Howling:Unresolved questions after Series 5

The Howling → Unresolved questions after Series 5

There be spoilers about un-released stories here.
Run back to the forums if you're scared.

With Series 5 over, lots of questions have been answered, but a few remain open. Will they be dealt with in a future season, or did I just miss the answer? Please contribute to the two lists below, and offer answers and solutions! :-) Hack59 11:14, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Unresolved issues

1. The cracks so far seem to have been caused by the presence of the TARDIS. I offer the Confidential about Victory of the Daleks as evidence, in which the patent absence of any cracks from the War Room wall before the final departure of the TARDIS was pointed out as something to watch out for, so the final crack was very recent. If that's the case, what caused the crack in Amelia's wall?
2. In The Time of Angels, Amy tells the Doctor that he lets "people call you 'sir' now", even though it is never shown that she had learned of his distaste for this appellation. In fact, we have never actually seen the 11th Doctor being uncomfortable at being called 'sir' or any kind of military behaviour. Where did this come from?
3. River Song claims to be in jail for having "killed [...] the best". She's probably referring to the Doctor. Safe to assume that this will be dealt with in the future. (Ideally, she'd kill him when she first meets him, causing her imprisonment and his regeneration, though that'd be a while off.)
4. In Victory of the Daleks, Amy doesn't recognize the Daleks. Does she now? Did her past future also get rewritten? God this stuff is confusing ;-)
5. In The Eleventh Hour, little Amelia is seen still outside in the garden and waiting at dawn, and there's a TARDIS brake noise and she smiles. How does that fit in?
6. In The Big Bang, River discovers scorch marks outside of Amy's house. Someone or something has been there. 173.57.144.238 21:16, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
7. In The Lodger, someone or something was trying to build a type of TARDIS and trapped the Doctor's TARDIS in a time loop 173.57.144.238 21:16, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Resolved issues

For karmic balance, I'll also quickly list a few issues that have been debated in the individual episodes' discussions but which are now resolved.

• Clocks jumping wrongly between AM and PM: As the Doctor observes laconically: "History is shrinking." (Brilliant. This line is on par with "Time is reversing!" in Series 3. Why can't we all see the obvious like he does?)
• The reappearing Doctor in Flesh and Stone talking to Amy who has her eyes shut: It was the future Doctor 'rewinding' into his own past.
• Why did Amy never bring up her own family: Everyone had been consumed by the crack and thus never existed in her mind. Now we also know that "never having existed" does not undo previous births while you still ... errr... had ever existed, somehow.
• In The Eleventh Hour the Doctor wonders how Amy knows that the pond in her village is a duck pond "if there are never any ducks in it". As was pointed out, the Doctor could well be alluding to the fact that Amy Pond has no memories of her own family or origins. (Are there any other references of the duck pond throughout the series?)

Answers and Discussion

[Please post your solutions, suggestions and discussions below. Please separate unrelated entries with level-3 heading and sign your posts. I will edit conclusive new points into the above two lists.]

Please no speculation!

Some of the contributions are becoming highly speculative. I don't mean to collect speculations about the unresolved issues. I would only like to establish whether something is indeed unresolved, or whether there has been a conclusive answer. If we agree that something has not been resolved, there should be three options:

1. It will be dealt with in the future (like The Silence or River Song).
2. It was a production error (maybe check that it's listed as such in the episode article).
3. It was a general oversight. You may like to discuss that further, but maybe not here -- if you are going to speculate wildly or offer your own pet theories about the Whoniverse, please create a separate forum topic and link it here.

Thank you! Hack59 01:47, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

Rewinding

Not an answer, just random gossiping: Note how the Doctor preferred to walk into the Crack over rewinding further into anything to do with RTD. Poor Rose, that was her only chance for more screentime ;-) . Hack59 11:55, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Another instance of rewinding is from the beginning of TEO. We assume that when Tennant regens that it is contemporanous and sometime in 2010 or late 09. As he crashes he evidently goes back 12 or so years to the past instead of crashing in the current time. He doesnt get back to the "now" until he picks up Amy at the end 173.57.144.238 23:17, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Hm, not really -- that's just time travel, which the Doctor does all the time. The 'rewinding' that happens in The Big Bang is a very peculiar event in which the Doctor visits his own past, as he experienced it, as a result of being 'erased from time'. Had he gone on rewinding, he would have visited all his past experiences, his past incarnations and past companions -- obviously something undesirable from the show's point of view. Actually, that gives me an idea: In The Eleventh Hour, the Doctor prompts the visual presentation of all his ten previous incarnations, which establishes a clear continuation of the franchise. Were this to happen again in the Series 6, we would have a grasp on the extent of the 'reboot'. Hack59 23:26, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

What, you mean to say you think Moffat is literally rebooting past Doctors? Hartnel, Troughton, Pertwee, Bakers, Davidson, McCoy, McGann, Eccleston and Tennant weren't the Doctor? The Thirteenth Doctor 23:36, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

I think they're talking about the universe reboot. The doctor was unwritten, and with it all of his past incarnations, but when Amy's memory brought the Doctor back, all his incarnations then must've existed in the past, because they're all the same person, after all.86.173.66.5 00:59, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

No, what I meant was that in The Eleventh Hour, we get a clear indication of the continuity of the franchise. If in Series 6 we would again see reference to the past doctors, we'd essentially know that "everything is as it was", and that we're not supposed to consider all past canon as invalidated. Hack59 01:35, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

They probably will put one in, either just to clear up this issue or to continue the trend of showing the other doctors throughout this series.86.164.120.218 22:52, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

1. Cracks caused by TARDIS?

There was no crack in the wall and there never was. The Doctor was reduced to fiction by entering the crack, literaly a story in a girls mind. He is brought back into reality by Amy but the events we saw were not strictly real ones in this new whoniverse.

I don't think the cracks were ever said to be caused by the TARDIS being there, only by the iminent explosion, or the aftershock of the explosion of it.86.164.120.218 23:05, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

Amy is present where all the Cracks are. The TARDIS also being there could just be coincidental. 173.57.144.238 21:31, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

I never saw any problem with this...since the cracks involve time, it makes perfect sence for them to appear slightly before the TARDIS' appearance as much as after it. 203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

2. 'Sir'

Is it a bit over-interpreted? Especially when Amy hasn't known the Doctor too well yet at that point...it was still an early adventure...but who knows... 203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

It's possible that there were other adventures inbetween the 3rd and 4th episodes, or even just that Amy's never seen people call him Sir until now, despite him often being considered of high authority; maybe she thinks this is because word has got around that the doc doesn't like it? Or even, her

Maybe I'm fussing too much about this, but note that even we, the audience have not seen Doc 11 react uncomfortably to military attention. Hack59 01:35, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

3. River Song

Time will tell.

Question: River Song claims to have last seen the Doctor when Pandorica opened. How does that work? 87.112.168.194 21:11, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

The event you have in mind happens in Flesh and Stone, which in River's timeline happens after she was at the Pandorica. What exactly is the problem? Or do you mean that nothing can strictly speaking have happened after the Pandorica reboot? Wait, maybe now I get your question: You think that the Byzantium event did not happen as a result of the Pandorica, so River cannot go to the Byzantium as the next thing. And you may wonder how anyone can remember anything that happened at the Pandorica. Good point.

I think the way we are meant to view the Pandorica event is that "everything is back to how it was, but the cracks are gone and Amy's life is fixed". As someone said eisewhere, everything in episodes prior to Big Bang will have either happened or not happened at the writers' convenience, I don't think there's any consistent way to come up with any other viewpoint.

Or, if that's not enough timey-wimey for you, how about this: Before the Pandorica, River did go to the Byzantium as her next thing after the Pandorica, so then she did tell the Doctor that she just came from there; but now that the Pandorica exploded, she won't have done the Byzantium trip as her next thing and spoken to the Doctor there, but then you would contend that the Byzantium didn't happen after all, so she never did say that. It's as retarded as it sounds, but what else can you expect from such a dramatic plot device. Hack59 21:27, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

My thoughts are, River does remember the Pandorica (cause Rory remembers being plastic, when the TARDIS arrives at the wedding he says "I was plastic. He was the stripper at my stag night.") So River will remember it, but will be travelling back along the Doctor's personal timeline, not the universe's, which is how she can appear in the Crash of the Byzantium. The Thirteenth Doctor 23:28, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

The Man Murdered by River Song: Could it be a red herring? Could the man be the Doctor's future companion or some President/political figure of a planet? The reason for my scepticism on this one is that I don't think anyone cares if the Doctor is killed...if he were killed on Earth, I don't think anyone would be charged...he hasn't shown to be more famous in the 51st Century and the Bishop never saw the Doctor as this saintly figure...I would actually have an easier time believing River Song murdered a final incarnation of the Master, the last of Doctor's own kind. It's more scary when you think River Song saying 'honey' to someone she just murdered and tag along pretending nothing happened...she would have to be pretty cold-hearted to do that...I hope the writing is not that bad....203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

She would obviously not have murdered him in cold blood or out of malice. All she said was that she was "in jail for killing a man", and there may be countless ways that she may have been forced to sacrifice the Doctor for some other, greater good but so that it would be held against her. The Doctor would probably have gone on to regenerate (though I don't know if that regeneration count will become an issue at some point), but people who don't know that the Doctor can regenerate (i.e. most people) would still consider it a killing. Now I'm speculating myself, so I'll stop here ;-) We'll find out in due time! Hack59 01:51, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

River Song/Byzantium: Song has demonstrated an unnatural time-awareness comparing to any other character...but even if the time-awareness was just bad writing...let's not forget that when time travelers are involved in an event during time travels, they retain memories/impressions of the events even if the events were wiped from existence...and have we forgotten that River Song was in the BLOODY CENTRE OF THE EXPLOSION THAT IS THE EYE OF STORM FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE TIMELINE????!? I think that could be a possible reason on why she retained a non-existing memory.... 203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

4. Amy knowing about Daleks

We will find out what has 'changed' as new stories develop. Things will have 'not happend' in this new whoniverse as the writers need.

There is more to this since no one remembers the Cyber King either. The two must be related. It could have been just a "placeholder" in 2008 for some future storyline and Moffet's team just used it or there may be a continiuty arc we are unware of 173.57.144.238 23:24, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

While the whole point of a restoration is to restore and Amy's life is shown to be the only thing on Earth that's restored most completely due to her holding memory of an original timeline...I think Moffat is intentionally trying to destroy continuity and wipe out things written by RTD that don't fit in with his grand scheme...so it's probably going to be different...Poor Donna..now that she may or may not be a half-timelord...the Doctor probably didn't give her the lottery ticket...203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

5. Little Amelia smiling at dawn

The 'reality' of this is again called into question. Perhaps; in her original reality she fianlly gets to see stars. This may now be a story she remembers somehow. Actually, apparently this was a dream - she is dreaming of waiting for him, and when she starts to smile, she wakes up.

Please sign your posts. (All of them, please, I just did a bit of rearranging.) Hmm, you may be right, but that's just speculation that we have no evidence for or against. Sure, it never happened, but then it should have made sense just in its own past context, where the Doctor did not come back the next morning, so I'm still confused.Hack59 11:55, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Just think of it as her dreaming about a story she heard somewhre about a mad man in blue box. There is nothing more to it that the dreams you have. However, later in her life she uses the memory of this dream, and many other dreams like it, to turn the Doctor into reality. Thre are plenty of exmple in fairytales where children make theri dreams come true. Jack Chilli 12:03, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Like the Doctor said, "Oh, the dreams you'll have of that blue box" (don't quote me on it). I believe that sequence was a dream that the sleeping Amy was having, the TARDIS sound in the dream because it had just materialized outside. Just as prisoner zero said, she was still just a child inside. The Thirteenth Doctor 21:29, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

The Amelia in the Post-Explosion timeline does not recognize the Doctor; the Doctor never appeared to fix her crack...Amelia's timeline in the Eleventh Hour and the Big Bang are different...Amy's memory of the magical Raggedy Doctor is likely a result of both timelines, as we can see that the cracks took some time to close off after Big Bang 2... 203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

6. The Marks

Alliance members...if we don't recognize them...then it's probably from an alien that we may or may not know but River Song didn't have time to mention during the Pandorica Opens... 203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Wait, what? The marks were at Amelia's house nearly 2000 in the alliance's future; that just makes no sense! The scorch marks may however be picked up when we find out what caused the explosion in the first place, so I'm guessing that this is a "will be dealt with" issue. Hack59 01:53, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

The Alliance must have access to time travel techology/transport...otherwise...the revived Daleks wouldn't be in the past...Judoon would not know the Doctor (Since Tenth visit to Shadow Proclamations showed that the Shadow Proclamation has no data on him in 2010)...and they said specifically that they used Amy's memories....222.166.181.52 07:41, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

7. The Lodger's attic

Is that really an "unresolved issue"? It's just some alien doing some technobabble alien stuff, and the Doctor stops him. Feels like business as usual to me, nothing I'd want revisited or explained further... Hack59 21:29, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

It's not an issue or error in the sense that it could definitely just be something unimportant. But I can't help thinking it may also be something Moffat comes back to.86.173.66.5 00:51, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

I just considered it "unresolved" because 1) The Doctor had no idea who the aliens were. so some higher level species is building a TARDIS and it isnt in his frame of reference 2) it is advanced enough to effect the Doctors TARDIS 3) there was a crack in the apt below when the doctor left 3) it crashed. What made it crash? I think in any other series it could just be random aliens and technobabble but in this one it could be connected to many of the plot points. Like it could have been just a crashed ship and the story would have worked as well. But they made it a Time Engine. 173.57.144.238 01:10, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

It's a bloody timeship, it makes sense to be anywhere...and it makes more sense to be from anywhere and anytime made by any race... 203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Rewinding Doctor

Although this "fits in" for most people, we are missing some things about the "Flesh and Stone" scene. We don't see the Doctor approach her is a notable point. Now, in that scene, he doesn't wear the vortex manipulator, but he does in the scene before and scene after. Also, the wristwatch had a black strap, not a gold one. In the same scene before "he" approaches Amy, he is seen wearing the gold watch, then when he apparently does, it is black... Now, since we didn't see the rewinding Doctor approach Amy, it is still perfectly plausible that this is still an even futurer Doctor coming back in time. What do you make of that? --The Thirteenth Doctor 12:41, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

I really hope not; it would be silly to go back again and again. Just continuity problems now; they hadn't worked out exactly what he needed to have on him. _anything_ is possible in Doctor Who though. Jack Chilli 13:22, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Not sure about those continuity issues, but about the vortex manipulator: I thought that when the Doctor was 'rewinding', that was happening by the Powers Of Time herself, rather than through active time travel, so he wasn't using any vortex manipulator for that. I think he was literally emerging from a crack or something like that. I'd need to rewatch the rewinding scenes, though. Hack59 13:31, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

I actually like the idea of the Flesh and Stone future Doctor being the Big Bang Doctor's future self. That would mean that the Big Bang Doctor would see the Future Doctor talking to Amy well looking at the past Doctor. It would also explain the watch change. The thing about the vortex manipulator: he was wearing it when he was seeing the events of the week before in the TARDIS (the Lodger scene didn't show his hands) then the Flesh and Stone scenes were without the manipulator, and after that the Eleventh Hour scenes were with it again. The Thirteenth Doctor 23:32, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

You're right, he does wear the manipulator again in the next scene (Amelia's house). Intriguing. Hack59 01:35, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

I haven't thoroughly looked at this scene since it was explained, but I will say that quite a few weeks before Big Bang was aired, I told my brother to watch the clip from Flesh and Stone because of the alternate doctor theory, and he told me he thought he could see a vortex manipulator on the Doctor's wrist.86.173.66.5 00:51, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

He was stepping through cracks of time in his own timeline without any form of transport/protection...this could very well be a distortion by travelling through cracks...and neither do we know how long cracks-travelling take...it may well be days before he reach another moment in his time...he could change into whatever he like (though how he grab those stuffs in the crack is beyond me)...If the Doctor has a sense of humour and was bored, he could very well kill himself and regenerate in a crack then shows up with a completely new face to surprise the hell out of these people... 203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

NEW The Real Thing that has been missing in time and space in both timeline

Where the bloody hell is the Blue Peter's TARDIS console used? The only thing that looked remotely similar is the non-technological technology of Lammasteen device....if that's suppose to be it...the kid got ripped off..she was asked to design a TARDIS and it was used to build a completely unrelated device that does absolutely nothing and look nothing like what she drew and was so-generously-given 1 sec of screen time plus the stupidest name mankind can ever conceived....oh my god...that was so well bad...The girl should sue BBC, but I can see where this will go now:

Blue Peter Girl: The BBC lied to me...it took me 5 years to draw this picture...I gave up my education for this...and they used it on a stupid device that's so useless that the Doctor found talking to the cat to be more helpful...

BBC: We didn't! The TARDIS did use her design

BP Girl: Where?

BBC: Right in the middle, we put a perception filter on it, you have to see it in the corners of your eyes...

BP Girl: I don't see it..

BBC: Look harder, it's where K9 Mark VI is lying on!

BP Girl: There were never a K9 Mark VI...stop lying to me...you tricksters soaked in the blood of a million galaxies...

BBC: K9 Mark VI has been here since series 2...you just can't see him because of his perception filter..

BP Girl: What?!

BBC: Yes, K9 Mark VI, RTD's greatest invention...the muted invisible robotic dog...

BP Girl: What?!

BBC: It's short for the Muted Invisible Robotic Dog that Will Conveniently be Revealed When the Doctor is Faced with a Danger Impossible to be Resolved or When Plot Holes has Accumulated to a Ridiculous Amount and Needs a Convenient Plot Device Armed with an Invisible Sonic Screwdriver that Produces Silent Sonic as Well as an Invisible Time-Vortex Manipulator Wrist Strap for Collar and a Body Made of Dalek-Laser-Proof Material in Addition to Eyes that Can Emit Silent Room-Temperature "Peaceful Laser Beam" which is the Most Powerful and Deadly Laser Beam in the Entire Universe that Doesn't (Have to) Wound of Kill but Disintergrate Whole Planets and is Capable of Destroying the Whole Fabric of Reality including All of Time and Space...

BP Girl: What?! Is there anything it doesn't do?

BBC: Yes, it used to....but after K9 Mark VI's encounter with the invisible aliens that happened in the background of the Doctor Dances, he has gained the ability to grant a Timelord/Timelady a full set of 12 regeneration cycle as well...

BP Girl: And you ruined the name of my design too...yet you gave this dog everything?

BBC: Well, K9 Mark VI has a less threatening and silly alias too...it's the Invisible Dog that Never Barks and also Happened to have the Eye of Harmony Implanted to allow it to Travel to any Point in Time and Space to Release His Peaceful Laser Beam and Its Ears Can Do Psychic Stuff That Works on Any Alien too...

203.168.176.42 23:54, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't read any of that -- please use paragraphs! I edited your contributions quite a bit, please don't destroy the entire layout of the page again ;-) Use the markup editor, not the rich-text version, the rich-text editor seems to screw everything up. Thanks! Hack59 01:55, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

OK, better now :-) Hack59 10:19, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

Well, I LOLed ;-) 187.112.18.121 10:31, June 28, 2010 (UTC)