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.
That’s how I understood it. Glad Moffat confirmed it. The question I had was: since these events occurred after The Doctor married River, that means it has now happened for the Doctor – but not yet for River. But River refers to The Doctor as her husband in the episode. According to River’s timeline, the marriage was still to come for her, right? (*Head explodes*)
No it had already happened for River, so had her parents death. She was just crossing her own timeline
That has got to be the WORST explanation I have ever heard. It doesn’t jive with anything that we saw in Angels Take Manhattan.
It’s Moffatt trying to trick his way out of a situation after he allowed himself to be cornered in a storyline quandary. He should have consulted with a theoretical physicist before spouting off that nonsensical answer.
Remember: the Moffatt lies…..
To be perfectly honest the entire thing was rubbish and giving the Ponds a right “proper ending” what rubbish is that?!
I just don’t see why he just can’t go back to where they are in the past. Or River.
How would that disrupt the timeline? He just can’t take them to New York. And if he can’t do that, why not just visit them in the past? He wouldn’t be crossing any timeline by doing that is he? He just can’t change the fact that they died at that time. Maybe traveling with him could create a paradox if they end up not dying at the time they show on the gravestone. So just visiting then? Maybe they could create an adventure on Earth at the time? But the Doctor would have to leave them there and he’d just explain that to them. Wouldn’t that work?