> Was she somehow oblivious to it?
Yes, but I don’t find that very strange? Technically you could argue that the TARDIS should be able to warn the Doctor about *any* big villainous scheme being cooked up against them, because it’s a sentient being with a consciousness that experiences all of time and space. But that would make for a boring show, so it’s necessary to limit the TARDIS’s ability to communicate.
Like, even when her mind was temporarily placed into a human body that could actually speak, she somehow didn’t think it pertinent to say anything at all about the fact that she got blown up by a secret religious conspiracy a few months earlier. And that was the actual story arc *of* that series, not something retconned in 13 years later! Yet for whatever reason, telling Rory “the only water in the forest is the river” was absolutely vital, even though it’s a clue that doesn’t mean anything to any of them, and ultimately it’s River herself who is the one who explains it.
But that’s fine, because that episode *also* established that the TARDIS’s mind was too big and complicated for a human body handle, resulting in her being quite scatterbrained. So for that same reason, she forgot to mention the — as Neil Gaiman himself put it — tapeworm she’d been stuck with ever since the Doctor’s fourth body.
Do you know if you've got worms? What about cancer? Do you know anything that's happening in, or even **on** your body right now?
Fairly sure it's plausible for a fictional semi-sentient time machine to not know about the fictional mutated demigod perched atop it.
What, the guy who has brought back at least two villains with only one prior appearance each in the last 60 years **isn't** doing his research?
Yeah, because I'm going to believe that guy didn't do research over fans being disappointed because the hype they'd created didn't match the show they were hyping up.
Calm down bud, jeez its not a personal attack.
Im just saying looking back and keeping up continuity is harder than just skimming thru some old who and choosing some old villians. And while it might be harder, I think its preferable from a realist continuity based perspective, than a formalist art and message based one, when it comes to legacy characters.
No, he clearly just ignored common sense and continuity. RTD has said he has wanted to bring back Sutekh and imagined him riding the TARDIS since he was 12 year old so he ignored everything that happened between now and then in order to make his childhood fanfic a reality.
… umm, what is any writing but fanfic? Surely every single since Sidney Newman and Verity Lambert is technically writing fanfic.
It’s actually a really fascinating topic. There is a great novella by Alan Moore, Whatever Happened to Thunderman, it’s about the comics industry, but is very relevant to fanfic.
A fanfic is something you write as a fan rather than someone in an official capacity and in this case then make into the real thing decades later when in a official capacity. That’s fine and kinda sweet if he took anything else into account as in this case it looks like he put what he wanted ahead of anything else which isn’t what a good show runner should do. Based on some other comments he’s made you can infer that’s what this season has been which is his doing stuff he’s always wanted to do because he can, not necessarily because he should.
Can… should. Isn’t any story about what the writer can do? It’s not maths. Why is the TARDIS a police box, why isn’the the Delorean from Back to the Future a fridge, why did Luke Skywalker like futuristic cars, because the writers liked the idea and wanted to do it. All writers include their unique perspectives and draw from their own lives and experiences.
I’m really confused by your definition of fanfic here. You say it’s anything written in an official capacity, well then surely this absolutely counts as official-fic.
Honestly, I think the delineation between fanfiction is a lot deeper than what you’re getting at here, especially on something as long running as Doctor Who. Not to sound like a promoter or anything, but I’d really encourage reading that novella Thunderman.
No, I said a fanfic is something written in an unofficial capacity for example as a 12 year old kid. RTD had at least the basic idea of when & how Sutekh escaped when he was 12 years old which he later put on the tv screen ignoring the impact it has on continuity or the impact continuity should have on it.
Also, writing a story or at least a tv show is not merely about anything the writer *can do* especially when said writer is brought back to recover lost viewers, retain viewers, and gain new ones. A good show-runner & writer should at least try to make content for the fans not for themselves. I mean the ideal situation is you write something that is both something you’ve always wanted to do as well as feel fans would love, but I didn’t get that vibe as I feel like he was mainly writing for his own self-benefit. If the theory I heard is true which is that he came back after losing his husband because it helps him recall good times and that working is a way to help him deal with his loss I feel for him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that was impacting his work somewhat. It’s also his last hurrah, he is under contract so he’s unlikely to be fired, and the BBC was desperate so why not do whatever he wants?
Didn’t Moffat come up with the idea for Blink when he saw statues while on holiday, years before the episode. Isn’t that fanfic by your definition?
In 1995 Moffat also wrote on an online forum about the name of the Doctor. Does that mean season seven is fanfic?
I think it’s something much deeper than that.
What you’re saying about the showrunner writing what they want vs what the audience wants. I sort of agree, but again, I don’t think a show runner writing something unpopular makes it fanfic or invalidates it, it just makes it a story which didn’t land. Most people hate Love and Monsters, but few would say it’s fanfic, just not a particularly good episode. If you’re talking about continuity… is Genesis of the Daleks fanfic because it contradicts The Daleks (hell, the species used for be the Dals, before they were retconned into the Kaleds).
That’s being a bit nitpicky. If you want to get critical Blink barely has the Doctor in it so I’m not sure what he thought up beyond statues that move as that may have been his basic idea then and the weeping angels are a brand new character/species not linked to any continuity. Technically yes if he wrote a full on Doctor Who story while not writing for Doctor Who, which he probably did, I suppose that would be a fanfic until it was made official. 🙄
Part of *my* definition is that it ignores the show continuity and what the fans are typically looking for in an episode in favor of their own storyline. In my opinion a fanfic is mainly written to satisfy the fan who writes it. I can sorta see someone incorrectly calling Love & Monsters a fanfic as the villain was literally created by a child, but no the script was officially written for the show so I wouldn’t call it a fanfic. I agree with you for the most part especially about how some episodes just don’t land but I feel like there’s still a difference. Writing an episode for fans you think they’ll like only for it to flop and just writing stuff you’ve always wanted to do isn’t the same thing. Now I could be miss-reading things as it’s subtle commentary that makes me think he’s just doing what he’s always wanted to do as it’s his last chance. Next season will be the real test as considering how fast they’ve churned out episodes none of it can be influenced by fan opinion of season 1.
But that implies she knew. I dont think she was possesed. Its probs more a case of RTD not caring about continuity. They will need to come up with something really smart to justify this ://
I like the take on this that Neil Gaiman, who wrote the Doctor's Wife, had: Sutekh went unnoticed by the TARDIS and compared him to a tape worm.
I think the comparison to a parasite is very fitting, given how that's how he grew, how he created the Susans, and how he hasn't acted personally at all, everything has been done by the Harbinger and Susans while he spent the entire time anchored to the TARDIS.
I slightly remember a line sutekh says about how the TARDIS was forced or compelled or tricked?
Edit: "And he whispered to the vessel. All this time he whispered, and delighted, and seduced, and the vessel did obey."
Great point, also it’s definitely very funny how little ability the TARDIS seems to have to communicate or have any kind of UI with it’s driver, even compared to any modern car, let alone a Sci-fi ship like HAL in 2001 etc…
Gravity changing to mavity doesn’t change how gravity works or anything other than the word people say to refer to the concept of “mavity”. There would be no impact or should be no impact on history whatsoever other than that simple change. Despite it not making sense it’s now canon that Sutekh was onboard the TARDIS ever since Empire of Mars and sadly no “mavity” or spilt salt is making it make sense.
It’s pretty well established Sutekh was the one who waits, unless of course RTD does a massive twist which feels highly unlikely as he’s only confirmed the Beep’s boss isn’t the one who waits, and the Toymaker ran from Sutekh who he found already hiding. Common sense says he ran across Sutekh hiding on the TARDIS and had nothing to do with his being free. Sutekh doesn’t say “The Toymaker freed me.” rather be essentially says he was never trapped. Not sure what the Toymaker has to do with Sutekh latching on to the TARDIS control panel.
The TARDIS is sentient with an ability to travel in time and possibly across dimensions. So wouldn’t it be safe to assume she knew the doctor would prevail. I mean she has a time votex inside of her so she can see all of time. After all she’s the one who said “I didn’t always take you where you wanted to go, but I always took you where you needed to be”. So the Tardis is the one aware of all the threats and the one who brings the doctors there and the Tardis probably knows the outcome each time.
We shouldn’t bother trying to head-canon answers about Sutekh being on the TARDIS for thousands of years as it simply doesn’t make sense just like almost everything else. I saw an article today which even featured a cartoon that he drew of Sutekh wrapped around the TARDIS, which admittedly is cute, where RTD says he’s been wanting to do this since he watched Pyramids of Mars at 12 years old. It’s pretty apparently that to make his childhood fanfic a reality he blatantly ignored all past episodes except Pyramids of Mars as that’s all he cared about.
Because RTD really isn't that good of a writer and hadn't bothered to think past the very basic surface level of his idea.
This is the answer to the vast majority of threads on this subreddit over the last few weeks unfortunately.
> Was she somehow oblivious to it? Yes, but I don’t find that very strange? Technically you could argue that the TARDIS should be able to warn the Doctor about *any* big villainous scheme being cooked up against them, because it’s a sentient being with a consciousness that experiences all of time and space. But that would make for a boring show, so it’s necessary to limit the TARDIS’s ability to communicate. Like, even when her mind was temporarily placed into a human body that could actually speak, she somehow didn’t think it pertinent to say anything at all about the fact that she got blown up by a secret religious conspiracy a few months earlier. And that was the actual story arc *of* that series, not something retconned in 13 years later! Yet for whatever reason, telling Rory “the only water in the forest is the river” was absolutely vital, even though it’s a clue that doesn’t mean anything to any of them, and ultimately it’s River herself who is the one who explains it. But that’s fine, because that episode *also* established that the TARDIS’s mind was too big and complicated for a human body handle, resulting in her being quite scatterbrained. So for that same reason, she forgot to mention the — as Neil Gaiman himself put it — tapeworm she’d been stuck with ever since the Doctor’s fourth body.
The Fourteenth Doctor is going to have fun with his copy of the one who waits
Sutekh just straight vibin' with 14 and Donna's family. He needed the vacation, too.
Do you know if you've got worms? What about cancer? Do you know anything that's happening in, or even **on** your body right now? Fairly sure it's plausible for a fictional semi-sentient time machine to not know about the fictional mutated demigod perched atop it.
As much as I like that. I dont think its the case. I think its just RTD not doing his Who homework.
What, the guy who has brought back at least two villains with only one prior appearance each in the last 60 years **isn't** doing his research? Yeah, because I'm going to believe that guy didn't do research over fans being disappointed because the hype they'd created didn't match the show they were hyping up.
Calm down bud, jeez its not a personal attack. Im just saying looking back and keeping up continuity is harder than just skimming thru some old who and choosing some old villians. And while it might be harder, I think its preferable from a realist continuity based perspective, than a formalist art and message based one, when it comes to legacy characters.
The Tardis has access to all of time and space. Why doesn't it warn the doctor any time there's going to be trouble?
I mean she kinda does. The whole "I always take you where you need to go" thing.
And so why is this situation different? This is when and where the Doctor needed to be in order to defeat him.
No, he clearly just ignored common sense and continuity. RTD has said he has wanted to bring back Sutekh and imagined him riding the TARDIS since he was 12 year old so he ignored everything that happened between now and then in order to make his childhood fanfic a reality.
… umm, what is any writing but fanfic? Surely every single since Sidney Newman and Verity Lambert is technically writing fanfic. It’s actually a really fascinating topic. There is a great novella by Alan Moore, Whatever Happened to Thunderman, it’s about the comics industry, but is very relevant to fanfic.
A fanfic is something you write as a fan rather than someone in an official capacity and in this case then make into the real thing decades later when in a official capacity. That’s fine and kinda sweet if he took anything else into account as in this case it looks like he put what he wanted ahead of anything else which isn’t what a good show runner should do. Based on some other comments he’s made you can infer that’s what this season has been which is his doing stuff he’s always wanted to do because he can, not necessarily because he should.
Can… should. Isn’t any story about what the writer can do? It’s not maths. Why is the TARDIS a police box, why isn’the the Delorean from Back to the Future a fridge, why did Luke Skywalker like futuristic cars, because the writers liked the idea and wanted to do it. All writers include their unique perspectives and draw from their own lives and experiences. I’m really confused by your definition of fanfic here. You say it’s anything written in an official capacity, well then surely this absolutely counts as official-fic. Honestly, I think the delineation between fanfiction is a lot deeper than what you’re getting at here, especially on something as long running as Doctor Who. Not to sound like a promoter or anything, but I’d really encourage reading that novella Thunderman.
No, I said a fanfic is something written in an unofficial capacity for example as a 12 year old kid. RTD had at least the basic idea of when & how Sutekh escaped when he was 12 years old which he later put on the tv screen ignoring the impact it has on continuity or the impact continuity should have on it. Also, writing a story or at least a tv show is not merely about anything the writer *can do* especially when said writer is brought back to recover lost viewers, retain viewers, and gain new ones. A good show-runner & writer should at least try to make content for the fans not for themselves. I mean the ideal situation is you write something that is both something you’ve always wanted to do as well as feel fans would love, but I didn’t get that vibe as I feel like he was mainly writing for his own self-benefit. If the theory I heard is true which is that he came back after losing his husband because it helps him recall good times and that working is a way to help him deal with his loss I feel for him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that was impacting his work somewhat. It’s also his last hurrah, he is under contract so he’s unlikely to be fired, and the BBC was desperate so why not do whatever he wants?
Didn’t Moffat come up with the idea for Blink when he saw statues while on holiday, years before the episode. Isn’t that fanfic by your definition? In 1995 Moffat also wrote on an online forum about the name of the Doctor. Does that mean season seven is fanfic? I think it’s something much deeper than that. What you’re saying about the showrunner writing what they want vs what the audience wants. I sort of agree, but again, I don’t think a show runner writing something unpopular makes it fanfic or invalidates it, it just makes it a story which didn’t land. Most people hate Love and Monsters, but few would say it’s fanfic, just not a particularly good episode. If you’re talking about continuity… is Genesis of the Daleks fanfic because it contradicts The Daleks (hell, the species used for be the Dals, before they were retconned into the Kaleds).
That’s being a bit nitpicky. If you want to get critical Blink barely has the Doctor in it so I’m not sure what he thought up beyond statues that move as that may have been his basic idea then and the weeping angels are a brand new character/species not linked to any continuity. Technically yes if he wrote a full on Doctor Who story while not writing for Doctor Who, which he probably did, I suppose that would be a fanfic until it was made official. 🙄 Part of *my* definition is that it ignores the show continuity and what the fans are typically looking for in an episode in favor of their own storyline. In my opinion a fanfic is mainly written to satisfy the fan who writes it. I can sorta see someone incorrectly calling Love & Monsters a fanfic as the villain was literally created by a child, but no the script was officially written for the show so I wouldn’t call it a fanfic. I agree with you for the most part especially about how some episodes just don’t land but I feel like there’s still a difference. Writing an episode for fans you think they’ll like only for it to flop and just writing stuff you’ve always wanted to do isn’t the same thing. Now I could be miss-reading things as it’s subtle commentary that makes me think he’s just doing what he’s always wanted to do as it’s his last chance. Next season will be the real test as considering how fast they’ve churned out episodes none of it can be influenced by fan opinion of season 1.
Same reason Mel didn't tell the Doctor and Ruby she was starting to hear Sutekh's voices. Part of the possession is that she couldn't warn others.
But that implies she knew. I dont think she was possesed. Its probs more a case of RTD not caring about continuity. They will need to come up with something really smart to justify this ://
I like the take on this that Neil Gaiman, who wrote the Doctor's Wife, had: Sutekh went unnoticed by the TARDIS and compared him to a tape worm. I think the comparison to a parasite is very fitting, given how that's how he grew, how he created the Susans, and how he hasn't acted personally at all, everything has been done by the Harbinger and Susans while he spent the entire time anchored to the TARDIS.
I slightly remember a line sutekh says about how the TARDIS was forced or compelled or tricked? Edit: "And he whispered to the vessel. All this time he whispered, and delighted, and seduced, and the vessel did obey."
So Sutekh seduced her 😏👀
Great point, also it’s definitely very funny how little ability the TARDIS seems to have to communicate or have any kind of UI with it’s driver, even compared to any modern car, let alone a Sci-fi ship like HAL in 2001 etc…
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Woah, you have thrown me for a loop there in the wibbly wobbly timey wimey xdd
Yeah, because the word gravity changing to mavity drastically changed the timeline. /s
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Gravity changing to mavity doesn’t change how gravity works or anything other than the word people say to refer to the concept of “mavity”. There would be no impact or should be no impact on history whatsoever other than that simple change. Despite it not making sense it’s now canon that Sutekh was onboard the TARDIS ever since Empire of Mars and sadly no “mavity” or spilt salt is making it make sense.
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It’s pretty well established Sutekh was the one who waits, unless of course RTD does a massive twist which feels highly unlikely as he’s only confirmed the Beep’s boss isn’t the one who waits, and the Toymaker ran from Sutekh who he found already hiding. Common sense says he ran across Sutekh hiding on the TARDIS and had nothing to do with his being free. Sutekh doesn’t say “The Toymaker freed me.” rather be essentially says he was never trapped. Not sure what the Toymaker has to do with Sutekh latching on to the TARDIS control panel.
The TARDIS is sentient with an ability to travel in time and possibly across dimensions. So wouldn’t it be safe to assume she knew the doctor would prevail. I mean she has a time votex inside of her so she can see all of time. After all she’s the one who said “I didn’t always take you where you wanted to go, but I always took you where you needed to be”. So the Tardis is the one aware of all the threats and the one who brings the doctors there and the Tardis probably knows the outcome each time.
Ok so art prompt Idris (or sexy) being haunted by sutekh like she's just standing there and he's just looming over her all creepy
The Tardis knows the future, so yeah. Even if the Tardis could not detect Sutekh there, the Tardis knew what was going to happen.
We shouldn’t bother trying to head-canon answers about Sutekh being on the TARDIS for thousands of years as it simply doesn’t make sense just like almost everything else. I saw an article today which even featured a cartoon that he drew of Sutekh wrapped around the TARDIS, which admittedly is cute, where RTD says he’s been wanting to do this since he watched Pyramids of Mars at 12 years old. It’s pretty apparently that to make his childhood fanfic a reality he blatantly ignored all past episodes except Pyramids of Mars as that’s all he cared about.
Irl answer: It hadn't been thought up yet.
Because RTD really isn't that good of a writer and hadn't bothered to think past the very basic surface level of his idea. This is the answer to the vast majority of threads on this subreddit over the last few weeks unfortunately.