**Spoilers** Series 7, Episode 5 - "The Angels Take Manhatten"

coffee_cake

Doctor DooM wrote: »

That's a vortex manipulator. He's used them before, when he pinched one off Jack Harkness. Sadly it's a pretty big hole why he doesn't just use it now.

yep

Temptamperu

for al its little flaws and the fact they told everyone I was still choked up at the end. Roll on christmas.

norrie rugger

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Nope, River meets them again, to get her book printed.

As far as I can tell, the Doctor just can't travel to that time again (which begs the question how River can).

Or is it a case that he can no longer change anything there?
He is able to travel to fixed points but not interfere (Pompeii)

Doctor DooM

norrie rugger wrote: »

Or is it a case that he can no longer change anything there?
He is able to travel to fixed points but not interfere (Pompeii)

But he can still go see them if he likes that means.

I don't want to be that guy, I mean the story is king, and it was a good story, it's just a nasty plothole.

Das Kitty

Sudden Valley wrote: »

I think you could make an argument that he has really messed up the lives of the ponds as they have been banished to a different time period, can't ever see their friends and family again, lost their child, and can't have any more children. Perhaps they should have shown Rory's father being given the news, to show how messed up the situation was at the end.

Well, it's up to Amy if she feels her life was screwed up or not, and she clearly doesn't.

I don't think River can visit them either somehow. It seemed like that at the end when the Doctor apologised for not taking her feelings into account at losing her parents. She was going to "send" the book to Amy to print, if she could go herself, she'd surely get it printed off her own back. TBH, I thought it would have been cleaner if Amy had just written the book altogether.

Sudden Valley

bluewolf wrote: »

SHe said at the start her little vortex yoke was like a bike in traffic so she could slip through... doc couldnt

oh yeah, that's how she could originally get to 1938 without the interference that the TARDIS faced. But why did she bother to write the book, surely it would be in their best interest to change history. And why couldn't the doctor just use the vortex device then?

ríomhaire

norrie rugger wrote: »

Or is it a case that he can no longer change anything there?
He is able to travel to fixed points but not interfere (Pompeii)

Or it could be like Fathers' Day; too many paradoxes in one places causes the things to show up and start eating everyone.

Wing126

Just a comment about The Doctor going back. He can't, it's a fixed point that Amy will never see The Doctor again because of the afterword that she wrote in the Melody Malone book. He also mentioned that if he did go back it would cause another paradox that would destroy New York, I feel that a paradox of that sort would be caused when using a vortex manipulator aswell.

Duggys Housemate

I presume the doctor can't change his own timeline. Having read the book he can't unread it.

BuffyBot

It won't be the last time for the Ponds

I hope so. All the constantly returning companions in the RTD era got tiresome. "Oh look, it's Rose..again!"

Das Kitty

BuffyBot wrote: »

I hope so. All the constantly returning companions in the RTD era got tiresome. "Oh look, it's Rose..again!"

:eek:

Jeez, for a second there...

Don't do that to me!

pixelburp

ríomhaire wrote: »

Or it could be like Fathers' Day; too many paradoxes in one places causes the things to show up and start eating everyone.

Oh wow, I had completely forgotten about those things; mind you, I get the impression sometimes the showmakers themselves forgot Ecclestones series ever happened. Anyone who thinks the last 5 episodes haven't been up to par should sit down and watch 'Rose', maybe 'Aliens in London', and see how they feel then

Das Kitty wrote: »

Jeez, for a second there...

Don't do that to me!

I wouldn't rule it out; I'd be very surprised if next year they didn't bring in some of the old characters, be they past doctors or companions, simply for the year that's in it.

VinLieger

Wing126 wrote: »

Just a comment about The Doctor going back. He can't, it's a fixed point that Amy will never see The Doctor again because of the afterword that she wrote in the Melody Malone book. He also mentioned that if he did go back it would cause another paradox that would destroy New York, I feel that a paradox of that sort would be caused when using a vortex manipulator aswell.

Yes but go to 1940 or another place in that year and get a plane/taxi/train whatever saying its a fixed point in time doesnt explain those solutions away, Moffats plotholes are massive

pixelburp

VinLieger wrote: »

Yes but go to 1940 or another place in that year and get a plane/taxi/train whatever saying its a fixed point in time doesnt explain those solutions away, Moffats plotholes are massive

Is it really a plothole though when it concerns something even most theoretical physicists aren't 100% on?

One concrete item from Who's mythology is that you can't travel back onto your own timeline - seems a bit like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters. My impression is that Rory / Amy zapping back to 1938, coupled with the paradox stuff, means the Doctor can't cross back onto their personal timelines because it would effectively crash the universe.

Wing126

Pretty much what pixelburp said. It was established that Amy never saw The Doctor again after she and Rory were sent back in time. If The Doctor went against what was written and decided to go back and look for Amy after, it would create a massive paradox.

T-Bird

Fathers day?

Basq

thundermuppet wrote: »

Fathers day?

Wiki

Killer_banana

cloud493 wrote: »

It won't be the last time for the Ponds :rolleyes: when Donna left it was like 'if she ever remembers me, her mind will burn and she will die' and she came back for the end of the time.

Yeah but technically this is their second exit (the first being the ending of The God Complex) and Moffat seems more reluctant to bring back past characters than RTD. after all The End of Time had all the companions since 2005, even though the Doctor said goodbye to Sarah Jane in the Sarah Jane adventures so there was no need for that.

If we DO see them again I'll be pretty annoyed. I disliked how they left but it'll be more annoying still to have something so final reversed, even temporarily. Also everyone is saying is that it's a huge plothole that the Doctor can't visit them in 1938 but is that where they went. The farm doesn't exist and that Angel was just a leftover scavenger, doesn't that mean he could have sent them anywhere to any time so the Doctor has no way of finding them? Of course River said she'd send them the book but how she can do that even if they are in 1938 is a mystery to me.

I like Moffat but as time goes on his writing gets sloppier and his plot holes bigger...

Keogg

I know everyone keeps asking why the Doctor didn't just go back to revisit them a year later or whatever, but they didn't get zapped back to 1938 - they got zapped by a random angel, each one sends you somewhere and somewhen different.
Like in Blink, when Billy gets zapped back he meets the Doctor, who says something along the lines of 'Must have been the same Angel if you ended up in the same place as us'. So technically, they could be absolutely anywhere and therefore untraceable.

Doctor DooM

Keogg wrote: »

I know everyone keeps asking why the Doctor didn't just go back to revisit them a year later or whatever, but they didn't get zapped back to 1938 - they got zapped by a random angel, each one sends you somewhere and somewhen different.
Like in Blink, when Billy gets zapped back he meets the Doctor, who says something along the lines of 'Must have been the same Angel if you ended up in the same place as us'. So technically, they could be absolutely anywhere and therefore untraceable.

Which would be fine, save for the fact that River knows where they are, she gives Amy the book to get printed.

Mr.Saturn

Well, presumably, later in River's timeline, which could be at any point in the Ponds' timeline, and there's no guarantee that The Doctor will in fact meet River again in sequence relative to the book, and its fate, anytime soon, and when he does, there's no way of him telling at what point in the Ponds' life it'll be. In advance, at least. I mean, the novel could've been printed posthumously. That's, of course, assuming that the Ponds were, in fact, zapped back to the exact point they'd just left. If not, then there's also there's also River's search for them to factor into affairs.

norrie rugger

Mr.Saturn wrote: »

Well, presumably, later in River's timeline, which could be at any point in the Ponds' timeline, and there's no guarantee that The Doctor will in fact meet River again in sequence relative to the book, and its fate, anytime soon, and when he does, there's no way of him telling at what point in the Ponds' life it'll be. In advance, at least. I mean, the novel could've been printed posthumously. That's, of course, assuming that the Ponds were, in fact, zapped back to the exact point they'd just left. If not, then there's also there's also River's search for them to factor into affairs.

They both have their phones, I am assuming?

Then it would be rather simple to call The Doctor. Also River has shown us time and again that it is not that hard to get his attention.
This is a time travel show, everything about it is a paradox and should have causality issues. Sometimes they are just bigger than the general premise of the show.

Duggys Housemate

But...

Amy didn't meet the Doctor. Thats in the book. Thats the fixed timeline. Its a bit of circular argument but he can't meet them because he didn't meet them.

aaronjumper

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

But...

Amy didn't meet the Doctor. Thats in the book. Thats the fixed timeline. Its a bit of circular argument but he can't meet them because he didn't meet them.

Ah! My head. . . I understand it but still. Ow.

VinLieger

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

But...

Amy didn't meet the Doctor. Thats in the book. Thats the fixed timeline. Its a bit of circular argument but he can't meet them because he didn't meet them.

Ah yes but he only read the last chapter after they had been zapped back, he effectively choose to not be able to go back and see them, until that point all he had read was the title chapter which was "amys farewell", that could have meant anything and shouldnt create a fixed point in time due to its ambiguity

Sudden Valley

What would have been the implication if Amy hadn't written/published the book in the past, or even changed the storyline in the hope of getting a more favourable outcome? - since they definitely had a choice in the matter

Wing126

Well, River wrote the book. But if Amy didn't have it published after River gave it to her, then the episode wouldn't have happened and we'd have a different story about The Doctor and Amy fruitlessly searching for Rory through time and space.

Art_Wolf

Well this was cause they say, now, that having read about it the events were a fixed point in time and must occur - doing otherwise threatens to destroy reality. Though this logic would seem to indicate creating fixed points in time is incredibly easy

Sudden Valley

Art_Wolf wrote: »

Well this was cause they say, now, that having read about it the events were a fixed point in time and must occur - doing otherwise threatens to destroy reality. Though this logic would seem to indicate creating fixed points in time is incredibly easy

I'm just surprised that after how they changed a supposedly fixed event like the one in "the girl that waited" they make this out to be so different. Though the idea that the Doctor could doom Rory to a lonely death in the hotel by preventing the book being published is pretty cool.

ríomhaire

VinLieger wrote: »

Ah yes but he only read the last chapter after they had been zapped back, he effectively choose to not be able to go back and see them, until that point all he had read was the title chapter which was "amys farewell", that could have meant anything and shouldnt create a fixed point in time due to its ambiguity

Wasn't it something like "Amelia's Final Farewell"?