The Classic Series had the Time Lords which were, to some extent, the go-to game masters and rule keepers of the Whoniverse. One can picture them as a metaphor for show's screenwriters that never got tired of sending their hero on dangerous missions. When Nu-Who established their demise, a lot of writers had their own go at inventing mind-bending time rules, regardless of what others had already sort of established before. In Eccleston's Father's Day, for example, the Reapers are introduced and are said to replace the Time Lords when time paradoxes need fixing. But that is their only episode, even though paradoxes keep happening. Later, fixed points in time are introduced (The Fires of Pompeii). It is insisted upon the fact that the Doctor can't change them... until he totally can (The Waters of Mars). Also, it is said that once you see one version of the future, that version becomes set and you can't change it anymore. But then you can (see the whole Trenzalore arc). What's more infuriating is that, when a screenwriter requires it, the Doctor can't fix things that are obviously fixable, à la The Angels Take Manhattan. So what's it gonna be, then? This isn't even nitpicking, but one can't help but point out the obvious. There is little doubt that Steven Moffat is a genius but that doesn't mean that all the criticism he gets is without reason. What he did with the Eleventh Doctor's arc was probably ahead of its time, although "time" is probably one concept that he just took for granted. That or "logic". The Twelfth Doctor's run has been much smoother in this aspect thus far and Moffat should be encouraged to keep it that way, at least until the Time Lords make their inevitable return. Hopefully they'll put the Doctor on trial again and judge him for all those paradoxes, Universe resets and being generally confusing.
Adrian Serban lives in Bucharest, Romania where he has studied screenwriting and film criticism. But it's not all about artsy European dramas for him, as he's also a fan of horrors, kung-fu flicks and sci-fi films of all eras. Monty Python and Doctor Who are two British institutions that changed his life for the better. Or so he thinks.
