ANALYTICAL: CROSSING TIME STREAMS - PART 2

In my ongoing effort to resurrect the ANALYTICAL essay, I continue my investigations into time stream crossings.

Having looked at some basic rules and recurring patterns in the first part (http://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/11/analytical-crossing-time-streams-part-1.html), I decided it might be nice to do a bit of a case-by-case study throughout the tenure of the Classic and New Series. Will I look at every time someone has crossed into their own past and/or future? That would prove a bit too lengthy. We'll just do some "edited highlights" (as the Doctor once requested during one of his many trials). Some key moments where such things occurred that re-enforce some of the patterns I pointed out in the first part.



FIRST CROSSING

For a season-and-a-half, the TARDIS is used strictly as a means of conveying the characters from one story to the next. And then, finally, we get to Episode One of The Space Museum. At last, the idea of travelling in time gets legitimately explored for a bit.

If you've bothered to read the first part of this essay (if not, refer to link in italic intro), you know that I've created a very specific definition for what constitutes a crossing of your own timeline. The Space Museum might not totally meet the stipulations of that definition. The big point being that crossing your own time stream enables you to meet yourself. Which, technically, the TARDIS crew does do. They see themselves as exhibits in a museum. But they are, obviously, dead by this point in their timeline. Meeting yourself implies being able to interact with yourself. Which is not quite possible in this context. It's for this reason that I can't positively say that Name of the Doctor constitutes a crossing of a timeline either. The "scar" of the Doctor's death still remains but it isn't really him meeting himself, is it? Technically, your timeline is over once you are dead. So to visit a time after your death means you're not really crossing your own timeline anymore.

Part 1 of The Space Museum also has the biggest abundance of side effects that we've ever seen (again, side effects get discussed in the link I provided in the italic intro). These side effects might exist in such great abundance because this is the first time the TARDIS has jumped a time track in such a way. She gets more accustomed to doing this in other adventures and can provide a smoother ride during such an experience. But, because she's never done this before, her occupants must deal with such things as intangibility and not registering on the senses of the people around them. Or even not being able to leave footprints. Only as the TARDIS manages to correct some of these faults and get the two timelines to merge are these problems eliminated. But that's a whole other phenomenon that gets me to wonder if this truly was a proper crossing. At no other time does such a process work this way. Normally, when someone crosses their time stream, they have to be properly displaced by temporal apparatus to the different points in their timeline to accomplish the feat. This doesn't really happen in Space Museum. The two time zones just sort of seem to blend together after a while. We're not even entirely sure how this works (the Doctor, sort of, offers an explanation at the end of the story that, kind of, only makes so much sense). It almost causes one to wonder if this isn't so much a crossing of time streams as a sort of overlapping of time zones. It's truly difficult to tell. And, again, this might have something to do with it being the first time that the TARDIS is used in such a manner so she doesn't quite follow the established patterns.

Having said all this, however, I still prefer to see this as the first time we see the Doctor crossing his own timeline. If for no other reason than the fact that such a feat occurs so rarely in the Classic Series that I'd rather it fall under the definition just so I can have a bit more to talk about!


JUST A BIT OF MULTI-INCARNATION STUFF

We don't really see the First Doctor crossing his own timeline much during his actual era. But, from a retrospective sense, he makes at least four more crossings. Like The Space Museum, he visits his future each time. Those crossings take place, of course, during The Three and Five Doctors, Day of the Doctor and Twice Upon A Time.

Twice Upon A Time makes his entry and departure point very clear (entry and departure points is another important thing to read about in the italic intro link. If you haven't read it, yet, you really should!). He meets his Twelfth Self as he is walking to his TARDIS at the end of The Tenth Planet. We see him in a garden during both The Three and Five Doctors. It could be that he is timescooped from, more or less, the same time period during both of these incursions. That he, basically, had one hell of a garden stroll that day! When this actual garden stroll took place during his timeline is difficult to determine. It could be at anytime during his era. We've never actually seen the First Doctor alone so we must assume that whatever companions were with him at the time must be in another part of the garden. But, if we go with the whole hell of a garden stroll concept then that may account for his slight change of appearance in The Five Doctors. Perhaps such a high level of time distortion briefly affected how he looks.

Of course, where he was drawn from during Day of the Doctor is anyone's guess. The sequence where all the Doctors come forward to help save Gallifrey uses actual footage from previous stories rather than getting all the living actors to re-adopt their roles (and get impersonators in for the first three - which they still, sort of, do for the First Doctor's appearance). I recognize, for instance, that we're seeing a scene from Attack of the Cybermen during a glimpse of the Sixth Doctor. Could it be that each Doctor managed to somehow "splinter off" briefly during the stories they are drawn from to save Gallifrey and then return immediately and pick up where they left off? That's my best guess....

The Second Doctor also crosses his own timeline several times for multi-incarnation encounters. During The Three Doctors, it looks like he is timescooped from an unseen moment during The War Games (although, really, it could be from anywhere - original footage was shot for the moment where the Time Lords view the Doctor on a screen before they snatch him up -  but it does look like something from The War Games). Five and Two Doctors feature a Second Doctor from Season 6b. And, we've already come up with a concept for Day of the Doctor.

In The Five Doctors, the Third Doctor seems to be drawn from a time after he's met Sarah Jane Smith. It's also a period where he's on Earth driving around in Bessie. He was probably snatched up by Borusa shortly before Planet of Spiders. He does seem to be hanging around Earth for a bit between Monster of Peladon and Spiders. So that seems the most likely time and place.

Other multi-incarnation encounters seem to make things pretty clear as to where the earlier incarnation was drawn from. In Time Crash, the Fifth Doctor seems to come from the early part of Season 20. Probably just before Mawdryn Undead. The Tenth Doctor in Day of the Doctor seems to come from that period where he went on some wild excursions rather than respond to the Ood that summoned him at the end of Waters of Mars.

One more interesting thing to note before we close the door on multi-incarnation stuff: the timelines do become too tangled when more than two incarnations meet and the crossing is forgotten until the most recent incarnation experiences it. That seems to be a basic rule for this sort of experience. However, dialogue in The Five Doctors seems to insinuate that if past incarnations get caught in a second multi-incarnation encounter, their memories of the first crossing are temporarily restored. The first three Doctors all seem to recall meeting each other previously in Three Doctors and go back to poking fun at each other the way they did in that story. My guess is, however, that as Rassilon returns them to their proper time and space - both experiences are forgotten, again.

Okay, that's all the multi-incarnation stuff that needs to be handled. Let's go back to crossings that we see that don't involve multiple incarnations. 



THE NEXT CROSSING

The next time the Doctor crosses his own time stream and doesn't meet another incarnation takes place very briefly. It is also one of the rare occasions where we don't see a proper entry and departure point.

Day of the Daleks contains a short scene where the Doctor and Jo meet themselves. A circuit in the TARDIS console blows which seems to cause this little crossing. The Doctors from two different time zones interact briefly and then the Future Doctor and Jo are returned to their proper place in time and space. The story moves on...

But we never see where the future version of the Doctor and Jo come from. The encounter, from their perspective, is never displayed onscreen. They are wearing the exact same outfits that their past selves are wearing so we can assume it happened quite quickly after the story ends. My guess is: that they return to the Doctor's lab after Sir Reginald's manor blows up. They enter through the lab doors and are transported back to the past for a moment and have the encounter. The TARDIS console blows its fuse and sends them back to when they belong.


MULTIPLE BRIGADIERS

Amazingly enough, we don't see any other instances of the Doctor crossing his own timestream during the Classic Series (aside from multi-incarnation stuff).  But we can't actually dive into the New Series until we talk about the Brigadier, first. 

Mawdryn Undead is the first real story to dwell heavily on the idea of crossing your own time stream. Space Museum does discuss it a bit, but it's more concerned with the TARDIS crew trying to avoid the future they've been shown than laying out some basic rules about such a feat. But most of the patterns I discussed in Part 1 of this essay are displayed at some point throughout the various temporal paradoxes that the Brigadier must suffer through. Including the ominous: "Don't come into physical contact with yourself" rule. Which is very cleverly used to resolve the main conflict of the plot. It is also subverted a few times during a crucial point of the New Series (as usual, go to the link in the italic intro if you want see how I explain away the breaking of this rule)

In much the same way as Deadly Assassin is the definitive Gallifrey Story that all other Gallifrey Stories must base themselves off of, Mawdryn Undead sets the template for any adventure that explores the concept of crossing your timeline.  Sadly, however, we must wait until the New Series to see any of these rules employed. The only other example of a time line crossing that we see in the Classic Series is a burnt out android in Timelash. And, even then, it doesn't truly fit my definition. The android is, technically, "dead" once it's projected into the past. Once you're dead, your timeline is over - so you can't really cross it, anymore. Once more, because of the total lack of time stream crossings in the Classic Series, I'm willing to fudge the rules a bit! 



INTO THE NEW SERIES....

The New Series doesn't waste its time exploring crossed timelines. While Classic Who waited nearly two seasons to feature a story about it, we get a pretty massive timeline crossing only a few episodes into Series One.

We tend to only think of that very brief moment in Father's Day where Rose and the Doctor are observing the past version of themselves from around a corner as the only instance of crossing a time stream in that particular story. We forget that Rose crosses her time stream twice over in this tale. While Adult Rose is getting to know what her father is really like, she is also in that timeline as an infant. The all-important "don't come in physical contact with your past self" rule does seem to kick in when Rose is accidentally handed the baby version of herself. But the explosion that is meant to happen is absorbed by the strange creatures that have materialized to fix the damage Rose has done to Time. So the rule does still seem to work, here. Father's Day, however, is the first time we see the Going Around Once principle being employed (yadda yadda yadda link in italic intro yadda yadda....).

Doctor Ten seems to stay away from this act throughout most of his tenure. We do see a bit of him crossing his own timeline in Smith and Jones when he appears to Martha on her way to the hospital. This does fit the definition I provide. He could've taken just a bit more of a stroll down the street and met himself if he'd really wanted to.

The only other example of a crossed timeline that we see during Ten's era (aside from multi-incarnation stuff in Time Crash and Day of the Doctor) would be Billy Shipton in Blink. Old Billy probably spent many years avoiding the younger version of himself that became a detective and hit on Sally Sparrow. Even though he hid from himself for ages, he barely lives another day once his younger version is zapped back in time by a Weeping Angel. One has to wonder if the Billy that gets sent back in time observed himself from a distance once he arrived at the point in time where he was actually born. It would probably be too great of a temptation to resist. More than likely, he secretly stalked himself just a little bit, here and there!

Just for the record: Billy Shipton's experience has to be the longest duration of a timeline crossing in the whole history of the show.

"But wait, Rob!" some of you may be crying out, "What about Donna in Turn Left?! She crosses her own time stream to attempt to get her to ... well ... turn left!" 

Technically, yes, she does cross her own timeline. But my definition says that you're able to meet yourself and that's exactly what she fails to do. And, since New Who is chocked full of timeline crossings, I'm gonna disqualify this one. Yes, that's not the best logic. But, really, I'm the most illogical person I know!


THE CROSSINGS OF THE ELEVENTH

And then, at last, we reach the Eleventh Doctor era. A period where time streams get crossed as often as the Doctor flaps his arms while he talks!

The Doctor, himself, makes multiple crossings. Flesh and Stone, The Big Bang, Journey to the Center of the TARDIS. Name of the Doctor (sort of - it's a grey area) and Day of the Doctor (not for the phone call that Eleven makes to have Gallifrey Falls moved - but the fact that it's multi-incarnational) are just a few stories that immediately spring to mind. Right in his very first story, Moffat had written in a timeline crossing in an early draft that ended up getting changed later. Originally, it was meant to be the Doctor from the future watching from the kitchen as the currently-regenerated Doctor takes off in the TARDIS and leaves Young Amy behind. It's implied in the actual transmitted episode that it's actually Prisoner Zero in the kitchen, instead.

In many ways, the entire Eleventh Doctor era is one huge timeline crossing. The ongoing arch of his entire three seasons is the fact that his final story on Trenzalore is influencing events in his life. It's not a true crossing of time streams, of course. But it comes perilously close.


OTHER CROSSINGS OF THE ELEVENTH

The Eleventh Doctor wasn't the only one crossing his own time stream during his era. Many of the people around him would also get caught up in these paradoxes.

During Journey to the Center of the TARDIS, the van Baalen brothers end up fighting future versions of themselves that have been scorched by the power source of the TARDIS. The Doctor and Clara encounter ossified versions of themselves from the future, too. They also experience "echoes" from their past. The Doctor, of course, also does a one time around in order to contact himself in the console room and tell him to push the big red button. Clara will go on to cross her own time stream one more time for a brief moment in Listen (she sees herself from behind) - but we're not there, yet.

River Song crosses her timeline on a few occasions. Mainly during Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon where she watches herself kill the Doctor in her astronaut suit and then chases around the child version of herself for a bit. She intentionally pretends not to know who the past versions of herself are so as not to create spoilers for the rest of the TARDIS crew.

And then there's Amy and Rory. Rory sees himself at least twice. Once in Hungry Earth when he and Amy from the future wave to themselves from a distance. And then again in Angels Take Manhattan when he watches himself die as an old man.

Amy crosses her own timeline even more. She sees the future version of herself twice during the Silurian adventure with Rory. Spends quite a bit of time with herself as a child during Big Bang. And has quite the argument with an older version of herself during The Girl Who Waited.

For the record: Amy is the companion who has crossed her own time stream more times than any other companion.



FINALLY, THERE'S TWELVE

And then we get to "Ole Twelvie. He seems to cross his own time stream about once a season. He accidentally breaks the laws of Gallifreyan Mean Time during Listen and goes back into his own childhood.

During Series Nine he crosses his own timeline twice over during Under The Lake/Before the Flood. The TARDIS traps him for a bit during Before the Flood in events from his own past because she is concerned about the interference he is trying to cause with Time. The Doctor from the future has also been lying in hibernation throughout the entire two episodes and only emerges from cryo-sleep near the end of the story.

The Christmas Special in Series Ten is one big time stream crossing as his first incarnation accidentally meets him in Antarctica. The two go off on an adventure together and then both choose to regenerate at the end.

For the record: Twice Upon A Time is the greatest gap of time between entry and departure points. A good 1500 years exists between these two incarnations.



UP TO DATE

At the time of writing this, we are enjoying the first season of the Thirteenth Doctor with Graham, Yaz and Ryan (well, some of us are - others do seem to be complaining a lot!). Kerblam! just went out a few days ago. So far, Thirteen has done nothing to cross her own time stream. Nor has anyone else in her company. Whether that stays consistent for the rest of the season - we'll have to wait and see...




And that's it for time stream crossings. I felt the topic merited a second part to track all the different convergence points during the history of the show. The whole exercise also helps to re-enforce the various patterns and rules I discussed in Part One. Hope you also felt it was worth a second installment too!   

I've purposely waited til today to publish this so that I can wish you all happy Fifty-Fifth Anniversary. Celebrate by putting on your favorite episode. Or you could even re-read a few of your favorite entries from here. I certainly won't stop you!