User talk:Chris502
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Thanks for your edits! We hope you'll keep on editing with us. This is a great time to have joined us, because now you can play the Game of Rassilon with us and win cool stuff! Well, okay, badges. That have no monetary value. And that largely only you can see. But still: they're cool!
We've got a couple of important quirks for a Wikia wiki, so let's get them out of the way first.
British English, please
We generally use British English round these parts, so if you're American, please be sure you set your spell checker to BrEng, and take a gander at our spelling cheat card.
Spoilers aren't cool
We have a strict definition of "spoiler" that you may find a bit unusual. Basically, a spoiler, to us, is anything that comes from a story which has not been released yet. So, even if you've got some info from a BBC press release or official trailer, it basically can't be referenced here. In other words, you gotta wait until the episode has finished its premiere broadcast to start editing about its contents. Please check the spoiler policy for more details.
Other useful stuff
Aside from those two things, we also have some pages that you should probably read when you get a chance, like:
- the listing of all our help, policy and guideline pages
- our Manual of Style
- our image use policy
- our user page policy
- a list of people whose job it is to help you
If you're brand new to wiki editing — and we all were, once! — you probably want to check out these tutorials at Wikipedia, the world's largest wiki:
Remember that you should always sign your comments on talk and vote pages using four tildes like this:Thanks for becoming a member of the TARDIS crew! If you have any questions, see the Help pages, add a question to one of the Forums or ask on my talk page. Shambala108 ☎ 16:40, January 2, 2019 (UTC)
So, first of all, it must be established that the Doctor had dropped Amy and Rory off back in present-day Earth to wait for him while he searched for Melody Pond during the summertime between series 6 parts 1 and 2 (which is surely intended to be interpreted as being June - August, the real-life time of the mid-season break, since the dates of series 6 seem to parallel the real dates it aired, following the example of the Doctor Who series 5 finale’s airing on the day it occurred, with events of the first episode taking place the day it aired while taking into account the time difference between England and the characters’ location in America; Amy’s saying they had waited “all summer” for the Doctor in the mid-season premiere, just like the audience had waited for the show; and a newspaper in that episode seeming to feature the date the “27th” on it, while the episode actually aired August 27). The reason the date on the newspaper is ignored is because it must either be an error or some kind of timey-wimey, Bad-Wolf-Easter-egg-style echo resulting from the events of the series 6 finale, in which all of time itself occurs on April 22, 2011, since the newspaper’s date would suggest the events of Closing Time take place April 19-21 of that year. That is impossible because the Amy and Rory the Doctor sees in the episode most definitely cannot be from before the series’ start on April 22, as Amy is stopped by a little girl for an autograph due to the big advertisement in the shop for her perfume “Petrichor,” a word she first learns while traveling with the Doctor after the start of series 6 part 1, and the Doctor cannot have ever dropped them off back in time to before they originally left, or else there would be two sets of Amy and Rory living in England at the same time. That is something the Doctor would surely avoid in order to ensure the prevention of any potential paradoxes or problematic changes to time - especially considering his not allowing the couple to go talk to their future selves in the series 5 episode The Hungry Earth, and the fact that he would not even deliver the messages in the series 6 finale himself because it would involve crossing his own time stream - as it would be impossible for such a situation to go unnoticed, with the inevitable confusion and conflict that would arise with the couple and the family and friends they would visit, the legal and logistical issues that their simultaneous coexistence would entail, and the future Amy’s evidently rising to some degree of fame. Also, if that were truly the writers’ intent, would they not certainly have called more attention to the fact to confirm such a crazy and plot-significant situation? Additionally, the episode is all about Craig Owens’ having to take care of his baby all on his own when his girlfriend leaves for the weekend, and it ends on a Sunday, as indicated by the Doctor when he comments on the struggle of hiring glaziers on that day toward the end of the episode, but the actual April 19-21, 2011, was in fact a Tuesday - Thursday, not a Friday - Sunday. And, though such details are not always adhered to by the canonical dates in the Whoniverse, it is still worthy to note the further evidence against such a dating that can be gleaned from the presence of leafless trees in the background and the Doctor’s telling a shop employee “good afternoon” while it is completely dark outside. --Game-fanatic ☎ 20:42, January 2, 2019 (UTC)
Closing Time Dating[[edit source]]
Here’s a headline, after the fact, haha. Sorry about that. But yeah, my method is that I of course try to fit on-screen dates and use those as a guide, but ultimately, what is necessary for the story has to take precedence if there is ever a contradiction between the two. In those cases I usually chalk it up to a production error.
As for where I personally think it’s set... When following the pattern of paralleled dates established in series 6 up until this point, The God Complex and Closing Time would probably both be in September 2011. This dating has further potential support – though it may be a bit of a stretch – in that it seems more reasonable that Amy’s answer to the Doctor of how long it had been since she had last seen him at the end of the Christmas special The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe would be based on the real, calendar date they last saw each other, rather than having to be referring to the mere memories from the alternate timeline she obtains in the technically true last time she saw him in the series 6 finale in which all of time takes place on April 22, 2011 (approximately “two years” – Amy’s answer – from Christmas 2012). And the way in which this can be argued to be the case for a September 2011 date, perhaps, is if Amy’s answer can be interpreted as referring to there having been two Christmases to have passed since then. Or perhaps all these mental gymnastics are unnecessary, as it is entirely possible the Doctor’s vague “How long” could be interpreted as referring to “How long” since he had died in the series 6 premiere/finale, and not necessarily since Amy had last seen him, so that would still be April 22, 2011, which is still about “two years” from Christmas 2012. At any rate, 2012 is when that scene in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe must take place - as opposed to simply assuming a 2013 dating that would be more literally “two years” after 2011 - in order to line up all of the time jumps in Doctor Who series 7 to not go past the 2017 setting of Doctor Who series 10, since series 10 does not feature the year-long, worldwide events from the Doctor Who series 7 part 1 episode The Power of Three and yet definitely takes place prominently in the latter half of the 2016-2017 school year. But there is another potential issue with this dating: while Craig and the Doctor are talking outside the shop in Closing Time, there is a poster behind Craig on the window that announces the shop’s “spring season event.” An alternative, then, if we are not to just ignore the poster since we ignored the date on the newspaper, is that he could have dropped Amy and Rory off in early 2012, which could allow Closing Time to take place in the spring of that year, as early as March. Depending, then, on how far apart The God Complex and Closing Time are in 2012, this can also ensure Amy will have had some months after being left by the Doctor to start her modeling/perfume career and become successful enough in it to be at the point she is in Closing Time (though this could still work if it all happened in September 2011, instead, if she simply started working on that in the months between Doctor Who series 6 parts 1 and 2 and perhaps even before part 1, as well). However, the final, deciding fact that must be considered and ultimately rules out the possibility that the Doctor could have dropped Amy and Rory off in early 2012 is what she says to him after he asks why they would have set a place for him at their Christmas dinner when they did not know he was going to come: “Oh, because we always do – it’s Christmas, ya moron.” This means this could not possibly be the first Christmas since he left their lives, as it would not warrant saying they “always” do that if this is the first and only time they had done so. So it seems to me The God Complex and Closing Time must be in September, giving Amy and Rory both the Christmases of 2011 and 2012 to set a place at dinner for the Doctor. The spring poster in Closing Time must be nothing more than an error akin to the date on the newspaper.
Whew, sorry for that huge message, lol - and that’s with parts cut out having to do with Miracle Day and the proof that series 10 is in 2017! xD
Anyway, I’ve only read through 2012 in detail so far, but as I have more time and continue to read the rest of what you got, I can message you some more, and we can continue to exchange notes a bit if you want. I did notice a couple of things already, though: the first is where did you find the Autumn 2011 dating for Night Terrors? I don’t remember if I ever found anything for that (it has been a while now since I’ve continued my work, though, and I have done EVERY episode of even the RTD era as well as Torchwood, SJA, and Class, so it’s easy to forget all that stuff lol). Second, I do of course place the moment River visits Amy and Rory and tells them the Doctor lived in September, as it is most synced up with the Doctor’s current time stream, so it makes sense that they would have just then experienced the alternate timeline from Wedding. Regarding the aborted timeline theory to explain Dalek, I’m not sure about that one; I’m working on an explanation, but I imagine there’s still a way for it to fit in the main timeline. And then the only other thing I noticed was that you included the Good as Gold mini-episode; I however think we can both rest assured that that is not actually canonical, lol. It was written by a group of schoolchildren for a competition, not the official BBC team; contradicts established lore regarding the Weeping Angels (they can’t be destroyed like that) and the events of Fear Her (which, as a TV episode in the actual show and not written by a bunch of kids, is definitely canon); and it seems it is meant to be facetious if you ask me. It has also never received a North American home video release, so it’s not like they’re trying to hard to enforce its official status with the show.
Anyway, that’s all I have for now! Sorry again for the longwinded-ness, oh my... --Game-fanatic ☎ 02:45, January 3, 2019 (UTC)
No apologies necessary[[edit source]]
Hi! No worries. My message did not mean that you did anything wrong. I could see ypu were both excited about your finds, and far be it from me to prevent people from geeking out about DW. However, you are reasonably new on the wiki. It is safe to say that there are many policies you do not know. I was simply trying to prevent you from breaking some rule you did not know yet. Preventive warnings are always better than postfactum ones. I do not need to clean up; you do not feel bad for making me clean up. And, yes, you seem to have figured out gow to sign using ~~~~. Please always do so. Amorkuz ☎ 21:06, January 3, 2019 (UTC)