Doctor Who: 10 Similarities Between The Classic And Revived Series
10. Bad TARDIS Piloting Skills
THE NEW: Everyone knows that The Doctor has a TARDIS that travels through time and space. Most also know that he is a terrible driver - the equivalent of a young teenager behind the wheel of a car for the first time and deciding to go fast to impress his friends. Watchers of the new series will remember the Ninth Doctor sending Rose home 12 months late, the Eleventh constantly arriving late for Amy Pond (anywhere from a month to three years to twelve years) and the Twelfth landing Clara in a hot, humid jungle after she dressed for a ski trip. Sure, the TARDIS may be a sentient being and takes the Doctor where he needs, not wants, to go, but for a Lord of Time, one would expect the Doctor to actually arrive at his intended destination, and time, on the first try.
THE OLD: The Doctor, in his previous incarnations, has always had trouble piloting his Type 40 craft, not counting the times where some temporal anomaly or other plot device has pulled the TARDIS off-course, or where the Time Lords themselves sent the TARDIS to places for covert missions. The Fourth Doctor, much to the bane of the young Romana I and II, constantly ended up on Earth in different points of its history without aiming for it, even with a randomiser attached, or materialised on an unknown alien planet and immediately springing outside excitedly without so much as checking the scanner for hostiles. The Fifth Doctor similarly got lost or frequently returned to Earth much to the consternation of his young travelling companions (especially the aliens Nyssa and Adric) and spent the better part of a season trying to return Tegan Jovanka home to Heathrow, 1970, and his later attempts to take Tegan and Turlough to visit the Eye of Orion (the most peaceful place in the universe) led to him instead ending up in other places (definitely not the most peaceful place in the universe). Such was his failure to do so that the only occasion that he arrived at that time and place was when he wasnt even aiming for it. It seems, therefore, that with age does NOT come better piloting skills.