A comment on Dr Who in general

[neadods]

I can roll with the idea of there being fixed points in time that the Doctor cannot change without making a mess that unravels everything. But I can't roll with the idea that there are points in time he doesn't know because, hello, written records.

Comments

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

The "points or events which cannot be changed without messing everything up" concept has been around for a long time; it's a keystone of Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories, among others. Sounds as if this is a slightly different rendition, though. Which is fine -- variations on a theme are one of the foundations of storytelling.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Except it wasn't presented as a point in time that can't be changed. I agree, that is a large part of any time-travel storytelling. This was the Doctor saying, despite having been in multiple futures, that he didn't KNOW what had happened, as if no one on Earth, despite centuries of writing down observations of the moon, ever mentioned once that it hatched.

That's asking too much of my credulity.

[nonelvis]

If the written records can change depending on the resolution of one of those squishier points in time, then written records are useless.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Are they? There's one set of records showing what happened after one course of action was taken; there's another set of records showing what happened after another course of action was taken. That's not useless, that allows direct comparison of outcomes!

[nonelvis]

Except to see those written records, the Doctor would have to travel through multiple parallel timelines, and it's not even clear he can do that anymore short another deus ex machina to resolve the "can't open the doors between universes" problem.

[cedara]

Maybe the "doesn't know" is an analogue that when you're at this undecided point in time you cannot see for sure how everything will develop, as the decision hasn't been made yet? Like Schroedinger's Cat? If he had told them what would/could happen then he'd influence their decision?

Frankly, his behaviour there was more like Star Trek's Prime Directive. Not very rebel-like behaviour.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Frankly, his behaviour there was more like Star Trek's Prime Directive. Not very rebel-like behaviour.

I think you've finally verbalized how I was feeling about it. There's trying to nudge the funny little humans in the right direction, and then there's ... whatever that was.