadn't thought of that a few years ago but has since then, or because some fan asked him in the intervening time. From observing Amy, you can see how difficult it is.
-:::Blinking doesn't work that way. Even if one of your eyes has recently been closed, you still get that instinct, that itch, to blink them both.
+:::Blinking doesn't work that way. Even if one of your eyes have recently been closed, you still get that instinct, that itch, to blink them both.
 ::::Try it out, you can alternate eyes for a pretty long time without blinking. It's difficult, and eventually you will fail (exactly as we saw with Amy), but it does at least give you more time between blinks.
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 *Why does Kathy contact Sally only after her disappearance, rather than sending the message sooner to try to prevent the disappearance? The Doctor warns Billy not to contact Sally at the wrong time, but how does Kathy know?
 ::Kathy needed someone to deliver the message. For the messenger to be younger than 75 by the time of Kathy's disappearance but older than 10 when the message was issued, Kathy would have to wait at least until 1942 to send the message. By this time she was happily married with children in her new era, and wouldn't have wanted to undo that.
 ::Besides, it would cause a paradox. Don't ask me why that would cause a paradox but not the thing with the transcript; time is wibbly-wobbly.
+::Kathy no doubt realised that giving Sally the message before might have prevented her happy marriage.
 *If Sally has several months - possibly a year - to put her notes together, why does the Doctor act like he is missing big parts of the story, such as what happens after Larry stops writing the transcript?
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 ::::I think you mean "sapient" here, because things like wild animals are sentient.
-::::More importantly, I think at least wild animals, if not insects, probably do count, in order to explain some of the other times the Angels couldn't move
+::::More importantly, I think at least wild animals, if not insects, probably do count, in order to explain some of the other times the Angels couldn't move.
 ::Since even physicists who believe in the "active" version of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics (observation causes collapse of the waveform) can't come up with a good definition of what counts as an "observation", I don't think you can fault Moffat too much for not solving an 80-year-old problem in a TV script.
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 *You can't get that much money working in a shop, yet when you see them and the Doctor and Martha meet up with Billy, they look immaculate.
 ::The pay you get from working in a shop would be enough to get by on, and to keep your clothes clean. Lots of people work in shops and can pay mortgages and raise children.
 ::It is implied that Billy films the video. Therefore, they would have met Billy before the video was made and possibly before Martha got a job.
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 ::If it weren't possible to transfer old films to DVDs, we wouldn't have any DVDs of old films.
-::Also, if the Doctor could manufacture a Betamax 50 years ahead of time, he could have manufactured a DVD recorded a few decades early.
+::Also, if the Doctor could manufacture a Betamax 50 years ahead of time, he could have manufactured a DVD recorder a few decades early.
 *When the Doctor reads the transcript, Sally turns around and sees the shadow of three Weeping Angels moving. But if she is observing part of them they shouldn't be moving.
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 ::This is a borderline production error, but there's nothing about the way the scene is cut that suggests he couldn't have moved back.
-*When Sally takes the key in the attic and looks at it, a shadow is seen coming towards her on her hair
+*When Sally takes the key in the attic and looks at it, a shadow is seen coming towards her on her hair.
 ::It is the Angel she took the key from.
 *Why didn't the photo Sally took of the Angels and gave to the Doctor become an Angel, just like the recording did in ''[[Flesh and Stone]]''?
 ::They were scavengers, not up to full strength, so may not have had this power to turn a picture of them into an Angel. Also when they come out of recordings they are just projections of the real thing, but since all of them are eternally made of stone they couldn't project themselves.
 ::Also, they might only have that ability with video.
 ::Also also, they might only have that ability if it's the ''full'' image; part of the angel was cut off at the bottom.
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 ::Because that would create a paradox, as it was Billy who told Sally a hint that meant that they got the TARDIS back, if he never told her, how would they get the TARDIS?
-:::And that kind of paradox—an action removing the reason for that action—is generally more bad in the Whoniverse than other kinds.
+:::And that kind of paradox: 'an action removing the reason for that action', is generally more bad in the Whoniverse than other kinds.
 * Why doesn't Larry make sense of the situation sooner? The easter egg made no sense to us when we first saw it because we only saw random snippets, but if you listen to the whole thing as Larry and his internet buddies have you would clearly have made sense of it, as the Doctor clearly explains that he's a time traveller stuck in the past, and then proceeds to give a very thorough description of the angels.
-::Because if you are told by someone that he has travelled in time you wouldn't believe and so with the other things the doctor said.
+::Because if you are told by someone that he has travelled in time you wouldn't believe and so with the other things the Doctor said.
-* When Billy arrived in 1969, he was met by the Doctor and Martha. in 2007, Billy is an old man, but Martha does not age at all during this time.
-[[Category:DW TV discontinuity]]
+* When Billy arrived in 1969, he was met by the Doctor and Martha. In 2007, Billy is an old man, but Martha does not age at all during this time.
-::Billy was sent back to 1969 and lived his life through to 2007, aging. Martha was sent back to 1969, but returned to 2007 via the TARDIS when it was sent back to 1969 by Sally and Larry.
+::Billy was sent back to 1969 and lived his life through to 2007, ageing. Martha was sent back to 1969, but returned to 2007 via the TARDIS when it was sent back to 1969 by Sally and Larry.
-*Since Billy was a policeman when he was sent back to 1969 (lucky he was sent to the same time & place as the Doctor & Martha and not to 1920, hmmm?), neither he, nor the Doctor nor Martha had any resources, no money, no equipment (aside from the screwdriver), no TARDIS. So, how why would the Doctor just happen to be carrying the transcripts with him when the angel zapped him to the past and how did the three of them have the wherewithal to film the conversations that would eventually be put on DVDs? I mean, which part of the transcript came first, Sally's or the Doctor's? It couldn't have been the Doctor's because he was reading from the transcripts he got from Sally. But Sally was responding to what she heard and saw the Doctor say, so her part must have come after his. Causality is so often circular in DW with A causing B and B causing A with nothing ever identified as the original action that began the chain of events.
-::the doctor carries a lot of random things in his coat so maybe it's just bigger on the inside like the TARDIS, or maybe something in the transcripts let him know when he should have it on him.  Maybe when he realized he was parking the TARDIS near that house he grabbed the papers just in case he would need them.  Also the transcript was complete at the time he received it, Larry had written in both sides of the conversation and the Doctor just had to read it like a script.  In that way it is a paradox but an apparently harmless one.  Also someone said above that the Doctor may have only been reading and responding to Sally's parts to make the conversation more real and of course got his own responses word for word (as they were his own).  As for wherewithal, the Doctor has been shown to use his sonic screwdriver to get money before.  Maybe he only does that in emergencies or when he doesn't expect to stay long.  Maybe he did that until they could get on their feet (it is kind of cheaty isn't it) which is when Martha gets a job and Billy works at the recording company to help the Doctor and Sally.  Also the Doctor is crafty, we've seen him make devices way ahead of their time using stuff he's scrounged up from junk piles.
+*Since Billy was a policeman when he was sent back to 1969 (lucky he was sent to the same time & place as the Doctor & Martha and not to 1920, hmmm?), neither he, nor the Doctor nor Martha had any resources, no money, no equipment (aside from the screwdriver), no TARDIS. So, how why would the Doctor just happen to be carrying the transcripts with him when the Angel zapped him to the past and how did the three of them have the wherewithal to film the conversations that would eventually be put on DVDs? I mean, which part of the transcript came first, Sally's or the Doctor's? It couldn't have been the Doctor's because he was reading from the transcripts he got from Sally. But Sally was responding to what she heard and saw the Doctor say, so her part must have come after his. Causality is so often circular in DW with A causing B and B causing A with nothing ever identified as the original action that began the chain of events.
-:::It's actually mentioned quite often that his pockets are bigger on the inside. He probably kept it in an inner pocket to have handy when the time came, since he knew he'd get stuck without the TARDIS. Also, knowing he'd get stuck there in the future, he may have purchased some necessities. He's smart enough, and resourceful enough.
+::The doctor carries a lot of random things in his coat so maybe it's just bigger on the inside like the TARDIS, or maybe something in the transcripts let him know when he should have it on him.  Maybe when he realized he was parking the TARDIS near that house he grabbed the papers just in case he would need them.  Also the transcript was complete at the time he received it, Larry had written in both sides of the conversation and the Doctor just had to read it like a script.  In that way it is a paradox but an apparently harmless one.  Also someone said above that the Doctor may have only been reading and responding to Sally's parts to make the conversation more real and of course got his own responses word for word (as they were his own).  As for wherewithal, the Doctor has been shown to use his sonic screwdriver to get money before.  Maybe he only does that in emergencies or when he doesn't expect to stay long.  Maybe he did that until they could get on their feet (it is kind of cheaty isn't it) which is when Martha gets a job and Billy works at the recording company to help the Doctor and Sally.  Also the Doctor is crafty, we've seen him make devices way ahead of their time using stuff he's scrounged up from junk piles.
+:::It's actually mentioned quite often that his pockets are bigger on the inside. He probably kept it in an inner pocket to have handy when the time came, since he knew he'd get stuck without the TARDIS. Also, knowing he'd get stuck there in the future, he may have purchased some necessities. He's smart enough, and resourceful enough.
+::(1) The Doctor specifically mentions that Billy was zapped by the same Angel that attacked Martha and him. (2) When Sally gave the Doctor her notes, she advised him to keep them on his person at all times. And no doubt after taking an initial look he would have concurred. (3) As mentioned earlier, the Doctor is extremely resourceful - especially if he has some advance warning.
 *After The Doctor says that Sally needs to get the blue box back he says there is no more to the transcript but she had responded "How? How?" Larry was watching an angel at the time but wouldn't he have written that in later, being so obsessed with completing the transcripts?  Also did Larry write his own responses in?  Because every now and then the Doctor responded to things he had said but Larry never mentions writing what he says down.
 ::I can't read shorthand, but I'd guess that Larry wrote everything, since he was noting the way it flowed as a conversation. They may have left off the end of the conversation purposely, or maybe the Doctor had a lemonade in his pocket and it spilled. We all know how fond he is of Lemonade.
+[[Category:DW TV discontinuity]]