The official 2015 Doctor Who (with spoilers for aired episodes only) thread

[Morrus]

Many authors believe that. Many authors also write things that follow Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.

In good writing - be it fantasy magic or science fiction superscience, you still have *rules*, even if they are implicit. The author sets expectations in the audience, and if you clumsily violate those expectations, you tend to create dissatisfaction in your audience. Sure, they could write a single line and wave it away, and then major science bloggers who normally laud the show will come down on it like they came down on, "Kill the Moon," for similar reasons: basic fixable laziness on the part of the writers and producers.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to come from this from the assumption that if you find a way to give an audience an excuse to ignore something, then you're okay. I don't think the audience of Doctor Who is generally looking for reasons to ignore things. Many of them are looking for reasons to *think* about things. You won't satisfy them with poorly written one-liners.

No. That's why I recommend well-written lines instead. I certainly wouldn't be so silly as to advocate poorly written anything.

 

[delericho]

Questions:

- Who wrote "I'm in 12"?
- Why was the missing hexagonal stone buried?
- Why have an exit at all (albeit an almost impenetrable diamond one)? Why not just not have an exit? Then he'd have to confess to escape.
- He refused for billions of years to confess. Gets free. Then immediately says "I know you can still hear me" and confesses.

Why didn't the 'missing' hexagonal stone reset like everything else? Someone restored the soil in the garden but didn't move that stone back into place?

After he gets soaked, he goes and finds an identical set of clothes drying by the fire - a set of clothes from the previous iteration of the loop. But, then, did that mean the first iteration spent most of his time running around naked? And wouldn't that have altered his choice of actions, preventing the loop from forming in the first place?

As mentioned, if he has fuel to burn, there's no reason he couldn't clone up an army of Doctors to help him. But there's clearly an energy source there somewhere - he's shown eating a bowl of soup, which had to come from somewhere... oh, and there's a fire that burns for two billion years. So why not get help?

Once he's found the not-diamond wall, why just wait for the monster to come get him? How could he know it wouldn't kill him instantly, or at least before he could get back to the teleporter?

Why punch down the wall over billions of years? Wouldn't it be quicker to misdirect the monster, go get the shovel, and spend 82 minutes hacking at the wall?

Actually... shouldn't the rest of the castle eroded away to nothing long before he punched down the diamond wall?

I think this was probably one of those episodes it's best just to enjoy, rather than over-analyse.

In good writing - be it fantasy magic or science fiction superscience, you still have *rules*, even if they are implicit.

There haven't been any rules in Doctor Who for years, if there ever were.

 

[Ryujin]

Why didn't the 'missing' hexagonal stone reset like everything else? Someone restored the soil in the garden but didn't move that stone back into place?

After he gets soaked, he goes and finds an identical set of clothes drying by the fire - a set of clothes from the previous iteration of the loop. But, then, did that mean the first iteration spent most of his time running around naked? And wouldn't that have altered his choice of actions, preventing the loop from forming in the first place?

As mentioned, if he has fuel to burn, there's no reason he couldn't clone up an army of Doctors to help him. But there's clearly an energy source there somewhere - he's shown eating a bowl of soup, which had to come from somewhere... oh, and there's a fire that burns for two billion years. So why not get help?

Once he's found the not-diamond wall, why just wait for the monster to come get him? How could he know it wouldn't kill him instantly, or at least before he could get back to the teleporter?

Why punch down the wall over billions of years? Wouldn't it be quicker to misdirect the monster, go get the shovel, and spend 82 minutes hacking at the wall?

Actually... shouldn't the rest of the castle eroded away to nothing long before he punched down the diamond wall?

I think this was probably one of those episodes it's best just to enjoy, rather than over-analyse.

There haven't been any rules in Doctor Who for years, if there ever were.

The stone is an excellent point. For the rest, perhaps items that came in from outside, via The Doctor, don't reset? That would explain the clothes and the skull.

 

[Morrus]

The stone is an excellent point. For the rest, perhaps items that came in from outside, via The Doctor, don't reset? That would explain the clothes and the skull.

But then there would be millions of sets of clothes. One for each skull!

 

[Ryujin]

But then there would be millions of sets of clothes. One for each skull!

No, because he removes them each time. It's a swap-out.

 

[delericho]

But then there would be millions of sets of clothes. One for each skull!

Weren't the clothes he was wearing at the end burned up along with his body, leaving only his skull behind? In which case, there's only one set left - the ones he left drying by the fire.

The only problem is that that meant that the first time through the loop he left his clothes drying and spent the rest of his adventure running around in his underwear.

 

[Bagpuss]

No, because he removes them each time. It's a swap-out.

But the very first time, he must have spent the rest of the time walking round naked while they were drying.

 

[Ryujin]

But the very first time, he must have spent the rest of the time walking round naked while they were drying.

Yup, either that or he would have gone back to leave them there just prior to frying himself, the first time, after setting up all of the other breadcrumbs.

 

[Morrus]

No, because he removes them each time. It's a swap-out.

No. Each time a new doctor appears, a new set of clothes is created.

 

[Ryujin]

No. Each time a new doctor appears, a new set of clothes is created.

And then fried to ash when he uses himself to fuel the teleporter, or he'd have immediately known what was going on from the moment that he materialized.