Howling:Dating the Amy era

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For most of the show's history, it's been pretty clear when "the present day" was. Yes, there were a few glitches like Ian knowing a song from 1964 or a series 4 episode where the writer apparently forgot it was 1 year in the future, but for the most part there aren't any real questions.

The famous exception to the rule is the UNIT dating controversy. But I think we have nearly as big a problem with dating Amy's present-day stories.

There are some detailed arguments on Talk:The Power of Three (TV story), which I won't repeat here; I'll just give unfairly brief summaries, and you can go read the long versions over there. Here are the basic possibilities:

1. Around 2017. It's 10 years since The Big Bang (TV story) on Amy's timeline, but less than that on the main Earth timeline, hence all her talk about aging faster than her friends.

2. 2020. It's the Ponds' 10th anniversary, Rory's 31 years old, therefore it's 2020. Otherwise, they'd have to lie to everyone about their anniversaries, ages, etc., and we never see that. Also, there's time they skipped over (where nobody saw them for months) as well as extra time they've lived on the side.

3. 2012. Technology, fashion, and trends all look like 2012. Amy and Rory look a lot closer to 23 and 24 than to 30 and 31.

I personally don't see how 2012 could make sense. Rory said he was 31, and we saw an episode that explicitly took place in 2013 that's at least a couple years before TPO3. But the present day is so clearly not 2017 (much less 2020). You can make excuses for each piece of circumstantial 2012 evidence (as you can see on the above-linked talk page), but there's so much of it, and the excuses are so thin.

So that brings us to:

4a. Moffat's trying to be intentionally vague, as Dicks tried to do in the UNIT era, and he's pulled it off just as badly. Chibnall, Mackinnon, and Wilson gave us an episode that looked like 2012 because Moffat forgot to tell them otherwise.

4b. Moffat's being intentionally contradictory, as a clue.

I could live with 4a—after all, I still love the UNIT stories. And that was my first conclusion. But the more I think about it, the more it seems out of character for Moffat to not do 4b. Even if he started off just being sloppy, once he realized the problems, it's exactly the kind of thing he'd spin a story out of.

So, I'm coming around to the crazy conspiracy theory that the dates don't work on purpose, and this is a clue to the 7a finale. (Or the 7a finale could leave it open, and then there will be more clues and it'll be resolved in the 7b finale, either with a surprise return by the Ponds, or without them.)

But I still don't buy the theory that "The Power of Three" was named to remind us of "The Power of the Daleks" (set on one of Earth's space colonies in 2020) as a further clue. It's not so awkward a name that it demands explaining. --70.36.140.233talk to me 08:39, September 25, 2012 (UTC)

Part of your calculation is adrift because the date of The Big Bang is wrong. You seem to have forgotten that the TARDIS explosion (although it affected all of time & space) occurred on Amy's wedding day in 2010, which is also when she woke up in the "rebooted" universe. The museum scenes were set in 1996 (as Amy calculated from her younger self's age) & the Stonehenge scenes were in 102AD. None of it was set in 2007, so 10 years after The Big Bang isn't 2017. --89.241.76.92talk to me 09:33, September 25, 2012 (UTC)

Did you just stop reading half way through possibility 1? The wedding was 2010, and that's 10 years ago on Amy's timeline. The question is whether those 10 years on Amy's timeline correspond to 10 years on the main Earth timeline (so it's 2020, possibility 2), or significantly less (so it's around 2017, possibility 1). There are some clues for the latter, but I won't go over them again (see the linked talk page for someone else making a good argument), and I don't think we have anything conclusive to say that Moffat definitely intends it to be 2017 +/- 3 years, or that he intends it to be 2020. --70.36.140.233talk to me 16:44, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
Given that Amy clearly said that it's been about ten years for her and Rory, but not for the Doctor or the Earth, I think we can assume that it is sometime from 2014 to 2017. There's nothing that directly contradicts that, and plenty to support it. This is nothing like the UNIT dating controversy, where it is mathematically impossible for every date's reference to be correct.Icecreamdif ☎ 16:50, September 25, 2012 (UTC)

How do we know when the Doctor drops them off in the God Complex? Maybe he dropped them off a little in the past. So maybe 2012 isn't that far off? Just a thought. VoicesFromTheVortex ☎ 17:00, September 25, 2012 (UTC)

I doubt he'd do that. For one thing, Amy and Rory would have to avoid seeing their families or any of their friends from Leadworth, or anyone else who they knew to avoid creating paradoxes. For another thing, Amy became a model, which could potentially cause a paradox if past Amy saw future Amy on a billboard or magazine or something.Icecreamdif ☎ 17:21, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
True. But did we ever get a definite time WHEN he drops them off? VoicesFromTheVortex ☎ 17:33, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
Honestly, past Amy seeing future Amy on a billboard is no problem for the way time works in the Moffatverse—in fact, it's almost the _most_ likely reason for Amy to become a model, given the way her life works. And it's an interesting theory. But ultimately, I don't think this changes the options much. --70.36.140.233talk to me 18:06, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
Getting back to the main thread: As I said, I don't think 2020 or 2012 is actually plausible. If it's not (4b), it's (4a). Or, this new possibility that someone elsewhere is swaying me toward:
4c. Moffat's being intentionally contradictory, as a red herring. Which means we'll probably end up left with a minor unanswered mystery, but that's not out of character for Moffat at all.
Anyway, to briefly summarize the problems with 2017: If it's not 2012, why do people wear 2012 clothes (even models), watch The Apprentice, etc.? If it's not 2020, why aren't Amy and Rory's friends surprised that they're 30 and 31 years old (it's not like nobody notices a model's age…) and having their 10th anniversary? And why even bring up (more than once) "you disappear for months at a time and show up like you just stepped out" if not to push the dates farther into the future?
People were arguing about UNIT dating long before Battlefield made it mathematically impossible. While Dicks intentionally avoided firm references to dates, there was tons of circumstantial evidence for both the future and the present, because some of the writers and producers remembered the original brief and others didn't. In-universe, all of that evidence (and even Pyramids of Mars and Mawdryn Undead) could be explained away, but it was pretty shaky. Similarly, all the problems with the Amy years can be explained away in-universe, but it's pretty shaky. --70.36.140.233talk to me 18:08, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
I thought it was already mathematically impossible by Pyramids of Mars, but I've never really cared enough to try to work it out. If it's 2017 or around then, then people are probably wearing 2012 clothes because the production people would rather have people wear outdated clothes, then try to predict what people will be wearing in five years and then have everyone laugh at horribly wrong they got it when 2017 looks nothing like that. I don't exactly remember Fear Her or Dalek looking like the real 2012, and I certainly don't remember The Tenth Planet looking like the real 1980s. Amy isn't a model anymore, and its unclear how long its been for her or for Earth since Asylum of the Daleks. They didn't know their current friends before they were travelling with the Doctor, so they wouldn't notice a discrepency. We don't even know if Amy and Rory actually told all their friends it was their 10th anniversary, rather than their fifth or seventh. The Doctor is erratic enough that they can miss months at a time sometimes, and be gone for no time at all other times. Remember, the entire first season took place over one night for the Earth, and even in this episode, Amy and Rory were gone for 7 weeks within a few seconds. The references to them disappearing for several months was basically to show the difficulty of them trying to live two lives. When they travel with the Doctor, there is always the possibility that they will miss something on Earth.Icecreamdif ☎ 20:30, September 25, 2012 (UTC)

Fear Her didn't go out of its way to highlight current trends in technology, TV shows, and so on. Power of Three did, more than any episode since Eleventh Hour.

Dalek did highlight current trends in technology (and corporate structure), just like Power of Three, and it was clearly years ahead of 2005. In fact, if anything, they overdid the amount of change over the next 7 years. But Powr of Three showed absolutely no change at all.

The Tenth Planet didn't look like the _real_ 1986, but it certainly looked 20 years ahead of 1966. The whole setting of the story was a futuristic base in Antarctica that tracked routine spaceflights. A major plot element was the futuristic Z-bomb. Even on a military base, we still saw fashions that were bizarre for 1966. And so on.

So all of those counterexamples just make the point even stronger.

And even if the original poster dismisses the Power of the Daleks connection, look at how much different that 2020 was from 1966.

Maybe the "red herring" thing is true, but it's not nothing, and I don't think it's sloppiness. Steven Moffat is not Terrance Dicks. And he has much more control over the show than Dicks did.

Apart from the fact that clothes and cars will probably change, The Power of Three's 2015-17 probably wasn't too far off from the what the real one will be. It is perfectly conceivable that people will still be using Twitter and Facebook, and that The Apprentice will still be on the air. The Wii will be outdated by then, but given that Amy and Rory are in their 30s and their only kid is grown, it makes perfect sense that they wouldn't bother to upgrade to Wii U. It was probably just cheaper and easier to show the near future as the world is now, then to try to guess what the world will look like in a few years.Icecreamdif ☎ 00:09, September 26, 2012 (UTC)
I raised all these answers on the original Talk page. But they're not very good answers, especially when you put them all together. Yes, Facebook will still be around, but how many people in 2012 still talk about MySpace as an example of that new-fangled communication that's changed the world? The Apprentice will still be around, maybe even with Lord Sugar, but is Survivor still a major cultural touchstone today? Some people will still have a Wii, but when's the last time you saw someone pull out their GameCube and hook it up to their 31" CRT?
If they just wanted to get away with "cheaper and easier", they would have avoided bludgeoning us with up-to-the-minute cultural references. When Dicks wanted to make season 8's setting ambiguous, he didn't pepper it with references to Monty Python, transistor radios, and electric folk. But TPO3 did exactly that. And it did so in a way that closely paralleled TEH, where the same references were explicitly used to tell us "Doctor Who is just like the real world in 2010" (as a change from the RTD-era Whoniverse which had drifted farther and farther from the real world).
And everything the unsigned poster said about your examples is true. Dalek was very obviously not 2005, and The Tenth Planet even more obviously not 1966, which just highlights even more how solidly rooted TPO3 was in 2012.
As for the Power of the Daleks thing… I didn't want to get into this, but: TPO3's name can't have any deep meaning, given that it was almost aired as "Cubed". And even if it did, the name is more similar to The Power of Kroll, and that one isn't a story that nobody has seen in 46 years because it was wiped and has never been recovered. --70.36.140.233talk to me 02:42, September 26, 2012 (UTC)
One more thing: If you really think 2017 won't be that different from 2012 in TV, technology, etc., go back and watch an episode of Screenwipe from 2007 and see if it feels up-to-date, or if you have to struggle to remember half of what he's talking about (and why you ever cared). Except, of course, for the one about Doctor Who. :) --70.36.140.233talk to me 02:52, September 26, 2012 (UTC)
I'm not saying that 2012 will be the same as 2017, I'm just saying that it will be similar enough that the only time that audiences will really care will be in 2017. Given that we've already been told it's not 2012 (Amy said it had been two years since he dropped them off in The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe, etc.) it has to be a few years in the future. Maybe not as late as 2017, but certainly no later than 2015. In a couple of decades, nobody will even remember the difference between 2012 and 2017 anyway.Icecreamdif ☎ 14:56, September 26, 2012 (UTC)
People remember the difference between hippie-burnout 1972 and disco-and-punk 1977 today, or even the early and late 60s—half the success of Mad Men (and most of the dramatic tension that isn't generic soap operatics) is based on the fact that we know what's coming for the characters' world and they don't.
But more importantly, you're still skipping over the central point. If you want an episode to be vaguely dated, why insert all kinds of conspicuous up-to-the-minute references into it? Or, conversely: We know the reason they inserted those references into TEH: to let us know that the 2010 Whoniverse was just like the 2010 real world. So why did they insert the same references into TPO3?

--70.36.140.233talk to me 17:43, September 26, 2012 (UTC)

Probably because they feel like an episode where the Doctor spends about an entire year on Earth should have references to the present day, and because they hope that putting in pop-culture references will make the show seem relevant to modern viewers. Plus, they got to get in a few guest stars.Icecreamdif ☎ 21:08, September 26, 2012 (UTC)
But that's my whole point. When the Doctor spent months on Earth in 1969, they didn't put in references to the present day; why should 2017 be any different? Using 2012 pop culture references to make a 2017 story feel more relevant is like using shots of the London skyline to make a story set on Skaro feel more like home. The whole thing only makes sense if they forgot they were set 5+ years in the future (which is exactly what happened in season 8). --70.36.140.233talk to me 03:31, September 27, 2012 (UTC)

consider the references:

the wii: ok, it will be old by then, but it's not like people today don't still have old consoles. my family still has a play station 2 which we never bothered upgrading to the PS3.

twitter etc: well, sites like twitter and facebook and youtube have all already been around for over 5 years. it's not much of a stretch to think they will survive five more.

fashion: is cyclical. and anyway, although probably caused by my lack of interest in fashion, the big stuff doesn't change much over a few years. i mean, some of the small things like seasonal colours/prints and cuts can change, but it's not too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe that clothing will be similar to now.

amy/rory being 30/31: well, they certainly didn't look their ages.

the apprentice: never seen it, but from what others have said, it has already been on air for a while, so yet again it's still not much of a stretch to believe it still would be in ~2017

the disappearances is to show that the doctor has taken them in and out of their "normal" lives for different lengths of time (sometimes no time at all while other times for months on end) and reinforces the need for amy/rory to choose between their lives.

and for the differences within a decade being greatly remembered: as someone from a younger generation (i wont say anything other than born during the wilderness years of doctor who), i don't really distinguish between the early and late parts of decades when i think of them. eg: 60s is hippy, 70s is disco. so, although the older people will "remember the difference between hippie-burnout 1972 and disco-and-punk 1977 today", the younger/later born generations won't distinguish as much. when people from the future think of last decade or this decade, they will probably generalise as the technology decade(s). so, yeah. seriously, in a few decades, most people won't be able to see much difference. probably.

so, that's a few explanations for some of the references to today's technology etc. Imamadmad ☎ 11:58, September 27, 2012 (UTC)

Like Imamadmad, I was also born in the Wilderness years of Doctor Who(a few years before the TV Movie), so I have a similar view of the past. I'm sure that in 2030, all of us who were alive during this decade will remember the difference between 2012 and 2017, but the younger viewers wouldn't care less. Twitter and Facebook will (unfortuanetly) probably still be popular in 2017, and Amy and Rory are probably a bit old to be keeping up with the most modern game consoles. Besides, I don't think the Wii U has the same motion control thing as the Wii, and the motion control is probably the main reason that two people in their 30s who go on real adventures all the time anyway bought a video game console.Icecreamdif ☎ 12:14, September 27, 2012 (UTC)

Imamadmad: All of those explanations were already brought up in the first post on the talk page, and I've already made the same point repeatedly. But I'll try to make it again: It's not that nobody will have a Wii or want an iPad or use Twitter or watch the Apprentice in 5 years; it's that those things are all major cultural touchstones of 2012, and they will not be in 2017. They're the kind of thing future TV shows will use to establish a flashback to 2012, just like every sitcom that wants to establish a flashback to 2007 has someone mention MySpace instead of Facebook or play with a GameCube instead of a Wii. It doesn't matter that there are still millions of people with GameCubes, and MySpace accounts, and just-plain-MP3-players, who watch Survivor; highlighting those things tells people the setting is 2007.
As for how people remember the past: 1962 vs. 1967 is 50 years in the past, quite possibly before your _parents_ were even born, and yet Mad Men, whose main fanbase is around your age… well, let me quote a review: "Everyone thinks of the 60s as hippies and Vietnam, but we all know there were two 60s… You're drawn in by knowing that the two 60s are going to collide, and the people you're watching are unprepared." For that matter, think of how much Human Nature got out of the difference between 1913 and 1918. You obviously don't remember what 1913 was like, but the fact that WWI is just around the corner is, and nobody but Martha knows it, is "the tension and dread that drives the entire story" (quoting Paul Cornell, who wrote it).
But even forgetting all of that, the show isn't made to be popular in 2042, it's made to be popular in 2012, so how people will remember it in 30 years isn't the issue. --70.36.140.233talk to me 17:15, September 27, 2012 (UTC)
If it's made well enough to be popular in 2012, it'll probably be popular in 2042, also. --89.240.243.135talk to me 20:38, September 27, 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. It's made to be popular in 2012, not 2017. It is basically suppossed to be set in the "present", even though the "present" is actually the near future. The writers like to put cultural references into episodes set in the modern day, and they can't possibly predict how 2017 will be different from 2012. Besides, I doubt that this will really have the same issue that you mentioned with Human Nature unless we get WWIII in the next 5 years, in which case I don't think that anyone will really be too concerned that Doctor Who didn't accurately reflect 2017. Whether or not you agree with the writer's choices dialogue in both this episode and recent episodes have made it clear that it is the near future, so really it wouldn't even matter if they were all using brick cell phones and playing N64s.Icecreamdif ☎ 00:41, September 28, 2012 (UTC)
Icecreamdif: You're arguing against the wrong point. As I've said repeatedly, I'm not saying the episode is set in 2012; I'm saying that it's apparently set in a 2017 that for some reason looks exactly like 2012, and that they've gone out of their way to highlight this fact. The question is whether they did so as a plot point, as a red herring, or out of major sloppiness.
And 89: I agree. And part of being well made enough to last 40 years is not making sloppy mistakes like that. And Doctor Who has, for the most part, either made the future look like the future, or kept things so vague that you can't really tell. (Of course the future doesn't look like the _actual_ future, but nobody expects that. Only the most obnoxiously pedantic fans complain that Zoe's gleaming future city doesn't look like any real early-21st-century city, there were no Z-bombs in the mid-80s, and Dalek predicted the wrong changes for the internet. It just looks like _a_ future. If Zoe's future city had been shots of 1968 London with closeups on current car models, then people today _would_ notice it was wrong.) --70.36.140.233talk to me 04:45, September 28, 2012 (UTC)
So, in The Angels Take Manhattan, 12:05: "Tried that, if you'd noticed, and we are back where we started in 2012". Amy points out that they didn't start in a graveyard, but doesn't blink an eye at the 2012. And again at the end. And, in case that wasn't enough, a skyline that clearly has neither the old WTC nor the new one, so it has to be 2001-2014. And yet Amy and Rory were now in their mid-30s. Of course they _could_ from 2022 London to 2012 New York, but why? What's so special about that year?
Maybe it's just that 2012 is special to the Doctor, because he wants to pretend that she's 23 years old in 2012, just like she should have been in his timeline (and ours) if he'd never gotten involved? --70.36.140.233talk to me 22:40, September 29, 2012 (UTC)
PS, does it mean anything that the Detroit Lions won the 2012 superbowl instead of the NY Giants? They focused on the newspaper to make sure we noticed. --70.36.140.233talk to me 22:41, September 29, 2012 (UTC)
Well, it matters to us Giants fans...but otherwise, there are tons of things in the Doctor Who universe that don't exist in the real world. For one thing, Arthur Coleman Winters was never president of the US. I could spend half a day coming up with more but I'll spare you :) So the NY skyline and the Super Bowl winner on the show don't have to match real life. Shambala108 ☎ 00:13, September 30, 2012 (UTC)
The Lions headline was also in the (nonexistent-in-our-world) New York Record, and in a long tight shot, so maybe the whole point was to remind us that the Whoniverse isn't the real world. (Or at least the alternate timeline with the Angels feeding on Manhattan wasn't?) But anyway, I think that's a sideline to the question: Why 2012? And, after watching it again, I think maybe it really is that the TARDIS wanted the Doctor to be in 2012, where Amy "should have been"; it doesn't add much to the story, but it seems like it would feel less tragic if Amy disappeared from 2022, and that may be reason enough for Moffat. --70.36.140.233talk to me 02:41, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

So The Doctor says that they are in New York in 2012! So either all of the events HAVE been taking place lined up with the year of the air dates* OR they decided to visit New York 2012 for some odd reason which will line us up again for the new companion. Either way I'm glad we're back on track but I'm still waiting for someone smarter than I to figure it all out for me. :P

  • No idea how this would work out. The math says that there is no way it could be lined up but maybe there is a detail we missed somewhere. Seems to me the detail that screws this all up is that amy says they haven't seen the Doctor for 2 years when he visits for Christmas. Who Knows? VoicesFromTheVortex ☎ 18:57, September 30, 2012 (UTC)
It can't work out. It's not just one detail; even if you assuming there are no Pond visits or adventures we didn't see, Amy's "years" is always a massive exaggeration, etc., for this one to start off in 2012, you'd have to add up all of the previous stories so TPO3 started off a year in the past.
So, they definitely went back in time to 2012 for this one. And, unless there's some major plot arc that hasn't been revealed yet (something changed Amy's history so she was now born in 1979, someone is hiding the entire decade from 2012-2022 from the Doctor, etc.), that means either Amy, the Doctor, or the TARDIS explicitly _wanted_ to go on vacation in 2012 instead of the present day. Why? I think the "melancholy Doctor" explanation I gave above is reasonable. Or maybe Amy subconsciously knew the "never let him see you age" bit before River told it explicitly. (That might even partly explain why her life is structured to look like 2012 even in 2017, although it doesn't explain Kate Stewart making timely references to 2012…) As usual, when faced with multiple plausible options and no way to choose between them, all we can say is that we don't know.
As for us being back on track for the new companion, rumors are that the Christmas special takes place in Vastra's time, meaning over 100 years ago. If that's when Clara comes from, it seems likely that she won't have a life in the present day at all. Which means the show won't have to work to stay on track; it'll be like the classic era (except for the UNIT years, and Arc of Infinity and Survival) where the Doctor shows up near the present in whatever order he wants. --70.36.140.233talk to me 20:39, September 30, 2012 (UTC)
There doesn't really have to be a reason for him to pick 2012. They could have just as easily gone to 1963 or 2308. They wanted to go to New York, and they just happenned to land in 2012.Icecreamdif ☎ 20:55, September 30, 2012 (UTC)
There probably is an in-universe reason. 2012 is an odd date to just pick at random. How many times has the Doctor ever visited 8 (+/-5) years in the past (even in unrecorded adventures he just off-handedly mentioned in a novel, much less as the main setting of a TV episode)? Almost never.
It doesn't have to be a reason with any major plot significance. The out-of-universe reasons are simple: It highlights the fact that not just the Doctor's farewell to Amy after 220 or however many years, but also our farewell to her after 2-1/2 years since 2010; it ties in with the theme of choosing between life with the Doctor and life in "slow time"; it reminds us of the "viewer surrogate" nature of companions; etc. The story would have had less impact if it had been set on, say, a space colony in the 42nd century—but the plot wouldn't be much different. And the in-universe reason could be something similar—e.g., the Doctor subconsciously wants to pretend to himself that Amy's only 2-1/2 years older. But it seems unlikely that there's no reason at all. --70.36.140.233talk to me 02:46, October 2, 2012 (UTC)
The Book -- Maybe they are in 2012, because according tot he book they are in 2012. --Guessing

(Deb1701, please sign your post using 4 consecutive tildes (~) like this Imamadmad ☎ 10:26, October 2, 2012 (UTC))

Well well, seems we are getting stuck up on good stuff. If it is 2012 it doesnt mean Amy is younger, she has aged whislt being on the Tardis and in her many adventures. So 10 years since her and Rorys wedding doesnt DATE the episode, it only tells of how much REAL TIme in the perspective of Amy has passed, not Earth time. Rasputin Oz ☎ 04:57, October 16, 2012 (UTC)

In a deleted scene from TV: The Angels Take Manhattan revealed in the DWM #453, Amy says she's 34. This suggests Moffat intent was for Amy's present timeline to be 2023 (even though they go on a TARDIS trip to visit New York 2012). This makes sense, since it has to take place after TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, in which Rory states he is 31. Mewiet ☎ 04:06, October 18, 2012 (UTC)

No the Age of Amy has no regards to the year they visit EARTH. It is a simple count of how many days/weeks/years have passed between episode. [Unsigned but appears to be Rasputin Oz 04:17, October 18, 2012 (UTC)]

True up to a point. It's the age Rory gives in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship that's the better indication. He says he's 31 & his father doesn't question that. Since his father, at that point, wasn't used to thinking in terms of time travel, it's safe to assume that an age of 31 fits with the date from which they were picked up by the Doctor. Amy & Rory's 10th anniversary celebration in The Power of Three, attended by a large number of people, is also a good indication that the actual date fits. If it didn't, most of the guests would be wondering how it could be their 10th anniversary.

A deleted scene only indicates the original intention, not a final decision. Because the scene was deleted, it's open to the writers to decide Amy was a different age. All we can really say is that The Angels Take Manhattan has to have taken place after (in Amy & Rory's timeline) the other episodes involving them & their "home time" must have been after the actual date in The Power of Three. It needn't, though, have been 3 years after, even if that's what Moffat originally intended. That means their "home time" can't be any earlier than 2020 & might have been several years later than 2020. --89.242.70.138talk to me 08:49, October 18, 2012 (UTC)

The writers intent was to state Rorys age, they weren't necessarily focused on ensuring that his dad gave a reaction to the age and said , no your only "x" years old in Earth real time. This is not REAL life folks and the writers are there to get the story across not the perfection some fans seek. Dont read too much into what isn't said sometimes, just accept the statements as what the writers want us to know, whether it makes logical sense or not. Not saying you are wrong in your guesses , but we just need to react to the exact things that are said rather than assuming things becasue no one reacts to the spoken facts. All good theories though, and the truth will come out if it needs to in an episode one day. Rasputin Oz ☎ 21:24, October 18, 2012 (UTC)

The intent was indeed to state Rory's age. However, it's not going to have escaped them that he was stating it to someone who'd inevitably notice if the stated age didn't fit with the date. Parents tend to remember fairly accurately when their children were born. Assuming that the writers don't care about "whether it makes logical sense or not" is just silly. It's especially silly in respect of Doctor Who because the writers know only too well that if they get the logic wrong the fans will spot it and will say so quite loudly. What's more, I wasn't giving "guesses", I was giving inferences. There's an important difference. If you don't understand that difference, consult a decent dictionary. --89.240.244.121talk to me 02:40, October 19, 2012 (UTC)

Excellant work, I am inferring from your statement that you are presuming the writer care what fans think of their accuracy and detail and therefore due to this presumption your assumptions are not guesses at all, well done. Rasputin Oz ☎ 03:54, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
Rasputin Oz: Your grasp of the English language doesn't match the air of intellectual superiority you're attempting to affect.
The word is "excellent", not "excellant".
The clause ought to be "... the writers care what fans think of their accuracy and detail..."
So much for your "accuracy and detail".
Anyway, what you're saying about the writers is a very transparent cover for your effort to accept whatever suits the conclusion you've decided to reach & to ignore whatever weighs against that conclusion. Such "reasoning" is dishonest & unimpressive. (My IP address was 89... earlier but is 2... now.) --2.96.24.115talk to me 08:22, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
sorry to side track here, but 2 or 89 or whatever you're called now, why don't you just get an account instead of having to keep telling us about your IP change? wouldn't that be easier? anyway, sorry for interrupting and being nosey. Imamadmad ☎ 10:22, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
No need to apologise. That "track" wasn't going to lead any further, anyway, so going off on a different one isn't a problem. And being "nosey" is the only way to find things out. It probably would be a bit easier but I've an aversion to signing up for things unless I really have to. I suspect that comes from my (long ago) involvement in student politics, when joining something immediately got you someone attempting to tell you what you were supposed to think. Joining is just something I don't like doing. Call it a foible. (The same early experience made me rather impatient with those who're selective about the evidence they're willing to look at.) The extra effort isn't enough to outweigh my preference for not joining. --2.96.16.181talk to me 22:17, October 19, 2012 (UTC)

.. Yes I have been told off so will stop posting differing opinions to the posters. Apparently we are only able to have opinions if we type correctly and follow the logic laid out by the proposer of the thought. Rasputin Oz ☎ 20:59, October 21, 2012 (UTC)

Rasputin Oz: If you have evidence & reasoned argument, produce them. When you resort to ad hominem attacks, you're only showing that you don't have evidence or reasoned argument. Disagree with opinions (mine or anyone's) all you want, if you can do it rationally. --89.240.247.127talk to me 00:06, October 22, 2012 (UTC)

The difference of opinion we have is over the writers intent. Unless either of us are mind readers , we will never be able to produce evidence. So the evidence we have is open to interpretation. Rasputin Oz ☎ 00:11, October 22, 2012 (UTC)
So why start sneering, in the first place?
On the actual topic, however, it's not a disagreement about the writers' intentions. It's a disagreement about whether to judge by what actually appeared in the episode (my position) or to pick bits out of what appeared in the episode on the basis of an assumption about what was & what wasn't intended (your position). I don't need to read the writers' minds. I just need to watch & listen to the episode. Although (in the absence of evidence to the contrary) I do, in fact, assume they meant to show what they showed, what really matters to me is what they showed.
In Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, they showed Brian not having known until that episode that Rory & Amy were time travellers. They showed Brian not being surprised when Rory gave his age as 31. They didn't show him asking for an explanation of a discrepancy, nor did they show him realising (without asking) that time travel was the explanation of a discrepancy; they showed him reacting as if there was no discrepancy. On the basis of what was shown, therefore, the "home year" of Brian, Rory & Amy must have been 2020.
In The Power of Three, they showed Rory & Amy celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary with a large number of friends. They showed those friends not being surprised that it was Rory & Amy's 10th anniversary. That's further evidence that there's no discrepancy with the date, especially as anniversaries are occasions on which people pay attention to the number of years that have passed. Nobody said, "You were married the year before we were & we've only been married five years," or "You were married just after Fred was born & he's only six," or anything like that. This, too, indicates a "home year" of 2020. The dialog in which Amy commented that, sooner or later, their friends were going to notice their faster aging rate can be understood to mean that, in Rory & Amy's own timelines, more than 10 years had passed since their wedding. --89.240.247.127talk to me 02:50, October 22, 2012 (UTC)
By the way, if the writers did intend something other than what was shown, it's still what was shown that they subsequently need to deal with. If, for the purposes of some subsequent episode, they want Rory & Amy's "home year" in those eposodes to be earlier than 2020, they ought to put in something to "explain away" the lack of reaction to the discrepancies, although they could just try to ignore it.
Mistakes do happen & the opening of The Eleventh Hour is an instance. The crashing TARDIS passes over London. As explained in the DVD extras, Moffat & company intended that scene to be set in 1996 (the same time as the TARDIS eventually lands in Amy's garden). The aerial shots of London, however, showed the Millennium Wheel (London Eye), which wasn't there in 1996. The result (as Moffat has accepted) is that, however unintentionally, they showed the TARDIS falling through time as well as space. That's what was shown, so that's what happened. The original intention has been overruled by what appeared on screen. --89.240.247.127talk to me 03:12, October 22, 2012 (UTC)
Maybe I missed it , but having just watched the episode again, can someone please point out to me where in the episdode it has a sign up saying 10th anniversary. From what I gather Amy mentions early in episaode she has been travelling with the doctor for ten years, not in earth time as less has passed than ten, and not in doctors time as hundreds of years have passed, 9 months late they have their wedding anniversary , i know i may have missed it somwwhere in the balloons or streamers, but i didnt see any 10th anniversary signs.

Ok so you want arguments based on what you see only Rory had informed his father that he was a space and TIME traveller at the start of the episode. So we have to now accept that Brian knows that Rory is older than his real age as he has been travelling in time so even if it only weeks or months it is older, it cant be Earth Time. We know of course it is many years, but Brian at this stage doesn’t know how different Earth Time is to Rory’s time So when Brian hears Rory state he is 31 it doesn’t mean it is 31 years in Earth time passed, Brian from what he has been told will accept the 31 as being how long in Rory’s time line not Brian’s. So with no 10th Anniversary evidence and with Brian knowing Rory is a time traveller. Can we please give more evidence that it is not 2012 in Amys timeline for the episode in question. All the items used (the Nintendo WII played by the doctor for instance) shows that from what we see, that the year is our current year, not some future date. Hope this all adds to the thoughts. Rasputin Oz ☎ 22:42, November 5, 2012 (UTC)

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