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Confession #81: I Want Certain Retcons

Continuity is a tricky thing in Doctor Who. Due to the nature of the beast, with a plethora of writers contributing to the “canon” (a loaded, debatable term), contradictions abound. For large things, like humanity becoming aware of non-Terrestrial life, a showrunner will usually find a way to smooth over the issue with a clever (or not-so-clever) retcon. A few such instances were highlighted recently in an article at the Houston Press.

However, sometimes rather egregious inconsistencies remain unaddressed. Other times, writers throw in ideas that some fans simply find distasteful (while others, of course, couldn’t care less). There is at least one of the former category—and several of the latter—that still irritate me. Here are some of the blips in the Doctor’s adventures I’d like to see sorted.

I’ll start with the actual discontinuity, which involves the Blinovich Limitation Effect (BLE). First mentioned in Day of the Daleks, and later in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, the BLE began as a vague hand wave to explain (without explaining) why our heroes couldn’t simply go back and try again and again if they failed their mission the first time. Later, in Mawdryn Undead, we learned that an extension (or corollary, perhaps) of the Effect meant that if two versions of the same individual from different points on their personal timeline were to touch, there could be catastrophic effects.

Unfortunately, post-Hiatus Who has, more often than not, ignored the perils of the BLE—unless it happened to suit a particular storyline. There are, off the top of my head, three examples of characters crossing their own timelines and touching other versions of themselves. The first, where Rose holds her infant self in Father’s Day, does actually lead to severe consequences in the form of Reapers. It’s not the same result of that corollary that we saw in Mawdryn Undead, but at least we see how the paradoxical crossing of her own timestream affects Rose and her surroundings.

In contrast, two other characters come into contact with their previous selves without so much as a hint that anything negative might happen. The first is Kazran Sardick, who embraces his younger self in A Christmas Carol. The second is Amy Pond, who sets her hand atop Amelia’s head to measure against herself and get an idea of what year it is into which she had emerged from the Pandorica in The Big Bang.

I can’t help but wonder why the writers would stick with continuity in one case and not the others. One might think that the switch in showrunner had something to do with it, as Father’s Day aired nearly six years prior to the others. However, minutes before the Amy/Amelia interaction in The Big Bang, the Doctor and Rory cross sonics and sparks fly upon the release of temporal energy, demonstrating that they are, in fact, the same sonic at different points in its timestream. It appears that Moffat (who wrote that episode) simply decided to pick and choose where it suited him to use the BLE.

The next items on my personal shit list aren’t so much “continuity errors” as wince-inducing plot devices. Taking them in chronological order, let’s start with the travesty that is the Doctor’s supposed “half human” heritage, as mentioned in The Movie. I’ve ranted about this before, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a lie the Doctor told to advance his agenda of the moment. Although the Master repeats the lie later in the story, I can conceive of ways to explain that away, too. Besides, Big Finish has established a perfectly good mechanism for the Eye of Harmony to have been reset to need a human eye print.

More recently, I’ve cringed at two particular plot points Moffat has added—both introduced during this most recent series. The first of these came in right at the end of Listen (see my review for the full rant) when Clara meets the Doctor as a child. I simply don’t like Clara enough to want her to be influential for the Doctor throughout the entirety of his two millennia. It’s overkill, and smacks of hubris on Moffat’s part.

Then there are the Cyber-deceased. It may have been an effective threat for the purposes of a series finale, but when one considers the implications, the idea is pretty disturbing. People returned to their rotting, cyber-converted corpses with their memories—but theoretically not their emotions—intact? Even if one can avoid thinking too carefully about one’s own deceased loved ones in such a situation, the idea of some of the Doctor’s former Companions being subjected to such an indignity is almost too much to bear. (And no, I didn’t like that particular nod to the Brigadier.)

I’m certain it wouldn’t require a great deal more thought to identify other retcon-worthy moments. But I take comfort in the fact that as writers, showrunners, and other production staff are in constant flux, so is the state of canonicity (such as it is). There’s still hope that my least favorite plot points could fade into the mists of time.

6 Comments

  1. Wholahoop

    The Ultimate Retcons
    and you avoided the UNIT dating controversy totally. (I love the Doctor’s response to it in the Sontaran Stratagem btw).

    That the Grand Moff appears to ignore continuity when it suits him is not a new theme, but it is a ruddy frustrating one! Probably my most annoying recent one for me was the one with the keys to the TARDIS where Clara threw them all away when we had previously seen the Doctor (in Moffat’s own script) open the TARDIS doors by clicking his fingers.

    Continuity is a frustrating concept and with a 50 odd year old program I guess we should have to accept the occasional error, but boy is it irritating when it happens! I guess that without the internet, the UNIT dating controversy would have had a smaller audience than it currently probably has!

    • mrfranklin

      UNIT
      Forgot that one! They actually sort of addressed it in the 50th special, though, when Kate said something like, “’70s or ’80s, depending on the dating protocol…”

      But yes: continuity issues are simply a fact of life for this show. Just a few I’d like to resolve in my own way. 😉

  2. Kara S

    The Impossible Girl
    Due to the fact that Clara is the Impossible Girl who interacted with The Doctor countless times during his lives, that she first showed up when he was a small child seems perfectly appropriate. That being said, I hate the Impossible Girl concept. She is supposed to have been around constantly fixing The Doctor’s timeline all his life but we don’t actually see her until, gee, just before she becomes his companion! How coincidental!

    While it’s obvious that without a real life time machine they can’t go back in time to insert the actress into previously filmed episodes, the whole concept is dodgy. If I had been writing the episode (which I wouldn’t have because I thought it was dumb, but that’s just me) I would have found a way to imply that Clara had temporarily melded with other women in previous episodes who had done The Doctor favors or helped him.

    • mrfranklin

      Clara
      Yeah, I didn’t even want to address that whole Impossible Girl thing, as I was afraid I’d go off the rails on an epic rant. Suffice to say, I’m mostly in agreement with you on this one. 🙂

  3. solar penguin

    The two Amys – uh, Amies – however you spell it
    They’re NOT the same person at different points on their timeline. They’re not even from the same timeline. The Companion Amy didn’t grow up in a universe without stars, did she? These are different universe alternate versions of Amy that just happen to be different ages, and it’s already been established with Mickey and Ricky that alternate universe versions of people can meet without problems.

    When so much of Moffat’s timey-wimey stuff is nonsense, it doesn’t seem fair to pick on him for just about the only time he gets it right.

    • mrfranklin

      Amy/Amelia
      That’s an interesting point, solar penguin. I had never interpreted it as “a different universe” as you state, though that makes sense. As you say, Moffat’s good at timey wimey, but even when things have been altered in some way, it never seems to be couched as switching the characters onto a different track in the multiverse (a la the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics). I suppose that’s why I hadn’t thought of it that way before.

      I’m willing to concede the point on this one, though.

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