The Dr Who thread

Jac · Post by **Jac** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:14 pm 0

Kelloggs wrote: it didn't take him where he wanted to go, as much as dump him where he needed to be.

Hmm. Holistic time-travel.

It worked for Sam Beckett. Well, apart from the whole never going home again thing.

HGFB · Post by **HGFB** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:29 pm 0

He chose not to go home in the end. He wanted to but as the last line of the show said "Doctor Samuel Beckett never returned home"

Jac · Post by **Jac** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:39 pm 0

Well, yes, because GFTW and his own moral code kept him going. He could have gone home at any time.

Of course, had there been a sixth series that might have turned out to contradict the GFTW theories - Al as God?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:43 pm 0

However the beginning of each episode stated that Sam was always hoping that his next leap would be the leap home... hardly the choice of someone to keep going if he knew he could return home at any time...?

Nah... I've always believed (and we probably will never know cos the show was cancelled at the end of series 5 and they had to hastily reshoot the final scene to make it a conclusion) that he kept leaping and never made it back home because of that... because there was always something wrong in the world that he would need to be there to fix.

Sam wasn't the only leaper btw... and there was at least one other leaper trying to essentially put wrong where things were right.

Jac · Post by **Jac** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:51 pm 0

Free will. Sam's pre-leap theories allowed for will to overcome the randomness - he got himself close to home more than once, and made 'wrong' choices too, quite apart from TEL (who was an offshoot of GFTW anyway). His moral code didn't allow him to apply free will for selfish purposes, but his subconscious did it anyway.

"Hoping his next leap will be the leap home" was something he personally gave up on fairly early on - when he twigged that there was a higher purpose behind the leaps - so while the v/o continued to mention it there is little evidence that Sam was actively/consciously trying to go home after the first few leaps.

[He couldn't leap home in the first few leaps because he was too swiss-cheesed to work it out and think straight - also Al wasn't exactly as helpful as he could have been in helping him figure it out; after he did get things straight he also got sucked in to the buzz of making wrongs right so lost the imperative to go home. Fixing Al's life became more important to him than his own.]

Darkflame · Post by **Darkflame** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:54 pm 0

He will probably guest appear in the mini-series spin-off thats comeing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bold_Leap_Forward

Maybe a few things answered then.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 11:32 pm 0

The "higher purpose" part is certainly in debate... there were hints but as a non-religious person myself, I am liable to be slightly biased in discussion regarding such things

In one episode, didn't Sam try to prevent Beth (Al's first wife) from marrying someone else whilst he was in Nam, but every time failed? Suggests a possible destiny or divine influence there, that there were some things that just could not be changed (of course the very last episode "rectified" this little issue having Al and Beth reunited). I'm guessing he was egged on by Al here to do it, but sometimes morals get confused when it's a friend in question

Biggest hint there must have been something at work? The episode predicting the outcome of Superbowl XXX

(go look that one up, spooky indeed how the show predicted what happened)

Jac · Post by **Jac** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 11:38 pm 0

Superbowl - I don't need to look that up - I live with someone who's attended a number of QL conventions and met most of the cast more than once...

"The A-Z of QL" is on a shelf above my head as I type.

If Beth and Al had not been separated then, Al would not have been where he was for Project purposes, and while paradoxes weren't completely impossible, a huge timeline shattering one like that just couldn't work. (Though Sam wasn't exactly the most considerate time-traveller out there, on that score.)

I've been reminded that on the Leap Back he did in fact attempt to fix the retrieval program, but when it failed he didn't pursue it, even though he could have used Al to relay instructions and data pretty easily.

DutchLlama · Post by **DutchLlama** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:12 am 0

Darkflame wrote:He will probably guest appear in the mini-series spin-off thats comeing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bold_Leap_Forward

Maybe a few things answered then.

Well Scott Bakula needs a job. Look at his IMDB profile, he hasn't had a single movie or TV acting job since Enterprise got canned. That was 2 years ago already.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000836/

Jac · Post by **Jac** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:15 am 0

He's been doing musical theatre, very successfully. It's what he did for 10 years before TV/film, and what he appears to like best.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:16 am 0

Maybe yes and maybe no Jac. There was one episode where Sam leapt into Al during his court appearance and in doing so ended up swinging the chance of success to 0%. Suddenly Al disappears and is replaced by someone else but the timeline as is (ie. Sam develops the project and leaps) must have continued otherwise, as usually stated by these things, he would have ceased to be in that time frame. Hence Al in himself as a person was not actually vital to time continuing down that road, it would have gone on without him, though obviously with some changes.

We could have an interesting debate on this, but it's gone midnight and I have to get some sleep

QL was always a program I enjoyed watching back then but never really considered some of the more deeper implications until later when I was older. Was Bruce McGill "god" perhaps? He was the barkeep in the last episode, and he was also in the pilot episode. Must have some meaning...

merman · Post by **merman** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 10:41 am 0

Mayhem wrote:
QL was always a program I enjoyed watching back then but never really considered some of the more deeper implications until later when I was older. Was Bruce McGill "god" perhaps? He was the barkeep in the last episode, and he was also in the pilot episode. Must have some meaning...

Another QL (no, not the Sinclair machine

) fan here.

I always interpreted that last episode as the bartender being "God/higher power", and the whole point of the mine disaster is to prepare Sam for his new role - as an "angel/messenger", helping people in times of crisis. Hence when he goes back to Al's wife.

HGFB · Post by **HGFB** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 10:51 am 0

In honour of the final episode of this series my avatar has been updated FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE.

HGFB · Post by **HGFB** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 8:49 pm 0

The final rating released this week by the BARB for Love & Monsters, episode ten of the new seasons, shows that 6.66 million viewers tuned into the episode, an increase of approximately 400,000 viewers as compared to the original overnight ratings reports. This places Doctor Who in fifteenth place for the week behind six World Cup events, five episodes of Coronation Street, EastEnders, Heartbeat and the Thursday night ITV Evening News.

HippyDave · Post by **HippyDave** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 8:57 pm 0

HGFB wrote:
6.66 million viewers tuned into the episode

666?

I've never seen such controversy as I've seen concerning these last two episodes of Who. I would have to say that they were the most formulaic and/or disappointing of the series so far, but I find it hard to understand the vitriol being heaped on them from some quarters. Yes, the monster in "Love & Monsters" was naff, and yes, Peter Kay really let the side down (IMO), but the general concept of the episode was sound, and the last five minutes were great - that closing monologue was excellent, and the sentiment certainly one I can stand up and salute.

"Fear Her" was actually worse in many ways - I too cringed at the Doc's utterly un-Who-like stealing of the spotlight at the end - but even then it's a stack better than some of the old Who episodes I remember watching as a kid. I think sometimes the ol' rose-tinted specs come out when some Who fans talk about the old show. It had its fair share of misfires, and in the light of that - and remembering how good the new show is when it wants to be - I find it easy to forgive these occasional lapses from excellence into mere gooditude...

The two-part finale should be a shocker, though...