People assume that time
is a strict progression of cause to effect,
but actually, from a nonlinear,
nonsubjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball
of wibbly wobbly,
timey wimey...stuff.
I think what makes timey wimey so compelling is
that we really can't understand it.
What's the date, today?
What is it? Tell me the exact date.
Time travel is sort of the magic in "Doctor who."
Sorry.
How can he do that? Is he magic?
It is complicated and sort of puzzling
and frustrating, at times.
2,000 years, I waited for you.
You did it to me again!
Time travel changes the rules of everything.
You could be dealing with the consequences
of an action
that you have not yet performed.
Come on, that's brilliant.
Okay.
People can die and people can come back
and you can change your past
I did it. I saved your life.
If you're a bit of a nerd,
then you love that because you can be like
"um, what happened then and why did that do that?"
You're a time traveler. It hasn't happened to you yet, none of it.
Some moments are fixed.
Some moments in time are not.
The Doctor understands this stuff.
Just go along for the ride. It'll be worth it.
The laws of time are mine,
and they will obey me!
[ "Doctor who" theme plays ]
♪ Dr. Who Specials 2x03♪ The Timey-Wimey of Doctor Who Original Air Date on August 18, 2012
== sync, corrected by elderman ==
"Doctor who" poses questions such as
"if you had the ability to travel in time,
"would you go back and change things
and morally, should one do that
and ethically, should one do that?"
In a time-travel show and, more particularly,
in a time-travel show like "Doctor who,"
you can do something like begin your season
by having the main character
invite all his friends to his funeral.
Howdy.
Doctor!
Ha-ha!
"The Impossible Astronaut" starts off
with Rory, Amy, and River
getting these blue envelopes
that they assume are from the Doctor.
And then the Doctor shows up and takes them
on a fun, kind of crazy
picnic thing that they're going on.
Hey, nice hat.
I wear a stetson now. Stetsons are cool.
Hello, sweetie.
As the viewer, you're kind of like
"oh, this is cool. It's like a fun party.
Oh, that's nice. It's like a nice reunion."
And, then, they watch the Doctor die.
And I don't mean like Doctor death,
where he gets shot and he gets to regenerate.
Like, he actually dies.
They all meet up somewhere in the United States
and they watch the Doctor get shot
by a small astronaut figure.
Well, then.
You know, you see the Apollo uniform
and you think "what on earth
is going on here?"
What's he doing?
Aah! Doctor!
Amy, stay back!
The Doctor said stay back!
You have to stay back!
No! No!
Doctor!
I'm sorry.
And it's very sad
because he gets shot once
and then starts to regenerate
and then gets shot again,
so he's dead then, like for-real dead.
It was really heavy when we realized that
the invitations that the Doctor was sending out
was basically to his own death.
It's like "hey, come watch me die.
There will be doughnuts."
I felt like they had written themselves into a corner
and I can't imagine any escape.
And then, of course, the Doctor just shows up again.
This is cold.
Even by your standards, this is cold.
Or "hello," as people used to say.
Doctor?
I just popped out to get my special straw.
It adds more fizz.
You're okay.
How can you be okay?
Hey, of course I'm okay.
I'm always okay. I'm the king of okay.
Oh, that's a rubbish title.
Forget that title. "Rory the Roman"!
That's a good title. Hello, Rory.
And Doctor River Song.
Oh, you bad, bad girl.
What trouble have you got for me this time?
Okay.
I'm assuming that's
for something I haven't done yet.
Yes, it is.
Good. Looking forward to that.
This story is probably one of the most mindhurty
of them all, just because then he just shows up,
right after the fact, because he, himself,
invited himself to the afterparty of his death.
So the Doctor who walks out of the bathroom
is an earlier version of himself,
much, much earlier,
and you have a thing that's going to happen
when you're messing around with traveling in time,
which is that everybody is really, really, really
angry with you for something that you haven't done yet.
Time travel -- perfect for dramatic irony.
There's always someone who doesn't
fully understand what's going on
and there's always other people who are like
looking at them, going "so sad, that they've
already been dead 20 years," you know.
Well, the Doctor breaks one of his own rules
and brings Rose back
to a day that her father died
so that she can watch that happen.
Which is not the first place I'd go.
Rose Tyler is human.
She's made, like all humans, to nurture and save.
And she sees her father again
and she has a chance to save him.
And that's just an impulse she has.
She's not thinking things through.
So she pushes her dad out of the way.
I did it.
I saved your life.
Blimey, did you see the speed of it?
Did you get his number?
I really did it. Oh, my God, look at you.
You're alive. That car was going to kill you!
Unfortunately, in "Doctor Who," nothing is going to
come out right when you go back and change your own history
and Rose learns that the really hard way.
So she saves him from the car hitting him
and all hell breaks loose.
It cracks or kind of
moment in time where these demons,
these gargoyles, can come to life.
I love that geeky fanboy thing of time travel
and how much one little thing
can change so much and the butterfly effect.
Oh, my God.
What are they? What are they?!
Inside!
Those creatures are the embodiment
of government officials that have to correct
the paperwork and it's just, you know,
that's how nasty and irritating
those things are.
Aah!
Help!
She didn't realize what she'd done.
She couldn't begin to realize what she'd done.
He shouldn't have took her, though then, should he?
You know, the mad, swaggering around
with your leather jacket on.
Only by Pete dying
can the Universe
get back on track.
You hear about him being, you know,
this chancer and a waste of space
and he gets everything wrong
and never will amount to anything,
but he's not afraid to sacrifice himself
so that everything will be right.
Goodbye, love.
It's kind of a lovely thing,
that he sacrifices his life
so that the Universe and his daughter
can live.
And Rose gets to say goodbye to him
in a proper way.
Go to him. Quick.
The silver lining of this is that
Rose gets an opportunity to see
not just her father, but to see a side
of her father that she never knew,
which is kind of somebody who's willing
to do the right thing.
And you never know, he might turn up
in another dimension, at some point,
so all is not lost.
Who takes out the Daleks? Not the Doctor. Rose!
Everything must come to dust.
She's a total badass in this episode.
Follow that ship.
One of the things about "Doctor Who" is people often say
"but it's a kids' show," but that's like saying
"Shakespeare -- those are just little fairy stories,
aren't they?" I mean, you know, these are epic,
brilliantly written, brilliantly plotted
pieces of sophisticated storytelling.
I think, if you're a geeky "Doctor Who" fan,
a time-travel storyline is the sort of thing
that you wait for
and "Bad Wolf" was a great example
of just how geeky you can get.
Throughout the first season, we see all these messages.
This "Bad Wolf" meme keeps kind of turning up in odd places
and there's a lot
of speculation about what it's going to be.
Everyone else watching it was just like
"what is that? Did you notice that?
Yeah, I noticed it again. Did you notice it there?"
I thought it was just kind of an inside joke
that the writers of "Doctor Who" were putting on.
Like they just had a friend that they called "Bad Wolf"
and they're like "hey, Bad Wolf, we're putting your name
all over the 'Doctor Who' show"
and he's like "ah, you guys are crazy. I'm Bad Wolf."
Of course, the big reveal is
that it's been Rose all along and that she's been
sending messages to herself through time.
It could've said "Teen Wolf."
I think it would have the same effect.
She just realized she was
in the right place to do the right thing.
Over here.
It's over here as well!
That's been there for years!
It's just a phrase, it's just words.
I thought it was a warning.
Maybe it's the opposite.
Maybe it's a message!
The same words written down now,
and 200,000 years in the future.
It's a link between me and the Doctor --
"Bad Wolf" here, "Bad Wolf" there.
But if it's a message, what's it saying?
It's telling me I can get back!
The least I can do is help him escape.
I was expecting it to be a warning.
I was not expecting it to be a sign.
I was not expecting it to be
the way that Rose gets back and saves the Doctor.
How were you supposed to know, episode 1,
or whenever it first appeared, that
"Yeah, I know what that means"?
No one does, of course.
Anyone who says, like, "yeah, I figured
it was Rose the whole time" is arrogant and lying.
And you realize that rose is the Bad Wolf
and she is genuinely terrifying.
She inherits all of the energy of the time vortex
and then is able to then destroy the Daleks.
You've got to stop this.
You've got to stop this, now.
You've got the entire vortex
running through your head.
You're going to burn!
I want you safe.
My Doctor.
Protected from the false God.
Who takes out the Daleks? Not the Doctor.
Rose! Who would've thought that?
You are tiny.
I can see the whole of time and space --
every single atom of your existence,
and I divide them.
Everything must come to dust.
All things.
Everything dies.
Good for Rose.
She's a total badass in this episode.
I basically just wanted her to be that way forever
and just be like some sort of
a crazy Phoenix kind of a character,
where she just lights people up.
But, obviously, you can't have that
in your universe all the time.
One of the things that's really smart about River is
that she gets time travel.
This is why we love River Song, right?
She burns a message
into an incredibly
ancient artifact.
He goes to a museum, where he finds
this old, decrepit box that's going to show him
where she is and when he needs her to be there.
7775/...
349x10...
012...
/acorn.
Oh, and I could do with an air corridor.
What was that? What did she say?
Coordinates!
Like I said on the dance floor,
you might want to find something to hang on to.
I love the fact that, when she gets out
of the airlock, she's so cool about it.
Because she knows that she's timed it correctly
and that it's going to be all right, you know?
So she's able to be like "goodbye."
Fly out into space, bang, caught,
exactly right moment.
That's a bit of good timing.
Perfect timing, I would call it.
Follow that ship.
It's cool that she knows how to contact him
in space and time -- essentially, through his ego,
because he goes to museums to check his work.
As long as River makes
a sufficiently interesting message, she can assume that,
at some point in his travels, he's going to come across it.
Where are we?
Planet one, the oldest planet in the Universe,
and there's a cliff of pure diamond,
and, according to legend, on the cliff,
there's writing, letters 50 feet high,
a message from the dawn of time,
and no one knows what it says
because no one's ever translated it.
'Til today.
What happens today?
Us. The TARDIS can translate anything.
All we have to do is open the doors
and read the very first words
in recorded history.
I love that it's "Hello sweetie".
I love that it's -- you know,
it might as well be a drawing of a butt,
or something, because it's just
so like "oh, of course that's River Song."
Yeah, it's a cool catchphrase.
If you're going to do it, you might as well do it
with something flippant and flirtatious.
You're not going to do it with like
"you disappointed me again!", you know.
You got to keep it light in those sort of relationships.
Long-distance.
I would almost say that
the level of devotion that River has
to setting these messages for the Doctor
is slightly creepy,
with mostly romantic.
But still slightly creepy.
The Doctor goes crazy, screws up the timeline.
The laws of time are mine,
and they will obey me!
This is the worst moment of his life.
Hold on!
I think the Doctor's always been very careful
and very mindful of his responsibility
and duty, when it comes to things
like fixed points in time
and things that are timelocked,
things that you can't mess with.
The temptation must always be there,
to just step out of that
and change things and intervene.
The tenth Doctor lands on Mars
and it looks basically how we picture Mars looking like,
except, oh, crap,
there's a base on Mars and he's actually
in the future and humans have landed on Mars.
When the Doctor gets there, he's excited
because this is the crux, this is a thing,
it's a point in history that he's a huge fan of
and then realizes this is the day
that that base gets destroyed.
What's the date, today?
What is it? Tell me the exact date.
November 21,
2059.
Right.
Leave it to the Doctor --
"I'm on the first colony on Mars. Yay!
"Wait, what's the date? Oh, boo."
I should go.
I really should go.
I'm sorry, I'm -- I'm sorry,
with all of my hearts,
but it's one of those very rare times
when I've got no choice.
It's been an honor.
Seriously, a very great honor
to meet you all.
The Martian pioneers.
It's this superimportant moment
in time, in history,
that changed the course of history.
The Doctor always has these kinds of challenges,
where he has to make a decision
whether to save a life or let history play itself out
and it's tough and he ends up making the wrong decision.
It can't be stopped. Don't die with us.
No, because someone told me, just recently,
they said I was going to die,
they said, "he will knock four times,"
and I think I know what that means,
and it doesn't mean right here, right now.
Because I don't hear anyone knocking -- do you?
Three knocks is all you're getting.
Aah!
I think he just gets so frustrated
with not being able to fix everything that
something snaps in him and he just thinks
"I'm the last Time Lord.
"There's no one to tell me I'm wrong.
If I want to change time, I will."
For the future, for the human race.
Yes, because there are laws,
there are laws of time
and, once upon a time, there were people
in charge of those laws, but they died.
They all died.
Do you know who that leaves? Me!
It's taken me all these years to realize,
the laws of time are mine,
and they will obey me!
The Doctor goes crazy and he's like "I'm going to save these.
I'm going to save adelaide" and he brings her back to Earth,
screws up the timeline.
He ends up saving
as many people as he can
off of this base, gets them back on Earth,
and then has the most terrifying conversation
we've ever seen a Doctor have, to date.
You should've left us there.
Adelaide, I've done this sort of thing before.
In small ways, saved some little people,
but never someone as important as you.
Oh, I'm good.
"Little people"?
What, like Mia and Yuri?
Who decides they're so unimportant, you?
For a long time, now, I thought
I was just a survivor, but I'm not.
I'm the winner.
That's who I am.
The Time Lord victorious.
And there's no one to stop you?
No.
When he says "I can't save you," she says, "no, save me."
When he says "of course I can do it,
because I am the Doctor, I am the person who can do it,"
she realizes "actually, no, you can't.
It's not right. It's wrong."
And so the lesson to draw from this, I think, is that
the Doctor always needs someone to hold him back
and that's why he has to have the companions with him,
that's why he needs someone in the TARDIS.
It's not just because he gets lonely on vacation.
When we talk about timey-wimey things, there's two things.
There's timey-wimey things,
which is the past affecting the future.
There's also timey-wimey parallel-universe-type things
and they're good for writers
because it means you can do anything.
In "Army of Ghosts," they have a void ship
which came into their world
between the area where time and space exists
so, essentially, it shouldn't be there, but it is.
Well, Doctor?
This is a void ship.
And what is that?
Well, it's impossible, for starters.
I always thought it was just a theory, but...
It's a vessel designed to exist
outside time and space...
Traveling through the void.
And what's "the void"?
The space between dimensions.
There's all sorts of realities around us,
different dimensions, billions of parallel universes,
all stacked up against each other.
The void is the space in between,
containing absolutely nothing.
Can you imagine that, nothing?
No light, no dark, no up, no down, no life, no time.
Without end.
My people called it the void,
the eternals call it the howling.
But some people call it hell.
Nobody could open it. Nobody knew what it was.
It was just hanging, suspended in midair.
But what she didn't know was that it was actually
a Dalek-invasion ship.
When the orb opens,
it's the Daleks and they formed a bridge
so that the Cybermen could come
from one reality to ours.
If you thought a lot of Daleks were bad,
a lot of Daleks and Cybermen? Even cooler.
Exterminate!
Delete!
Exterminate!
Delete! Delete!
Exterminate!
Delete!
Basically, in order to get rid
of the Cybermen and the Daleks,
they open up the vortex of the Universe
and everything that is negative is being sucked back out of it,
but, unfortunately, in the moment,
Rose is also getting sucked as well.
Rose, hold on!
Ohhh!
Hold on!
Ah!
Ahh!
Ro...se!
Aaah!
Ro...se!
Aaah!
Ro....se!
And then, at the very end of that 2-parter,
you see her character being pulled
into a parallel universe
and they will never see each other again,
her and the Doctor.
Systems closed.
Take me back!
When I saw that, I was like "she has to come back.
There has to be a way to come back"
and then, as you slowly realize, like,
she's never going to come back.
Well, you can see on the Doctor's face,
this is the worst moment of his life.
When you see him lose it, then you know, like
just got real.
As a "Doctor who" fan,
it's a hard job, to be a hardcore fan,
because you're constantly saying goodbye to people.
Every week, you're on the edge of your seat, as though
somebody might die, something terrible might happen.
This is a main character and she's going away.
And that was like kind of gnarly.
One can really feel the pain
of two people and maybe two actors
that knew it was the last of the series
and it was very painful to watch.
I mean, it was as good as any
epic romance you could ever see.
How long have you been here?
2,000 years, I waited for you.
You did it to me again!
We get it, it's all timey-wimey, and stuff, but, like,
why do you need her to go pack a bag?
I often think -- surely, everyone has thought this --
if you knew a time traveler,
you might get left behind.
It's a terrifying thought.
Put time travel into the equation,
you could be in such trouble.
The whole season with
the eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond and Rory,
I mean, everything has to do with waiting.
I think there's a lot of waiting in "Doctor who"
because I'm a very punctual man
and that means I've spent a great deal of my life
waiting for other people.
Rory and Amy both are good at waiting,
but Rory has done a lot more than Amy
and it proves his love for her.
In "The Doctor's Wife," Amy and Rory really get screwed
by the timey-wimey stuff.
They're running through the halls
of this evil TARDIS.
Amy and Rory are trapped in these corridors
and they're walking around and they keep
getting separated from each other
and, on one side, time travels
much faster than the other side.
Amy?
Oh, my God.
Rory?
You left me.
How could you do that? How could you leave me?
How long have you been here?
2,000 years, I waited for you.
You did it to me again!
I didn't mean to.
I'm sorry.
Agh!
Aah! Rory, what are you doing?
They come for me at night.
Every single night,
they come for me and they hurt me.
Amy, they hurt me
over and over
and over and over and over --
Rory.
How could you leave me?!
How could you do that to me?!
Rory has been such a sweet and loving guy,
up until this moment; It's kind of scary,
to see the dark side of Rory.
He's already waited for her for 2,000 years
and, this time, he's not taking it
in the way that he did before.
I think the idea is that,
if you're expecting to wait 2,000 years,
it's fine, but if you're not,
then even four years can be very annoying.
They separate again and then he's dead bones
and then he shows up
and he's fine and it's all in her head
and that's just scary.
Amy?
Aah!
It's messing with our heads.
I'd say that Amy Pond is more impatient,
she's less stoic than Rory.
Amy gets left by herself for 30 years
in some weird hospital
that keeps trying to kill her.
She's the for 30 years, thinking she's been abandoned
by the two men she loves the most.
You didn't save me.
But...this is the saving!
This is the us saving you!
The Doctor just got the timing a bit out!
I've been on my own here a long, long time.
I've had decades to think nice thoughts about him.
Got a bit harder to stay charitable
once I entered decade four.
Forty years?
Alone?
36 years. Thanks.
No. Right. I mean --
you look great.
Really, really.
Eyes front, soldier.
She's no longer the Amy we know.
She's this survivalist
with a chip on her shoulder.
I hate him more than I've ever hated anyone,
in my life.
And you can hear every word of this
through those ridiculous glasses,
can't you, raggedy man?
Uh...yes.
It's really interesting, seeing the way that character
is distorted by that experience.
She's kind of tragic.
And you still respect her, though,
because she has survived.
Amy had to sit for 30 years,
waiting for the Doctor to return.
But she learned how to swordfight,
so that's pretty sweet.
Can you tell me where you are at the moment, Reinette?
In my bedroom.
And where's your bedroom? Where do you live, Reinette?
Paris, of course.
Paris, right.
The concept of time travel
was explored so beautifully
in "The Girl in the Fireplace."
The Doctor was on a spaceship
and he kept entering into the world
of Madame du Pompadour
in France
at various points of her life.
Okay, that's all for now. Thanks for your help.
Hope you enjoy the rest of the fire. Night-night.
Goodnight, monsieur.
There is a certain ingenuity in this idea
of being able to peer in
to moments,
you know, through the fireplace, through the mirror,
all those places on the spaceship
that attach to different times.
That's one of the things time-travel stories give you.
The first time he goes through,
he sees this young child and then, a few seconds later,
it seems, he goes back in and she's a young girl.
Then he goes back in and she's a young woman
and she falls in love with him.
And so, as is often the case when the Doctor actually
makes a real connection with somebody,
something happens at the end of
"The Girl in the Fireplace" episode that completely
and devastatingly ruins it.
She spoke of you many times.
Often wished
you'd visit again.
You know how women are.
There she goes.
Leaving Versailles for the last time.
Only 43 when she died.
Too young,
too young.
It is a bummer, what happens to Madame du Pompadour,
because the Doctor just goes "Okay, I'll be right back!"
And then he goes to the other time period
and then comes back to get her
and then she's dead from tuberculosis.
Not a fun way to die.
Doctor, stop waiting so long, okay?
We get it, it's all timey-wimey, and stuff, but, like,
why do you need her to go pack a bag?
Don't have her pack a bag.
Just have her come with you at that moment
because you know, as soon as you turn your back,
1,200 years are going to go by in her timeline,
when it's going to be 1,200 seconds in yours.
This is one of those episodes
that you have to watch 1,200 times
to make sure you're catching all the points.
You need to get me out of the Pandorica.
Oh, it's really complicated!
Have we done Easter Island yet?
Um...Yes! I've got Easter Island.
What makes "Doctor Who" different
to any other science- fiction program is that
you can travel through time and time is a very important aspect.
He's not just traveling to one planet, to another.
You can go anywhere in time and everything you do
has an effect on the future or the past.
You know, one small event can, obviously,
you know, ruin the whole destiny of a planet
and kill and blow up the whole Universe.
One of the things in the "Big Bang episode"
that I really love is that it's this episode that's exploring
this incredibly complex timeline
and all these things are happening
and it gets really complicated.
It's Steven having fun and it's Steven's imagination
just seeing how far you can push an idea.
So in "The Big Bang," we get introduced
to this vortex manipulator
and the eleventh Doctor is jumping
in and out of present time,
back to something like 2,000 years ago.
Rory! Listen, she's not dead.
He can go like that and he's
with one person and he can be having
a conversation with that and he can go like that
and he's back in another time,
having a conversation with someone else.
"Oh, I forgot to say something."
And he's back, somewhere else.
Oops, sorry.
How can he do that? Is he magic?
You need to get me out of the Pandorica.
But you're not in the Pandorica.
Yes, I am. Well, I'm not now, but I was back then.
Right, let's go, then.
Wait!
Now I don't have the sonic.
I just gave it to Rory 2,000 years ago.
And, when you're done,
leave my screwdriver in her top pocket.
Right, then.
Off we go. No, hang on, hang on.
How did you know
to come here?
Ah, my handwriting.
That classic "Doctor Who" phrase --
time is the strangest thing, and, once you start
meddling with it, the most bizarre things start happening.
Well, you know, vortex manipulators
will do this to you.
Do you do it because you have to do it,
because you knew what happened, or did you do it
because it needs to be done so it can happen?
Is my nose bleeding?
A little bit? Yeah, it's just -- ooh!
This is one of those episodes that you have to watch
1,200 times to make sure you're catching all the points.
What happened in "The Big Bang" was basically they had to
pretty much push the reset button on the Universe.
The terribly difficult thing to deal with is
that it's going to get rebooted minus the Doctor.
And Amy has to remember him to sort of bring him back.
I remember!
I brought the others back!
I can bring you home, too!
Raggedy man, I remember you,
and you are late for my wedding!
I found you.
I found you in words, like you knew I would.
That's why you told me the story,
the brand-new, ancient, blue box.
Oh, clever, very clever.
Amy, what is it?
Something old, something new,
something borrowed...
Something blue.
As soon as she starts saying "something old,
something new," to have that moment
trigger in every viewer at the same instant,
the idea like "oh, the TARDIS is blue.
That's how this is going to work,"
it's just really masterful.
How did we forget the Doctor?
I was plastic.
He was the stripper at my stag -- long story.
Okay, Doctor, did I surprise you this time?
Uh, yeah, completely astonished.
Never expected that.
She remembers
and then brings back the TARDIS
and the Doctor and it's beautiful
and everyone's happy -- best wedding, ever.
The scene where Amy remembers him and brings him back
is so
full of joy and he arrives
in a tux, ready to party
and, ah, it's just so good.
The Doctor and River's romance is
both amazing and awesome
and tragic, at the same time.
If the Doctor was ever going to have
a romance in his long life, it was never going to be
a straightforward thing.
They're living lives
in opposite directions of the timeline.
Oh, it's really complicated!
Like, every time they see each other,
he knows her less and she knows him more.
Basically, take a normal sort of love story
that you get in a soap opera
and just go like that --
and just throw all the pieces down
and kick them all over the place.
Link it together with a nice little bit of "Hello, sweetie"
and you sort of got it there, kind of.
Right, then, where are we?
Have we done Easter Island yet?
Um...Yes! I've got Easter Island.
They worshipped you there.
Have you seen the statues?
Jim the fish.
Oh! Jim the fish!
How is he?
Still building his dam.
Sorry, what are you two doing?
They're both time travelers,
so they never meet in the right order.
They're syncing their diaries.
It's cute. They sync up, like an iPhone,
they sync up their diaries.
They're like "have you done this yet
or have you done this yet?"
I like the idea that they're on paper.
It's probably psychic, magic paper, or whatever,
but somewhere, the Doctor goes back to his bedroom
and takes out a quill pen, or something, and, you know,
"Dear diary, today, I fought the weeping angels."
I like that.
Sometimes you just want things to be peaceful
for the Doctor.
Just for a time, for it to be nice,
uneventful, straightforward,
just have some of the simple joys of life.
But, no. Even like a River Song kiss,
it might be the first, but, then again,
it might be the last, so what are you going to do, then?
Have I forgotten something?
Oh, shut up.
Right. Okay.
Interesting.
What's wrong?
You're acting like we've never done that before.
We haven't.
We haven't?
Oh, look at the time. Must be off.
But it was very nice. It was --
it was good.
It was unexpected.
You know what they say --
"there's a first time for everything."
And a last time.
What a...brilliant and tragic idea,
that the first kiss for someone
would be the last kiss for someone else.
It makes perfect sense, when you think about it that way,
and only when you think about it that way, because
it kind of puts everything in perspective for us.
That's why people date in one timeline in our world,
because of how upsetting it would be,
to do it the other way.
When River kisses the Doctor and he's like
"oh, that's the first time for anything"
and she's like "or the last,"
that's like every time I kiss a girl.
It's always the first time for me and the last time for her.
And it sort of underscores
the problem that the Doctor has,
which is that he is destined to be alone.
And it kind of makes sense that the great romance of his life
is one that is so completely
out of sync with time and history and, ultimately,
anything that would lead to being happy
and, for instance, growing old together.
It's all about cause and effect, cause and effect.
You're a time traveler, it hasn't happened to you yet, none of it.
It did make my brain hurt. I did watch it two times in a row.
It's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly,
timey wimey...Stuff.
Generally, when you're writing a story about time travel,
you try to avoid the paradox and that's kind of
a time traveler's goal, is to avoid creating paradox.
There's so much of the show, in recent years,
that is only paradox, it's the purpose
of an episode, is to kind of show off
how the Doctor kind of surfs the waves of paradox.
"Blink" is the episode of "Doctor Who"
that you show people who've never seen "Doctor Who,"
to explain why you like it.
If it was a movie, it would be one of the best
time-travel movies ever made.
It's all about time and the sort of movement of time
and the boundaries of time and, of course,
introduced Carey Mulligan to the world.
The main character, first of all, is not the Doctor.
The main character is a sort of companion,
even though she never meets him until the end,
which is actually the beginning.
My dearest Sally Sparrow,
if my grandson has done as he promises he will,
then as you read these words,
it has been mere minutes since we last spoke --
for you.
For me, it has been over sixty years.
Loses her friend, who goes back in time
and sends a letter, sort of "Back to the Future"-style,
and that kind of sparks the plot.
I named her after you, of course.
This is sick.
This is totally sick.
Kathy?
Kathy!
This was the story that brought in
those weeping angels,
the classic
"Doctor Who" adversary.
The weeping angels are angel statues
that we see everywhere, on cathedrals,
and things like that,
and, when you don't look at them,
they become scary monster things that,
if they touch you, they rip you out of your own timeline
and send you somewhere else.
I mean, the thing about the weeping angels,
why it's so clever, again, is because "don't blink."
Now, I don't know if you've tried not blinking.
You can't do it. It's impossible.
And so you're having to fight that.
What's sort of really good is a lot of kids probably
watching it were trying not to blink after they'd seen it.
There's this tour de force scene
in the middle of this episode, where the Doctor
has recorded himself
onto a DVD,
knowing how
Sally Sparrow is going to respond
because she's having it transcribed in the moment.
People assume that time
is a strict progression of cause to effect,
but actually, from a nonlinear,
nonsubjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball
of wibbly wobbly,
timey wimey...stuff.
Yeah, I've seen this bit before.
You said that sentence got away from you.
It...got away from me, yeah.
Next thing you're going to say is,
"well, I can hear you."
Well, I can hear you.
This isn't possible!
No, it's brilliant!
Well, not hear you, exactly,
but I know everything you're going to say.
Always gives me the shivers, that bit.
How can you know what I'm going to say?
Look to your left.
What does he mean by "look to your left"?
I've written tons about that on the forums.
I think it's a political statement.
He means you.
It's all about
cause and effect, cause and effect,
and it's really effect and cause
and there's no beginning to a lot
of these causes and that's paradox.
It did make my brain hurt.
I did watch it two times in a row,
just to really, you know, get it,
just so I didn't feel as dumb as I do right now.
The best moment with Sally Sparrow
is right at the end, when the Doctor appears
outside her store and she runs out to say hi to him
and the Doctor has no idea who she is.
My God, it's you. It really is you.
Oh, you don't remember me, do you?
Doctor, we haven't got time for this.
Migration's started.
Look, sorry, I've got a bit of a...complex life.
Things don't always happen to me in quite the right order.
Gets a bit confusing at times, especially at weddings.
I'm rubbish at weddings, especially my own.
Oh, my God, of course --
you're a time traveler. It hasn't happened
to you yet, none of it, it's still in your future.
What hasn't happened?
Doctor, please, 20 minutes to red hatching.
It was me.
Oh, for God's sake, it was me all along.
You got it all from me.
Got what?
Okay, listen --
one day, you're going to get stuck in 1969.
Make sure you've got this with you.
You're going to need it.
Doctor!
Yeah, listen, listen, got to dash --
things happening. Well, four things.
Well, four things and a lizard.
Okay, no worries. On you go.
See you around, someday.
What was your name?
Sally Sparrow.
Good to meet you, Sally Sparrow.
He's running off with Martha. They're going to
shoot arrows at something, there's some other
episode happening and she just glances into it
and realizes that this is one of those rare moments
when somebody has something up on the Doctor.
That episode is sort of like
what makes shows about time travel so fun.
That it all completely makes sense, it all ties together.
You're sort of watching it unfold
and it is explaining itself as its happening.
I think there's a real artistry
in people who can write time travel well.
Follow that ship.
It's such a cool mechanic
to do really awesome things.
Can you tell me where you are,
at the moment, Reinette?
What the writers of "Doctor Who" manage is
to broaden our perceptions, broaden our beliefs,
broaden our horizons.
This isn't possible.
No, it's brilliant!
They get it brilliantly correct every time.
== sync, corrected by elderman ==