Blend, on 15 September 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:
I guess my big beef with it all is that we have been conditioned for 7 seasons to believe that Gallifrey is not reachable, and now all of a sudden it is. I know there's a bunch of preconceived notions in that, but it just seems like a big fat retcon to me.
Hmmm, I don't think anyone can say that with any conviction of accuracy after THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR. Gallifrey being unreachable is a wholly different ball of wax now that it's not technically time locked. So sure, 7 seaonss of it being unreachable...but the 50th changed that. HOW it changed that, we don't know, but we do know that it did.
Gnaw, on 15 September 2014 - 06:54 PM, said:
I get you. I feel the same about the "oh, I can never go see Amy and Rory now that I've seen their gravestones".
I had a huge beef with that one as well, till Moffat came up with a plausible reason why not.
Quote
After “The Angels Take Manhattan” last year, Doctor Who fans wondered if producer Steven Moffat had left a loophole in the series so that the Doctor could meet up with Amy and Rory.
After the episode aired and the Doctor stated he could never go back to New York to see them, many fans wondered why the couple didn’t just go to another city and re-connect with our favorite Time Lord.
Moffat says there is an explanation, but it’s one that is so deep in fan-lore that he couldn’t and wouldn’t include it in the episode.
“New York would still burn. The point being, he can’t interfere,” he tells Blogtor Who. “Here’s the ‘fan answer’ – this is not what you’d ever put out on BBC One, because most people watch the show and just think, ‘well there’s a gravestone so obviously he can’t visit them again’. But the ‘fan answer’ is, in normal circumstances he might have gone back and said, ‘look we’ll just put a headstone up and we’ll just write the book’. But there is so much scar tissue, and the number of paradoxes that have already been inflicted on that nexus of timelines, that it will rip apart if you try to do one more thing. He has to leave it alone. Normally he could perform some surgery, this time too much surgery has already been performed. But imagine saying that on BBC One!”
Moffat goes on to say that he re-wrote the exit for Amy and Rory multiple times, leading up to the story’s production.
“To be honest they were all quite similar. There was a slightly more involved version which put River slightly more central,” he says. “But I sort of realised I was trying to tell about four stories when two was quite enough. So I trimmed it down. Increasingly, the point of the story is The Doctor doesn’t really do anything for the second half except more or less complain and try to stop everything working. Obviously there was a point when he wasn’t like that, but I realised that that was the story. Once he realises he can’t escape the fact she’s going to leave him, he becomes sort of useless, and that’s the drama. And the dramatic heart of Doctor Who is very rarely The Doctor himself because he’s the man who fixes everything. This time he’s the man to whom it happens and that makes him interesting in a different way – and an amazing performance from Matt Smith as well.”
It all sounds like Amy and Rory won’t be back any time soon. Moffat once again confirms that he feels like that door is closed.
“You could never eliminate the possibility of dream sequences and flashbacks, but will the Doctor see them again? No. When I was first talking to Karen and Arthur about it, we said ‘let’s make it the proper ending’. Bringing back things just gives you sequel-itis. Just end it and get out. Heaven knows if they’ll appear in some form of flashback – I have no plans to do that I have to say – but the story of Amy and The Doctor is definitively over” he says.
Which MORE than satisfied me on the topic, and I was QUITE vocal about being against it after the ep aired. It's not that he can't visit them in NY in that timeframe, but that the messed up timelines are now damaged beyond repair for him to visit specifically Amy and Rory as they are at the nexus of this cracked time knot.
This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 15 September 2014 - 07:11 PM
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon