Why didn't Doctor save Amy and Rory from the weeping angel?

Soulrender95

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Because Karen Gillan wanted to pursue her acting career by shaving her head and being in Guardians of the Galaxy and even the Doctor cannot beat real life, in-universe as badly explained as people think it is , it was explained.

As for show runners, given a choice I'd bring back Douglas Adam (Resurrecting him for this and many many other reasons) but personally anyone is better than RTD who lets face it was just as bad if not worse but somehow gets a pass because he brought the show back.

As a writer I think Moffat is better suited to single or two part episodes, season/series long plot lines are not his forte with Doctor who.

As for other generic complaints about the show, eh , the show has always had silly science and ridiculous concepts, it's always been daft and wonderfully ludicrous science fiction with quarry's that stand in for alien worlds.

it's the characters and stories that have kept it going, the continuity of the old series has been described as "Whatever the writers could remember on the day" and it's continuity is always always going to contradict itself because of how long it's been going and how many people have worked on it.

As for retooling it or rebooting it into a straight forward sci fi series would kill it's heart and that would be worse than anything any writer could do could ever do.

Accept it and love it for the silliness it is or please walk away and find some other scifi series that is closer to what you think Doctor who should be, don't turn Doctor Who into some grimdark series, let it be the lite fluff it is.
Because that's why I love it, because there's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
 

Pebblig

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There is never much consistency in the Doctor Who universe, certain things can randomly be done to save the day or random things can't be done because of "blah". Various things are introduced or altered just to suit the plot.

It's the one thing that's always rather annoyed me in Doctor Who, there aren't enough rules that are followed and there's too much problem solving by introducing something random that always saves the day.
 

BloatedGuppy

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Drizzitdude said:
Spoiler title much
The best part for me was this was actually the very next episode I was due to watch. Perfectly timed spoiler.

Oh the show's near countless uses of Deus Ex Machina, nothing can possibly top that episode where Rory becomes the Centurion. And he's all "How could this have happened, Doctor?". And The Doctor says "The universe is a big place! Miracles happen!". Seriously, writers? You couldn't even be assed to write up some bullshit? Tell us it was the Flaglesnuffler Effect or something? You just hand wave it completely?

That's the show, though, innit? At least it's consistently inconsistent.
 

Zero=Interrupt

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The short answer to the OP's thread is that the characters were being written out, because the actors wanted to leave (in fact, they agreed to leave together). Darvill is a theater actor and ended up moving stateside. Gillan told Moffat she wanted to go, and presumably doing whatever.

The whole thing with "fixed points" in time in a show that's about time travel and altering events is just a convenient way of saying "because we can't/won't", to keep things at stake. Otherwise, yes, the Doctor would be a god and no one would die, ever. Why didn't he save Kylie Minogue in Voyage of the Damned by running back to the Tardis and materializing under her? (answer, the BBC would have had to pay her a ton of money to be a companion for an entire season) Why didn't he save Cassie against her will by materializing the Tardis around her/her ship before it crashed (he's materialized it around an entire Concorde before). Why didn't he save Adric?

Okay, no one liked Adric. He sucked.

For those of you bashing Moffat, he's a thousand times better than RTD, who turned the show into a big stupid production number farce. His entire run, as full as it was of good things, was also full of cringeworthy moments (like all of the Master-centric ones after Derek Jacobi turned into that dude from Life on Mars, and having seen that show, he's an excellent actor, so not his fault). Cringeworthy moments in the Moffat run? Zero. That's solid writing, folks.
 

OneCatch

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TheRightToArmBears said:
My fairly basic understanding is this- Random things in the Whoniverse (I'm not sure if that's a term, if it's not, you heard it here first) are fixed points, like Pompeii, and can't be interfered with. Somehow the Doctor can see which events are.

That said, it's all pretty contradictory. I remember a Christopher Eccleston era episode where Rose saves her dad from being run over, changing time and causing giant-time-judge-bat-bastards to rock up and start causing a ruckus. The episode also says that you're not supposed to come into contact with another version of yourself. The bat things are never heard from again and the 'don't touch yourself (giggity)' rule is forgotten about.
Didn't the 'fixed point in time thing' only start to be referenced after that episode? In-universe I guess the doctor, having seen the giant-time-judge-bat-bastards[footnote]I can't come up with a better description that that[/footnote], didn't fancy a repeat.
Especially given that they were going to expunge an entire planet over one person, whereas events like Pompeii or The Waters of Mars or whatever would arguably be far further reaching.

/Feeble continuity justification

But yeah, that entire New York plotline was kind of crap.
 

Eclectic Dreck

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Because Doctor Who is not a universe of hard rules outlining specifically what can and cannot happen but rather a universe with but one rule: the relative possibility of any action is inversely proportional to how reasonably useful that action is.

In some ways this is simply a necessity. The Doctor has the power of time itself in his hands meaning there is literally no problem he cannot easily resolve by simple time travel. In order for drama to occur, a non-trivial solution will be necessary. Thus, we have lots of examples of scenarios that somehow impede time travel including: the TARDIS isn't present (ignoring that the Doctor has a demonstrated ability to call the thing to his location), the TARDIS is actively destroyed, a Time Traveller cannot come directly into contact with a past of future version of themselves (which, happens all the damn time anyhow) and, one of my favorites: that a particular moment is of significant enough importance that it cannot be altered. These, it should be pointed out, are not particularly good explanations even in the moment and it all comes back to that initial problem of the Doctor having access to a power that makes any problem trivial.

But, the truth is, this stems from the fact that Doctor Who is a fantasy show and thus has no need to follow any particular set of rules or even offer a compelling explanation. The reason why the Doctor couldn't rescue Amy and Rory, quite simply, is that the people who made the show found it necessary to remove them from the show. One of their least elegant solutions which, given they've had to do this several times, seems strange. There's always parallel universes to lock them in, outright killing them, having them willingly walk away, being simply abandoned by the Doctor (He's done this one quite a few times), or, my personal favorite, giving them access to a power so fantastic that if they remembered they had it, they would just die.
 

TimeLord

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Mainly because of two reasons, one is the time they were zapped to was unstable, the Doctor says as much.
Also he knows they are dead on the gravestone, creating a fixed point which he can't change.
 

Robot Number V

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Well, there are a lot of reasons, but most of them are easily countered.

1. New York in that time is all wibbly-wobbly with time distortion and paradoxes! He can't land the Tardis there!
--Except he COULD, you know, land it OUTSIDE the paradoxes and walk to Amy and Rory.

2. The Doctor already read the back of Amy's book/their tombstone. Saving them would change those things, thus changing the Doctor's own already established timeline.
--Except that Amy could easily just write the book after being saved, and the Doctor could arrange for a Tombstone to be in that particular spot, and with that particular text, with ease.

The only REAL reason is this:

3. They didn't really want to be saved. According to Amy's book, they lived a happy life in New York, and they didn't want the Doctor fucking that up by dragging them back into the "Doctor Life" that he could already see they were growing out of. Even still...
--EXCEPT. Rory's fucking dad.It would easy for the Doctor to save them, if only so that Brian can see his damn kid again. Plus, you know, all their other friends and family. It's not like the Doctor just can't resist visiting old companions unless they're sealed in Doctor-proof paradox-zones. Amy and Rory could just live their lives in the present and the Doctor could just AVOID them.
 

Ranorak

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Robot Number V said:
Well, there are a lot of reasons, but most of them are easily countered.

1. New York in that time is all wibbly-wobbly with time distortion and paradoxes! He can't land the Tardis there!
--Except he COULD, you know, land it OUTSIDE the paradoxes and walk to Amy and Rory.

2. The Doctor already read the back of Amy's book/their tombstone. Saving them would change those things, thus changing the Doctor's own already established timeline.
--Except that Amy could easily just write the book after being saved, and the Doctor could arrange for a Tombstone to be in that particular spot, and with that particular text, with ease.

The only REAL reason is this:

3. They didn't really want to be saved. According to Amy's book, they lived a happy life in New York, and they didn't want the Doctor fucking that up by dragging them back into the "Doctor Life" that he could already see they were growing out of. Even still...
--EXCEPT. Rory's fucking dad.It would easy for the Doctor to save them, if only so that Brian can see his damn kid again. Plus, you know, all their other friends and family. It's not like the Doctor just can't resist visiting old companions unless they're sealed in Doctor-proof paradox-zones. Amy and Rory could just live their lives in the present and the Doctor could just AVOID them.
Didn't Amy purposely write that epilogue, to prevent the doctor from saving them?
Also, it's been a while since I saw the episode, so I forgot what year they were moved to, but couldn't they just let Rory's dad know where they were and have him come to visit?
 

michael87cn

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Because time travel is messy. You CAN'T write against time travel, you can only go with it.

It's actually best to keep it out of your stories altogether...

For any event, time travel can fix it. Because if you can go back and re-do an event... there's nothing that can't be fixed with a second chance...
 

DrOswald

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Under Stevie Muppet Dr Who is closer to a fairy tale than hard sci fi and is treated as such. It is a vehicle for expressing ideas and so logic and consistency sometimes take a back seat.

As for the actual in universe reasons, a fixed point in time was created. As far as I can tell a fixed point in time is a chain of paradoxes concerning a time traveler(s) that damages the fabric of reality so badly that stacking another paradox on top would result in a cataclysmic breakdown of space time. It is not that a fixed point cannot be altered (River, after all, did just that with minimal effort) it is that altering it would result in consequences so dire that it is unthinkable.

My guess is that the "fixed point" terminology is what the Timelords decided to call these things because "cluster fuck of paradoxes" sounds unscientific.

The idea is actually one of the most consistent ideas in Who, though rarely stated in such a direct form. People will often ask why they can't just warn themselves 5 minutes ago or just go back 2 hours and capture the alien. The Doctor will tell them that it cannot be done because he can't cross his own timeline despite the fact that he has done so many times. My idea is that creating paradoxes is very dangerous so he avoids it as often as possible, even to the point of sacrificing his life and the lives of those around him.
 

FalloutJack

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Temporal distortions caused by the rampant actions of the Angels in that time period made it wholey dangeorus for the TARDIS to even approach it. That was even before the episode started. AFTER that, the conflict that destroyed the Angels made it even worse, stretching the temporal fabric to ths point where it might do irreparable damaged to time and space and the TARDIS. It's like driving a car off of a cliff.
 

BleedingPride

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It was established that as soon as the doctor moves the tardis from New York at that time with the hotel (which is where, in theory, they were sent back to), too much damage had been done for the tardis to be able to return to that. If he did, why couldn't he go a year later? Well, he unfortunately looked at the grave, the names were there, regardless of context that's what was going to happen and it was finished. or that's my understanding anyway.
 

BabySinclair

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SaneAmongInsane said:
So basically time can be re-written until time is known by the time traveller?
So long as you don't have a accurate enough account, you'll be fine. Once you know something specific about your own timeline, either by watching it, hearing a first-hand (or close enough) account, or by some other means, you cannot change it. If I see a person fall and break their hip, I cannot change it. On day 2 I learn someone fell to their death. I travel to day 1. I proceed to catch them. I then travel to day 3. Now my day 2 identity will not learn they died on day 2 and will not travel back to save them. They will die on day 1 since I don't save them. You now have a paradox as time flips between two alternative states. Now had you learned on day one you needed to save them, you do, and then on day 2 sent a message back to day 1 to save them, you have a stable loop without a paradox. Getting into a stable loop is the challenge.
 

FoxKitsune

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I love Doctor who, though admittedly I've only been watching since the Chris Eccleston days. With that said, here's the rule I've gleaned for how they work out consistency in cases like this.

They don't :p

It's weird. I tend to pick apart every show I ever watch, but it doesn't mean I enjoy it less. The thing is with Doctor Who, there's just so MUCH to pick apart. That episode with Roses's dad that has been mentioned is the big problem with Doctor Who's whole time paradox shtick for obvious reasons (never brought up again, never happens again, etc) with another additional issue.

Has anyone noticed that in Doctor Who he frequently turns up somewhere and saves the day? Okay, premise of the show, I get that, but here's the thing, the stuff he saves the day from is only sometimes something that's messing with time. There are many cases where it's just a Werewolf, or a fish vampire, or a nasty rich guy who wants to control stuff. (Not fact checking here, but there's no way I'm wrong on all of these points!) So with that in mind, does that mean that without the Doctor interfering the one REAL timeline should have gone a different way? And with THAT in mind, does that mean the Doctor's actually kind of the monster, rewriting history to make it more accommodating for his favorite race; the humans?

I love Doctor Who to bits, and I genuinely love the parts when the plot all comes together in a way that makes sense to me and I can squeal about it a bit, but really the way most episodes go is-

1) There's a Problem
2) The Doctor thinks for a while
3) The Doctor pulls something out of the air to save the day

Still an awesome show, but I find it so riddled with plot holes and problems that it's not worth complaining. That said, I don't think the writers are bad, per se. I once heard it said that every work contains a bunch of plot holes, and the mark of a good writer is being able to distract people from them by the work being awesome! And generally the episodes are fun enough that I start questioning things afterwards, not during it.

*Salutes Doctor Who*

TL;DR- Tough, I'm not summarizing :-D
 

Plinglebob

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While linking to TV Tropes is always dangerous, the Bellisario Maxim [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BellisariosMaxim] has always applied to Doctor Who. It started 50 years ago when the idea of continuity (hell, even repeats) was generally laughable and the fact its aimed at kids more then adults means story always takes precedence. As many others in this thread have pointed out Time Travel is always hard to write with if you want to stick to solid rules and continuity because you would eventually just stop being able to do anything(*cough*Primer*cough*) so instead they go "We can Time Travel, what cool things can we do with that?"

FoxKitsune said:
Has anyone noticed that in Doctor Who he frequently turns up somewhere and saves the day? Okay, premise of the show, I get that, but here's the thing, the stuff he saves the day from is only sometimes something that's messing with time. There are many cases where it's just a Werewolf, or a fish vampire, or a nasty rich guy who wants to control stuff. (Not fact checking here, but there's no way I'm wrong on all of these points!) So with that in mind, does that mean that without the Doctor interfering the one REAL timeline should have gone a different way? And with THAT in mind, does that mean the Doctor's actually kind of the monster, rewriting history to make it more accommodating for his favorite race; the humans?
In all fairness, this was pretty much the story thread from The Pandorica Opens to A Good Man Goes To War. We see him as a hero because he helps us. Everyone else sees him as a dick because he screws them over helping us. Also, he "Knows" how time is supposed to go so while he may have to stop the fish vampires from messing things up because they fell backwards, the only reason he stopped the Werewolf is because he knows the werewolf doesn't succeed. You could even argue that history and everything that has happened/is happening/will happen is completely fixed and all the Doctor is doing is getting bounced around to make sure he appears when he's supposed to. Now I've got a headache.
 

FoxKitsune

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Plinglebob said:
While linking to TV Tropes is always dangerous, the Bellisario Maxim [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BellisariosMaxim] has always applied to Doctor Who. It started 50 years ago when the idea of continuity (hell, even repeats) was generally laughable and the fact its aimed at kids more then adults means story always takes precedence. As many others in this thread have pointed out Time Travel is always hard to write with if you want to stick to solid rules and continuity because you would eventually just stop being able to do anything(*cough*Primer*cough*) so instead they go "We can Time Travel, what cool things can we do with that?"

FoxKitsune said:
Has anyone noticed that in Doctor Who he frequently turns up somewhere and saves the day? Okay, premise of the show, I get that, but here's the thing, the stuff he saves the day from is only sometimes something that's messing with time. There are many cases where it's just a Werewolf, or a fish vampire, or a nasty rich guy who wants to control stuff. (Not fact checking here, but there's no way I'm wrong on all of these points!) So with that in mind, does that mean that without the Doctor interfering the one REAL timeline should have gone a different way? And with THAT in mind, does that mean the Doctor's actually kind of the monster, rewriting history to make it more accommodating for his favorite race; the humans?
In all fairness, this was pretty much the story thread from The Pandorica Opens to A Good Man Goes To War. We see him as a hero because he helps us. Everyone else sees him as a dick because he screws them over helping us. Also, he "Knows" how time is supposed to go so while he may have to stop the fish vampires from messing things up because they fell backwards, the only reason he stopped the Werewolf is because he knows the werewolf doesn't succeed. You could even argue that history and everything that has happened/is happening/will happen is completely fixed and all the Doctor is doing is getting bounced around to make sure he appears when he's supposed to. Now I've got a headache.
Which, if he's appearing where he's supposed to, implies that either he or the tardis, or even just some being watching over everything i.e a god, is enforcing some measure of fate (I personally don't buy fate as a thing unless there's a god of some sort. If there's an organized way that the world should go, logically it follows that something is behind that making the calls way ahead of time)

So now we've got two reasons why we shouldn't be trying to put logic into Doctor Who. 1) we'll enjoy it less and 2:) rampant headaches :p

Edited to add- Perhaps it's less a difficulty in putting logic into Doctor Who, and more putting logic into time travel
 

Tom_green_day

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Because they didn't renew their contracts for a new series. Duh.
But in all seriousness that shows has a really arbitrary and backwards way of discerning if something's possible or not. Basically, it's possible unless the actually definitely want to completely kill off the character this time. Still, they'll always leave a way to back out of that later. One of the reasons I can't stand it.
 

Dalisclock

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I'll give you a two reasons.

The in-show reason: Wibbly Wobbly Timey Whimey.

The real reason: It's fan fiction. The rules change according to the writer.

The second reason is why the rules for the Angels seem to change every single time they appear and why I've really started to dread it when another angel episode is going to show up. I was annoyed by the "Whatever has the image of an angel become an angel" crap and the way the angels worked in "Angels in Manhatten" was completely nonsensical and completely the opposite of the way they worked in every episode previously(How exactly does locking an angel in a dark room actually help anything? Seriously).

It really felt very cheap. Like they wanted to get rid of amy and rory but couldn't think of a way to do it and for some reason, letting them go back to living their lives just wasn't an option. So they went back to "Fixed points" which is the last refuge of a bad Dr. Who writer and "We can't cause a paradox"(as opposed to every other paradox they've caused).