Howling:Story arc: - the Doctor doesnt care anymore

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The docotor in both episodes 2 and 3 has appeared uncaring about things. in episode 2 he sent solomon to his death knowing he would die and seem not care less and acted pretty ruthlessly. the doctor we know who not have thoughtlessly killed anybody like that regardless of what they had done. and also in episode 3 a town called mercy the doctor doesnt seem to care about which side he should support.

this uncaring attitude and disregard about life is totally out of character for the doctor, where has the uncaring attitude come from and more importantly where will it lead........87.83.10.218^{talk to me} 11:52, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

This was dealt with in Episode 3. Amy told the Doctor that he had become uncaring because he had been travelling alone for a while, and the Doctor realised the error of his ways. I think that arc is finished now because it wouldn't make sense for them to pursue it any more, and I hope they don't, because it worked well as a two episode story arc, and the programme has to explore other things to stay fresh. 94.72.192.2^{talk to me} 15:19, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that it is exactly that he doesn't care. He still cares about Queen Nefertiti, the citizen's of Mercy, and the victims of Kahler Jex's experiments. It seems however, that after travelling alone for so long he is not as quick to show mercy to his enemies. It's a similar theme to what was explored in the 2009 specials (particularly Waters of Mars).Icecreamdif ☎ 17:39, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

Either way, I doubt it's something they'll continue to explore in the rest of Series 7. 94.72.192.2^{talk to me} 20:56, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

By the dialogue in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, I think the Doctor gave Solomon a chance at survival. HE stated very specifically that the missiles are very literal and that the little orb was what they lock on to. While not shown, Solomon could easily jettison the tracker and that is what we saw explode.--MasterIII ☎ 21:04, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

The Doctor did make a definite point of telling Solomon that. It's not clear & is probably meant not to be clear whether Solomon did jettison the tracker. The Doctor gave him a chance but he also gave him a choice -- he was under no external compulsion to jettison the thing. --78.146.176.154^{talk to me} 21:23, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it was ever stated that Solomon could jettison the tracker, and even if he could he didn't have much time to do so. 94.72.192.2^{talk to me} 15:16, September 19, 2012 (UTC)

It was definetly implied that the Doctor was sending Solomon to his certain death.Icecreamdif ☎ 16:00, September 19, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you can call his decisions in these episodes "uncaring." In ep. 2, he kills a guy who killed beaucoup Silurians and treated people like property. That's not out of character for the Doctor. There are multiple times through the history of the show where he has killed, at least as far back as Galaxy 4, where he allowed the Drahvins to be destroyed when the planet exploded. Sometimes he feels it's necessary to kill (or allow to be killed) the bad guys. And in ep. 3, it wasn't that he was uncaring, it was almost that he cared too much, in that he could see merit in both sides -- this has also happened in the Doctor's history; two quick examples are Genesis of the Daleks and The Parting of the Ways -- if he couldn't even kill a bunch of Daleks, then the dilemma he faced in ep. 3 would be just as hard. Shambala108 ☎ 15:20, September 22, 2012 (UTC)

I haven't seen/heard/read Galaxy 4 yet. I actually downloaded the audio of that episode last night, so its next on my list of episodes to listen to. Anyway, usually the Doctor only kills the bad guy if the choice is between killing the bad guy and letting the bad guy win. In Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, he could have easily saved Solomon, and just turned him into the ISA or some other authority. In A Town Called Mercy, his choice was really between allowing one bad guy to die, and allowing another seperate bad guy to destroy a town. As Amy pointed out, his ethics would normally force him to save Jex, despite the fact that he has committed crimes in the past. This does not mean that the Doctor doesn't care. It just means that he is less willing to show mercy than he has been in the past.Icecreamdif ☎ 16:27, September 22, 2012 (UTC)

"I used to have so much mercy." -- & that was Ten! --89.242.75.149^{talk to me} 17:11, September 22, 2012 (UTC)

Icecreamdif, I'm sorry I spoiled Galaxy 4 for you. I know this is a spoiler forum, but I'm sure you weren't expecting that. Shambala108 ☎ 17:32, September 22, 2012 (UTC)

At the end of Power of Three, it seems that he left those innocent hospital patients to die on that exploding ship - he didn't even check to see if they were alright when he arrived 82.23.86.126^{talk to me} 17:51, September 25, 2012 (UTC) OC

I didn't think this was an intentional plotline at first, but it's starting to look like the one from the middle EDAs. Of course the basic idea of the Doctor having less mercy, and doing less to try to save hopeless cases, has played out with (at least) the 2nd, 6th, 7th, and 10th Doctors, but some specifics are very striking.

For example, it kicked off with the Doctor giving Solomon a snarky speech and then killing him, almost exactly like The Burning. Then, the way Amy confronted him in Mercy was not just reminiscent of the way Anji confronted him, it borrowing lines directly from an earlier discussion between Anji and Fitz.

But even if Moffat was inspired by the novel plotline, that doesn't help us predict anything—every time so far, no matter how many ideas, scenes, or conversations he borrows wholesale, he always ends up twisting things to reach a completely different destination. (Which would be particularly welcome in this case, because in the novels the whole thing just petered out unsatisfyingly.) --70.36.140.233^{talk to me} 18:54, September 25, 2012 (UTC)

Shambala, it's fine. Even if spoilers weren't allowed on this forum, I doubt that that would apply to an episode from 47 years ago anyway, and I've already heard how half of these really old episodes end before I start watching/listening to them anyway. I don't think the Doctor meant to blow up the Shaqri ship, and by the time he realised it was going to blow up, he didn't have time to save any of them anyway. He, Amy, and Rory hardly made it out themselves. He never showed any remorse for not being able to save them, but I think that was due to bad writing more than anything. After all, correct me if I'm wrong, we never learned why those people were brought to the spaceship in the first place. It's possible that this is all foreshadowing something, but its probably just a plot hole.Icecreamdif ☎ 20:21, September 25, 2012 (UTC)

The Doctor seemed to realise only at the last moment that the ship would explode but the impression I got was that he showed no remorse because there was nobody aboard to be killed. "He was never really here." The Shakri we saw was just a hologram. The two "orderlies" who'd abducted Brian were androids, just as the girl was. I grant you, though, that that could & should have been made much clearer than it was.

There was a similar problem of presentation in The Almost People, where it wasn't made clear enough that the ganger of Amy, destroyed by the Doctor at the end of the episode, was not an independent entity, as most of the other gangers in the episode were. Such a recurring failure to make morally important facts clear is dangerous to the show because it undermines the Doctor's character in the perceptions of the audience. --2.101.48.190^{talk to me} 23:29, September 25, 2012 (UTC)

The Doctor still failed to save all the Humans, apart from Brian, that were kidnapped and brought to the Shakri ship. They may have been dead already, but that wasn't made clear.Icecreamdif ☎ 00:10, September 26, 2012 (UTC)

I don't buy the idea that the show has to always make it blatantly obvious that the Doctor has done all he could to save everyone possible. That certainly wasn't how the last two years of the classic series worked, or the first six years. (As a side note, I don't see how anyone could have missed the point with the Amy ganger—even if you didn't get that she was a conduit rather than an independent duplicate until the end, the fact that the real Amy gasped and woke up when the ganger was dissolved hammered it into the ground. But that's neither here nor there; it's not the only example.)

Also, if the audience's perception of the Doctor is that all incarnations are like the 10th, that's something that _has_ to be undermined, because it would ruin the show if it were accepted. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 9th Doctors all frequently did things that the 10th (or 5th) would find unconscionable, and yet they're still the hero of the show, and nobody had any trouble relating to that. (Well, except maybe the 6th.)

Finally, I think Icecreamdif is right here. There just wasn't enough information about the patients on the Shakri ship at all. Chibnall isn't a bad writer, but he's not great at Doctor Who. He can still pull off unusual stories like Dinosaurs, but when he's trying to do a story that's (quite consciously) so much like The Eleventh Hour that you can't help but compare it to Moffat, he doesn't come off very well. --70.36.140.233^{talk to me} 02:05, September 26, 2012 (UTC)

I personally didn't have a problem with the Doctor dissolving the Amy-Ganger, but I think the problem that some people had was that the episode made it clear that even the Gangers that were still connected to people were living things. At the end of the episode they tried to stop the Flesh from being used, because creating life forms just to kill them later was unethical. I don't think it really matters, because the Doctor had no choice but to kill Amy's Flesh Avatar to disconnect the real Amy, but other people do have a problem with it.Icecreamdif ☎ 14:47, September 26, 2012 (UTC)

It's not like the Doctor didn't visibly agonize over it. He seemed to care more about how it would affect Rory than how it would affect the Flesh, but I don't think that's inappropriate. --70.36.140.233^{talk to me} 17:11, September 26, 2012 (UTC)