I'm over a week late with this. I blame time streams.
So it's half time in the latest Doctor Who series. Thanks America. Season splits are an awesome idea(!) But anyway...
I love Doctor Who. The concept is brilliant. The character is just my favourite shade of nutty. The presumably accidental idea of regeneration is such an amazing addition to character development and I imagine offers so much room to play. It must be a dream to write for.
I'd hate writing for it.
There's been something amiss with this series. Possibly, there is a part of this that stems from the fact it is a new episode of Doctor Who, rather than a new episode of Mr Moffat's other project, Sherlock; a series so good it makes Lucy Liu an unattractive concept (see thoughts on Elementary, i.e.: why bother, there's already Sherlock. Lucy Liu isn't going to make that go away). But it is more than this. There is room in my life for two awesome series, I can't see why I would exclusively want only one.
And before anyone suggests the problem may be very Matt-Smithish in appearance, don't bother. As far as I'm concerned Mr Smith, along with Miss Gillen and Mr Darvill comprise the best line up of Team TARDIS since the reboot. I can conceive of the notion that Matt's portrayal of our favourite (and only) Gallifreyan is precisely why I still watch.
And I don't think it's the writing. Moffat et al have fairly routinely produced thundering rollercoasters of enjoyment for every episode. He's definitely stretched the suspension of disbelief at times but it has tended to work out fine by the end.
This series, though. I don't know. Something is getting me rankled about the story so far. I couldn't work it out until this sub-finale that... oh. Spoilers are probably going to crop up from here on in. Fair warning.
As we said our goodbyes to the Ponds, whisked off into the past to a Manhattan made inaccessible by a highly unstable time stream, there was just one thought which totally killed the ending for me, and suddenly made all my problems clear as crystal.
Time travel is a really idiotic plot device.
As I sat there, watching Matt Smith shine in his moment of utter despair, telling us exactly what the Doctor would have felt as if it had really happened, all I could think was, 'Why did they not just arrange to be picked up outside of New York a year later?' I didn't see anything to block doing this, other than nobody thinking logically. The Doctor and River could have just got into the TARDIS, set a course for Boston, a year after the issue with the Angels and picked up Rory and Amy who would have had a lovely, year long adventure in America. At no point did it come across that this would be impossible.
And I think that this issue stems straight from how ridiculously complex time travel ends up being. It's easy to think about it, easy to picture obvious physical laws that would theoretically exist in travelling through time. But try sticking it to a narrative and, unless you are rigid, you get problems. It feels like the Doctor's writing team were working on mixed messages, or maybe were simply using differing and contradicting possibilities as it suited the story. Which is fine. An artist has got to have license and audiences will be willing to accept things like this if it makes the story compelling. But I am absolutely the most pedantic person in the world, and I will sit there and gripe when you suddenly close a door you had been prancing through, back and forth, for 5 series previously. And time travel has lots of doors. Loopholes, even. And I know that this is why I get a bit uncomfortable around time travel. It is the ultimate Deus Ex Machina (there's an ultimate problem, but who cares? We'll just go back in time and make it so it didn't happen), but you can't have it solve every problem, or there would be no tension. Thus, inconsistency is inevitable.
Yet, I have so much experience in watching and enjoying time travel stories. Aside from the good Doctor there is a plethora of stories I have experienced that have used time travel as a key feature. In fact, it happens so often I can't think of any specific examples other than Back to the Future. Oh, and Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. Well done me. They do, however, somewhat conveniently, offer me contrasting approaches to time travel. Everyone knows Back to the Future. Kid unwittingly ends up in the past and screws everything up so has to unscrew everything or he ends up having never existed. A classic grandfather paradox. He then finds out that the minor screw up that remains has altered his time and made his father a major success, before two more films happen. The point being that the story adheres to the idea that you can change the past and alter your present, retaining your old knowledge at the same time. And I hate this. The completely nonsensical detritus that remains when these stories have bulldozed through a time stream.
The other example, Night Watch, does things a bit differently. I'll try to sum it up without spoilers. And remember what happens. Let me just read the Wiki entry...
...
OK, so, essentially, the time travellers take up roles within the original passing of time, the protagonist filling the role of mentor to his younger self, ensuring that things go as recognised in history. I think things do sort of change, but it's insinuated that it all leads to the same result, anyway. It follows the logic that, if you go back in time you cannot change anything because you would already done those things in your time line for you to be where you started. If that makes sense. Its a much more solid time stream without paradoxes littering the story. Much tidier, much more comfortable to live with.
But that's probably the only tidy way of doing time travel: whereby, you aren't changing anything. The problem you get then is 'Why bother time travelling at all?' This is why I don't want to do time travel. It rarely adds to a story's cohesion, and that clearly matters to me far too much. I'm very willing to see people try but I think I know too much about time travel now to be as able to disconnect myself from what I see as glaring paradoxes.
Obviously, hating the concept of time travel and loving time travel stories is a bit weird. But at least it's not a paradox. I can take comfort in that, at least.
