History Headscratchers / DoctorWho

** This is validated by the fall of Arcadia in "Day of the Doctor". Why would the Time Lords be fighting with what is, for them, primitive technology like FrickinLaserBeams? The answer is because the showrunners wanted to have a RuleOfCool battle scene with lots of laser bolts getting sprayed around, stuff exploding and flying Daleks blasting gun-toting Gallifreyan foot soldiers. It was pure FX eye candy. Abstract, time-manipulating technology would just be confusing for viewers. A starship trooper with a laser bazooka on the other hand? Perfectly comprehensible. Notice also that the Doctor was the only one with a TARDIS in that entire battle scene, despite this being the planet where TARDIS's are built[=/=]grown? This was really all about the Doctor and the Daleks, with the Gallifreyan RedShirtArmy just there for cinematic effect.
** Or maybe the troops with the FrickinLaserBeams are the Gallifreyan equivalent of a citizen's militia, putting up a desperate guerrilla resistance with the equivalent of popguns after the ''real'' soldiers have been slaughtered. Time Lord society was pretty dictatorial even ''before'' the war; it's very unlikely that ordinary Gallifreyan citizens are permitted to keep advanced weapons. Time-contorting tech and galaxy-eating superweapons are for the military and the Time Lord elite, not a bunch of refugees trying to get their kids to safety.

%% Please start a new thread if you'd like to discuss a new image.

* I understand that Micky wasn't the object of The Doctor'Doctor's affections but still he was unneedlessly mean to Micky. Almost petty.

*** Many of which, if we're being brutally honest, are basically just exotic depictions of human cultures (or personalities) where the "humans" are given a fancy coat of paint, some quirks and/or a pair of funny ears, interesting though they otherwise may be. Humans are naturally drawn to stories that in some way reflect humans or human concerns because we lack a context or frame of reference for the truly alien, because we've never experienced it. Even science fiction writers will usually either make draw on human cultures as inspiration for their alien species or else present a truly alien species through human eyes (and even then they still mostly draw on other animals that humans would recognise). There is a reason why "The Web Planet", which is pretty much the show's only stab at exploring a truly alien culture, does not exactly appear at the top of many "best stories ever" lists.

*** Many of which, if we're being brutally honest, are basically just exotic depictions of human cultures (or personalities) where the "humans" are given a fancy coat of paint, some quirks or a pair of funny ears, interesting though they otherwise may be. Humans are naturally drawn to stories that in some way reflect humans or human concerns because we lack a context or frame of reference for the truly alien, because we've never experienced it. Even science fiction writers will usually either make draw on human cultures as inspiration for their alien species or else present a truly alien species through human eyes (and even then they still mostly draw on other animals that humans would recognise). There is a reason why "The Web Planet", which is pretty much the show's only stab at exploring a truly alien culture, does not exactly appear at the top of many "best stories ever" lists.

*** Many of which, if we're being brutally honest, are basically just exotic depictions of human cultures where the "humans" are given a fancy coat of paint or a pair of funny ears, interesting though they otherwise may be. Humans are naturally drawn to stories that in some way reflect humans or human concerns because we lack a context or frame of reference for the truly alien, because we've never experienced it. Even science fiction writers will usually either make draw on human cultures as inspiration for their alien species or else present a truly alien species through human eyes (and even then they still mostly draw on other animals that humans would recognise). There is a reason why "The Web Planet", which is pretty much the show's only stab at exploring a truly alien culture, does not exactly appear at the top of many "best stories ever" lists.

** It's implied at several points that the Time Lords seeded humanoid life-forms around the universe to establish them as the dominant template because ''they'' were humanoid. It's not out of the realm of possibility that they would also seed around languages that Time Lords would be familiar with in order to make sure that Time Lords could understand what was going on. In other words, the Doctor's not speaking English; ''we're'' speaking ''Gallifreyian''.

*** Origianl troper here, that's actually a pretty reasonable explanation. On the two times when he has tried to hypnotize an enemy, one was when he was in a death trap where the enemy was at a calm state of mind, and the other was a paniced reaction to a clearly crazed lunatic that was chasing him. He had a pedulam and was trying to get the guy to just calm down (it worked for like two seconds). Still, there's probably dozens of other instances out there where he has just as much reasonable cause to attempt to hypnotize someone. Oh, and just for the sake of posterity, it is in fact established that he has hypnotism powers from as early as the first Doctor when he tries to free Dodo from mind control using hypnotism in The War Machines.

[[folder: Time Lords predating Time Travel]]

* Well, if you want the short version, they were indeed Gallifreyans, and they were ruled by this entity - part HiveQueen, part high priestess to the Menti Celesti (i.e. Time and Death and Pain,) part queen - called the Pythia. This was before history and all the accompanying messes (including time travel) was invented, so there's really no way to tell how long this period went on for, but eventually Rassilon showed up with the rest of the founders (Omega, Pandak, Apeiron, Lazuline, Eutenoyar and the Other, according to the Cartmel Masterplan) and overthrew the Pythia. The Founders then, in short succession, created the Eye of Harmony, built the Time Lords (an engineered species,) invented time as a structured and reason-powered thing, invented the vortex / the web of time / history to keep it all orderly, invented [=TARDISes=] as a way of travelling across this new dimension, basically set up Gallifrey as we know it today (transduction barrier and all,) and then all died / disappeared in quick sucession. It's unclear what happened to the 'original' Pythian Gallifreyans, but none of them survived, which makes it pretty likely that Rassilon murdered them all to ensure the success of his new master race (and then probably invented the Pythia's Curse to cover up for himself but that's headcanon really.)

** In ''The Doctor's Daughter'', [[spoiler:Jenny doesn't have a TARDIS, so she shouldn't be able to regenerate. If she took energy from the Doctor's TARDIS, she would have done a full regeneration, not just an energyburp, and the Doctor would have noticed if someone just stole some energy anyways. And when the Doctor regenerated last, he only enerygyburped because he absorbed the heart of the TARDIS. The Master's regeneration into Harold Saxxon shows us that these aren't necessary for normal regeneration...so why did Jenny energyburp?]]

** Jenny wasn't fifteen hours old, so she probably did the same 'We Can Rebuild Him/Her' thing that the Tenth Doctor did in ''The Christmas Invasion''.

** I doubt that a TARDIS is required. After all, The Doctor half expected Jenny to regenerate then and there, a significant distance from the TARDIS. Same with The Master. He seemed to indicate that he believed Jenny did as The Master and refused to regenerate because she was "too much like [The Doctor]".

** With the 4th and 7th Regeneration outside the Tardis, there were complications.

* Where does the TARDIS go between dematerializing one place and materializing in another? Where was the Tardis between, for example, Dalek and The Long Game?

** "Often"? The randomizer only saw service from the end of "The Armageddon Factor" to "The Leisure Hive," where the concept was swiftly abandoned--the ship's perfectly unreliable all by itself.

** The seventh doctor spends a lot of time tripping over Colin Baker's clothes in Time and the Rani.
** This was brought up in the very first regeneration shown - in ''Power of the Daleks'', Ben refuses to believe that the new man is the Doctor, and challenges him to wear the First Doctor's ring, which ought to fit if they're the same man. It falls off.
** Although this doesn't explain why the Doctor's clothes apparently regenerated with him that time.
** ''[[Administrivia/JustifyingEdit Well]]'', if Romana's regeneration is any indication, a Time Lord's regeneration can include change of clothing...if you're good at it. The first regeneration seemed to go off without a hitch, explaining the above. There seems to have been a spanner thrown into the works since then, because all the others since have been...[[PainfulTransformation problematic]].

** The Creator/BigFinish ''Doctor Who Unbound'' alternative third doctor (played by David Warner) says the same thing at the end of his story.

** Given what Gallifrey is like -- not exactly a PlanetOfAdventure -- most regenerations probably occur in hospital, due to old age or accident. Both Borusa's voluntary regeneration ("Five Doctors") and the First Doctor's line about delaying too long may even indicate that Time Lords frequently ''plan'' their regenerations to keep themselves in their prime. Regenerating abruptly in street clothes is probably vanishingly rare, so it may never have occurred to them to go to any effort to make it comfortable.

* Why do so few people in the show find it odd that the Doctor's name is 'The Doctor'?

** Also note that he doesn't always say "my name is the Doctor" -- he often just says "I'm the Doctor", which many people take as him stating his profession. In emergency situations (Which the Doctor usually finds himself in) people wouldn't find it strange for a real MD to introduce himself like that -- in an emergency, letting people know that you're a doctor so that you can get to where you can help is more important than letting people know your name. This doesn't apply in every situation though, obviously.
** ''The Doctor'' is his Time-lord title. Almost all time lords start using a title rather than a name (Romana being the only counter-example I can think of), examples being The Doctor, The War Chief, The Master, The Rani, and so on.

*** Except for that blue guy [[spoiler: who shot Bill while the Doctor was mid-speech]]!
* It is often questioned in some way, although it seems as though most of the time people just assume his introduction of "I'm the Doctor" is him saying his occupation. In the case of characters like Martha during her initial appearance, it seems as though him declaring that his name is literally "The Doctor" is just seen as him boosting a massive ego. Clara herself suggested this (in jest), when she pretended to be him in "Flatline".

* What's up with the Doctor's age, anyway? Even if we ignore that him being 900 would mean that he's regenerated 4 times, destroyed 2 planets, fought in a war, fallen in love, and gone through companions like chips all in one year, he can't seem to decide whether he's 900 years old, lived through 900 years of time and space (which would mean since he first drove a TARDIS), or been traveling in a phone box for 900 years (the very first episode was the first time, according to Susan, that the Tardis didn't change its shape, which would put him at a few years younger than 450, and would make his current age 1,350 years old).

** For that matter, the Doctor said he was 756 years old when he first met Romana in ''The Ribos Operation''. If he's over 900 as of the 2005 series, that means that from the Doctor's perspective, over 150 years have passed between the 1978 series and the 2005 series. What was he doing that whole time?

** The Time War lasted a long time, I guess. And then there's the mourning over the lost civilisation of the Time Lords, redecorating the TARDIS, learning how to speak with a Northern accent, this all would take * ages* . The real question is: why did he come back to Earth in 2005 and not, say, 1989?

** Nine came back to earth several times before meeting Rose in 2005. Remember the ConspiracyTheorist in ''Rose'' who had evidence of Nine appearing on Earth at several points in the past. Since he was by himself, it would mean this was all before the point in Nine's time-line where he meets Rose.
** The seventh Doctor said he'd had 900 years practice. It's easy enough to fit any number of years between 'Trial of a Time Lord' and 'Time of the Rani', but they doesn't quite fit with the tenth Doctor being only 900. [[FanWank Squint a little]], and the new series comments can be interpreted as referring to how long he's been travelling in the Tardis, but this still leaves Pertwee's apparent claim to be several thousand years old to be explained.

** The Doctor has lied about his age in the past- Romana's called him on it, although she wasn't exactly innocent in that herself...
** We don't know how long the Doctor and Romana traveled together, and both of them were Time Lords, so they both age slowly. On fact, you could make a case for the Doctor and Nyssa traveling with each other for a long time, considering that we don't know how long Trakenites live and how fast they age.
** And assuming we're not counting ExpandedUniverse novels and audio plays and the like, there's been plenty of times where the Doctor was by himself or otherwise engaged in adventures we don't know about (his sixth self before 'meeting' Mel after 'Trial of a Time Lord', his seventh self after 'Survival', his entire eighth self pretty much), so there's room for a few hundred years to have passed there.
** And there's the time between "The Hand of Fear" and "The Face of Evil" where he travels alone (as far as we know) and between "The Invasion of Time" and "The Ribos Operation" accompanied only by K-9, who doesn't age at all...

** Steven Moffat has publicly given the opinion that the Doctor has no bloody clue what his age is any more. And since he's in the top job right now....

** According to the TARDIS during "The Doctor's Wife", he's been travelling with her for 700 years(and being designed for [[TimeyWimeyBall timey-wimeyness]], she'd know). Given he was in his 400s when we first see him, I'd say that the Doctor is most likely two centuries older than he claims, making his supposed current age of 1107 about 2 centuries off.
** I found an excellent page on this which I greatly prefer to what Moffat said and the writer even says he dislikes that theory. http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/who-mysteries-the-doctors-real-age-37396.htm
** Perhaps when the Doctor said 1200 in A Town Called Mercy he was deciding to finally be honest after setting his age back.
** I thought the same thing. Though something we must consider is what manner of dating the Doctor uses. It annoys me when people assume that years mentioned in Doctor Who always mean Earth years. Also I am uncertain the Doctor really has aged nearly 300 years as he barely seems to have aged, while the First Doctor was about 450 at regeneration. I know the Time Destructor aged him and the Doctor may have better control over his age but still I think the Doctor would have shown more signs of aging. Recently the Doctor has said he has been travelling for 900 years.

** "The Doctor's Wife" has the TARDIS/Idris/Sexy saying that they've been together for 700 years. Sexy is probably the only thing that serve as a reliable calculator for the Doctor's age. In "The Name of The Doctor" we have edited footage of William Hartnell/First Doctor given advice by [[spoiler:Clara]] to steal the TARDIS, meaning than in "The Doctor's Wife" a lower estimate for his age would be the 1100s range. Add the 200 year-older future Doctor in Day of the Moon and the 900 years of [[spoiler:the Siege of Trenzalore]], and at the very least the 12th Doctor is in his 24th century.

** Because it's not a question, the "who" is just a placeholder to emphasize his mysteriousness. It's like calling the show "Doctor X" - and "Doctor X?" would make no sense.

** As the Doctor himself noted in "The Ark In Space", "It may be irrational of me, but human beings are quite my favourite species." Small wonder then that he should show some favoritism.
** Bothers me, too.

** The recorded Doctor Who stories are only a small portion of the Doctor's adventures, even if you factor in all the expanded universe stuff. Probably the Doctor does visit totally alien planets often, we just don't get to see it.
** Note that the Doctor does try to save Aliens when they aren't the antagonists. He tried to save the two crewmen in Planet of the Dead (failed but tried) and Voyage of the Damned could arguably count. (Alien planet, humanoid appearence). Not only that but in The End of the World he saved a bunch of aliens. He just doesn't hang around other aliens much.
** On this note, I am more bothered by the lack of non-human companions. Or for that matter, c=human companions who are ''not'' from present-day earth. Can we have some more aliens and time variations in this show now, please? There ''are'' plenty of eras to choose from.

** Zoe was from the (then-distant) 21st Century. I don't think anyone expected the series to catch up with even the 1980s, let alone the 2000s. And then it did....

** The Doctor is currently 1100+ years old-the Doctor has plenty of time to save non-humans(both human-looking and [[StarfishAlien alien-looking]]) [[OffScreenMomentOfAwesome when we aren't watching]].

* What did they call the Doctor back in his University days? "Hello, I'm the Sophomore,"

** We hear that that was his nickname in "The Armageddon Factor". In the Doctor Who gamebook "The Garden of Evil", it's revealed that all students at the Time Academy are referred to by two Greek letters, representing their physical and mental abilities. (In the book, you play a student called Delta Delta.) A gamebook is about as far from canon as you can get, but it ''was'' written by David Martin, who also wrote "The Armageddon Factor".

** And, as a side note, funnily enough that was exactly who the writer of Silver Nemesis was hinting that the Doctor really was. Yes really.
** Maybe he was The Master before he got his [=PhD=]... oh boy, there's a WMG...

** Which, of course, makes it rather mystifying why the Carrionites couldn't detect any real name associated with him in "The Shakespeare Code."
** The latter's probably because of a PsychicBlockDefense, rather than him not having one.

** Flatly answered on-screen in ''The Sontaran Strategem.'' Their weakness to attack from behind means that they can never retreat; they must always charge forward. In other words, macho crap.

** Possibly their usual tactics account for flank attacks. Besides, Sontarans are pure ProudWarriorRace Guy - death before dishonour, any day. Life is probably cheap to the Sontaran generals anyway, when they reproduce by cloning.

** The Sontarans are essentially an entire race of football hooligans...arrogant, posturing, testosterone fueled thugs who think that they can take on every other race in the universe and win. Their also all completely insane to the point of loving war so much it borders on CargoShip.
** I've always seen the Sontarans as, essentially, representing the "Blimp-ish" type of pre-war British militarism. They're very fond of war and aggressive but they're also rather pompous and weighed-down by tradition. The "vent" seems to be a part of that - it's to stop them retreating or turning-away from the enemy but despite the obvious impracticalities they don't get rid of it because that's the way it's always been.
** Go back to the first response for a moment - it may not be possible for every clone to be free from fear. It means that even the most cowardly, well, ''especially'' the most cowardly will face their enemies. They only have to stand back to back and try to bump into each other.

** They do. In the episode 'Turn Left', [[spoiler:the doctor dies 'because it happened too quickly for him to heal]]. Remember, regenerating takes ''time''.

** I could be wrong, but from what I recall Regeneration is used to ''save'' a Time Lord from death, not overcome it (okay, yes, the movie does explicitly that, but lets not confuse ourselves). If the Doctor was ever hit full in the face with a Dalek ray, for example, that's it. Finito. All the times the Doctor has regenerated previously, he's been dying, not dead (..except the TV Movie. Stop bringing it up).

** In the commentary for "Smith and Jones" Creator/RussellTDavies mentions they set 'guidelines' and one of them is that Doctor would die and not regenerate if shot in the heart. Um- one of them.

* So his name isn't "Doctor Who," I get it. So why is the show called "Doctor Who"? I mean, seriously, it's a rather weak joke that creates more confusion from the ignorant than amusement from the informed. And if they're going to use that name it ''should'' have a question mark at the end!

** And I always thought that if the show was just called "The Doctor", It would sound more like a hospital drama rather than a science fiction program. And since The Doctor isn't an actual doctor, it would make no sense.

* Despite the Daleks being infinitely more dangerous than the Cybermen, the Doctor reacts to the latter with a lot more fear, always saying "Do as they say!" and "DON'T fight them!!" With the Daleks, you have to stop him from getting into a sarcastic, light-hearted conversation with them. Not once does he ever look truly scared for his life. The Sontarans are the same "YOU CAN'T FIGHT SONTARANS!!!!" why the fear, you'll let them blunder into a fight against the cult of Skaro no problem, but against an enemy they can actually beat..... they better fall back
** The Doctor probably knows that the Dalek's aren't just mass murdering psychopaths (they're organized mass murdering psychopaths) and he's been fighting them much more then any other enemy, so he knows something about their strategies and weaknesses. Cybermen however, he hasn't seen so much and even though he knows their weakness, he isn't likely to carry gold dust/bullets/anything with him on his person. As for Sontarans, they are militant, stubborn and their only weakness is directly behind them. Sontarans and Cybermen he can deal with easier but shows more fear to since he doesn't know exactly what they may be up to, but Daleks he usually has a pretty good understanding (i.e., them killing everything not Dalek)
** Resisting a Cyberman gets you immediately "deleted", but surrendering gives you until they get you to the conversion chamber to act. Fighting a Sontaran means dealing with them on their terms, terms that are very much in their favor, but surrendering might put them off guard long enough for you to think of something clever. With Daleks, on the other hand, it's the other way around - ''surrendering'' gets you immediately exterminated with extreme prejudice, whereas ''baiting'' them, especially if you're their long-established enemy, might confuse them long enough for you to get out of the situation.

** Re: The Cybermen. Personally, I think it's because of the {{Squick}} factor involved in creating Cybermen and the inherit BodyHorror of the concept. To an invidivualist like The Doctor, the concept of a monster [[AndIMustScream that turns you into a mindless drone while still leaving you technically alive has got to be a horrifying idea]] - far worse than the simple extermination you'd face at the hands of a Dalek. As for the Sontarans, The Tenth Doctor - more than most incarnations - was a TechnicalPacifist who had serious issues with military authority. The Sontarans bothered him because they were even more of a mindless soldier race than the Daleks. Put simply, Sontarans are generally too single-minded to be fast-talked, unlike the much more paranoid/scheming Daleks.
** Sarah Jane observed in The Mask of Mandragora that the more worried the Doctor is, the worse his jokes get. When he's not joking, he's not really worried.
** In "Dalek" Nine looks at the severed head of a Cyberman and gets downright nostalgic, calling it an old friend before correcting himself "More like an enemy--the stuff of nightmares, really. I must be getting old." When he sees the Dalek, though, he starts pounding on the door and begging and pleading to be let out of the room until he realizes it's disabled. (Yes, the decapitated Cyberman head was disabled, too.)
** Going back to the original question - it's very simple, really. The Daleks may be more dangerous than the Cybermen and the Sontarans, but there's one major difference: the Doctor scares the absolute crap out of them. He's their version of Satan, and he *knows* it. That gives him leverage.
** At least, it used to. [[spoiler: Clara!dalek may not have been doing him any favors, erasing the daleks' memories of him....]]

** I like the idea this brings up of a Doctor-companion Death Range :D

** Adding on to this, the Doctor fought in a massive war against the Daleks and only had to regenerate once, from Eight to Nine. A huge war against the Daleks, [[spoiler: ''and'' the Time Lords,]] and he managed to avoid everything being thrown from both sides, save for ''one'' time (presumably near the end, before the events of Rose)?
** "End of Time" reveals that why the Time War [[WarIsHell was not a nice place to be]] was because [[FateWorseThanDeath the dead were revived over and over.]] [[FridgeHorror Who's to say the Doctor wasn't?]]

** The production crew decided to imply otherwise in "The Brain of Morbius," stating that the other faces we saw (theirs) were "even earlier Doctors and past Morbiuses,'' but this was [[{{Jossed}} Jossed]].

* In the classic series, on several occasions the Doctor and companions escape by stealing Dalek ships. (Examples: the end of ''The Chase'', ''The Daleks' Masterplan''.) Why do Dalek ships have controls that you can work with hands?
** In the ExpandedUniverse book "Alien Bodies", the Doctor, needing to turn the lights on in a Dalek ship, produces a sink plunger from his pocket to use the controls.

** THEY WILL EXPLAIN LATER! * Curse of the Fatal Death Referance.*

** This has been seen by some as a {{Fanon}} explanation for why the Daleks seemed to have TARDIS's of their own in "The Chase" and "The Dalek's Masterplan", but not in later appearances. The Dalek TARDIS's are actually ''captured'' Time Lord TARDIS's that have been retrofitted for Dalek usage. But somebody who knows how could revert the "desktop theme" to provide controls usable by beings with hands. That the number of available Dalek TARDIS's was limited supports this theory.

** As of "The Magician's Apprentice", it seems plausible that Davros [[spoiler: is subconsciously ''afraid'' of mechanical hands, given that a bunch of them almost killed him when he was a little boy]]. So even if he intellectually sees their advantages, he just couldn't stand putting hands on his "perfect creations".

** My thought: The Doctor does know currency values, he just tends to throw it away because it's paper, and he knows where to get more of it if he needs. After all, in ''Voyage of the Damned'' he is quick to point out to Mr. Copper the conversion of pounds to credits, making Mr. Copper rich.
** I don't think it's that the Doctor doesn't understand money. I think that he just doesn't *care.* He's basically a space hobo, by nature and inclination. If he really cared about little things like money, he wouldn't be the Doctor, now, would he?

** In "Time Crash," Ten saved both his and Five's [=TARDISes=] in the nick of time. When Five asked him how, Ten said, more or less, "When I was Five I watched me do what I just did, and I've remembered it all these years. Now you'll remember it when you're Ten." [[FridgeLogic However, Ten also says "By the way, I just fought the Master," and even though he remembers the exchange from Five's perspective, he's still surprised that the Master survived the Time War.]]
** Well, there was quite a long time between Five and Ten. There's nothing unusual from Five's perspective about fighting the Master and at most he'd be like "God, he is never going to quit, is he?" By the time the Time War happens and he kills all the Time Lords, he's not going to remember every little (seemingly) unimportant detail of a meeting with his future self. Ten might have even completely forgotten about it until it happened again. Even if he didn't, more information about how the TARDIS works is going to be of a little higher priority than details about his life five regenerations hence.
** I guess, but a lot happened in that intervening period to bring it to the Doctor's attention. Before he met Rose, Nine spent a lot of time thinking about how lonely he was with his species extinct, and surely he would have had at least a fleeting "Oh wait, that's right." Neither is there such a moment when Nine and Ten are so very frequently moping about their Last of the Time Lord status. Not even when Ten looked in the mirror for the first time and presumably thought "I've seen that face before . . . This must be the life in which that exchange took place." And "You Are Not Alone" didn't ring any bells. Also, in the movie both Seven and Eight seem to think the Master's gone for good. Eight in particular had the amnesia thing going, and both of them could have the concerns you describe, but you'd think the postwar Doctor would think be reminded of the comment at SOME point, given how often his "last of my kind" status comes up.

** Five had no knowledge of the Time War wiping out all Timelords, so saying "Just fought the Master again!" is about like saying "Just encountered a dalek again!" i.e. pretty meaningless to Five. And Nine had no way of knowing which regeneration ten was. For all he knew, as Five he met Eleven, Twelve, or Thirteen that would go and fight the master (if he even did remember the mostly insignificant exchange) and that he had rewritten time with how he ended the time war.
** Seems like when you meet different incarnations of yourself, your past self only remembers vague details until you become the current version, who will remember stuff. Which is why 11 recognized the [[BuffySpeak time fissure thingy]] in ''Day of the Doctor,'' and 10 remembered seeing himself manipulate the controls in ''Time Crash.''
* Every other time multiple Doctors came together, the older incarnations had no memory of experiencing events from their younger selves' perspective. Between this, and the blatant abuse of the Fourth Wall, we can only conclude that "Time Crash" isn't actually canon. As for explanations of ''why'' they can't remember, the explanation in "Day of the Doctor" was that "the timelines are out of synch" and Ten "can't retain the new memories." It's quite possible that the full explanation simply cannot be translated into English, hence the technobabble effect. We don't have the requisite vocabulary and concepts.

** They do comment on it occasionally, but most of the time they are concerned with more pressing matters -- such as the crisis going on, or the mysterious guests acting strange enough to begin with that clothes are the least of their worries. (Remember, Shakespeare's biggest surprise about Martha was that she supposedly came from a land where women could be doctors!)

** well, I hate to be That Person, but for the Doctor at least .... perception filters make it really hard to notice there's something wrong if the wearer doesn't want you to, just saying

* So the TARDIS [[{{TranslatorMicrobes}} translates everything anyone says]] unless the Doctor is unconscious or whatever; I get that. What I'm wondering (and I don't know if it's ever been addressed), can the Doctor himself speak English? Because presumably he could just be hearing his companions as speaking whatever language they spoke on Gallifrey. Seems most people (fanfic writes and stuff) assume he can speak English, but I'm wondering if they're ever explicitely explained this?

** Well, in the episode "The Satan Pit" a man had writing on him that the Doctor didn't understand so it appeared as random symbols, and we have seen him flat out speak Judoon. So I'm gonna go ahead and say; Yes, the TARDIS only translates languages the Doctor happens to know, he just happens to know ALOT of them and yes, if he came across a language he didn't know then it wouldn't translate it.

*** Well, what's your definition of 'separated?' A little thing like a couple hundred years or an alternate dimension isn't going to stop something as strong as a timeship pilot-bond, after all.
** My understanding is that The Doctor is able to personally understand most languages telepathically and it is the TARDIS that allows him to share that ability with his companions at will. This would also explain the occasions where The Doctor speaks to someone in a foreign language (i.e. The Third Doctor speaking Chinese to a fellow Time Lord, who is also fluent in the language) but his companions do not understand what is being said.

** Do note that in The War Games, the Doctor had not yet learned French.
** Also, in Planet of the Dead, The Doctor says he speaks every language

** For what it's worth - since most people don't take the books as canon - one of the novels has the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory stranded in France, and the Doctor states that if they lose contact with the TARDIS entirely "you'll have to learn French and I'll have to learn English".

** He definitely speaks French, he identified the time period and language Madame de Pompadour was speaking in during The Girl in the Fireplace

* In a novel I've forgotten the name of it's mentioned that the Doctor doesn't strictly speak any human language (although they could probably 'download' it from the translation circuits if they really wanted to, or just learn it really quickly (Time Lord brains can apparently do that kind of thing.) The translation circuits, on the other hand, know any and every language - they work, like most TARDIS systems, telepathically, and therefore don't translate the actual words being said as much as the meaning behind them, i.e. what the person thinks they're saying. Somewhere else it's also mentioned that the dr's telepathic enough to generate the translation field on their own if they really have to (i.e. the Divergent Universe, etc.) although it's kind of hard to keep up w/o the TARDIS long-range circuits - Time Lords are extremely powerful touch telepaths, but normal telepathy (while possible) is not really their strong suit.
** Considering how old he is and how fond of hanging around Earth and the United Kingdom he is, it's fairly safe to assume that in addition to the telepathic translation circuits he probably also made a point of learning English at some point.

** Also, their major battles are taking place in space between spaceships...if their hardware and shipboard artificial intelligences are good enough, how they'd match up in hand-to-hand combat tells you only a little about how the war should go.
** That being said how long has it been since we've even seen a Rutan. The truth is we've only seen them once on TV and in that story they were heavily implied to be losing. It could be that Horror of Fang Rock the Sontarans quickly wiped them out but whatever government the Sontarans have quickly covered it up realizing that the war with the Rutans is all there clones have to live for. That or they intentionally do not wipe them out for much the same reason.

* This is more of a question, but do Time Lords age normally? I mean, I imagine One had a pretty long life before he left Gallifrey, but how long, exactly? During 'An Unearthly Child' One looks about 60-70, but is he really, or is he much older? Will a regeneration age normally? My theory is the 'original' will age, then regenerate before it dies, and regenerations don't age. Any canon/fanon theories?

** The first doctor was around 450 when he died of old age, so I would assume that's the natural life span of each regeneration.
*** Well, that number is highly suspect anyway, but it's worth mentioning that One also quite some time in the presence of a... Time Destructor, was it?... in the Dalek's Master Plan - the same amount of Time that aged Sara Kingdom to dust and then some, in fact, which probably ups that number by at least a couple centuries. Unless they're immune anyway due to Time Lord-y stuff

** Speaking of, how old is River Song/Melody? Her orignal incarnation seemd to be the little girl inthe space suit, then she became Mels when she regenrated at the end of Day of the Moon, then River during Let's Kill Hitler. So to me, when she becomes River, she's about 30 years old. My problem is, how long did she spend being trained as 'the perfect weapon?' Eight or ten years i don't think will cut it.
** 1969 + 42 = 2011 (the rough year Let's Kill Hitler is set). So, she's probably at least that old, and spent that long trained as a weapon.
** I was under the impression that she aged like a normal human, mostly due to the fact that [[spoiler: Mels and Amy grew up together. I don't know a lot about psychology, but from birth to ten years old seems like a good amount of time to impress upon her ideas about the Doctor. With those opinions of the Doctor, Mels could have very well trained ''herself'' to be more dangerous in order to kill him.]]
** Melody wasn't born in 1969, as far as we can tell from the show. [[spoiler: She was born on Demon's Run, and we don't know in what year. We do know that she regenerated from the little girl to Mels in 1969, yet she grew up with Amy and Rory in the 1990s/early 21st century.]] That's NOT normal aging.

* To get back to the actual question, canon is completely inconsistent on this (among other things Eight spent something like five hundred years on Orbis and didn't age a day) which leads me to believe that Time Lords are also inconsistent - i.e. they only age when they feel like it (River / Mels's 'take the age down a little' comment in Let's Kill Hitler implies that this is possible anyway) or they only age in certain situations (kept away from the TARDIS?? stuck in Outer Time?? who knows.) Also, One's definitely not 60-70 in the Unearthly Child, and 450 is also unlikely given what we know of their time on Gallifrey.

** Taking into consideration just how "canon" the new novels are, in the book "The Last Dodo", the 10th Doctor mentions he doesn't sleep much.
** I think he dozes off in ''The Tomb of the Cybermen'', thinking about his family at the back of his mind.

** Practically speaking, it's so that the writers can throw in a teaser at the end of the season that will get everyone to come back for the Christmas special. Not that it matters - we don't know how much time elapsed (er, so to speak) between Doc10 defeating the Queen of the Racnoss in "The Runaway Bride" and him meeting Martha in "Smith and Jones". He could have been moping about elsewhere for a while. I imagine there will be a similar gap between this year's Christmas special and the start of season four.

* With so many time traveling characters, each with their own time stream, why is River Song the only one whom the Doctor meets out of order? (And the woman from "Blink," I guess, though she wasn't a time traveller.)
** She's not. There was at least one in the old series. Melanie Bush was her name.There's also a character in the expanded universe who met and traveled with the 8th doctor, then later became a companion of the 6th doctor.

** Most other companions only ever travel in time together with the doctor, which I guess makes it easier for him to keep their timelines in sync (perhaps the TARDIS herself keeps that straight for him). River Song has traveled back and forth quite a bit through other means, which probably scrambles their history together. Though other time travelers seems to stay in sync, but since The Master and The Doctor grew up together on Gallifrey I suppose their timelines sticks together. Only Jack Harkness seems to be completely without an excuse.
** If you want to accept the Jack is the Face of Boe theory, then he has a [[StableTimeLoop legitimate]] [[TimetWimeyBall excuse]]. The Doctor meets the FoB with Rose. FoB tells Martha and the Doctor last message. When they end up at the edge of the universe, Martha reminds the Doctor of Fob's message, with Jack standing right behind her. Later, after the Master is defeated, Jsck mentions to the Doctor and Marthathat Face of Boeshane was a nickname from when he was younger. Eons later, when Jack is the Face of Boe, he meets up with The Doctor and Rose to finish his side of the time loop. Also, Jack has the time manipulator, which works as the plot demands.
** Jack and River have had access to time travel without the Doctor; most other companions haven't. (Though Ian and Barbara ended up in possession of a Dalek ship, so...).

** Well, going off EU Who, generally 'Inner Time' (a kind of 'free time,' disconnected from history as a whole, the kind Gallifrey runs on) regulates this kind of thing - keeps Time Lords meeting each other and generally regular mortals in the right order. It's kind of like an in-universe SanDimasTime, which gets pretty interesting at times. Inner Time can't be time-travelled through either (well, I mean, the Doctor does it a lot, but they're kind of weird like that; it probably comes with being a dangerous renegade.) It seems very possible that the relationship between Inner Time and Outer Time and generally everything else has broken down a bit in the absence of Time Lords to maintain it and the Eye of Harmony (the original on Gallifrey, by the Caldera) to anchor it, which results in River - i.e. the first and only Time Lord born in a universe without Gallifrey - being completely disconnected from Inner Time and meeting everyone in weird order. And Jack only has a vortex manipulator, which works by connecting to the Web of Time (i.e. the structured history Rassilon created) and therefore only functions within Outer Time anyway. (It can be argued that he should have been locked to Inner Time just by virtue of meeting the Doctor - the same lock caused by the Faction Paradox interfering in the eighteenth century, the kind caused by any contact with the Higher races - but a) time's kinda screwed-up after the War, as said, and b) honestly it's dr who it's not going to be that internally consistent.

** It could just be because the First is the crankiest and bossiest of the lot, and they all know it. In the first multi-Doctor story (The Three Doctors), all three attempt to assert leadership, and the First ends up smacking down the other two ("So this is what I've become? A dandy and a clown?"). Later incarnations presumably remember this and decide that discretion is the better part of valor.

** It's a respect thing. He's not just the First Doctor -- he's the ''First'' Doctor. He's the one with whom it all started, the one who took the TARDIS and started the whole adventure to begin with. While the later Doctors have developed more experience and knowledge, despite egos on some level they all know that if it weren't for him, they wouldn't ''be'' the Doctor because there wouldn't be ''the'' Doctor to begin with. So when they encounter him, they treat him with just that little bit more respect and defer to him where they wouldn't defer to a later-but-earlier incarnation. This works on a meta-level as well; it's the writers acknowledging that the First Doctor was where it all started.

* Alternatively: [[LongRunner Because reasons of it hadn't been written in Hartnell's time]] [[Trivia/WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants that he was the first]], to the point it was getting implied all the way in the Fourth Doctor's run that Hartnell [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius wasn't the first]], Hartnell is the doctor most likely to have whatever non-existant memories previous doctors would have had, and their experiences. But this might be getting too close to WMG.

* Well, according to 'the Doctor's wife,' both the Doctor and the TARDIS are also aware of this, and she's a bit ticked off about it.

* Davros has been established as a genius at genetic engineering(and an OmnicidalManiac), who managed to create one of the most feared races in the universe. In that case, when he was designing the Daleks, why did he not encode their DNA so that "[[AbsoluteXenophobe It is your destiny and purpose to destroy all non-Daleks.]] Your creator, Davros, is the exception. He is your commander and leader." Yeah, [[ItsAllAboutMe he's arrogant,]] but not stupid. What gives?

** Back in 'Revelation of the Daleks', he created the Imperial Daleks, which were conditioned to be 100% loyal to Davros, and went to war with the original 'Renegade' Daleks.
** Perhaps he assumed that as they were created from Davros's own flesh, the Daleks in 'The Stolen Earth' would naturally obey him, [[SarcasmMode which worked out very well indeed]].
** His most recent Daleks (as of the Capaldi era) seem completely loyal to him out of respect for their father which he refers to as a genetic defect meaning he probably didn't hard code it in. I guess he would just consider them less perfect if their free will (for lack of a better term) was taken from them and they were forced to serve something that wasn't a Dalek, even if it's him. Course that makes this troper wonder why he never went and made himself a Dalek which might solve all those betrayal problems. It's not like he's the paragon of health in his current state.

* To quote The Doctor from The Shakespeare Code, it's "the mechanics of the infinite temporal flux", "like Back to the Future". Martha questions how the world could have ended in the past when she comes from the perfectly normal 21st century. The Doctor explains that it's like how in Back to the Future, Marty isn't already fading away before he's gone back in time, even though those events have already technically happened. He only starts fading away when he begins experiencing those events himself. It's the same thing here. The events don't technically "occur" and thereby effect history until The Doctor becomes part of them in his own time-stream, since he's part of them himself.

** Easiest explained by my favorite dr who handwave ever: Time Wars (The Second War in Heaven in Particular) Fuck Everything Up

** It is implied several times that the doctor doesn't want to travel back to save the Time Lords, and that he might be lying. The Doctor has messed with time locks before, so it is possible, considering the monsters that tried to kill Rose and the Doctor when they saved her father were said to be kept in check by the Time Lords by the Doctor. He says several times that the Time War changed them, and that the Time War caused countless deaths.

** Dalek Caan went back to save Davros, but that doesn't necessarily mean he altered time. All the Time War combatants know for sure is that [[EldritchAbomination the Nightmare Child ate him]]-I doubt they found a body. Thus Dalek Caan arrived when Davros vanished from view and scooped him up, not changing history
** The Master didn't seem to know of the Time Lords going FaceHeelTurn, which was likely what led to such a secure lock. Since humans weren't part of the War, being human meant that lock let him go. Metaltron fell through time because of [[TimeCrash what happened in the war]] and luck. As for the Dalek Emperor, the Moment wasn't completely accurate and he got lucky.
** The Cult of Skaro escaped with the Void Ship, which was designed to explore ''outside time and space.'' The Time Lords weren't fighting in the Void(yet), so they could get the hell out of dodge. The Time Lords didn't use Void Ships because only one was built/all the ones that were built were used by other Time Lords and they were too crazy to notice at the time.

*** To clarify, Gallifrey functions outside of normal time - actually, the Time Lord founders invented normal time, i.e. history, i.e. the vortex, whatever you want to call it. Instead, it runs on a kind of fundamental 'free time' that can't be time-travelled through, called Inner Time. That means, time-lock or no, there's no way for the Doctor to go back to the age of the Pythia - unlike common history, which is cleanly laid out and flat from a Time Lord perspective, Inner Time past is inaccessible even to time-active species. The War is the past via Inner Time, which means it's really truly gone - it's not that the Time War blocks you off, it's just that there's no point in history were you can actually go back and see the Time Lords and the Enemy (Daleks, if you prefer, depending on where you fall in the Second War in Heaven / Last Great Time War debate) fighting it out, because that version of history is long gone. And besides, no time-active species would fall so low as to actually fight within normal space anyway - most of the War took place on a level that humans can barely conceive of.

*** Except as of Night of the Doctor, the BBC at the very least acknowledged the Big Finish audios as canon (at least Eight's adventures in them anyway).

** [coughs] the cartmel masterplan explained this, it's a biological throwback to pre-Loom Pythian times caused by the interference of the Other's biodata with the Loom systems, the rest of Lungbarrow called little baby dr 'snail' because of it (pretty hilarious tbh)

** The Big Finish story Jubilee gave an answer to this - the Doctor argued that without other inferior species to kill, the Daleks would invent distinctions among themselves and kill each other off until only one was left.

** Great as some of the answers in this section are, to be serious for a moment, this is the whole point of the Daleks -- their whole purpose for existing is utterly insane, because ''they'' are utterly insane. They have no idea what they'd do next, because they're psychotic zealots programmed with an utterly insane purpose by a complete lunatic who basically wanted to kick God in the junk. Like someone said above, once they exterminate all non-Daleks, given how fractious we've seen them get in the past about purity the most likely guess is that they would no doubt find or invent reasons to consider other Daleks as being 'non-Daleks' and start exterminating each other, until there was one Dalek left, at which point that Dalek basically hangs around until entropy and the universe does it's thing, makes the Last Dalek unable to survive any longer, at which point it dies, leaving behind a universe completely devoid of life. Basically, the Daleks succeed in exterminating everything. Literally everything. Including themselves. It's the only plausible ending.

[[folder: Classification of the Time Lords]]

** I would say the entire planet Gallifrey is essentially a MageTower. The Time Lords (well most of them anyway) Aren't evil like TheFairFolk or the HumanoidAbomination[=s=] are, just aloof.

[[folder: The 51st century]]
* Why does Steven Moffat seem to be so fond of the 51st century. I can think of at least six or seven of his episodes which take place in that particular era, and he has introduced two major characters from then as well. Does this century have some sort of significance in the Who canon? Or does Moffat just have some particular affinity for the number 51?

** I always thought that the 51st century ws the Doctor's Second Favorite time period (because obviously the 20th-early 21st is his favorite. he spends so much time here!) because it was his home century. in "An Unearthyl Child" there's a throwaway line where Susan says she was born in the 51st century, so i always assumed the Doctor was born then too, or at least associated it with happy times. He goes there so much because it's his home.

*** The poster is referring to the original taping of "An Unearthly Child," the original 1963 pilot. In the original version, Susan tells Ian and Barbara that she was born in the 51st century. Sydney Newman didn't like the episode, and made them rewrite it. It was basically the same episode, with a handful of minor changes, including the 51st century line being changed to, "I was born in another time, another world." I guess they thought it was more mysterious and the 51st century was too specific.
** The Doctor's home era would actually be in the distant past-we know that the Time Lords had a billion years of history before the Time War, and that they existed long enough ago to fight the Racnoss, who were wiped out when the Earth came into being. Thus the Doctor's era is probably about 3.6 billion years ago.

** The Talons Of Weng Chiang had [[spoiler: the ManBehindTheMan Magnus Greel, a time traveling serial killer]] from the 51st Century. We're exploring a culture that had been namedropped, and it's a tie to the classic series.

[[folder: A Temporal Non-Interference Clause...as long as it's something big and historical]]

** Canon says: TARDIS is alive, Doctor goes where he needs to go, not where he wants. Besides, fix points in time. All those terrible things are canon ''by history'', can't ever be erased. [[spoiler: When you think about it, The Silence probably created these fix points in time so the Doctor couldn't alter human history that much.]]
** There are at least several times where the Doctor shows that he can go exactly where he wants to and in ''The Waters of Mars'' he decides to ''break'' a fixed point in time with no apparent consequences. Admittedly the woman he saved [[spoiler: decided to kill herself]] but one would assume that beforehand he knew whether or not there would be consequences.
** No apparent consequences? The bell was ringing inside the TARDIS. If history hadn't been quickly fixed by Adelaine, we would have probably had a scenario similar to when River tried to rewrite another fixed point in time. And we all know how well that went.
** Apart from the above, there's the consequences of any change he makes. Don't destroy Pompeii? Pyroviles take over the Earth. We know he can sense fixed points, so he can probably tell when it's safe to mess with time and when interfering will make things go kablooey. Then there are things that will happen no matter what, a la ''The Aztecs''. Finally, there's the whole "changing a fixed point will break time itself" thing from ''The Wedding of River Song''. Take your pick.

** Harriet Jones used a weapon Torchwood stole from aliens to attack other aliens. If she'd used a human-built guided missile, that might have been more acceptable to him as a species defending itself with its own technological resources. And, despite what he said to her, he wasn't the one who ''removed'' her from power; he didn't bad-mouth her publicly or charge her with a war crime or even vote against her in an election. ''he'd'' inadvertently helped place in authority to begin with. If anything, it ''reduced'' his own level of interference to depose her, as she'd still be a minor local figure if they'd never met. As for getting off the planet, by Time Lords' standards that's barely any greater an advance than our learning to cross the oceans; maybe when ''we'' start time-traveling by our own means, he'll consider us ready to fend for ourselves against technologically-superior exploiters.
** "He simply acted to plant doubts in the minds of a few humans from her own political party, and let ''us'' decide if those doubts were sufficient cause to supplant someone" - no way. Not believable. She was the hero of the world and a couple of people hearing that she seems worn out by a crisis that would have left ''anyone'' exhausted causes the whole country to turn against her? No. The Doctor clearly (and his own intonation in the threat implies he has some special ability here) has some unexplained telepathic or hypnotic power behind that suggestion, because it would ''not'' have worked if anyone else had uttered the same sentence.

** I'm not sure how this impression would come about, given that after Season 6 the planet -- and indeed, the entire universe -- has in fact been left with the impression that ''the Doctor is dead''. Kind of hard to take over Earth's security and take down politicians when you're six feet under. In fact, unless I'm misunderstanding something this seems to be missing the point a bit, since the Doctor explicitly notes that he's developing a lower profile precisely because he "got too big" -- and this presumably includes intervening in a major way in Earth's political processes. Far from taking down politicians he doesn't like, this would seem to suggest that he's in fact going to be interfering even ''less'' unless it's something he can get away with doing low-key.

** [[spoiler: Melody Pond: ''A Good Man Goes to War'']]
** [[spoiler: Little girl: ''The Impossible Astronaut''/''Day of the Moon'']]
** [[spoiler: Mels: ''Let's Kill Hitler'']]
** [[spoiler: River Song: ''Let's Kill Hitler'', ''Closing Time''/''The Wedding of River Song'', ''A Good Man Goes to War'', ''The Impossible Astronaut''/''Day of the Moon'', ''The Pandorica Opens''/''The Big Bang'', ''The Time of Angels''/''Flesh and Stone''/''The Wedding of River Song'', ''Silence in the Library''/''Forest of the Dead'', ''The Name of the Doctor'']]
** [[spoiler: Actually, River Song shows up twice in the same episode, but not necessarily around the same point in her time stream. The final appearance in ''A Good Man Goes to War'' seems to be set after ''The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon'', she's wearing the same dress, which she got from the TARDIS wardrobe, while birthday!River Song seems to come from before the events in the season premiere.]]

** Good point, but thinking further I unfortunately have some other problems with this situation. We now now that River can regenerate; so doesn't that make her death in the Library problematic? it also makes a farce of the fact that the Meta Crisis Tenth Doctor explicitly claims that he can't regenerate because he only has one - those are his exact words. Seeing as we know River only has the one, wouldn't that logically mean that either River shouldn't be able to regenerate ''but can'', or the Meta-Doctor can't regenerate but ''should be able to?''

** Does River only have one heart? Anyway, you're forgetting something - Handy was the result of the metacrisis, whereas River is a human who has begun the process of evolving into a Time Lady because of her conception inside the vortex, just like the early Time Lords. She isn't a half-human, half-Time Lord hybrid, she's a proto-Time Lord. Plus, according to the classic series, Time Lords are as they are now because Omega or Rassilon, or one of those ancient Time Lords, I forget which, diddled with their DNA, presumeably that's why they now have Two Hearts. Actually, it might have been EU stuff rather than classic series. Presumeably he did that to make regeneration more likely to occur, or to impose the limits, or because he likes drums or something.

** He never stated that two hearts was part of the regenerative process, just that he had one heart AND had a normal human lifespan. The two hybrids are apples and oranges as to how they came about, especially as River was born that way and Donna/the hand wasn't. Also, what problematic bits in the Library are you talking about? She can't regenerate from that - she said that even the Doctor couldn't come back from that...''that's why she sacrificed herself''.

** It's been answered now by canon. River Song has no regenerations left after the events of 'Let's Kill Hitler'. So even if she could theoretically have survived through regeneration (even though it was explicitly stated she couldn't, so I don't get why people are debating this), she didn't have any further regenerations to use. End of.

** In "The Return Of Doctor Mysterio", shortly after parting ways with River on Darillium, Twelve is seen assembling a device in New York to repair the temporal damage that prevents him from time-traveling in that city. Although it's not stated, it's possible he was doing that so he ''could'' go back and tell Amy and Rory - the last prior traveling companions he could then remember - about their daughter's last days.

* Why the secrecy - why didn't River reveal herself as Melody right from the start? or indeed, why does she refer to herself as River and not as Melody? the Tenth Doctor, past Eleventh Doctor, past Amy and past Rory wouldn't know who she was anyway... she could have called herself Betty and it wouldn't have made a single bit of difference.

** To answer the first part of the question; Spoilers.
** Do you realise how that may affect her timeline? It could delay her...erm, beginning, and another child could have substituted. Even if that doesn't happen, it would alter her own history. For an example, her life suggests she was a ChildSoldier for quite some time. When mommy and daddy learn this, they will do all they can to prevent this. River changes her timeline, leading to a completely different person. And then [[ClockRoaches the Reapers descend.]] Now is likely the only possible date she can tell them this without creating a massive paradox. Indeed, it could lead to a StableTimeLoop where an earlier River meets her parents and they know who she is. Their surprise and questioning makes her realize the next time she meets them, she will tell them who she is.

** As of Let's Kill Hitler, it seems that River got her name (well, both names) as a result of a [[StableTimeLoop stable time loop]]: Amy named her after her best friend who turned out to be her daughter, and the Doctor was the first person to call her River Song. Given her relationship to the Doctor, she prefers this name to Melody Pond (probably).

[[folder:River in Impossible Astronaut]]
* Why didn't she know what was happening in Impossible Astronaut/ Day Of the Moon if she'd already been there as the little girl; why didn't she immediately recognize the time and place of the phone call and her suit, and why was she surprised when she (or at least her old suit) shot the doctor? Is she just ''that good'' of an actor?

** The ending of ''Closing Time'' confirms that it is River in the spacesuit, in her familiar third body. ''"Tick tock goes the clock, 'til River kills the Doctor..."''

** That entire event involved the Silence--especially for young!River. While you forget about any Silent you've seen when you look away, information about the Silence erases itself over time as well. So simply put, River forgot.

** Easiest way to think of it is that the "cracks" are basicaly massive Paradox Generaters, they remove something from time, yet dont remove any effects it had, yet nothing existed to cause those effects, which still happened, etc...

* Maybe I'm missing something but how does River [[spoiler: have Timelord DNA?]]

** Except she totally has [[spoiler: Time Lord DNA]]. It says specifically that in A Good Man Goes to War. [[spoiler: They say she is Part-Human, Part-Time Lord. River is part Time Lord because she was conceived in Time Vortex, something that took most evey other Time Lord billions of years to do. River can regenerate, but has, as far as we know, a human body. We don't know if she has two hearts, but it can be assumed she doesn't, because her parents are human. Time Lords are apparently made at first but born thereafter, because the Doctor is not billions of years old, but is a Time Lord who can regenerate, ergo they can be born if one is more than half Time Lord- the Doctor is stated at one point to be part human on his mother's side during the classic run. River, being River, probably qualifies as a Time Lord/Lady.]]

** The idea that she was selected b/c she's part Time-Lord and it's more likely to make The Doctor's death a fixed point makes sense. However, I have a cheekier explanation. Count the number of episodes where The Doctor only survives because there's nobody on the bad guy team saying "WhyDontYaJustShootHim". HINT: it's quicker to compile a list of episodes where this isn't the case. So, in-universe, the urge among evil beings to let an enemy monologue, or to hold fire just because someone said "Wait wait wait a second", must be so strong that they had to brainwasher River and train her for years just to get her to where she could overcome this urge and to simply pull the dang trigger right away!

** That girl gave Amy a cloth prayer leaf with Melody's name on it but they didn't have a word for either bits of her name (and for some reason reversed the order) and that's how she revealed who she was. Then it's just a stable time loop. She went by Melody until she found out the Doctor knew her as River and then she started going by that because that was how he knew her. She needed to go by something other than Melody Pond because had she introduced herself like that and then the Doctor met Amy the mystery of who she was (especially once Amy had that whole Schrodinger's pregnancy thing going on) would have been solved before it should have been. River seemed to know exactly when he was "supposed" to know. The mistranslation of her name was as good an alias as any and River is a big believer in doing things because time travel says she already has.

* How is it that The Doctor seems to attract pretty girls like a magnet would attract metal?

** David Tennant may get a pass here, but what about all the other incarnations of The Doctor?

** Amy presumably got the whole imaginary thing explained away satisfactorily enough between Eleven materializing and everyone dancing at the wedding. In series five, Amy was only gone for five minutes between going off with the Doctor and picking up Rory which proves that it ''is'' possible to just not be gone for very long. Martha, too, went half a season before stopping back at home the morning after she left. It was only when she spoke with her mother on the phone a day or few days later that it was established that Martha was gone for longer than a few hours. Obviously, no one would think that they were kidnapped on their wedding night as they did say goodbye and for all we know the Doctor dropped them back off the next morning after who knows how much adventuring. Remember, Amy and Rory comment on how the Doctor dropped them off two months ago at the beginning of season six so they have had time to sort out any misunderstanding involving the wedding couple leaving the wedding (though people probably assumed honeymoon) and continuing to live their lives. Since Amy and Rory haven't contacted home yet, we don't know when they will return. Perhaps they will return five minutes after they left. And don't forget, not only do Amy and Rory not actually live with their parents so they can be gone for a few days without everyone freaking out but they had also travelled to America and presumably informed people of their intention to do this. For all their families and friends know, they're still on vacation in America. And when, exactly, should Rory have explained anything about the baby? He only found out about it right when Amy was dissolved and then it was more important to build an army to go after her than to check in and after he went after her, the episode ended so he hasn't had an opportunity to. Assuming Amy gets Melody back to raise and returns home, she'll need to be gone a year thus inviting questions and worry, claim Melody is adopted, or explain what really hapened. And for that matter, does either Amy or Rory even have a phone that's been modified to call anyone at any time?

** The Racnoss Queen's reaction to the word "Gallifrey" proves other people remember the Time Lords too. I got the impression that anything they did in their own subjective timeline before the Time War still holds, but they can't have any ''new'' effect in any era. It depends on the entire universe working on something like SanDimasTime (so time marches on, even for time travelers), but it's the only explanation I've found that sort of works.

** It's all about the [[NoOntologicalInertia Ontological Inertia]]. Gallifrey wasn't part of normal spacetime to begin with. The Time Lords fail to have ever existed, but in such a way that anywhere they actually interacted with the universe at large, the interaction still occurred -- it's grounded to the universe's continuity. But rather than a time lord having left Gallifrey and shown up somewhere in the normal universe, he's just literally popped into existence out of nowhere. Of course, he doesn't know that, on account of he's popped into existence with a full set of memories. If you believe that history as a whole has some kind of inertia-like property, it shouldn't be too hard to conclude that the necessary force to cause something to cease to have ever existed would be far less than the necessary force to cause it to cease to have ever existed ''and'' cause the ''rest of the universe'' to change such that its interactions with it did not occur. The arguments against the Time Lords having been yoinked entirely out of existence all hinge on a notion of purely linear causality in which there is a "before" and "after", which, we are told outright in "Blink" is not the case.
** And, as a result, I like to think that the reason the Doctor survived is because, thanks to his travels out in the normal universe, he had a substantially greater Ontological Inertia than the rest of his race -- he was just too tightly wedged into history to be excised without smashing the whole universe to bits. Erasing a species from history is like vacuuming them up off the floor. The stuff that's on top gets sucked up easily, the stuff that's ground-in takes a lot more work and leaves some spots behind. The Doctor's a stain on the carpet of time that's soaked in so deep that you'd have to just tear it up and buy laminate.
** The "greater Ontological Inertia" bit is canon. "Invasion of the Dinosaurs." Even when [[spoiler: the entire history of humanity has already been erased]] the Doctor still has a few seconds left to act before history catches up.
** EVERYONE remembers the Time Lords. From talking trees to the Shadow Proclamation. They weren't erased from history they were just wiped out. And, because it was a "Time War" this apparently means it's no longer possible to travel to points where they still existed. Simple.

** I agree. I think of time travel in Doctor Who (and specifically the part about not being able to go back on nd Jones". He could have been consequence of a time traveller travelling in one MORE dimension than exists. So, just as a topo map is a two-dimensional trace of a three-dimensional landscape, a video is a three-dimensional trace (two dimensions + time) of a four-dimensional experience--and a time traveller's memories are a trace of his travels in five dimensions. You can freely travel in four dimensions, but not the fifth. Think of Back To The Future II: once Marty is in Bad!1985, he can't go back to warn himself not to buy the almanac--because to do that, he'd have to go to Good!2015, and that timeline isn't accessible from Bad!1985 (Bad!1985's future is Bad!2015). So the Time Lords * did* exist, in all the timelines that the Doctor remembers, and they * have* been wiped from history--inasmuch that any timelines with them in it are inaccessible from the Doctor's present timeline.
** Actually, this entire explanation makes no sense within the model of time travel used in BTTF. (Note that after Biff changed the timeline, 2015-A ''replaced'' the original 2015 - so Marty and Doc departed to 1985-A ''from 2015-A''. WordOfGod asserted this as well.) Marty ''could'' have warned himself not to buy the almanac, but it would have created a paradox. There's a lengthier explanation for ''why'' exactly it would have created a paradox, and I could write it in detail, but I'm leaving it out as it isn't relevant to this page.

** Actually, the novels present a related theory, namely that the presence of a time traveller "crystalizes" time: any bit of history that a time traveler hasn't visited is still in flux, and could be changed, but once someone actually steps out there, that bit of history has to happen: crystalized history can't be changed no matter what or the whole universe breaks down. (I gather this was largely inspired by that scene from "The Pyramids of Mars" where the Doctor shows Sarah a destroyed 1980: since he'd never been there yet, that bit of history was still in flux) The two theories together can give us a view where any bit of normal spacetime that a time lord has been to is fixed, and therefore their presence remains even after the Time Lords are written out, but now those bits of history are anomalies, and thus wherever the Doctor goes now, the Time Lords can't be there, as they don't exist (And, of course, crossing one's own timestream is forbidden, so he can't travel to any of the bits of previously-crystallized time).
** Coughcough''Father's Day''coughcough

** I liken it to having two layers of time - Time being what we live in, which we normally experience at a forward rate. Add in a concept of Overtime - This is the time that exists in line with the stories. Overtime is still sequential - It's the subjective time experienced by time travelers, and to be convenient, the timeline of the show. In Overtime, the TimeLords were destroyed - everything they did prior to their destruction happened and you can see them throughout time. They just can't do anything else.

** The Timelords were a race whose hat was utter indolent arrogance. Damn it if the Sontarans can invade, even if it was only for a day, the Daleks have far more than an even chance of wiping them out. Remember that the Timelords seem to have no weapons to defend themselves with, they managed to lose their killer statue and FORGET that their city is built over the eye of harmony. They had no sodding clue how to fight a war.

** Personally, I actually prefer the lack of explanations about what exactly is up with the Time War. It makes it feel like this vast, mythic event

------>"The Eon war. The massive temporal conflict which brought an end to what you call the First Heroic Age. But history includes none of the details, because the war erased all records of itself after it occurred. It was the Chinese food of war. Half an hour later, it was as if there hadn't been one at all."
** let's be honest here: The Dalek's would SLAUGHTER the Time Lords. A bunch of jumped up old men in fancy robes, with about half a brain cell between the lot of them, versus the ultimate killing machine, BORN to destroy everything and anything that doesn't have tentacles and a plunger for an arm. It's no wonder they needed the Doctor to save the universe. An average Time Lord couldn't change a light bulb without express written consent, signed in triplicate, let alone fight a decent battle.
** I wouldn't be surprised if the Eternals took sides during the war too. I can see Death (no, not of the Endless) wanting to give the Dalek's a little nudge in the right direction, in the interest of sending more work her way.

** Kind of-sort-of explained in The End Of Time. Apparently Gallifrey and the events of the Time War are sealed in a kind of pocket of time...presumably this applies to Gallifrey throughout it's history. As to going back to view events that the Daleks and Time Lords were involved in before the Time War, it's implied in Prisoner of the Daleks that it's very hard to do this, or at least do this deliberately. And the events of the Time War are supposedly impossible to travel back to, not that this stopped Dalek Caan.

* Why does the Doctor never run into Torchwood during one of his many visits to Earth between 1879 (Tooth and Claw) and 2007 (Army of Ghosts)? They don't seem to notice even when he's been exiled and is officially working for UNIT.
** Possibly, going back to the SanDimasTime issue, Torchwood didn't exist until after the Doctor influenced Queen Vic to create it in Tooth and Claw. Of course, it's also possible that - and it has to be said, judging on the available evidence - Torchwood, for all the hype, are a massively incompetent organization.
** Torchwood existed in "The Christmas Invasion", which was set chronologically (er, by The Doctor's time... you know what I mean) before "Tooth and Claw". Blame it on the TimeyWimeyBall.

** No. UNIT is, by definition, a UN organization, while Torchwood is specifically and uniquely British.[[spoiler: Possibly Jack's been running interference all this time, waiting for the right one to come along. Don't ask how he'd know which one that was.]] Or they just didn't recognize The Doctor as ''the'' Doctor. He looked quite different when he worked for UNIT, after all.

** The answer to this one is amazingly simple: messing with the Doctor at any point before the Tenth would potentially cause Torchwood to cease to exist; obviously an outcome they would rather not have. Additionally, we know from ''Torchwood'' (the series not the organization) that Jack Harkness was associated with Torchwood 3 from the turn of the twentieth century and even if ''they'' were dumb enough to try and create a paradox, Jack certainly would be smart enough to realize just how monumentally bad that would be for both the Earth and himself personally. He probably tried his hardest to try and protect the past Doctors; maybe even going as far as to explain the whole ''destruction of the universe'' thing to Torchwood 1 during Third's stay with UNIT. Finally there is the question on ''how'' they would have messed with him; I get the impression that Torchwood was never particularly large - their power came from their vast connections to the British government more than anything. Attacking/kidnapping Three would have meant getting through the Brigadier and his ability to amass a very powerful army at a moments notice - he ''would'' have found Torchwood and he ''would'' have caused some serious damage before the British government told him to back off. Every other Doctor had a fully working TARDIS and, like stated above, without CCTV or GPS, finding an out-sized blue box would be next to impossible.

** Torchwood had a similar scenario with a demon called Abaddon, who consumed the life energy of all underneath its shadow. It ate Jack's, but the excess killed it. A Weeping Angel feasting of Jack would probably end up with it exploding from sheer power.

** As long as they can touch them, they could send a huge creature back in time. Also we don't know what they look like when nobody's observing them, [[NightmareFuel so maybe they can shift to break a star's "neck."]]

* As of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler Let's Kill Hitler]], [[spoiler:"The Silence is not a species. it is a religious order, or movement." So what is the species (the one that you forget) called, then? Unless this is some sort of FridgeBrilliance about how they forgot the species.]]

** "Time of the Doctor" establishes they started out as priests of a human church, so it's likely they were forced into a StableTimeLoop for their plan. Manipulating humanity also has the bonus of giving them general power in case the spacesuit fails

** Better question: What happens if a Silent looks at a Weeping Angel that cannot see it? It's implied in Flesh and Stone that if an Angel's awareness of someone observing it is tied to the quantum-locking.

[[folder: Only one Doctor?]]
* Maybe this is answered at some point the series that I haven't seen but why is there only one Doctor despite there being multiple dimensions that are expressly never supposed to interact with each other? Where was the Doctor from Rose's World? When she was dropped off after the events of Bad Wolf I fully expected a Tardis to appear next to her and him to politely explain how he'd just dropped off a Rose to replace her. It seems clear that everybody else has or at least had a double.

** We know at least one alternate Gallifrey exists with Merlin(suggested to be an alternate Doctor) in the episode "Battlefield." Also, any universe even remotely like the main one(Pete's World for an example) would ''have'' to have at the very least a heroic time traveller with Time Lord-level technology: the Doctor has saved the Earth a bazillion times, and the universe quite a lot. Granted the "universe being saved a lot" isn't that a problem since most times someone tries to end it [[NiceJobBreakingItHero has a history with him]], but about 99% of the alien invaders up to, during and beyond the 21st century both had no contact with him and lacked another group that could've helped save humanity. The Doctor or someone just like him is basically [[ForWantOfANail the nail]] of the whole world. Hell, going by the "Time Lords came first" implications you'd have to be part of a completely different fiction to find people in another universe lacking the Time Lords.

[[folder: Why All the Human Empires in the Future?]]

[[folder: Why not just one name for multi-episode stories?]]

[[folder: Infinite Alternate Universes]]

[[folder: Time Lords and Kids]]

[[folder: Where are the Rutan?]]

[[folder: The Angels Cover Their Eyes]]

[[folder: Controlling a TARDIS]]

[[folder: Reality is Doomed]]

[[folder: Bad for the Universe?]]

[[folder: No More Karate]]

[[folder: Why is the future so British?]]

[[folder: Why doesn't the Doctor try to hypnotize his enemies?]]

[[folder:Shooting The Dalek Eyestalks]]

** Except she totally has [[spoiler: Time Lord DNA]]. It says specifically that in A Good Man Goes to War. [[spoiler: They say she is Part-Human, Part-Time Lord. River is part Time Lord because she was conceived in Time Vortex, something that took most evey other Time Lord billions of years to do. River can regenerate, but has, as far as we know, a human body. We don't know if she has two hearts, but it can be assumed she doesn't, because her parents are human. Time Lords are apparently made at first but born thereafter, because the Doctor is not billions of years old, but is a Time Lord who can regenerate, ergo they can be born if one is more than half Time Lord- the Doctor is stated at one point to be part human on his mother's side during the classic run. River, being River, probably qualifies as a Time Lord/Lady. YMMV on if this gives River MarySue status or not.]]

** But the later episodes have shown that the regeneration cycle of the Doctor can be reset, with Matt Smith transforming into Peter Capaldi, effectively making Time Lords immortal. Then why the hell did the Time Lords die off from Dalek extermination when they can make themseves immortal? Also, I think the making of the Doctor as an immortal God, MarySue or EldritchAbomination whose TARDIS can unmake all reality itself with just an explosion, rather than just another Time Lord who can be exterminated by something as wimpy as a bunch of soft brains in saltshakers and whose TARDIS an be melted by ordinary Dalek weapons as "Journey's End" has demonstrated, is Steven Moffat's fault to insert as much MindScrew as possible and replace the Daleks with the Franchise/CthulhuMythos, in the example of the final villain the Great Intelligence who is in fact an alias of Yog-Sothoth, as the primary villains of the series, because only those beings would be able to be as Anti-Logic and reality-killing as what the Doctor has become. Or the BBC who plans to make Doctor Who immortal to make them money forever despite destroying the internal logic of the series and making it an entire series of Mindfuck.

*** The Master knew about Two, as they both appear in "The Five Doctors".

[[folder: Face of Boe and the "Boekind"]]

[[folder: Dalek Emperor vs Supreme Dalek]]

[[folder: It's 2018, where's Salamander?]]

[[folder: Why so many white men?]]

[[folder: Shooting The Dalek Eyestalks]]