FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES: QUICK FIXES 7.3 - TIME LORD STUFF, PART 3

Okay, here we go: just a few more QUICK FIXES that I'd like to do regarding the Time Lords. I think, once I tackle this, there really will be nothing left. Unless, of course, some new episodes come out that flatly contradict things that were said about Time Lords in previous episodes. Is it wrong that I'm hoping something like this happens so that I can have more stuff to write about?! 


THE TEMPORAL MESS THAT IS MEL 

My main reason for the third installment. Might as well get right to it:

I'll try to summarize the problem as quickly as possible: Trial of a Time Lord took place on a space station that was meant to be outside of Time, itself. Cases were presented on a screen that projected images from the Matrix. These circumstances enabled people involved in the trial to see into the past, present and future. During his defense, the Doctor accesses an adventure that takes place in his future. We learn that he will meet a woman named Melanie Bush who will travel with him for a time. They will, eventually, respond to a distress beacon from a ship called The Hyperion Three and have an adventure on it that will introduce them to a new species of killer plants called Vervoids. They will have to completely wipe out the species using vionesium. It's very sad as the Vervoids wither away...

Here's where things start to get really messy: Some time after her adventure in Terror of the Vervoids, the Master takes Mel out of time and drops her at the space station to help defend the Doctor. Things go a bit crazy when we find out the Valeyard is the Doctor and there's a big fight in the Matrix. At the end of the story, Mel just decides to depart with the Doctor in the TARDIS and they begin their adventures anew.

Let's stop and think about that for a second. Mel is from the Doctor's future. She goes into his past to help him and then leaves in the TARDIS with him. Even though, from the Doctor's perspective, they haven't actually met, yet.  How exactly does that work?! 


POPULAR MEL THEORIES

There are several solutions that fans have come up with: 

1) The Memory Cheats: The end of Trial of a Time Lord becomes the point where Mel and the Doctor start travelling together. The Doctor, however, erases both of their memories regarding their adventure on Hyperion Three. This way, the events of Terror of the Vervoids can take place the way they were meant to.

2) Abort! Abort! Abort!: The Doctor and Mel leave the Time Lord space station and set up a whole new timeline for themselves. Terror of the Vervoids and all the other events that led up to it never happen. This theory is backed up by the fact that, in Time and the Rani, the Doctor is still in the outfit he was wearing during The Ultimate Foe. So it's entirely possible that the Rani diverted the TARDIS to Lakertya only moments after the Doctor complained three times about carrot juice (Mel had time to change her clothes but he didn't).  

3) "Time will tell. It always does":  Either things re-set themselves naturally after the Doctor and Mel leave the space station or the Doctor goes to the trouble of re-setting them, himself.

3-a) The Space station was outside of time, so it's entirely possible that just leaving it and returning to your proper place in the continuum causes Mel to be transported back to where she should be and the Doctor to lose his memory of the sneak preview he got of Terror of the Vervoids until after it happens.

3-b) Or the Doctor takes care of the problem, himself. He's gotten rather good at steering the TARDIS so he gets Mel back to her proper place in his timeline and then erases his own memory of  the Terror of the Vervoids preview.



THE TYMECIAN THEORY - DISMISSALS 

Before divulging which theory I subscribe to, I'll dismiss the ones I don't like:

1)  This one is too big of a temporal mess. There still should be a proper meeting point where the Doctor picks Mel up from 20th Century Earth. It doesn't quite make sense if the end of Ultimate Foe becomes their starting point. Yes, we can just say "wibbly wobbly, timey wimey" but I'd rather we didn't. Not, so much, because I dislike the term (I do, however, take issue with "humany wumany" - that was just bad dialogue!). Moreso, because I would prefer a better explanation than that.

2)  I would hate to think that everything that happens after the Sixth Doctor leaves his trial is now an aborted timeline. In fact, the Popular Fan Theory is that he traveled for a good 50 years after Ultimate Foe and then regenerated into Seven. No, he wasn't in his Terror of the Vervoids outfit at the point of regeneration. But it's entirely possible that he switched outfits back and forth throughout his adventures. He might have even had more vests and cravats that we never saw (or, perhaps, even an all-blue outfit).

3-b) Yes, he could probably pilot the TARDIS to the proper point in his timeline and drop Mel off, there (more than likely, he might miss a few times or not quite be perfectly accurate when he finally does get her there). But I have to wonder if the Doctor would purposely re-edit his own memory under these circumstances. The fact that he could save lives and protect an entire species with all his foreknowledge might be too great of a temptation. If it was left up to him to fix this conundrum, I think he would still try to re-write history. Particularly by this point in his life(ves). Doctor One might rant on about not re-writing history ("not one line"!), but 'Ole Sixie would be a bit more confident, at this stage, about what he can and can't mess with. And I think he would try to mess with how things play out on Hyperion Three. 




THE TRUE TYMECIAN THEORY

Which means, of course, that Theory 3-a) is our lucky winner! To me, it just makes the best sense.

The Target novelization of The Ultimate Foe does this cute little thing in its epilogue where Mel climbs back into one of those coffin thingies and it takes her back to where she's meant to be in the future. It's a nice idea but I think the process happens in an even more natural way. As the Doctor leaves the space station, Mel fades out of existence and he just forgets about her. It's just the way these things work in this sort of situation. Time fixes itself.

It helps that we see the Doctor having memory issues when he first arrives at his trial. This indicates that, in general, being taken in and out of time can have that effect on a Time Lord. More than likely, he had a hard time remembering much about his trial for the first little while after he left it. Most of his recollections were restored after a bit but there was a huge gap regarding how he defended himself. The Doctor probably accepted that, for whatever reason, he was meant not to recall these events. He probably even vaguely knows that the defense case was something that took place in his future so he should just let things happen the way they're meant to.

He eventually meets Mel on 20th Century Earth and she joins him in the TARDIS. Again, he might have some stray memories of Mel floating around in his head and knows she's meant to travel with him. He doesn't mention this to her, of course. It's never a good idea to give humans too much foreknowledge. The Doctor and Mel have many adventures together. Mel decides she's going to get the Doctor to lose some of that extra weight he's put on.

At last, they get that fateful distress beacon from Hyperion Three and the murder mystery/attempted hi-jacking/act of genocide ensues. Moments after they re-board the TARDIS, the Doctor recalls the full events of his trial. He was probably still singing On With the Motely as they came flooding back (hopefully, it gets him to stop!).

Him getting his memory back in such a way works in a similar manner to the way he learns that he saved Gallifrey in Day of the Doctor. Yes, the War Doctor was around when the decision was made not to use the Moment - but the timelines were also very tangled by having so many incarnations together, at once. So he won't remember these events until Ten and Eleven have also experienced them. Mel coming back from the future and the both of them being taken in and out of time is also a pretty big tangle of timelines. So, just like Eleven after Day of the Doctor, the Sixth Doctor's memory won't fully kick in til everything and everyone are truly current.

Even after he remembers everything, the Doctor mentions none of this to Mel. He knows she's going to join the trial shortly. But, when he sees her at the trial, she looks surprised to be there. This indicates that she was given no foreknowledge of her involvement in the proceedings. So he can't let her know what's to come.

More than likely, Mel gets scooped up the next time the TARDIS lands after Vervoids. She and the Doctor begin a new adventure and, somehow, get separated (it has been known to happen). The Master is waiting for them when they arrive. Perhaps he diverted the Doctor's TARDIS like he did in Mark of the Rani or he was able to read the Doctor's mind like he did in Logopolis or it might be some new tactic, altogether. Whatever the case, he intercepts Mel when she's alone. He probably uses a bit of hypnosis to get her to climb into the coffin thingy (there's a probably a more sci-fiesque term that I could come up with for this but I prefer "coffin thingy") and sends her to the space station.

From this point, The Ultimate Foe ensues. At the end, Mel leaves with the Doctor and immediately disappears after they depart. Only to re-appear back in the adventure she was having with the Doctor just after Terror of the Vervoids. The Master has left the scene rather than stay around to cause more problems. He's reluctant to mess around too much with this sort of cause-and-effect. Technically, he broke the Laws of Gallifreyan Mean Time to retrieve Mel. He went forward in the Doctor's timeline rather than staying adjacent to it. So he doesn't want to leave more of a temporal footprint than he should.

When Mel re-joins the Doctor, she has quite the story to tell him. But the Doctor is smiling knowingly as she tells it. His memories were fully restored even before the Master snatched her away. He knew she would be safe leaving her in his greatest enemy's hands because he saw her arrive safely on the space station. He was also pretty certain she would return to the future safely. His arch-nemesis wouldn't be hanging about when she came back because of the Time Law he was breaking.

It's my guess that the Doctor and Mel have many more adventures together. Until, one day, the Rani uses a navigational distorter to draw the TARDIS down to Lakertya. The Doctor is on his exercise bike at the time and has a nasty spill.

With great sadness (and a silly wig), the greatest Doctor of them all passes far sooner than he was meant to. 

(Did I really just call him "the greatest Doctor of them all"?!  Read more about my Sixth Doctor love here: http://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/12/book-of-lists-doctors-from-worst-to_31.html)




You know what? Mel's Temporal Mess took far longer to delve into than expected. Looks like I'll stop here and do a fourth entry in the series before the month is out. There are just a few little details in New Who regarding Time Lords that I'd like to tackle. 

Stay tuned....  





Since this is all about Trial of a Time Lord. Here's some stuff I wrote about concerning the Valyeyard:



Who is the Valeyard? 

Part 1: 
http://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/09/fixing-continuity-glitches-who-is.html    

Part 2: 
http://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/09/fixing-continuity-glitches-who-is_28.html