Or, alternatively, RTD was expecting audience members to be smarter than they actually might be and work it out for themselves.Ollie wrote:But they didn't even bother coming up with a bullshit hand-wavy explanation for Pete Tyler's amazing trans-dimensional psychic powers. And it does bother me, that they seem to have decided the audience isn't smart enough to notice things like that.
Earlier in the episode, Pete and the others show up with those jump buttons, grab the Doctor and jump over to the other universe.
At first, the Doctor panics because the other Earth is in trouble and they've just jumped away from it and demands to go back.
Pete reassures the Doctor that there's no need to worry because there's a time displacement between the two universes. Though time feels to move at the same rate in both universes, the "other" universe runs much faster than "this" universe.
The Doctor hears the explanation and then goes "ah! That's how you had time to invent these jump button things". Because all the events in "this" universe since the Cybermen jumped over was actually equivalent to three years in "this" universe.
This "relative time displacement" between the two universes explains the ending perfectly.
At the end, they all jump over to the "other" universe except the Doctor.
Rose, though, hits her jump button to go back. She does this almost immediately after reaching the "other" universe. It appears instaneous to us because we're following Rose's point of view and, therefore, her perception of time where the jump was instant.
In fact, it wasn't. The second it took her to press her jump button once more probably translates as 5 or 10 minutes to the Doctor (who was using that time in the room to prepare to get rid of the Daleks. Programming the TARDIS to resist the void or messing around with the settings on the clamps or something).
Now if we think about what Pete was doing during this time, he probably took a few seconds to realise Rose had jumped back, he also might have taken some time to consider whether he should risk the jump - risk that he might end up in the void - and maybe there also was a round of nagging from Jackie: "Go get her, you idiot!!".
Anyway, let's say that Pete decides to quickly jump back to grab Rose a second time in around 10 to 20 seconds after Rose disappears. This translates as a much longer time in "this" universe. Roughly equivalent to, ooh, the time it takes the Doctor and Rose to set up the clamps, throw the levers, hang on for a while as the Daleks are sucked back in, for Rose to leave go of the clamp and start falling towards the void.
Pete was not "psychic" but simply hit his jump button shortly after Rose hit hers.
Fortunately, due to the large time discrepancy betwen universes, this means he actually arrived minutes later.
As for his positioning, it was just where he was standing when he hit his jump button the first time. They were all nearer the wall when they jumped over to the "other" universe.
Hence, the timing is explained by the relative time discrepancy between universes (explained earlier in the episode) and his position is explained simply because, yes, that's where he was standing when he jumped the first time.
Pete jumped back to get Rose. Probably hoping to jump back before they'd opened the void.
But thanks to the time discrepancy, he was too late for that and the void was already open. Therefore, in fact, Pete might have turned up with "bad timing" for what he's originally intended to do but it coincidentally was perfect timing for stopping Rose being sucked off into the void.
The coincidence that this was the perfect time and place is, of course, down to "lady luck". But - at least how I interpreted it - there was not meant to be any suggestion of "psychic powers".
The time discrepancy explained earlier tells us why Pete showed up when he did. He actually pressed his jump button only shortly after Rose hit hers. But this translates into a longer time in "this" universe.
Perhaps RTD wasn't thinking the audience was thick. Perhaps he actually was expecting the audience to remember the time discrepancy - so he didn't have to patronise the audience Hollywood-style by having one of the characters speak it out loud - to realise for themselves why Pete showed up when he did.
No, no. If you want to be pedantic then there are much more obvious errors.
When Rose starts falling, she falls feet first (because we're looking at her screaming face as she flies off towards the void). The shot is slow motion and long lasting that we can see that there is no "spin" to her fall at all. It's feet first and straight down in the void.
Therefore, why is she not feet first when Pete appears to grab her - he grabs her around the waist and Rose is not horizontal but vertical and seemingly also pointing in the reverse direction, even if she somehow "spun around" between shots which we somehow didn't see?
Because, really, from the previous shot, Rose should really have kicked Pete in the face when he appeared. Which would have been both more realistic and slightly funny in a schadenfreude way.
No, the timing of Pete's appearance actually makes some kind of sense.
The bad continuity between those two shots, though, makes little sense at all.
