I’ve started watching Doctor Who, and that started me researching Who-time, and found very little in way of explaining the treatment of time in the Doctor Who universe.
I asked a few Whovanians (Whovanites? Whovians?), and their answer was:
“WILL YOU LIGHTEN UP, AND JUST ENJOY THE SHOW!?!?! Sheesh!”
Yeah, right . . . as if I had a choice.
I’ve only watched a few shows, and here is some of what I have gleaned so far:
Everything that’s going to happen has already happened.
The doctor intervenes even though he shouldn’t.
Let’s look at those two statements.
I read a recent article (April 2010 Discover, “Back From The Future”, by Zeeya Merali) describing experimental data which seems to confirm the first statement. At least at the quantum level there is data which seemingly indicates future events affect current events. One way this would work is to imagine everything as already having happened, and we are traveling the time-stream. That is, rather than time “flowing”, we are riding it.
Let me see if I can come up with a metaphor. Imagine time a funicular, and imagine Dr. Who traveling along it in some sort of vehicle, call it a TRAM (Time Rail Adventure-Mobile). He can go up and down along the fixed tracks, stop anywhere, look around, hop back on the TRAM, and decide to go either up and down to check out another point in time. The funicular just is; it does not “flow” per se. If we consider the TRAM as a fixed point of reference, then the world around it seems to “flow”, very much like we perhaps experience the passage of time. As such, it’s not so much time passing, as us experiencing what has already happen, what already is.
But, taking the first statement at face value, the second then gives rise to a minor problem. If everything has already happened, then DW’s interventions are part of what has already happened; he can’t help but intervene, since he already has. If time is a single funicular, if there is only one timeline, then his actions are not in fact changing anything; he’s merely riding through particular events, much like perhaps we are doing. Of course, him being a Time Lord and all, that means at any particular point in time he should already know what is happening, what will happen, and his own role in all of the goings on. If that’s the case, he does a good job of hiding it.
If we look at the Dr. Who universe in such a way, much of the suspense, interest, and even some of our admiration for the Doctor’s ingenuity, courage, and resourcefulness go right out the window.
But here comes String Theory, and comments from the series itself . . . when the Doctor intervenes, he essentially jumps the tracks and finds himself in a different funicular, or timeline. This sort of explains the whole “Hey! What’s happening here” bit whenever he exits the TRAM . . . er . . . TARDIS.
But this raises other questions; does he exist in multiple timelines as unique individuals? That is, do the multiple timelines have their own version of the Doctor? The answer would seem to be “no” since it’s often repeated there is only one. And what of him still knowing things in his timeline if he’s been intervening the crap out of it for the past 900 years?
Oh, wait . . . he can’t change his own timeline, so after intervening he must be in a new timeline, which brings me back to him knowing future stuff and destinations in whatever timeline he is in. Does this mean he know all of the timelines, and everything that’s going to happen has already happened in all timelines?
Then we have the fixed points in time, marking immutable events which are outside even a Time Lord’s ability to change them. If there are multiple timelines, I’m thinking these events are points where these different timelines must all rejoin, coalesce, and fuse into an ordered timeline which I’m sure the Time Lord can’t wait to start splitting it up again just past the confluence.
Confusing, especially if one starts to think creatively. What if he goes back to somewhere where he’s visited before? Does he meet himself? Can he stop himself from making mistakes? Can he give himself a hint about whatever problem he is facing?
Yes, I know I’m over-thinking the matter, but in my defense . . . well, I have no defense. It’s how I am. The show creates, be it by intent or not, a framework composed of various tenets aimed at providing a semi-structured universe for the characters to play in. As such, there must be some rules the creators and writers of the show follow with regards to what the Doctor can and cannot do. If there be rules, I want to know and understand them, if for no other reason to ensure the writers play nice, but more so to enhance the enjoyment of the show.
The rules is what I am interested in, and what make the show interesting. The rules provide the opportunity for drama, advance the plot point, and ensure continuity as the series progresses. It would be nice if I could find a place explaining what the rules are. Meanwhile, I will continue watching, all the while aware time-traveling-themed shows are and will always be severely constrained until such time as an actual, working time machine comes to visit up from the future. But, to paraphrase Sheldon, there are no time machines in the future, otherwise they would be here right now, offering rides in exchange for a small fee.
Fullofit says
Oh:- now my brain hurts. Good point about the timeline rules, but isn’t this the one show that we can all supend disbelief in?
Over the years there have been some awful plots, characters, direction, acting, Effects and STAGING. But we love it because of that.
Peter says
You ask:
What if he goes back to somewhere where he’s visited before? Does he meet himself? Can he stop himself from making mistakes? Can he give himself a hint about whatever problem he is facing?
The answers, at least according to the show’s mythology are: Yes he can and has. Yes. Yes.
Stoffern says
I always had the sense that time in the doctor who universe follows different rules depending on where and when they are. As the doctor himself comments, it’s all a bit “timey-wimey wibbly-wobbley”.
Some events are fixed, some are not. Sometimes you can get away with killing your grandfather, sometimes you can’t.
It’s all part of some giant set of rules and exeptions that only a timelord has any hope of making sense out of. A bit like how only the doctor realy understands the TARDIS.
Of course, if you insist on overtinking it I Won’t stop you, but I’m not mopping up when you’r head explodes…just saying.
– Stoffern
Scooter says
it’s wibbly-wobbly/timey-wimey. The best answer is that ‘it depends”. There are some events that he won’t intervene because he knows that the consequences are far, far worse than any improvement that he could possibly make. He generally says “can’t” here, but it’s really “won’t” Because he’s not a “stupid ape”, he inherently knows when these events are.
Outside of the mythology of the show, it gets down to he intervenes when it advances the plot and he doesn’t intervene when it advances the plot.
TallGrrl says
Scoter beat me to it, but–yeah.
It’s a bit complicated, so the best way to describe it as:
“Wibelly-wobbely, timey-wimey….stuff…”
And, yeah, just sit back, relax and enjoy the show!
It’s a great ride!
: )
ejdalise says
Well, as King of the Anal Retentives Nation I don’t know I can promise much, but I’ll do my best to ignore inconsistencies, bow ties, miniskirts, and multi-colored Daleks.
1972devours says
Doctor Who has always been about adventure and witty dialogue, rather than hard science, but the new (post 2005) series have presented a mostly coherent view of how Whovian time works, it’s just spread out in bits over multiple episodes rather than sitting you down and smacking you in the face with it. The basics are:
-there is one timeline, though it is less a “line” and more a “wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey” ball where events can resonate back and forth.
-events are not necessarily fixed, but trends and outcomes are. The allies will always win WWII, even if they are being attacked by Daleks and Cybermen and evil zombie children. This generally means that the more crucial an event is to history, the more dangerous it is to try to change, because
-if causality is violated and a change doesn’t lead to it’s intended historical outcome, the paradox causes the new timeline to splinter off and die with the Doctor in it, unless he can find a way to change it back.
-Once the Doctor enters an event, he is fixed to it and it’s outcome. He can cross his own timeline and nudge earlier selves in particular directions, but if blatantly intervenes a paradox is created
-Whereas the Doctor can see all of time, given the nature of time he can really only see “The Big Picture,” individual details tend to escape him. He knows that the allies will win WWII, but he’s just as surprised to see those Daleks/Cybermen/evil zombie kids there as you are.
Nathan says
I weep whenever someone just dives into Doctor Who, as something beyond being enjoyed in the moment, and doesn’t wait to see what unfolds. It’s the same thing on Space’s “Inner Space” as it is here, you just haven’t done your homework.
The Doctor (or doctor number ten if you want, because the number itself is actually important) described it best in Season 3’s “Blink” when he described time as this timey-wimey-mish-mash. Time is not funicular, a singular particles path may be funicular for a short period of time, but Heisenberg’s “Chaos” principle dictates that you can know where you are or how quickly you’re going to get there but not both. Which makes time become less predictable the farther into the future you look.
To put it another way, the Doctor doesn’t quite know what’s going to happen when he jumps out of the TARDIS not only because he’s a bad navigator (he notably stole his type 40 TARDIS after dropping out of “Time Lord” school) but because the little things in life that make the world so wonderful typically cannot be predicted and it’s the little things that the Doctor lives for.
The little things might seem amazing, and overwhelming, and massive to us but frankly we’re not 900 year old college drop-outs who have trundled through eleven bodies, multiple wives, the destruction of his own race, the raising of himself to demon-hood, the loss of his own family, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
As to the fixed points in time? Yes, they exist. They’re “volcano days” as Captain Jack referred to them. They’re points in time that are sure to exist because if they don’t repeatedly happen in the same manner, no matter how you try to prevent it, you end up with a different universe. In other words, they turn out both ways and the universe splits like a single celled organism. The result is often profound, in Rose’s home universe (ours) we use airplanes, the Cybermen are long dead, and Captain Jack is the Face of Boe, but in the universe she lives in the Cybermen were just recently defeated, the Doctor is a simple human being (“Journey’s End”), and we use blimps to get us around in the air.
I hope this explains the universe of the Doctor a bit better and explains “time” within it a bit better as well.
Nathan says
I also suppose I should have noted that if the Doctor, or any time traveller for that matter, encounters themselves in time then serious things can occur. First of all, a past version of yourself (you being the time traveller will know if the one you’re looking at is a past self) touching you typically causes the issue of paradox. What happens during paradox? Well, any number of things but they all end in the universe being prematurely destroyed. Sometimes it’s funky monsters trying to eat everyone and sometimes it’s the first TimeLord ever being part anti-matter touching people and making them disappear all together (they were short of ideas in the 1980’s).
Two important things to remember in a pardox is that normally, the Doctor is the most ineffectual person around and often it’s mundane people doing really serious things like killing themselves by vehicular manslaughter, and that trying to change the things in your own past that define you will always result in paradox. Which is why the Doctor never tries to save anyone who’s already dead in his own life, it never results in anything good, like “The End of Time” where the TimeLords decide if they’re going down then they’re taking everyone else with them.
ejdalise says
Just finished Season 1 (watched the demise of Eccleston, and the birth of Tennant), and am a couple of episodes into the Tennant years.
At the end of Season 1 I watched Rose become a semi-god, single-handedly destroying the Dalek (again). She did it, if I understood correctly, with Time. I can posit a local manipulation of time. Maybe.
Here’s the rub with those particular episodes . . . was it Rose who did the deed, or was it the semi-sentient TARDIS? In other words, was Rose just a conduit, and hence the wielding of what seemed like Plotonium-like power still bound by whatever rules the Time Lords abide to (as interpreted by the TARDIS), or was it actually Rose, tapping into the power of Time through the TARDIS but not bound by any rules?
Also, if that power is available, and controllable, by The Doctor (he “sent it back”), why does he not use it?
And in the very first Tennant episode, he casually grabs the “Flesh Disintegrator” whip without suffering any ill effects. That appears to be a new ability I will be curious to see if he retains in later episodes.
Bottom line, I think the series is interesting because of the characters, but frustrating because of the convenient wobbliness of time and abilities. Personally, I’m not happy with the explanations regarding time and its rules. It’s not consistent, and the fact it lacks even basic rules is an annoyance (I’ve read the above explanations a couple of times, and there is no structure there for me to latch onto); I’ll have to wait and see if it’s enough of an annoyance to cause me to stop watching.
Some of the above explanations seem to contradict stuff I just watched. For example, he often does know more than the Big Picture, pointing to details as being “different”. Besides, if time is somewhat fixed, and only particular events resonate, then why get involved at all? Why “fix” anything? Given some events are fixed, those points will always bring the wobbliness back in-line. In essence, the Doctor is almost superfluous when it comes to time.
Finally, this splitting of universes points to multiple timelines, not a single timeline with multiple universes. This makes the actions of anyone irrelevant, because even if one prevents an event from happening, there will be another universe where it did happen.
Like I said, I will keep watching, but perhaps my enjoyment will be limited by these rules everyone else can see and buy into, but which I am prevented from discerning . . . perhaps Time itself is clouding my vision, keeping understanding obfuscated by chaos and inconsistencies. The work of some evil Timelord, no doubt.
Again, my own opinion, and not meant to detract other people’s near-fanatical loyalty and admiration for the show.