Category: External Content

Essays, reviews and content not created by us, but still related to understanding the world of Doctor Who. Topics include continuity, character development, time travel, social consequences of technology gone wrong, and more.

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The Second Doctor: “It’s a fact. I do get involved.”

"The War Games" photo colored by Tom Newsom

Peter (ThisThus) on “The War Games“, Patrick Troughton’s final Doctor Who serial:

“What struck me upon was the sadness at Jaime’s and Zoe’s leaving. [The Time Lords sent them back to their own times, erasing their memories beyond their first encounter with the Doctor.] But after the heartbreak of Donna forgetting her time with the Doctor, the loss that Jaime and Zoe will not know that they suffered struck me as particularly distressing. Especially as Troughton was generally a more concerned and caring Doctor than his previous incarnation.”

The author’s dead-on assessment of Troughton’s performance:

“Indeed, what I most like about Troughton’s Doctor is his expressiveness, the way his face displays joy and sorrow, sadness and ferocity, concern and anger. Where Hartnell was contained, Troughton is expansive.”

Hartnell’s last laugh in “The Three Doctors“.

“The War Games” photo colored by Tom Newsom

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Cornell University: TARDIS Travel Might Be Possible

“Traversable Achronal Retrograde Domains In Spacetime”, written by physicists Ben Tippett and David Tsang (2013), suggests the TARDIS is scientifically possible.

Joshua Filmer (From Quarks to Quasars):

“In order for a TARDIS to function, it needs to exist in a universe where the construction of closed timelike curves (CTCs) is possible. A closed timelike curve is defined by instances where the time dimension curves back on itself creating a closed loop. Hypothetically speaking, you could get in this loop (or build one around yourself) and travel forward and backwards in time at will.”

I can’t even pretend to understand that. Hoping the summmary straight from the authors (Cornell University Library, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology) is better. Take it away, Benjamin K. Tippett, David Tsang (Cornell University Library):

“The purpose of this paper is to propose such a spacetime geometry which emulates what a layperson would describe as a time machine. In our geometry, a bubble of curvature travels along a closed trajectory. The inside of the bubble is Rindler spacetime, and the exterior is Minkowski spacetime. Accelerating observers inside of the bubble travel along closed timelike curves. The walls of the bubble are generated with matter which violates the classical energy conditions. We refer to such a bubble as a Traversable Achronal Retrograde Domain In Spacetime.”

Hmmm…maybe the brighter Whovians can make sense of this.

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Ivar, Timewalker is a violent Doctor Who

Chris Sims for Comics Alliance:

“Ivar explains that pens and sunglasses always go missing because we’re constantly surrounded by wormholes through time that suck them in when we’re not looking.”

That’s enough for me. But wait, there’s more…

“Ivar shoots Horatio Nelson dead at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (In our history, Nelson was killed by a French sniper). While there’s still a trace of that whimsical Doctor Who-inspired friendliness to the character, he suddenly becomes something a little more unknowable and a little more terrifying, a little harder to relate to.”

I never understood the Doctor’s aversion to violence, especially considering the scale of his opponents. Kate Stewart and War Doctor were right to sacrifice millions for billions in “The Day of the Doctor“. So was Harriet Jones in “The Christmas Invasion“. The Doctor must’ve learned something by Season 8’s “Mummy on the Orient Express“:

“I couldn’t save Quell, I couldn’t save Moorhouse. There was a good chance that [Maisie would] die too. At which point, I would have just moved onto the next, and the next, until I beat it. Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones. But you still have to choose.”

Ivar, Timewalker (Fred Van Lente, Clayton Henry, Brian Reber, published by Valiant Comics) exposes everything right and wrong with Doctor Who, while being its own story.

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The Science of Time: The Doctor Is Right

Jesse McDougall for GOOD Magazine:

“The Doctor is right. The speed at which time passes is both variable and malleable. We can speed it up. We can slow it down. In fact, you do so every day without even knowing it.”

Excellent article from 2013. McDougall does a great job of using the physics of time, gravity, and Einstein’s theory of relativity to make spacetime soup.

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Introducing Helen Mirren as The Doctor (2011)

El Condensador de Fluzo (English from Google Translate):

And it seems great choice as Helen Mirren is possibly one of the few people in the world who has an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award for the same performance. And of course, he is British.

Excellent idea, as I’m sure Jeffery Joll would agree. El Condensador also references Joanna Lumley as the 13th Doctor in “Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death“, a 1999 Comic Relief parody. Check out his original Spanish blog (or this Google Translation to English).

“Helen Mirren as The War Doctor” collage by David Marshall, inspired by El Condensador.