History Headscratchers / DoctorWhoSeries4

** Because IdiotPlot.
** This is part of the ''point'', though; the episode is exploring the fact that people can be panicky and short-sighted, the fact that they can get carried away with their prejudices and fears, which can lead them to dangerous and harmful courses of action, the fact that, yes, they can be idiots. The whole point of the episode is to show these people being pushed to breaking point by fear and stress and uncertainty and that sometimes this can lead to the worst of humanity coming to the fore rather than the best. No, they don't act particularly rationally or logically, but the point of the episode is that people don't always act rationally or logically in bad situations. Even an IdiotPlot [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools isn't automatically a bad thing]].

*** there are many reasons why people decline to get vaccinated and many reasons why they do, just as there would be man6 reasons why someone would or wouldn’t sign up for the adipose option if they knew all the details and risks.

** Which was even sillier — ''Titanic'' is famous ''because'' it sank. It's a nautical AllThereIsToKnowAboutTheCryingGame.

** I thought it was pretty obvious the gas inside the Source healed him. We don't see the sort of effects that happen when the Doctor regenerates, nor does Jenny get a new face and body. The hand thing is different, because when it was cut off, the Doctor didn't die; there's no evidence that during the first 15 hours of the regeneration cycle a Time Lord can shake off a fatal injury without regenerating again. Also, the whole "first 15 hours" rule might not even apply to Jenny's situation, because she wasn't born by regeneration rather than by cloning. On the other hand, what we did see was some gas that looked exactly like the gas inside the Source coming out of her lungs, so the implication was clearly that the Source healed her.

** There weren't 4022 people on the planet. There were 4022 were saved into TheMatrix. [[FridgeHorror If the original population was "x", and 0 survived, then that leaves x-4022 people that were eaten alive before they made it to the teleporters.]] [[InferredHolocaust The fact that we're talking about an entire planet means that X had to be significantly north of 1 billion.]]

** "Rose stays with Tentoo" was the best to be expected regarding the TV show canon due to actors being humans who can't stay around on one show forever. Billie Piper wasn't staying, having just begun shooting ''Series/SecretDiaryOfACallGirl'', and David Tennant was leaving too (although he did consider staying around for another season). But that's just the limitations of the television medium. In a series of novels, had the concept been RTD's original creation and not dependent on the BBC and actors, the Doctor and Rose would still be together.

Things would really change in "The Waters of Mars" without the Time Lord Victorious. If the Doctor wasn’t stewing in his own loneliness, then there wouldn't be that emotional instability pushing him to act recklessly, and with his pending doom framed as a mystery instead of a haunting inevitability/punishment, no longer would there be that added dash of nihilism thrown into the mix. Instead, there'd be some friction between opposing viewpoints, as Rose and the Doctor quickly determine that, no matter what, the fixed points in this timeline must be upheld, but just like in Pompeii, Donna would struggle to reconcile that notion with her strong sense of empathy and compassion. Ultimately everything would have to go the way that the timeline/fixed points dictate it must, but Donna would be left feeling pretty beaten down, like she can handle a lot of shit but the sense of being totally powerless and unable to help people in such dire straits is a lot for her to swallow, whereas, on the other hand, the Doctor is concerned about Rose and how she so readily agreed to let these people die for the sake of preserving the timeline. Like yeah, this is what has to be done, but he’d never seen Rose so practical or nearly calloused about such a thing, which bothers him.\\

** There's no reason the Doctor can't have a hoard of adventures off-screen, especially when traveling without companions. Such as, say, between the end of the last season and the most recent Christmas special?
** Two of these are even explicitly stated: Traveling to Japan just before "Bad Wolf" and Woman Wept.

** The out-of-universe reason is simple: actor contracts and whatnot. Hard to imagine Billie Piper would've signed on for more seasons. For what it's worth, Russell T Davies admits in his memoirs ''The Writer’s Tale'' that even to him, the Bad Wolf Bay scene is out of character for Rose, that it was unbelievable and he got it wrong (page 491). Another thing he mentions (on page 414) is that at one point in the development of the finale, he was arguing with himself over who should be in the TARDIS when Tentoo springs into existence. The plot required Donna to be there to touch the hand-in-a-jar, but he also considered having Rose there as well. He knew he was going to be asking too much of the audience, and of Rose, to accept spending the rest of her life with a man she’s barely spoken two words to. Ultimately he couldn’t figure out how to make it work, and he gave the scene to Donna because it was her series, she was the main companion and he didn’t want to draw the attention away from her to put it on Rose. So we're left having to assume that a scene on the TARDIS when Team TARDIS is all celebrating in the console room. There was probably an offscreen moment where they bonded and flirted and teased.
** "Rose stays with Tentoo" was the best to be expected regarding the TV show canon due to actors being humans who can't stay around on one show forever. Billie Piper wasn't staying and David Tennant was leaving too (although he did consider staying around for another season). But that's just the limitations of the television medium. In a series of novels, had the concept been RTD's original creation and not dependent on the BBC and actors, the Doctor and Rose would still be together.

** Because he ''is'' dying, it's not said specifically until a later series, but when a regeneration happens it's ''"a new man who gets up and walks away"''. It feels like death, and I don't see how anyone can claim previous doctor's (who often had several very different personality traits) were exacly the same person when several of them were clearly very different. Effectively, the Doctor she knew would be dead, and Rose has seen that happen before so she knows how it works. (Whether this is a new suggestion placed there by the modern series or was always a fact doesn't matter. Just because it's ret con doesn't stop it now being canon, whether we like it or not).

** Instead of the [=DoctorDonna=], Rose would become Bad Wolf again and use that to defeat the Daleks. Bad Wolf had already taken care of the Daleks once, it could do it again (even though the ones on the Game Station were more like scavengers than they were minions of Davros). The TARDIS has an established connection to Rose. It would make narrative sense in this case for the TARDIS to keep Rose with her while everyone else goes out onto the Crucible.
** Well it depends on what happens next when the TARDIS is taken to the Crucible. If Rose subsequently got stuck in the TARDIS when the Daleks tried to destroy it, she'd revisit Bad Wolf and use that to defeat Davros. If she wasn't stuck in the TARDIS, the situation would get more dicey. Ultimately if there were no Metacrisis, the TARDIS would be a more active component in the culmination of events.
** First of all, if the reunion wasn't interrupted, there would have been more than a hug there. The Doctor and Rose would've had an all-out snog, to a point that Jack and Donna would be having to drag them into the TARDIS and be like "save the world now, snog later." As for how they’d stop Davros, it would all come down to Rose. More specifically Bad Wolf.[[note]]If Jack could be made immortal by Bad Wolf, then surely the same could happen to Rose herself. For that brief amount of time she could see all that is, was, and ever could be…and she had the power to do something about it! Couldn’t she have given herself a lifespan to match her Doctor so she could stay with him? If I were in her shoes, I totally would.[[/note]] Davros would have still tried to destroy the TARDIS, but it would have reawakened the bit that was left behind in Rose. And, well, we all saw "The Parting of the Ways" and Davros would be nothing compared to the Dalek emperor Rose turned into dust.

In that case, it’s almost certain that the Doctor would be able to find a way to stop the Daleks without killing them, but precedent shows that the Daleks are nothing if not resilient, so while the Doctor would thwart the detonation of the nefarious Reality Bomb and the implementation of Davros’ insidious plan with the help of Dalek Caan, Team TARDIS’ success would be temporary at best. Probably the rest of the Daleks would go into hiding and retreat from Earth for now. Because the TARDIS got weakened by its romp in the Crucible’s fire pit, it likely wouldn't have enough energy to tow all the planets back to their respective locations and times, at least not yet. If it still needs work, there'd likely be an extra adventure slotted in there, using Jack’s manipulator to hop here there and everywhere to fetch whatever is needed to repair the TARDIS so everyone can go home. Then once the TARDIS is back in working order, Team TARDIS hauls all the planets back where they belong, and everyone is happy enough, but the victory is tainted by the knowledge that the Daleks are still out there somewhere, the threat buzzing quietly beneath every adventure like so much background radiation.\\

Things would really change in "The Waters of Mars" without the Time Lord Victorious. If the Doctor wasn’t stewing in his own loneliness, then there wouldn't be that emotional instability pushing him to act recklessly, and with his pending doom framed as a mystery instead of a haunting inevitability/punishment, no longer would there be that added dash of nihilism thrown into the mix. Instead, there'd be some friction between opposing viewpoints, as Rose and the Doctor quickly determine that, no matter what, the fixed points in this timeline must be upheld, but just like in Pompeii, Donna would struggle to reconcile that notion with her strong sense of empathy and compassion. Ultimately everything would have to go the way that the timeline/fixed points dictate it must, but Donna would be left feeling pretty beaten down, like she can handle a lot of shit but the sense of being totally powerless and unable to help people in such dire straits is a lot for her to swallow, whereas, on the other hand, the Doctor is concerned about Rose and how she so readily agreed to let these folks die for the sake of preserving the timeline. Like yeah, this is what has to be done, but he’d never seen Rose so practical or nearly calloused about such a thing, which bothers him.\\
"The End of Time" would thus be different, as instead of it just being the Master copying himself over the entire populace of Earth, and Gallifrey appearing in the sky, the Daleks would come back. Perhaps the Master would make a shady truce with Davros, working to help the Daleks even as he works behind the scenes to help resurrect/bring back the Time Lords, probably with the plan to set them against each other and see which one wins (although ideally, he thinks, they’ll just off each other and be done with it). Wilf might or might not be involved in the story, since his motivation to get in touch with the Doctor wouldn't exist. If the Metacrisis still happens, it would happen from the Master shooting the Doctor or ordering a Dalek to shoot him. So they'd defeat the Time Lords by sending them back into the loop, and although the prophecy about the Doctor’s doom was supposedly diverted, there’d still be the issue of Rose being trapped in the radiation chamber. If Wilf isn't there, the Doctor would save Rose but at the expense of forcing a regeneration he can’t back out of. Not this time. So the Doctor would now have no choice but to regenerate completely, and in the meanwhile, Donna would activate the metacrisis, Donna and the metacrisis work together to stop the Daleks, metacrisis genocides the Daleks, and the day is saved. Afterwards, a few possible outcomes could happen. Rose could either choose to go to Pete's World with the Metacrisis or stay with the Doctor. As for Donna, well, with the Eleventh Doctor's bouncy-puppy mentality instead of Ten’s guilt-soaked self-punishing mentality, he'd contrive a way to extract his memories from Donna without wiping all of her memories of their time together. And she either A) continues traveling with the Doctor and Rose for years to come, eventually becoming a recurring guest traveler, or B) insists on returning home because the experiences on Pompeii and Mars have made her recognize her new self-confidence and ability to give help to those who desperately need it.
** If the Doctor wasn’t hit by the Dalek ray, and thus no Metacrisis, Rose would resume traveling with him. Almost certainly, Rose and the TARDIS would've joined forces once again as Bad Wolf, which makes sense considering how strongly the TARDIS foreshadowed her return in "Turn Left". Rose and the TARDIS were absolutely still linked. So instead of Donna getting caught up leaving the TARDIS, it would've been Rose. Donna would take Rose's place alongside the Doctor on the Crucible, and probably would've had some bite against Davros for his hypocritical taunts about the Doctor making them into murderers. Either way, the Doctor would still have his sister from another mister to travel with and the love of his regenerations. He’d be a very happy Time Lord (probably so happy he might freak out a little about it. But not for very long because he’d get the threat of a slap from Rose and a verbal set down by Donna. In actuality, they would be amazingly supportive and make him get over it, all the shagging that he and Rose do helps too.)
*** And speaking of all the shagging, Donna would probably ask to take leave from the TARDIS while the Doctor and Rose get, ahem, reacquainted with each other. Plus, her family would need to know she was okay after it is undeniable what she’s been doing with her time. So for "The Next Doctor," that would be an adventure that the Doctor has solely with Rose. The Doctor and Rose encountering Jackson Lake and Rosita has both the Doctor and Rose questioning whether Rose can regenerate (the Doctor having been a little too scared to check what effects might have happened to Rose after her most recent foray as Bad Wolf). But why do neither "the next Doctor" or Rosita recognize their former selves? They do, of course, figure out the truth about Jackson Lake's fugue state, and relearn how well they work as a team. The big difference is that Rose convinces the Doctor to stay for Christmas dinner with Jackson and his family, before they decide they miss Donna and go back for her (besides she’s probably had enough of her mum).
*** In "Planet of the Dead", the Doctor would be with Rose and Donna. Lady Christina would likely rub both Donna and Rose the wrong way. She’d be too flirty for Rose’s comfort and too pompous for Donna’s. Donna’s innate managerial skills and attempts to motivate Agatha Christie mean the Doctor would convince her to stay behind with Christina to excavate the bus and keep up morale, while Rose and the Doctor would go with the Tritovores (who might take a shine immediately to Rose given her empathy for their situation). When they get back, they'd find Donna mostly in charge and Christina put in her place (and the Doctor and Rose wondering what exactly Donna said or did to the younger formerly cocksure thief.)
*** "The Waters of Mars" would probably be the most different from a characterization front, if not from the story. The adventure itself would probably be mostly similar, but since the Doctor would not be at a point where he is emotionally devastated from losing both Donna and Rose to the Metacrisis, he wouldn't go Time Lord Victorious. He'd have both Donna and Rose to stop him from doing anything crazy, and he would continue taking his role as the keeper of fixed points. Like in Pompeii, Donna might try to convince him to save one or two, but Rose would explain the effects of the reapers that she experienced when trying to do the same.[[note]]This is something that's often seen in series 4 rewrites with Rose when covering "The Fires of Pompeii": Rose would be able to use her experience to articulate to Donna why messing with fixed points or going back on your own timeline is bad[[/note]] Donna would counter that they were able to save Caecilius and his family without causing reapers to appear, and both women would let the Doctor decide if that were possible in this case, and then try to save as many people as possible without breaking the fixed point.
*** For "The Day of the Doctor," there would need to be a Rose for Ten. And if that Ten had had a Rose he wouldn’t have been such a pillock as to propose to Elizabeth I as a ploy to trap the Zygon. He wouldn’t have dared toy with anyone that way and he certainly wouldn’t act so callously regarding marriage, not with the love of his lives involved in the adventure. And speaking of Rose being there, you can damn well bet that his hair would have been styled to perfection. No sad hair for that Ten. Eleven would have also had a Rose. At it’s craziest there would have been three Rose representations and three Doctors, a Donna and a Clara. It's unlikely the universe would have been ready for that, so it's likely that the oldest Rose would have maybe remembered the events of the day from when she was younger and stayed away intentionally or perhaps just been busy and told the Doctor to occupy himself and visit with Clara, leaving one Rose (do do a huge amount of flirting with all three of the Doctors), one Bad Wolf! Moment, three Doctors and possibly a Donna, plus Clara when she arrives.\\
Donna and Queen Elizabeth would have gotten along famously. Donna would have given the Queen excellent advice on everything from military tactics to putting her male advisors in their place and incorporating the latest makeup trends into her daily routine.
*** For "The End of Time," Rose and the Doctor would be on Earth to visit family and friends (the Nobles, the Smith-Jones, Capt. Harkness and Sarah Jane) for Christmas. The Doctor would be hanging out with Wilfred while Rose goes shopping with Donna for Christmas gifts. The story would continue along the same lines as with the actual episode, though without the geriatric PI crew. Rose and Donna would go with the Doctor to deal with the Master and with the Time Lords coming back. The Master would toy with Rose to annoy the Doctor. Donna would be the one to let the technician out of the radiation containment unit, and Rose would attempt to save her, but the Doctor would be hesitant to let her because he doesn't know if Rose gained the ability to regenerate or not (but it'll be the first thing they will test when they get back to the TARDIS), and also because he knows how painful it will be and refuses to let her deal with that. So he'd save Donna, and regenerate into the Eleventh Doctor with Rose and Donna by his side.

** It does, though. Martha communicates with her Hath friend and understands him throughout the episode. I guess just for stylistic reasons they chose not to let the audience in on what the Hath are saying.

** This is part of the ''point'', though; the episode is exploring the fact that people can be panicky and short-sighted, the fact that they can get carried away with their prejudices and fears, which can lead them to dangerous and harmful courses of action, the fact that, yes, they can be idiots. The whole point of the episode is to show these people being pushed to breaking point by fear and stress and uncertainty and that sometimes this can lead to the worst of humanity coming to the fore rather than the best. No, they don't act particularly rationally or logically, but the point of the episode is that people don't always act rationally or logically in bad situations. Even an IdiotPlot [[TropesAreNotBad isn't automatically a bad thing]].

*** For "The Day of the Doctor," Donna and Rose would likely fill for the Tenth Doctor the role that Clara plays in the actual continuity.

"The End of Time" would thus be different, as instead of it just being the Master copying himself over the entire populace of Earth, and Gallifrey appearing in the sky, the Daleks would come back. Perhaps the Master would make a shady truce with Davros, working to help the Daleks even as he works behind the scenes to help resurrect/bring back the Time Lords, probably with the plan to set them against each other and see which one wins (although ideally, he thinks, they’ll just off each other and be done with it). Wilf might or might not be involved in the story, since his motivation to get in touch with the Doctor wouldn't exist. If the Metacrisis still happens, it would happen from the Master shooting the Doctor or ordering a Dalek to shoot him. So they'd defeat the Time Lords by sending them back into the loop, and although the prophecy about the Doctor’s doom was supposedly diverted, there’d still be the issue of Rose being trapped in the radiation chamber. If Wilf isn't there, the Doctor would save Rose but at the expense of forcing a regeneration he can’t back out of. Not this time. So the Doctor would now have no choice but to regenerate completely, and in the meanwhile, Donna would activate the metacrisis, Donna and the metacrisis work together to stop the Daleks, metacrisis genocides the Daleks, and the day is saved. Afterwards, a few possible outcomes could happen. Rose could either choose to go to Pete's World with the Metacrisis or stay with the Doctor. As for Donna, well, with the Eleventh Doctor's bouncy-puppy mentality instead of Ten’s guilt-soaked self-punishing mentality, he'd contrive a way to extract his memories from Donna without wiping all of her memories of their time together. And she either A) continues traveling with the Doctor (and Rose, if she stays with him instead of Tentoo) for years to come, eventually becoming a recurring guest traveler, or B) insists on returning home because the experiences on Pompeii and Mars have made her recognize her new self-confidence and ability to give help to those who desperately need it.

*** Wouldn't it make more sense then for Rose to stay traveling with the Doctor instead of staying in Pete's World with the Metacrisis?

** First of all, if the reunion wasn't interrupted, there would have been more than a hug there. The Doctor and Rose would've had an all-out snog, to a point that Jack and Donna would be having to drag them into the TARDIS and be like "save the world now, snog later." As for how they’d stop Davros, it would all come down to Rose. More specifically Bad Wolf. Davros would have still tried to destroy the TARDIS, but it would have reawakened the bit that was left behind in Rose. And, well, we all saw "The Parting of the Ways" and Davros would be nothing compared to the Dalek emperor Rose turned into dust.

** If Rose didn't become Bad Wolf, the ending would've ben a bit darker. Donna wouldn’t feel compelled to stay behind on the TARDIS, so she would join the rest of the team in front of Davros. Without Donna inadvertently helping to create the metacrisis by touching the energy-filled hand, the TARDIS would continue its destination to the Crucible’s fire-dumpster and would at the very least suffer intense and crippling damage; and with no Metacrisis, there’d no one willing to destroy all the Daleks, presuming the Doctor prefers to keep his hands clean instead of wiping out all the Daleks to save the rest of the universe.\\

"The Next Doctor" and "Planet of the Dead" would see minimal changes. It's unlikely that Donna or Rose would let Christina boss the Doctor around in the latter, and Rose would quickly figure out in the former that Jackson Lake was not a future regeneration of the Doctor much sooner.\\
Things would really change in "The Waters of Mars" without the Time Lord Victorious. If the Doctor wasn’t stewing in his own loneliness, then there wouldn't that emotional instability pushing him to act recklessly, and with his pending doom framed as a mystery instead of a haunting inevitability/punishment, no longer would there be that added dash of nihilism thrown into the mix. Instead, there'd be some friction between opposing viewpoints, as Rose and the Doctor quickly determine that, no matter what, the fixed points in this timeline must be upheld, but just like in Pompeii, Donna would struggle to reconcile that notion with her strong sense of empathy and compassion. Ultimately everything would have to go the way that the timeline/fixed points dictate it must, but Donna would be left feeling pretty beaten down, like she can handle a lot of shit but the sense of being totally powerless and unable to help people in such dire straits is a lot for her to swallow, whereas, on the other hand, the Doctor is concerned about Rose and how she so readily agreed to let these folks die for the sake of preserving the timeline. Like yeah, this is what has to be done, but he’d never seen Rose so practical or nearly calloused about such a thing, which bothers him.\\

"The End of Time" would thus be different, as instead of it just being the Master copying himself over the entire populace of Earth, and Gallifrey appearing in the sky, the Daleks would come back. Perhaps the Master would make a shady truce with Davros, working to help the Daleks even as he works behind the scenes to help resurrect/bring back the Time Lords, probably with the plan to set them against each other and see which one wins (although ideally, he thinks, they’ll just off each other and be done with it). Wilf might or might not be involved in the story, since his motivation to get in touch with the Doctor wouldn't exist. If the Metacrisis still happens, it would happen from the Master shooting the Doctor or ordering a Dalek to shoot him. So they'd defeat the Time Lords by sending them back into the loop, and although the prophecy about the Doctor’s doom was supposedly diverted, there’d still be the issue of Rose being trapped in the radiation chamber. If Wilf isn't there, the Doctor would save Rose but at the expense of forcing a regeneration he can’t back out of. Not this time. So the Doctor would now have no choice but to regenerate completely, and in the meanwhile, Donna would activate the metacrisis, Donna and the metacrisis work together to stop the Daleks, metacrisis genocides the Daleks, and the day is saved. Afterwards, a few possible outcomes could happen. Rose could either choose to go to Pete's World with the Metacrisis or stay with the Doctor. As for Donna, well, with the Eleventh Doctor's bouncy-puppy mentality instead of Ten’s guilt-soaked self-punishing mentality, he'd contrive a way to extract his memories from Donna without wiping all of her memories of their time together. And she either A) continues traveling with the Doctor (and Rose, if she stays with him instead of Tentoo) for years to come, eventually becoming a recurring guest traveler, or B) insists on returning home because the experiences on Pompeii and Mars have made her recognize her new self-confidence and ability to give help to those who desperately need it..

** It's possible that Mr. Copper (the old man) and the couple were from different countries where the value of credits were different. On Earth, for instance, we have American Dollars and Australian Dollars with different exchange rates. And it is possible for ridiculously different rates to be present on the same planet (compare the Cypriot Pound (around £1=0.89p) to the Turkish Old Lira (around £1=2000000 Lira prior to the change to New Lira).