Doctor Who Redux

1 October, 2012. 373 words.

Originally posted on my writing blog which was active from 2010 to 2018.

Back on the subject of Doctor Who for a moment. Tor.com posts “reviews” of each episode, which I find interesting to compare to my own reactions. In their review of The Angels Take Manhattan, the author had a lot to say about the “inaccuracies” in the episode regarding the Angels and how they affected their immersion.

Sure, it makes no sense if you think about it. But I didn’t really notice. This is Doctor Who. Inconsistencies are not unusual. If you haven’t figured out that you have to suspend your disbelief by the seventh series, something is seriously wrong with you. Still, the author ultimately praised the episode.

Then I read the first comment, which was some guy pointing out how awful the episode was because we know the Doctor can do this and that and the other from previous episodes so by the logical rules already established, he should be able to do this, that, and the other, to get Amy and Rory back. Awful! His very word!

My only reaction to this is … it’s frickin’ Doctor Who! There are no rules, and there never have been any rules. The show is practically defined by its lack of rules. I can’t speak for the pre-2000s incarnations of the Doctor, but incarnations Nine, Ten, and Eleven have routinely been filled with random acts of magical fantasy, and I have never once thought I was watching hard science fiction where everything adheres to firm, fixed rules of time travel. I mean, one need look no further than the very idea that “some points in time are fixed, and some aren’t.” That just screams out “the writers will do whatever they need to tell a story.”

Rant over. Series 7 has been an odd duck. For example, I’m not sure if Episode 5 was the end of the Series or not. It sure seems like it should have been, what with the exit of the companions and all. There wasn’t any kind of story arc over the series, unless you count the general “life after the Doctor” theme. It was almost like an after-thought to Series 6.

(Wikipedia says there are more episodes in Series 7, we just have to wait until after Christmas.)