ANALYTICAL: COMPANION RETROSPECTIVE: CLARA OSWALD - PART 1

A short while ago, I started a Progressive Doctors series (which I will get back to, I swear - I just get so distracted, sometimes!) in which I analyzed certain incarnations of the Doctor that went through heavy character growth throughout their era. Even as I was writing it, I thought to myself: "I should do the same thing with the companions". The problem with this idea, though, is that only certain incarnations make it into the Progressive Doctors series. Whereas I would need to write up almost all the companions. Just about every one of them goes through some significant character growth while they travel with the Doctor. That's part of what makes us attach to the companion - we get to watch them develop. 

So Companion Retrospectives will be a bit more of a love-fest. I will examine certain companions that I feel really stand out from the show's long history and just take a closer look at the traits that endeared them to me so much. Basically, we'll review the qualities that I think made them shine so beautifully. 

We begin with the most recent of companions. 



PART ONE: CLARA AND ELEVEN

THE IMPOSSIBLE GIRL: THE PROS AND CONS

It seems almost redundant to claim that Clara is a most unusual companion. Not only are all companions unique in their own way - but the Doctor has traveled with a plethora of highly distinctive characters throughout the years.  This is the same man who has befriended a savage descended from astronauts, an immortal intergalactic con-man and a rebel Alzarian math genius. In Doctor Who, unusual companions are a dime a dozen!

But Clara really does "take the cake" when it comes to odd companions. Her Impossible Girl story arch makes her different from any other companion before her. Other companions have known two incarnations of the Doctor because they have been around when a regeneration happens. Some have come back for anniversary specials and stories in the New Series that implied non-existent romances and have gotten to know multiple Doctors. But, because of events that took place in the very temporally-paradoxical Name of the Doctor, Clara got to know the Doctor throughout all of his lives. In some ways, she is the Ultimate Companion. Which more-than-justifies the lengths the Doctor goes to when he tries to save her in Hell Bent. No one knows him as well as Clara. And he would hate to lose that sort of connection in his life. And this is what makes the whole dynamic that these two develop in the later seasons as enjoyable to watch as it is. There is a very special, unique bond between the Doctor and this companion - and we love that.

But what about before we knew who The Impossible Girl truly was? When she was a woman the Doctor was just obsessively chasing down to find out the truth about her? It was certainly a fascinating story that we all wanted to get to the bottom of. And we were provided with an intensely-satisfactory resolution to the mystery that allowed us a glimpse into one of the most pivotal moments in the Doctor's life and some super-cool previous incarnation cameo appearances.

But the mystery of The Impossible Girl also worked at the expense of Clara's character, in general. Attention that the writers should have devoted to the character's development, more times than others, was spent on just building up intrigue about who she really was. In some ways, we must congratulate Jenna Louise Coleman for finding certain traits and latching on to them as hard she could. Had she not done that - when questions regarding The Impossible Girl were finally answered - she could've ended up being a pretty damned flat and boring individual. Instead, she became a fully-fledged three dimensional character that we grew more deeply in love with because her "gimmick" had now been kicked out of the way and we could get to know her properly.


STARTING POINT

A specific section will be devoted to the "schisms" of Clara later in the essay. This way, our starting point can be with the proper Clara Oswald. The Clara we meet at the beginning of The Bells of St. John - not the Clara or Oswyn that we meet in The Snowmen or Dalek Asylum. But we must still acknowledge that these stories did happen before since they influence the Doctor's motivations for choosing Clara as a companion.

Which means, of course, that Clara has the most unusual of introductions. Never before has the Doctor been actively searching for a specific person to become his latest companion. In some ways, he is being almost unfair to Clara. Other companions were offered all of Time and Space because he liked who they were and wanted to spend time with them. But Clara is invited aboard because he wants to study her and unravel her mystery. Perhaps, on some level, she senses this and this is why she always chooses to keep one foot in her normal life and one in the TARDIS. There are probably more obvious reasons for this choice, though. We'll come to that in a bit.

Again, because the Impossible Girl storyline gets in the way of things, Clara's character traits aren't quite as easy to pick up on. This, however, is not entirely bad writing. Too often, when a new companion is introduced, their various quirks are almost shoved down our throat. We know the Doctor will choose them to travel with him because their personalities seem so much larger than anyone else's in the story. At least, with Clara, her traits are more subtly presented.


WHAT MAKES UP CLARA OSWALD?

Clara admits to her most prominent attribute in Time of the Doctor when she is stuck in the truth field on Trenzalore. A "bossy control freak" she calls herself - which, vaguely, brings to mind a moment when another favorite companion of mine refers to herself as a "mouth on legs". Unlike Tegan, however, Clara does not seem obvious in this character flaw. We see only hints of it in the Bells of St. John. She is a tad bossy with the kids she takes care of. And the fact that she does choose to keep "one foot in the world and one in the TARDIS" shows a desire to maintain control, too  (yes, Rory and Amy do something similar but only after they've been travelling with the Doctor for a while - Clara does right in her first story).

Perhaps the main reason why we don't see much of the bossy control freak is because the Eleventh Doctor is well-accustomed to being bossed around by the female companion. We're all, sort of, used to seeing Amy and River Song telling Eleven what to do. So when Clara comes along and slides quite comfortably into the same role, it doesn't seem to jar so much. It's only after the Doctor regenerates and has an equally-domineering personality that we really see the true Clara coming out.

A trait that we do see more clearly is Clara's skills with children. Her desire to take care of Artie and Angie after they lose their mother even though she was about to travel the world shows the tremendous care she has for kids. The fact that she's, actually, pretty good at handling them is also clearly on display in her first story. Things will get a bit rocky at the end of The Crimson Horror and we will become seriously skeptical about her duty of care for the kids in Nightmare In Silver but those were pretty exceptional circumstances. Overall, Clara feels a strong bond for children and works well with them. This will eventually lead to the career choice she makes by Day of the Doctor.

We are also given a glimpse of her third strongest character attribute in Bells of St. John. Clara encourages Artie to read because she is well-read, herself. In general, Clara Oswald favors intellectualism over a lot of other things. Her impassioned speech to Madame Vastra in Deep Breath about the only poster she ever kept on her wall best re-enforces this idea. But we see just a hint of this in her opening tale. No doubt, this will also influence her choice to become a teacher too.


THE USUAL JOURNEY WITH AN UNUSUAL SECOND STORY

Once established as the new companion, Clara tends to go the usual route that a New Series companion takes in her early travels. Very quickly, we see certain stock plot devices presenting themselves' that seem to happen with all new female companions. In Rings of Akhaten, she ends up saving the day after the Doctor's plans have failed. Amy does something similar in The Beast Below and Rose does the same thing in her very first story. There's also the whole "companion undertaking a dangerous mission on her own to impress the Doctor" moment in Cold War that we saw Martha do in Evolution of the Daleks (she figures out why the Doctor gives her his psychic paper and almost gets killed on the Empire State Building) and Amy attempts in Vampires of Venice (posing as a potential student for Signora Calvierri's academy). The Doctor even intentionally makes a trip to better investigate something strange about Clara in Hide. He did the same for Amy in Rebel Flesh/The Almost People. Like the Impossible Girl storyline, having Clara go through the stereotypical "becoming a fully-fledged companion" process gets in the way of being able to see her character shine through. She comes perilously close to becoming the first generic companion of New Who.

Fortunately, Clara is put through a very unusual process in Rings of Akhaten that allows us to see her in a slightly different light than a lot of other companions. In his quest to see who she really is, the Doctor travels into Clara's past and we get to witness some of her childhood. This is not unusual in and of itself. We catch a similar glimpse of Rose as a kid in the First Series with Father's Day. We learn quite a bit about young Amy, too. What's impressive about the childhood revelations in Rings of Akhaten is that Clara is forced very early on in her travels with the Doctor to let go of some very heavy pain in her past. The death of her mother continues to deeply haunt her until she is forced to give away her wedding ring to save the life of a girl. This is the beginning of her journey to be at peace with her loss. This journey reaches its ultimate fruition as she feeds the leaf she's kept pressed in her book to Grandfather and destroys him with it. Here, at last, she's able to come to terms with losing her mother. Never has a companion been put through such a heavy transformation so early on in her travels (well, Nyssa, went through some pretty heavy stuff in her first few stories). This definitely gets us to attach to Clara in a stronger way and helps to offset some of the damage being done to her character.

Rings of Akhaten also helps to cement the idea that Clara is good with kids. She does a great job of comforting Merry Galel throughout her entire ordeal. We also see the beginning of the whole "TARDIS hating Clara" arc that will continue to develop in stories like Hide and Journey to the Center of the TARDIS.


THINGS GET A BIT GENERIC TIL WE REACH NIGHTMARE IN SILVER

From Cold War to Crimson Horror, we really don't get to see much of Clara's character being brought to the forefront. She's more about story arcs than she is about personality development. Her ability to die and resurrect is the subject of significant discussion in stories like Journey to the Center of the TARDIS and, most particularly, The Crimson Horror. Journey and Hide also continue to re-enforce the idea that the TARDIS doesn't like her. But, the bossy control freak who's very smart and good with kids doesn't really get seen much in this run of stories. It's all about continuing to hint at the Impossible Girl Mystery.

We do get one nice bit of foreshadowing when Clara finds the book on The History of the Time Wars. She seems to learn some significant secrets about the Doctor's past. Even learns his name. But then that all gets tucked away in the back of her head to be accessed again, later. She'll go through a similar process in the future.

Oddly enough, the less popular stories of the second half of Series 7 seem to be the ones that do the best of showing off Clara as a person rather than just an enigma that needs to be solved. Clara's bossiness is clearly on display all over the place in Nightmare In Silver. In some ways, it can't be helped that she becomes more domineering. Artie and Angie have her over a barrel and she's doing her best to try to maintain some kind of degree of authority over them. So she really tries to rule them with an iron fist the whole time that they're on Hedgewick's World.

We also see her assuming the false title the Doctor gives her with all-too-much comfort. She starts bossing around the penance brigade without so much as batting an eyelash. Another sign that being in charge is something she might actually relish.

But the biggest indicator of just how much Clara can throw her weight around happens when the Doctor must reveal to her that Artie and Angie have fallen under the influence of the Cybermen. Any companion would have shown the fury that she blasts the Time Lord with when confronted with this. But she also orders the Doctor to fix things in a way we've seldom seen any companion do. She really is the boss and he is the bowing and scraping servant. Again, she seems far too at ease with being in a commanding position. She is definitely someone used to getting her way.


CLARA REVEALED, AT LAST!

And then, finally, we reach Name of the Doctor and the mystery of Clara is unveiled. As I've already mentioned, I find it to be a very satisfactory resolution to the whole arc. What's more enjoyable, however, is that the whole thing is now out of the way and we can really start to see Clara for who she really is.  

In much the same way as Rings of Akhaten gets Clara to win our heart, the revelation of who The Impossible Girl is also moves us deeply. Clara makes a huge sacrifice to ensure the Doctor has the life he's meant to have. Thanks to the things we've already seen her do in Rings of Akhaten, we don't find this act to be something that is beyond her. Which is, perhaps, another of Clara's most prominent traits - she is willing to give of herself in ways that most people wouldn't.

Day of the Doctor quickly shows a change in dynamic between Eleven and Clara. Her memories of the Doctor's past seem to work in a similar way to Rory's 2 000 years of waiting for Amy. It's something that is shut off most of the time. But, ultimately, she still knows the Doctor better than anyone. Which is why she affects him so deeply during that climactic scene where he's about to unleash the Moment. When she tells him to "be the Doctor" - no one knows better than her what that entails. We see, now, why the whole Impossible Girl storyline had to be created. The Doctor needed someone like Clara to be present during the most important decision of his lives. A lesser companion might not have had that same level of impact.

Even minor throwaway dialogue like: "I can tell by that sad look in your eyes" continues to insinuate the deepness of the bond that exists between them. Clara really does know the Doctor inside and out. This will change their relationship forever.

Which is why her reluctance to accept his new incarnation at the end of Time of the Doctor doesn't almost make sense. She should know that each new face is still the same man. But she also knows that the man she's been travelling with will change radically. Each incarnation takes its personality in its own direction. And Clara would know this better than anyone. She has seen that each new face has its own special set of character nuances. So she understands that she is losing the man she has become so attached to. So her dislike of the new Doctor isn't totally ludicrous. It has an internal logic, of sorts.

And as we move on to Part Two of this essay, we'll examine how she adapts to this new man....


SPECIAL FOOTNOTE:
THE SCHISMS OF CLARA

The central crux of the whole Impossible Girl story arc was that the Doctor was meeting various "Clara-like" beings who were dying and returning again later in his timestream without remembering what had gone on in their last life. Trying to figure out how this was happening was what eventually led the Doctor (quite literally) to Clara Oswald's doorstep. I have a silly fan theory about these different schisms of Clara Oswald.

In my essay, I discuss the four most prominent character traits of Clara Oswald:

1. Bossy control freak
2. Good with kids
3. Intellectual
4. Sacrificing

I would suggest that schisms of Clara work similarly to the incarnations of the Doctor. Different traits become more strongly emphasized in different bodies.


OSWYN OSWALD (Asylum of the Daleks):

She is obviously Clara's sense of intellectualism turned up to its highest notch. She is not just smart - she is more than happy to show off just how smart she is. Of course, some of this is due to Dalek enhancements. But the Daleks don't, generally, perform an alteration like this unless they see that the human is unusually intelligent. Had she not been so clever, they would've just allowed the nano-technology to do the same thing to her as it did to the rest of the crew of the ship she was on.


CLARA OSWYN OSWALD (The Snowmen)

The most obvious trait that has been "punched up" in this schism is her ability with children. She is a beloved nanny who shows the utmost care for the kids she looks after. We also see a certain level of bossiness out of her in the way she talks to her employer out-of-turn, sometimes. Or the way she persistently pursues the Doctor at the beginning of the story because he doesn't want to talk to her anymore but she doesn't feel the conversation is over, yet.


Of course, both schisms show that final trait of self-sacrifice quite clearly. Both die as they attempt to perform a greater good. Also interesting to note that the Clara schisms lead double-lives just like the true Clara Oswald does. True Clara Oswald travels with the Doctor but still takes care of Artie and Angie  (and, in later seasons, will work as a teacher at Coal Hill School), Snowmen Clara Oswald is a nanny and a barmaid. Oswyn Oswald, of course, was living a double-life without knowing it. But she was still a marooned entertainment director for The Alaska and a Dalek at the same time!


So, in many ways, those scant character traits that aren't that well-explored during her adventures with Doctor Eleven are, at least, shown off more prominently in her schisms. In many ways, it's a bit of foreshadowing that gets us to know the Clara we're going to meet in The Bells of St. John a little bit better....



Stay Tuned for Part Two where we explore Clara's journeys with Doctor Twelve.... 



What are these Progressive Doctor Essays of which I speak in the intro? Check out these links: 

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/02/analytical-progressive-doctors-part-1.html

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/04/progressive-doctors-2-first-doctor-part.html

BOOK OF LISTS: 5 THINGS THAT PROVE CLASSIC WHO AND NEW WHO REALLY AREN'T THAT DIFFERENT

So we're near the end of August and I still don't have a new post ready to go up (I like to put up, at least, two of them a month). I have been working on what will become a new series that will work similarly to my Progressive Doctor posts but it will be with companions - but I'm just not going to have it ready before the end of August. 

Fortunately, I keep a backlog for just such occasions. This one was written during a time when I first discovered click-bait sites that dealt with either Doctor Who or Sci-Fi, in general. A lot of them were taking open submissions and I thought it might be fun to give them something. So I wrote a few articles that enumerate things - since that is the trend for these types of articles. Ultimately, I decided click-bait articles are just too damned annoying and never submitted. But these articles were still lying around so I figured I'd finally post one. 

It was originally written at the end of Series 7 but I've tried to update a bit 

FIVE THINGS THAT PROVE THAT CLASSIC WHO AND NEW WHO REALLY AREN'T THAT DIFFERENT

You hear those musty, old, cantankerous geeks say it all the time:  "I don't watch the New Series. It's not at all like the original show.  It's not True Doctor Who."   And, while we can't deny that the format of the show has changed, post-2005 Who has made serious efforts to stay true to its roots as much as possible.   Here are 5 common objections these cranky old fans make and a buttload of examples that negate their ideas.  

5:   It doesn't acknowledge its past.   

This one strikes me as the most ludicrous.    But you hear the older fans say it.    Because, every once in a while we have things happening in the New Series that clash, slightly, with continuity established in Old Who.  

            

The fact of the matter is, New Who goes to painstaking lengths to reference things that have occurred in those first 26 seasons.   The best example of this would be the Macra returning in Gridlock.   Here is a completely obscure alien monster from a late-60s story that only has a few scenes from it that are still intact.   Nearly the entire story was deleted from the BBC archives during a purge in the early 70s.    But RTD knew that us hardcores remembered the Macra and he gave them back to us.   A gesture of love from a super-fan...      

            

But there are so many other instances of this respect for the past: the Doctor mentionning the Sense-Sphere in Planet of the Ood.  Kate Stewart throwing a Cybermen head from The Invasion at the foot of the latest Cybermen invasion force in Dark Water (the Cybermen are also emerging from St. Paul's Cathedral). Even in Time of the Doctor, he makes a beautiful, hasty, non-intrusive reference to The Five Doctors regarding where he acquired the Seal of the High Council.    A reference that, at the same time, signposted to fans which Classic story they could go watch that gives an example of where another Time Lord was offered a new regeneration cycle. 

 

The show, if anything, references its past a little too much, sometimes.  But the fan love is nice to see.

4:   The TARDIS is too steerable

"In Old Who," these curmudgeons groan, "the TARDIS never went where it was meant to go.    The Doctor was always ending up at the wrong place.    Nowadays, it always goes exactly where he wants it to."  

            

They are right.  In very, very, very, very Old Who, the Doctor could never get the TARDIS to go where he wanted it to.  Nearly the first two seasons of the show dealt with the Doctor trying to get two schoolteachers from 1963 back to London in their proper time.   In the end, he never actually succeeded as Ian and Barbara have to use another more accurate time machine to get home. 

            

But if you watch the Classic Series carefully, the Doctor's navigational skills get better with age.   By the time he hits his Seventh Incarnation, he's getting to his intended destination almost every time.   And the TARDIS does get pretty erratic again as the show returns in 2005.   Just look at what the Doctor accidentally did to poor Rose in Aliens of London because his coordinates were a bit off.  It's my guess that the TARDIS took some serious damage in the Time Wars that made it difficult to pilot, again, for a bit.   But that the Doctor is smoothing out those creases as the show progresses.  Just as he did in the old series.  

3:   The Doctor's dress-sense is too modern

Yes, I was as shocked as anyone else when the first pictures of Eccleston's Doctor were released.   The Doctor in jeans and a leather jacket?!     I couldn't believe it.   But then, the idea also made sense.   New Who did need to be as accessible as possible in its earliest days.  

            

But we've been seeing a gradual progression in the costumes that seems to be getting back to the Edwardian influence that affected most of the Doctor's sartorial tastes from days of old.  Tennant, at least, went back to wearing something a bit more formal.   Smith's Doctor was always getting berated for the anachronistic choice of a bow tie.   And, as his seasons wore on, the tweed blazer got dropped for a look that would fit right in with the clothes the Classic Doctors wore.  Okay, he still wears his pants with the cuffs rolled up - but those kind of quirky costume choices are actually, very much, in keeping with what the Doctor does with his outfits.

Doctor Twelve certainly set the internet ablaze when he started wearing T-shirts and hoodies for a bit. But, most of the time, his gear is looking pretty classical, too. Several observations have been made about the resemblance his coats bear to the way Pertwee dressed. And how can we forget the Hartnell-esque trousers that he wore at the beginning of Series 9?!   

            

No, he'll probably never wear a question-mark-covered pullover ever again.   But some would say he never should!

2:  The special effects are too good

It's funny how this is meant to be a criticism.   Like it's a bad thing that we don't have to go through the last 10 minutes of Tom Baker's first story ever again (try to feel any kind of real connection to the tension and drama of the final moments of Episode Four of Robot - it's just not possible!).   

            

Personally, I hated it when the Classic Series' poor budget shone through.   It caused me to drop my suspension of disbelief rather than see some kind of cute charm about the show.    But I think what these fans are trying to insinuate is that strong visuals have taken the place of good dialogue.  

            

If that's the case, then why is it that some of our strongest memories of the New Series are the amazing monologues the Doctor has recited?   One of the most memorable ones took place within the first 20 minutes of the very first episode.  You know the one.   Where the Doctor tells Rose about how he can feel the Turn of the Universe while everyone else can't?    But it's not like that's the only time we've gotten a monologue like that.   Who can forget that moment in The Pandorica Opens? Or the Doctor stopping everything at the end of Death In Heaven to rant about being an idiot with a box?  We even get the incredible "Take it, baby" speech in Rings of Akhetan: a story that is not even all that well-liked by a lot of fandom - but the monologue still receives high praise.  

1:  The Doctor has a love-life

This one kills me.   Because, if you go way back to the very first season of the show, the Doctor actually gets engaged in one of the stories!    Yes, it happens through a cultural misunderstanding.   But the fact of the matter is, the Doctor is flirting with this woman before it happens and is getting even more affectionate with her, afterwards.  

            

The choice to make the Doctor so avuncular happened later in the Series.   Mainly because they started having him travel alone with all these hot women and they wanted to firmly establish that the Doctor wasn't some sort of letch that was using the ability to travel through all of Time and Space as a way to impress the babes.   

            

But, even in New Who, the Doctor's interest in "gettin' it on" is pretty limited.    Most of the time, it's still women who are trying to hit on him while he's just trying to go about on his adventures.   Even when the Doctor does seem to get a relationship going with someone, it's painfully awkward.   Half the time that he romances River Song is because of the timey whimey nature of their love for each other.   She's used to a future version of him who is more comfortable in his affections.   So as she meets him in his past, she is expecting him to have some ability to be socially-graceful with a woman he's interested in.   The Doctor is just falling into those expectations rather than actually being the sort of Cassanova that oldschool fans keep railing against.   To me, this is another example of a slow progression that is being built into the character that reflects on what happened in the Classic Series.  Rather than a harsh about-face that denies important events that went on before the series returned in 2005.   

This idea of progression is really the crux of my whole debate.    Doctor Who does not ignore its past.    But it has developed a future.   A future that does not rely on the character being exactly the same over and over for another fifty years.  But, instead, let's him grow.   Again, something that is in keeping with the ideas of Classic Who, too.   The character frequently evolved and changed in his first 26 years - there's no reason that should stop, now.  

            

The Doctor keeps growing.   That's a fact that means the show will change in style and tone throughout the years.  I think the real problem is a certain sector of fandom just doesn't feel like growing up with the show.

         

BOOK OF LISTS: TRAITS YOU NEED TO BECOME A RECURRING DOCTOR WHO VILLAINESS

While New Who tends to do a fairly decent job of creating competent and respectable female characters, this was not always the case. The further back we go in the show's history, the more blatant the sexist issues become. Generally, we look at the way female companions were treated to find the best examples of misogyny. But we see a whole new form of sexism as we consider the other end of the spectrum.

Before we pick on the show too badly, let's point out that they had a legitimate villainess right in the first season (Kala in Keys Of Marinus). So the show was, at least, able to show women as more than just helpless victims. They, too, could be conniving manipulators advancing their own evil agendas. This was not an exclusively male trait. As the show moved along, we saw other villainesses appear along the way: Maaga the Drahvin,  Kaftan from Tomb of the Cybermen, Madeline Issigri in The Space Pirates - to name a few. There is still a greater abundance of male villains, but strong female characters of a dubious moral persuasion do crop up quite regularly.

Here's where we must point a finger at both the New and Classic Series: when it comes to recurring villainesses - the count is woefully low. While male baddies have been brought back on any number of occasions (for God's sake - even Lytton got two stories!) - this is hardly the case for women. In New Who - we've had only three "bad gals" make a return. Which, after nine seasons, is pretty bad statistics. Classic Who is even more embarrassing. In the Twenty-Six years that it was on our screens, only one - that's right, one - female baddie ever came back to fight the Doctor again.

Just for fun, I decided to watch all the Who stories that involved a recurring female baddie (it didn't take long). Using my over-analytical eye, I noticed a few patterns. Certain consistent traits that existed in all or most of them. Let's look at a few:


THE ACTUAL VILLAINESSES:

Before we start listing the traits, let's look at who the actual recurring villainesses are. Statistics concerning this essay will be, in some ways, almost misleading. I will use terms like 50% or 75% but that will really only represent 2 or 3 characters. Again, the lack of recurring evil females is almost embarrassing.

Classic Who:
The Rani

New Who:
The Lady Cassandra
Madam Kovarian
Missy

SPECIAL NOTE: If I counted evil women who had fought the Doctor in an unseen adventure, this number would increase slightly (particularly in the Seventh Doctor era). But it seems like a bit of a cheat to do that. Already, I feel like I'm cheating a bit with Missy since she was a male up until this current incarnation. So I'd rather not mess with the study even more. The main stipulation was that the villainess had to be seen in, at least, two televised stories. Previous clashes that are only referred to but not actually witnessed in a transmitted episode just don't count.



MINOR TRAITS

These are traits that, at least, 50% of the villainesses had.

SHE NEEDS TO BE A TIME LORD

It's fairly obvious who we're talking about, here. Both the Rani and Missy hail from Gallifrey and probably, even, studied at the Academy at the same time the Doctor did. But it does say something about the sexism behind some of the writing. There are all kinds of male characters who come back who are just normal guys. But for a female to make a return appearance, she frequently has to come from the same race as the Doctor. She needs to be more special than just a normal human being.

SHE NEEDS TO HAVE CAMEOS

I liked this trait. Because it meant that the villainess was, technically, in more than just two stories. Although she wasn't in the other stories long, it was still nice to see Missy and Madame Kovarian popping up every few episodes throughout series Six and Eight. It was a very nice touch that built up our expectations for the character and made us all the more intrigued with her.

SHE IS DISPASSIONATE IN WHAT SHE DOES

Of the two villainesses that are like this, the Rani is the best example. It's frequently cited in both her stories that she is coldly logical and devoid of all emotions. We do see brief moments of rage or a perverse enjoyment for some act of cruelty. But, for the most part, the description is accurate. Much of the same can be said for Madame Kovarian. She is dedicated to her cause more than she is gleeful about being mean. With both of these villainesses, it's about work rather than pleasure. This does mean that we do see both Missy and the Lady Cassandra taking lots of relish in what they do. But, when we consider the percentage of recurring male villains that are so quietly methodical (probably only around 20%), it seems that returning female baddies are more prone to undertaking their agendas with detachment rather than getting sadistic about the whole thing.



MAJOR TRAITS:

These traits are seen in, at least, 75% of the villainesses

SHE'S NOT ALL THAT BAD

By my definition, a good baddie is totally out for themselves and just wants to rule over all others. And, of course, they never repent. But if we look at our four evil females, three of them have quite a few redeeming qualities. Madame Kovarian is more like Professor Stahlman from Inferno. Not so much an evil person as someone who believes they're doing good but is going about it in the wrong way. She believes the Doctor must be killed before he reaches Trenzalore. It's for the good of the Universe. So she's more altruistic than she is, downright, rotten. In both her stories, thus far, Missy has done some terrible things. She kills with little or no reservation. But she's, easily, the worst incarnation of the Master when it comes to being self-serving. After building an army that could overtake the Universe, she hands it over to the Doctor. When we see her again in Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar, she's actually trying to save the Doctor. Hardly the acts of a true villain, really. She's almost a good guy. And then there's the Lady Cassandra: her villainy stems from the fact that she is trying to become immortal and will harm whoever she needs to in order to accomplish it. But, in her final moments, she accepts her death and provides New Earth with a very heartfelt ending as she redeems herself, slightly. The only villainess that stays true to herself is the Rani. We never see her relent in her selfish ambitions. The other three seem to fluctuate in their resolve to always pursue the Darker Path.

SHE IS EXQUISITELY CRUEL TO THE FEMALE COMPANION

Yes, baddies all try to hurt female companions from time to time. It's part of being an effective antagonist in Doctor Who. But villainesses will often go out of their way to make life hell for women who travel with the Doctor. It's almost as if they're jealous of the attention she gets from the Doctor and must make them pay for it. Madame Kovarian is probably the best for this. She traps Amy in an iron lung for several long months without her even knowing it and then steals her child from her. Lady Cassandra isn't much nicer to Rose, though. In her first story, she is furious that Rose claims to be the last surviving human. She throws her into a room and has her spiders deactivate the sun filter. In New Earth, she possesses her body for most of the episode. Witch's Familiar is just one long torture session for poor 'ole Clara. Missy trusses her up, handcuffs her so she can be menaced by a Dalek, tosses her down a hole and almost tricks the Doctor into killing her. The only villainess that isn't too incredibly cruel to a female companion is the Rani. Although some might say her impersonation of Mel is the most horrible thing anyone has ever done.



UNIVERSAL TRAITS:

And, finally, we have traits that all villainesses possess.

SHE NEEDS A RECURRING GIMMICK AND/OR GADGET

The Rani seems to demonstrate this one the most obviously. In both stories that she's in, we see her employing the art of disguise and creating some sort of weird, over-contrived minefield. That's her shtick. Her "signature", if you will. The Lady Cassandra has to use her robot spiders and is, of course, obsessed with plastic surgery.. Madame Kovarian likes flesh avatars and always has the sinister eyepatch. Missy has the cell phonish contraption that shoots lazers and loves for people to say or do something pleasant before she has to kill them. This is something we see a lot in recurring male baddies, too. It's the kind of thing that every returning villain needs. But the villainesses seem to lean on their gimmicks more heavily. There are stories, for instance, where Ainley's Master doesn't get out the tissue compressor (Survival) and Davros doesn't really seem to have any kind of recurring shtick (perhaps the Daleks are his shtick?). So this trait isn't entirely necessary for the boys - but it's there in heavy doses for the girls.


Those are just a few things I observed about recurring villainesses in Who. It is a fun little study to undertake. You may want to try it, yourself, since there are only eight stories that you really need to watch.

ANOTHER SPECIAL NOTE: It is interesting that fandom, sometimes, likes to accuse Moffat of being sexist. His era actually has the highest concentration of recurring female villains. It's only two, of course. But it's still better than any other period of the show.

FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES - WHAT'S GOING ON WITH GALLIFREY, THESE DAYS? - THE SEQUEL

We return you, now, to our investigation into what exactly has been going on with Gallifrey since the Time Wars. There were some major continuity glitches that we tried to reconcile regarding discrepancies between The End of Time and Day of the Doctor. But there's still some stuff that needs to be dealt with in the other two stories involving Gallifrey that have been produced since the 50th Anniversary Special. Let's see what we can sort out...


PART 2: ESCAPING THE STASIS CUBE... 

As we reach the end of Day of the Doctor, we see that much of what we learnt about Gallifrey since the Time Wars has been based on the Doctor remembering things incorrectly. On the day that Arcadia fell, the Doctor believed that he had used The Moment to wipe out both Time Lords and Daleks, alike. He did this because the Time Wars had reached a point where if its two central combatants weren't destroyed, the whole Universe might go down in flames. It was a tough decision to make - but the Doctor had no real choice. What he did has haunted him, since. By his eleventh incarnation, it wasn't hanging over him quite as strongly. But the guilt was still there.

But he makes the most wonderful of discoveries at the end of the 50th Anniversary Special. It turns out that crossing his own timestream multiple times over can affect his memory (which makes sense - stories like The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors would've played out far differently if you didn't have a rule like that) and what he thinks happened during the Fall of Arcadia isn't what really occurred. He was sure that, in his War Doctor incarnation, he had used The Moment to end the Time Wars. In truth, he had been joined by his tenth and eleventh incarnations and they had come up with a different solution. Using a stasis cube, the Doctor(s) froze the entire planet in a single moment of time. Which caused Gallifrey to disappear and made the Daleks destroy themselves' in their own cross-fire. To the rest of the Universe (and the Doctor, himself), the Time Lords and Daleks were completely obliterated, But, in truth, Gallifrey had been saved. Even a few of the Daleks had survived. The Time Wars did not at all end the way we had been led to believe.

THE MEMORY CHEATS

There is just the smallest of quibbles that we should address, here. What, exactly, does the Doctor remember between stealing The Moment and hunting down the Nestene in Rose? Does he have some sort of false memory where he recalls pushing the Big Red Button and destroying Gallifrey that changes into the truth once his eleventh body has experienced the events of Day of the Doctor? It is a workable theory, I suppose. We've seen time work that way before. Events flow in a certain way until a time traveler goes back and changes them. Then everything gets remembered in a whole different manner. Father's Day would be a good example of this. It may be the simplest way to explain the situation.

But I'm more inclined to think differently. The rules of multi-incarnation adventures seem to indicate that whatever happens when several versions of the same Time Lord meet up isn't remembered at all until the last incarnation has the experience. The whole incident is just a gap in the Time Lord's memory.

For instance, in The Five Doctors, the Doctor does not recall going to the Death Zone at all until he finally shows up there in his fifth body with Tegan and Turlough. Only once his previous incarnations are returned to their proper time and place does it all come flooding back to him. Which, as I said in a previous parenthetical statement, makes sense. Otherwise, certain incarnations would've made very different choices during the adventure. If nothing else, there would've been no argument when Borusa claims immortality from Rassilon. Because the Doctor would've already known what was going to happen to the corrupt Lord President when he did. He would've seen it happen in his first incarnation so all future incarnations would've remembered it.

Of course - if it's just two incarnations meeting - things don't, necessarily, play out in the same manner. Both The Two Doctors and Time Crash seem to indicate otherwise. In The Two Doctors, a drug that is used on the second incarnation affects his memory - which is why Doctor Six doesn't recall what happened to him when the Sontarans abducted him at Space Station J7. And in Time Crash, the Doctor flat-out remembers what happened when his fifth incarnation briefly encountered his tenth.

So, according to the rules of multi-incarnation encounters, the War Doctor should just have no recollection at all of what happened between him leaping through the time fissure with a fez and him leaving the Under Gallery in his TARDIS. The memories of that whole experience don't come back to him until his eleventh body goes through it. That's what seems to be implied, at least.

The problem is this: wouldn't the Doctor be concerned about the fact that he has no proper recollection of the most horrible atrocity he ever committed? He knows he took The Moment to the old barn he used to love to hide in when he was a kid. But he doesn't actually recall pushing the Big Red Button and killing the Daleks and  the Time Lords. He must assume that's what happened since Gallifrey is gone. But he doesn't actually remember it, properly. At least, according to what's established in Day of the Doctor, that would be the case. So shouldn't this make him suspicious?

Imagine you go visit your best friend. You knock on the door to his home and he answers. Then, suddenly, there's just a blank moment in your memory. The next thing you recall is standing over your best friend's body with a bloody knife in your hand. To all intents and purposes, it would seem you just murdered your best friend. But, since you have no proper recollection of the moment, would you just turn yourself in to the authorities and serve the time? Of course not! Because you don't remember what exactly happened, you would want to investigate the whole thing as thoroughly as possible. So why doesn't the Doctor do this?

There are various explanations, of course. It could be that his survivor's guilt makes him reluctant to delve into it. Or that his use of The Moment is a time-locked event so he can't go near it, anyway. I'm more inclined to think it has something to do with the fact that he regenerates right after he leaves the Under Gallery. The Doctor interprets his sudden absence of memory as being the result of post-regeneration amnesia. Something that has been known to happen to him from time-to-time.

So, War Doctor shifts into the Ninth. Ninth gives his shaved head a shake and realizes he's forgotten some important stuff that happened just before he arrived but chalks it up to a regeneration side-effect. After a quick change of clothes and a TARDIS re-model, he detects a warp-shunt to 21st Century Earth by the Nestene Consciousness and decides it needs to be investigated (after all, he knows from two previous experiences that the Nestene Consciousness will not be kind to Earth if he doesn't check into it).

From there, the New Series rolls on....



TIME OF THE DOCTOR AND HEAVEN SENT/HELL BENT - HOW DID THEY HAPPEN?

So the Eleventh Doctor has his triumphant dream sequence where he's surrounded by all his other incarnations and a bunch of dry ice. He and Clara then resume their arrangement where she travels with the Doctor intermittently but also lives out "a normal life" on contemporary Earth. The Doctor eventually buys a Cyber-head and christens it Handles and Clara lies to her family about having a boyfriend. And we come to the Eleventh Doctor's swansong.

Time of the Doctor, for my money, is a great little regeneration tale that successfully answers the bulk of the questions that started presenting themselves' throughout Eleventh Doctor Era (What is the Silence? Why did the TARDIS blow up in Pandorica Opens? etc...).  But it also seems to contradict what we just saw happen in Day of the Doctor. As we reach the season finale of Series 9, those contradictions seem to grow even larger.

To all intents and purposes, it would appear that the Doctor had sealed Gallifrey into a stasis cube and that it was frozen in time.  He doesn't know exactly where the planet is, now. So he needs to go and find it. It seemed (to me, at least) that he would also need to unfreeze Gallifrey once he did rediscover it.

The Zygon plan in Day of the Doctor re-enforces this idea. Once placed inside the paintings, the Zygons are trapped there. They seemed to have arranged some sort of timer on their stasis cube which will release them some centuries later when Earth is better developed. But there is no way they can take themselves' out of stasis until the appropriate time arrives. I had assumed Gallifrey would be in a similar situation. They cannot extricate themselves' from the stasis cube. They are frozen in time until the Doctor finds them and, somehow, unfreezes them.

So imagine my surprise when I learn it's the Time Lords sending a message to the Universe through one of the remaining cracks in time caused by the Doctor's exploding TARDIS. How are they doing this? The entire planet should be trapped in a single moment of time - unable to do a thing until they are released from the stasis cube. How can they be sending this message? It's even more amazing how they manage to re-locate the Crack at the end of the story and send the Doctor a whole buttload of regeneration energy that gives him a new regeneration cycle and can also take out a giant Dalek mothership.

My surprise does not end there, however. I grows even bigger as the events of Heaven Sent/Hell Bent unfold. Still being trapped in a pocket dimension in Time of the Doctor could make a sort of sense to me. That pocket dimension is the stasis cube, itself. The Time Lords have, somehow, managed to restore a time flow of some sort within the cube. It is implied in the Eleventh's final tale that they can pull themselves' through the Crack in Time and return to our universe - they're just trying to find the right place in Time and Space to do that. Which is what triggers the whole Question That Must Be Answered story arch. But it was still just a bit shocking to see the Time Lords back in action at the end of the Universe in the Series 9 finale. I'm still boggled as to how this was accomplished. How do you unfreeze yourself in time? You're stuck, right? You can't move! So how do you get out of that?!

The simple answer is that these are Time Lords. God-like beings who can do just-about anything. Particularly when they're all gathered together on their home planet. They have knowledge and resources that can enable them to tackle any problem. In a lot of ways, we don't need any more of an answer than that. The fact that these details have never been revealed in the show actually adds credence to their powers.

How did they do it? We don't know. But they're Time Lords - they can do anything!

And that's almost enough for me. I do like that I don't think we'll ever be given a specific explanation on how the Time Lords broke out of their stasis cube. I'm pretty okay with that. But, I'm going to put forward a crazy theory, anyway!


THE UNSEAL OF THE HIGH COUNCIL

And so,, we return again to the hair-brained idea I established in my first half of this essay (http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/07/fixing-continuity-glitches-whats-going.html). Events in End of Time and Day of the Doctor happen out of sync with each other because the High Council of Time Lords have placed themselves' in a special "mini-continuum" that exists outside of regular time and space. For the sake of protection, they arranged for their pocket dimension to interact with our universe in a very special way. It pops ahead and behind in time at random intervals. And Time, itself, is constantly speeding up and slowing down within the continuum. This made the High Council near-impregnable to any attack the Daleks might be launching on Gallifrey. They were in their own special world. Unable to be touched by anyone.

Which means, of course, that the Doctor's plan to seal Gallifrey inside a stasis cube does not affect the High Council, either. Yes, the entire planet is frozen in time. But the High Council Timeline has its own unique relationship with the rest of Time and Space. Perhaps something as powerful as The Moment would have destroyed the special continuum had it actually been activated. But the Doctor's trick with the stasis cube would not have had that kind of influence. Essentially, we end up with a pocket universe within a pocket universe. But the inner pocket universe is isolated from the effects of the outer one.

So when the High Council next attempts to have contact with the outside world after the events of Day of the Doctor, they see what the Doctor has done (they might even be a bit impressed). They undo it but still remain outside the regular universe in the special dimension the Doctor created with the stasis cube. They want to return to our universe but know that could start the Time Wars back up. Using a Crack in Time as a breaching point, they create the whole arrangement that exists in Time of the Doctor. Which, in turn, creates a whole series of complications in the Doctor's life throughout his final incarnation. The fact that the Doctor is freely given a whole new regeneration cycle helps support this idea. The Five Doctors shows the High Council making a similar offer to the Master when he was at the end of his regeneration cycle. It would seem that the High Council is empowered to extend a Time Lord's lifespan if it so suits them.

When their plans to communicate with the Doctor through the Crack in Time on Trenzalore seem to have failed, the High Council must take other measures. Gallifrey must return to our dimension - that much is certain. They've been able to make that return since the High Council unfroze the rest of the planet but they are looking for a safe situation in which to do it. They decide that re-entering our Universe at a time when it is very near to dying out is the safest bet. More than likely, any race that was capable of challenging them to a war will either be extinct or are too busy trying to find a way of escaping the Final Cataclysm.

For now, this is where Gallifrey remains.




Okay, so that's what's up with Gallifrey, these days. Or, at least, that's how I've made sense of things. Missed the first installment but are too lazy to scroll up to that paragraph where I put in a link? Here it is, again: 

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/07/fixing-continuity-glitches-whats-going.html

Here's another interesting essay on the Time Wars written by the Great Adam Gobeski:

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/08/analytical-are-pivotal-moment-in.html

FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES: WHAT'S GOING ON WITH GALLIFREY, THESE DAYS?

PART ONE: GETTING DAY OF THE DOCTOR AND END OF TIME TO LINE UP

Those final minutes of Day of the Doctor are so triumphant, aren't they? All thirteen incarnations of the Doctor come rushing forward to seal Gallifrey in a stasis cube and save it from impending doom at the hands of the Daleks. Then, just a few minutes later, we get a gorgeous cameo from the Great Tom Baker telling the Matt Smith Doctor that he appears to have succeeded in saving his homeworld and that he ought to go out and find out where it is, now. After seven seasons of a Doctor being haunted by the guilt of almost committing genocide twice over, he gets the most perfect present on his anniversary: Gallifrey Stands.

Except, of course, that there's been a few niggly points that have been going on since this triumphant moment. Even in Day of the Doctor, some stuff didn't quite jibe with the last time we took a peak into Time Lord culture during the Time Wars. Forget the fact that things have made even less sense since Gallifrey was sealed in a stasis cube. Bottom line: the whole storyline with saving the Time Lords has been suffering from some major continuity glitches.

For the next few paragraphs, we're going to try to make sense of this.

Wish me luck.

THE MOMENT

As part of his present to the fans during the 50th anniversary, Moff allows us a glimpse into those mysterious Time Wars that we were never allowed to see much of. RTD offered us a similar gift as he and Tennant were bowing out back in 2009 with The End of Time - Part 1 and 2. In that particular tale, he's even nice enough to get Timothy Friggin' Dalton to play Rassilon, himself (although, to his credit, Moff got the equally stellar John Hurt to play the War Doctor). This is all magnificent stuff, of course. Fandom might question the quality of either of these stories, but the fact that we finally get to see the Time Wars in both of them is still a very nice treat.

Moff, however, tries to go one step further and includes a reference to The End of Time in his script just to give us a better sense of continuity. In some throwaway dialogue, the Time Lord General mentions that a plot by the High Council to save Gallifrey has failed. This seems to be referencing Rassilon's attempt to break out of the Time Lock using a link he created with the Master on 21st Century Earth during The End of Time. Again, it's a very nice gesture on Moffat's behalf to try to get these two stories to link in some way.

Except that the stories only line up so well. Which creates a whole series of continuity problems that I shall now vainly attempt to solve:

The first major one is created during that throwaway dialogue we just mentioned. The General states that the High Council have already failed in their plans. Then, moments later, he discovers that the War Doctor has broken into the Omega Vault and stolen The Moment. The theft of The Moment clearly happens after the High Council's plans have fallen to pieces. This becomes problematic because Rassilon asks about the Doctor at the beginning of Part 2 of The End of Time (midway through the High Council's attempt to break the Time Lock) and is informed that he is in possession of The Moment and could use it any time. Key plot points are not lining up, here. Something crucial that is discussed in The End of Time happens in Day of the Doctor at a time when the whole plot is meant to be over. It's not quite making sense.

The easiest solution might be that the High Council learnt of the Doctor's theft of The Moment sooner than the General did. But that still makes it pretty tough for the two timelines to run concurrently to each other. Which means we might require a more complex explanation.

It's my personal theory that, as the Daleks started their attack on Gallifrey, the High Council took extra precautions to protect themselves'. And it's those special measures that cause the lack of synchronicity between the two tales.

In those first few moments of Part Two of The End of Time, we see Rassilon striding through a huge vault-like doorway which then closes behind him. The big bulky door is a physical barrier to help protect him and the Time Lords that are waiting in a council chamber within. But when the doors close, it also seals them off in their own special time continuum. Very similar, in principle, to the way the Medusa Cascade was a few seconds out of sync with the rest of the Universe. Except the High Council created something even more clever than that. Whereas the Medusa Cascade was a few seconds into the future, the special continuum that the High Council creates is fluctuating regularly in the way it relates with the rest of Time and Space. At some points, it might only be a few seconds ahead. Then it might, suddenly, become an hour behind. Moments later, it becomes several hours ahead. And so on....

This is done so that it becomes near-impossible to lock on to this special continuum and break into it. With the Medusa Cascade, the Doctor was eventually able to penetrate the Time Slip because it was, at least, staying consistent. The High Council recognized that the Daleks would have the technology to accomplish such an act, too. So they cause the continuum's relationship with the outside universe to fluctuate at random intervals. The ultimate security measure.

Of course, this now means that events can elapse out of order between Day of the Doctor and The End of Time. Communication is still taking place between the two timelines. The High Council are still receiving news on what's happening with the world outside. This is how they learn of the Doctor's theft of the Moment. They are also sending out messages to certain key figures in the outside world. Such as the General. But the time fluctuations mess with how that information is disseminated. The General learns that the High Council's plot failed because they were suddenly a few hours behind with the rest of the Universe when they announce their defeat. But, earlier in those plans, they were actually an hour or two ahead of the rest of the Universe. And that's when they learnt of the Doctor stealing the Moment.

It's all a bit timey whimey, I know. But if you can envision the High Council as being in a sort of bubble outside of regular Time and Space that keeps relocating itself in its relationship to our own timeline then it's an image that, sort of, works. Now imagine that communications are occurring between the two time lines but it's while that bubble is changing its location. So, sometimes, we learn of the bubble's future before it does. And, on other occasions, the bubble gets a glimpse into our future. All because its relationship with our own timeline is in a constant state of flux. It is a perfect way for the High Council to defend itself. But it also causes some messiness with the timelines should communications with the outside world transpire.


GALLIFREY DISAPPEARING TWICE

Okay, first big problem between Day of the Doctor and End of Time is reconciled (sort of, at least). Now let's deal with an even bigger one.

The Doctor(s) save the day by sealing up Gallifrey in a stasis cube. At a crucial point in the Dalek assault, the planet of the Time Lords disappears from the heavens and the natives of Skaro dice themselves' up in their own cross-fire. It's a beautiful ending to a Doctor Who story. As usual, the Doctor finds a way to use his opponents' strength against itself.

The ending, however, does lose some of its piquancy when you consider that The End of Time concludes in a very similar manner. Rassilon, somehow, manages to pull all of Gallifrey through the Time Lock and into Earth's orbit. This should mean that the planet faded out of existence from its own proper time and place. Shouldn't the Daleks have destroyed themselves', then? Gallifrey seems to be in the sky over Earth for several long minutes. Which means it's disappeared from the Time Wars for quite some time, too.  Wouldn't this cause its attackers to accidentally shoot themselves' up during that occasion? The Doctor's trick with stasis cube should be superfluous. Gallifrey disappearing during End of Time should've been when the Daleks destroy themselves' by accident. Why do we need to make Gallifrey disappear again during Day of the Doctor?

Once more, we can use the High Council being in its own special timeline theory to help smooth out this problem. Not only is the High Council jumping ahead and behind the rest of Gallifrey's timeline at regular random intervals - but time, itself, is speeding up and slowing down. When time runs fast - several hours in the High Council timeline can be a matter of seconds in Gallifreyan Mean Time. When it's running slow - the reverse occurs. Minutes for the High Council can be hours for the rest of Gallifrey. This, of course, makes the time breach even more difficult to penetrate. One more precautionary measure to keep Rassilon and his buddies safe.

When the Lord President finally completes the connection between himself and the Master, he brings Gallifrey to 21st Century Earth. To do so, however, he has to pull the planet through the Time Breach he's created. So Gallifrey comes to its new location via this special timeline that is speeding up and slowing down. Gallifrey seems to hang over the Earth for several minutes and then returns back to its original location. But, as I just said, it did so by passing through the special timeline the High Council exists in. When this occurred, the High Council Timeline was running faster than regular time. Time being sped up means that several minutes in the High Council Timeline was only a matter of seconds in real time. So, basically, Gallifrey flickered out of existence for a second or two and then returned to its proper time and place.

Remember that moment in Day of the Doctor where the Doctor(s) learn that the Daleks sense that something is up and are increasing their attack?  That's when Rassilon's great gambit occurs in relation to Gallifrey's Mean Time (again, events from both timelines don't run concurrently to each other - the High Council Timeline is jumping forward and back in relation to what's happening in Day of the Doctor). So the Daleks see Gallifrey suddenly disappear and return a moment later.  Less aggressive races might've stood down at this point and tried to assess the situation. But these are Daleks we're talking about. Seeing their intended target almost elude them would incense them to attack all the harder. Which works out great for the whole stasis cube plan. They really are at maximum firepower when Gallifrey disappears properly. Which causes the Daleks to wipe themselves' out. There are a few survivors, of course. The Emperor escapes. As does a single Dalek who falls to Earth in the late 20th Century and eventually gets bought by Henry Van Statten. And the Cult of Skaro makes it out of the mess too (although, they may have slipped into the Void long before this final great battle).

But, for the most part, the Doctor's trick succeeds. But it works out as well as it does because of what Rassilon had been up to in his own special timezone.  The Daleks react so violently because Gallifrey appeared to be slipping away for a moment. They attack harder as it returns and then the Doctor's plan kicks in. In the full heat of their bloodlust, the Daleks destroy themselves' as Gallifrey well and truly disappears from the heavens.

And, again, all of this is due to the fact that Rassilon sealed off the High Council in its own special timeline when the Daleks first started attacking. I suspect that the march we see him taking down the hallway and through the big door was him just finishing the act of temporal engineering that needed to be done to create this timeline. It had to be accomplished from within Gallifreyan Mean Time. But, once the feat was done, Rassilon quickly retreated into the pocket dimension he'd created.

The weird nature of that pocket dimension is what's responsible for all the inconsistencies we see between the two stories. Or, it can be if you so choose....


So, those are my theories on why End of Time and Day of the Doctor don't line up so well. But there are still more inconsistencies to deal with as we start looking at Gallifrey after the 50th Anniversary Celebration. Part Two of this particular essay will deal with that. 

Stay tuned...

FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED AT THE END OF THE KEY TO TIME? - THE SEQUEL

PART 2: WHAT ROB THINKS...


All right, Part 1 covered the various popular fan theories regarding the somewhat puzzling ending of the Key to Time series. Let's look at the correct one, now. 

Sorry! Did I say that out loud? I meant my theory...


THE TYMECIAN THEORY....

Most theories that fandom seem to come up with regarding the end of the quest for the Key to Time perpetuate the idea that the Doctor still ended up doing good even though he appears to be abandoning his mission. I prefer to believe that he didn't. That he was just being irresponsible and decided not to worry anymore about the battle going on between the two Guardians so that he could go back to just travelling and seeing the Universe. We saw him try, already, to take a break from the Quest during Androids of Tara. This does seem to indicate he was getting tired of the whole thing.

This sort of behavior happens in other stories too. In Day of the Moon, he really should have looked into the girl in the astronaut suit more thoroughly but he chooses not to care. At the end of the story, we see him consciously decide to just pursue aimless travel rather than investigate something important. This is just the way the Doctor is, sometimes. He likes to shirk responsibility.

It just so happens that the shirking of his responsibility in Season 16 had some serious consequences. That, because the Doctor never handed the Key to Time to the White Guardian so he could do what needed to be done, the Universe has suffered for it. The Doctor, himself, even realized the graveness of his mistake and tried to fix the problem in a later incarnation. But it was too little too late. Ultimately, he did manage to reduce the negative effects of his failure but he was far from eliminating them entirely.

There's much that happens in the future of the series that supports this idea. But to truly flesh my theory out, I even consult some stuff that went on before the Key to Time saga.

Let's put together a bit of a timeline:


PREDICTIONS AND MISSIONS

Some time ago, the Time Lords received a prediction from the Matrix warning them of the power the Daleks were beginning to amass. Their great prophetic computer showed them a time that would come where the Daleks would challenge the Gallifreyans for their supremacy over Time and easily vanquish them. Horrified at what they saw, the Time Lords knew they had to do something to prevent it.

So they contacted the Doctor and asked him for his help. He was the best candidate to deal with the Dalek Menace. In fact, they were pretty sure that he hated the Daleks enough to wipe them out of existence. If given the opportunity. They had not bargained on his ethics getting in the way so much, however, and he refused to destroy them utterly. But the Doctor had delivered a crippling enough blow to their development by sealing them in a bunker at the dawn of their creation . This slowed down their progress enough that, by the time they emerged from their underground tomb, they had missed several key opportunities that would have caused them to evolve along a different path and made them more powerful (see Part 1 of Dalek History if you want to understand this concept a bit better - http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/06/chronologies-and-timelines-tymecian.html ).

The Time Lords were satisfied with the results. The Matrix was no longer showing a future where the Daleks had taken over the Universe. So the High Council felt they could rest easy, now.

The Guardians, however, were more finely tuned to look into future events. They foresaw a Great War that would erupt between Daleks and Time Lords but the outcome of such a battle seemed unclear. The White Guardian wanted to prevent the whole thing from happening, of course. He saw the incalculable damage the War would cause to the cosmos. The Black Guardian, quite naturally, wanted the exact opposite. He wanted to enhance the effects of the War and plunge all of Time and Space into chaos and oblivion.

Both of them saw that using the Key to Time would enable them to freeze time and make the necessary alterations to achieve their desired outcomes. Both put into effect a plan that would retrieve the six segments so that they could execute the necessary changes. The White Guardian asked the Doctor to find the segments for him. The Black Guardian allied himself with the Shadow and had him just wait at the location of the sixth segment for the Doctor to show up with the other five.


WAS THE BLACK GUARDIAN HOPING TO START THE TIME WARS?

There is a sequence in Armageddon Factor where the Shadow gives the Doctor a vague idea of what the Black Guardian's ultimate plans for the Key to Time are. He explains that the war between Zeos and Atrios was but a staging ground of things to come. That, long term, he and the Black Guardian wanted to create a war in which one half of the Universe was fighting the other.

Is this a description of what the Time Wars could have been? We know that the key combatants were Daleks and Time Lords. But we also know there were other factions involved. Strange beings and races that get described in stories like Stolen Earth or End of Time, Part 2. Was there meant to be even more combatants? We hear General Staal in Sontaran Strategem lamenting over the fact that his race was not able to participate in the Time Wars. I also have a pet theory that the Cybermen from our reality were involved in an early skirmish and may have been, more or less, completely wiped out (this is why the Doctor says "I am getting so old" when he sees the head of a Cybermen in Van Statten's museum during Dalek - it's been a while since the Cybermen have been extinguished from the cosmos). So there seems to be some evidence to suggest that other aggressive races in the Universe were trying to join the battle.

Could it be that the Black Guardian envisioned a Time War where all the races that sought to rule the cosmos were on one side and the rest of the Universe would need to defend itself against them? Was this his ultimate goal?

The White Guardian, on the other hand, wished to arrange circumstances so that the Time Wars just didn't happen at all. Perhaps, when Time was frozen, he would do still more to curtail the development of the Daleks so that they could never grow to a level of power that would make them a real threat to the Time Lords. This way, the Time Wars would never begin.

It's my personal belief that the Time Wars are the great threat to Time and Space that the White Guardian is describing at the beginning of the Ribos Operation. They are also the horrible plan that the Shadow is describing near the end of Armageddon Factor. No one on the production team of Season 16 knew this at the time, of course. The Time Wars weren't even a glimmer in Russell T. Davis' eye, yet. Nor do I think that RTD makes his own connection between the Time Wars and the Key to Time. This is just my own sad personal theory. The sort of nonsense a fan formulates on a sleepless night where he's watched too many episodes and his brain has gone on overload.


A CHANCE AT REDEMPTION

While the Doctor continued on with his adventures, his mischief with the Key to Time starts weighing heavily on him. He may have even stumbled upon shreds of information that indicated that the Time Wars were coming and that his failure to complete his mission for the White Guardian had contributed to their creation. He didn't fully know what the Time Wars would be like. He'd only seen a few scant clues. But he knew he had to do something to make up for his irresponsibility.

It's my opinion that he made these discoveries somewhere after Season 24. In my History of Gallifrey series, I discuss the idea of the TARDIS malfunctioning and sending the Seventh Doctor back to Ancient Gallifrey (http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/10/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html). Perhaps those problems with the TARDIS also allowed him slight glimpses into the future that gave him a vague idea of what the Time Wars would be like.

This is part of what prompts the Doctor to become so pro-active when we re-join him and Ace at the beginning of Season 25. He lashes out quite viciously at both the Daleks and the Cybermen over the next little while. Wiping out huge portions of their respective armies. Could it be that he learnt they would be combatants in the Time Wars and was hoping that these powerful strikes against them would reduce their military might enough to prevent them ever being able to challenge the Time Lords? Was it a vague look into the future that helps prompt such a huge change in the Seventh Doctor's personality?

After the events of Remembrance of the Daleks and Silver Nemesis, the Doctor continues operating in such a devious manner against his enemies because he just finds it to be a more effective way of combating evil. But he is pretty sure that he's done enough to prevent the Time Wars. Which is why he does eventually go back to wandering through time and space less purposefully. Particularly after his seventh regeneration.


THE FINAL OUTCOME

Of course, the Seventh Doctor's efforts were not enough. The Time Wars still happen. It's entirely possible that all that survivor's guilt that he experiences throughout his Ninth and Tenth incarnations stems partially from a sense of direct culpability. He had the opportunity to prevent the War way back in his fourth body but, instead, he chose to just screw off. And now he must live with the consequences.

But should he be too mad with himself? Let's remember, if the Black Guardian had gotten his way, the Time Wars would've been far worse. He had planned to get one half of the Universe fighting the other. So denying him the Key to Time, at least, stopped that. More than likely, the efforts the Doctor did make in his seventh incarnation reduced the harmful effects even more. And his decision to become the War Doctor and participate in the battle contained some major damage, too. At the time that he made his decision, many of the Higher Races believed that the Universe would still end up being destroyed as a result of the War. This is why the Sisterhood of Karn wanted him so badly to join in the battle. They knew if anyone could save all of Time and Space - it was the Doctor. He'd done it several times, before.

So, yes, as irresponsible as he was at the end of Armageddon Factor, the Doctor's done a lot to atone for his negligence. And, while a great amount of damage still occurred because he didn't properly complete his mission for the White Guardian, it still could've been a whole lot worse.


In case you missed it, here's Part 1 of the essay...

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/06/fixing-continuity-glitches-what-hell.html

FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED AT THE END OF THE KEY TO TIME?

PART 1: WHAT THE FANS THINK...



So I was working on my Progressive Doctors essay on the Fourth Doctor when I reached the Key to Time season and realized an interesting sidebar was presenting itself. It had been some time since I've tried to deal with a Continuity Glitch and a huge one was suddenly staring me in the face. Sufferer of ADHD that I am, I set aside my Progressive Doctors essay to tackle it.


PRESENTING THE PROBLEM:

Graham Williams does something very bold with Season 16. In many ways, he should be applauded for it. His Key To Time plotline is the show's first true attempt at an "umbrella season" - as they were called back then. Having a season that tells one long story (albeit, a story broken down into subsections) is a narrative style that has become quite commonplace in modern-day television. But The Key To Time was shot way back in the 70s. So we should be massively impressed with how far ahead of his time Mister Williams is.

So why don't we sing more praise for Season 16? Could it be that, as advanced of a premise as it was, The Key to Time saga does not end on the best of notes?

Armageddon Factor, in general, tries just a bit too hard to be high comedy. Especially when you consider that it is wrapping up a season-long storyline. It should be taking itself a bit more seriously to create a better sense of epic scale. Instead, it's more of just a goofy little runaround with a few rather clever moments.

But those last few minutes of the tale are what really disappoints. Having spent a whole season assembling the Key to Time, the Doctor just breaks it all apart and scatters the segments back across the cosmos. While no one actually used the term "WTF?" back in 1976, that was probably the general sentiment of the audience as the closing credits began to roll...

To the casual viewer, that finale was probably a bit of a letdown. But to the true hardcores who stay up late at night wondering what exactly gas in a Praxis range might  be, the ending to The Key to Time was genuinely baffling. During the opening minutes of The Ribos Operation, the White Guardian goes to great expository lengths to explain to the Doctor that the Universe has reached a critical point. That the Key to Time is needed to bring the entire cosmos to a standstill so he can fix things. If the Doctor doesn't retrieve the Key and give it to him, then all of Time and Space will plunge into eternal darkness and chaos. Also, it is very important that the Black Guardian doesn't get his hands on it. He will use the Key for evil purposes.

This is the central premise of the entire Key to Time season: Find the key. Give it to the White Guardian so he can stop the Universe from collapsing. Make sure the Black Guardian doesn't get it.

So the Doctor splitting the Key back up fulfills part of that mission. The Black Guardian doesn't end up getting his dirty little mitts on it. That's great. But what about the other stuff? All of Time and Space was in trouble - the White Guardian explicitly stated that right at the beginning of the saga. Only by giving the Key to Time to him could this problem be rectified. But that never happens. So why didn't the Universe go to complete and utter crap when the Doctor scattered the segments to the Four Winds (or, maybe, we should say Six Winds)?

The truthful answer was, more than likely, that the writers and the script editor should have been paying better attention to things. But that's hardly a fun answer, now, is it? So let's start by looking at a few interesting theories that explain away this somewhat huge discrepancy. In the second part of this essay, we'll look at my own ideas on the matter.

SOME POPULAR THEORIES....

THEORY #1: THE WHITE GUARDIAN DID HIS THING WHILE THE DOCTOR FROZE TIME

Of the different theories that I've heard, this one seems the most feasible. The basic premise is that during that brief moment in Part 4 of Armageddon Factor where the Doctor and Romana actually had the Key to Time fully working, the White Guardian was able to make whatever adjustments needed to be made to the Universe. Not only are the actual operators of the Key to Time unaffected by its influence while it's in operation, but Guardians are above its influence, too. Unbeknownst to the Doctor and Romana (and the viewing audience), when they put that fake piece in place and actually had all of Time frozen, the White Guardian did what he needed to do to restore the balance of the Universe.

What's nicest about this theory, of course, is that it makes the Quest for the Key to Time complete. The Doctor did truly accomplish his mission and save the Universe rather than just spend a season of the show assembling the segments for a brief moment only to break them up again. Basically, it means there was an actual point to Season 16 rather than making it a bit of a silly runaround that came to nothing.

There is, of course, one huge hole to this theory. If the White Guardian could do what he needed to do when Time was frozen in Part 4 - wouldn't the Black Guardian be able to do the same? I suppose it might be a case of whoever acted the most quickly once the Key to Time was engaged is the one who gets the outcome they desire. And the White Guardian was, somehow, able to act first. Or it could be that whoever's ally is using the Key to Time enables that particular Guardian to do what they want? The Doctor and Romana were acting on behalf of the White Guardian all season. So when they got the Key working, the White Guardian could go to work. While the Black Guardian could only hope to steal away the Key and re-shape the Universe to his design once either he or his servant was in possession of it.

THEORY #2: IT WASN'T REALLY ABOUT GETTING THE KEY TO TIME FOR THE WHITE GUARDIAN

With this premise, we're to believe that the White Guardian was lying to the Doctor in Ribos Operation.  That he didn't truly need the Key to Time, he just needed the Doctor to stop the Black Guardian from acquiring it. In this way, the Doctor is not being a huge unreliable jerk that is leaving the Universe in some kind of a lurch. It was actually only the Black Guardian that needed the Key. He was going to use it to create eternal chaos and suchlike. But, thanks to the Doctor, it was snatched away from him before he could execute his sinister plan.

The theory is interesting but also has a few holes. The first one being that the White Guardian is a being of pure goodness. Would it be in his nature to be able to lie? I suppose we could excuse this away by claiming he was telling a "white lie" (pun completely intended). Sometimes, to accomplish a greater good, we have to tell a little fib here and there.

The next problem, though, is why would he bother to lie? Why not just say to the Doctor: "I want you to get the Key to Time cause if the Black Guardian gets it there will be trouble." Why go to the trouble of creating a story about needing the Key to Time, himself? Perhaps the White Guardian understands the Doctor's psychological makeup and knows that he works better if he thinks he's working to something good rather than just trying to prevent an evil. It's a bit of a stretch. But it's the best I can come up with!

There is a variation on this idea that works even better. Again, the mission the Doctor is sent on at the beginning of Ribos Operation is a false one. But it is the Black Guardian disguising himself as the White one that sends the Doctor on it. This way, all the lieing makes more sense.

THEORY #3: THE POINT OF THE JOURNEY IS NOT TO ARRIVE

I find this one the most creative. Once more, we're back to the idea of a Universe that needs fixing by the White Guardian. In this instance, however, he doesn't need the Key. It's actually the quest to find the Key that fixes things. The Graff Vinda K needed to be thwarted from re-building his empire, Queen Xanxia's attempt to become immortal needed to be stopped, Cessair of Diplos needed to be brought to justice, and so on...

As the Doctor rights the various wrongs that are occuring around him while finding the various segments, he's doing the repair work that the White Guardian needed to execute to set the Universe right. So that when he gets to the end of the quest, he need only scatter the segments again and prevent the Black Guardian from using it.

I like this one quite a bit. But, again, we run into the problem of why the White Guardian didn't just tell the Doctor this right at the beginning. Perhaps he knew, already, that the Doctor would behave so irresponsibly at the end. But he also knew the Doctor would want to see justice done at the various places where the segments had been hidden. It was all part of a great masterplan that the Doctor need not fully understand.




Okay, those are the most popular fan theories that I'm familiar with regarding just what exactly happened at the end of the Key to Time saga. What's my own personal theory? How well does it line up with Popular Fan Consensus? You'll find out shortly when I release Part Two...

And, yes, there was a Rush quote that I threw in to this particular post. Did you catch it?