Doctor Who Eve Of The Daleks: 10 Huge Questions After The New Year Special
4. Did The Countdown Make Sense?
Chibnall likes his countdowns if 42 is anything to go by,
and he introduces a new one here as a variation to the time loop concept.
Whenever time is reset, a minute is lost, adding urgency to the situation. It’s
has a limited number of rewinds, beyond which the Doctor’s permanent death is
assured. In the first round, Nick dies first and Sarah is worried that he only
has four rewinds because on the next one, he’ll be already dead at the point of
the reset.
He is able to stay alive for the last minute escape because by ducking he changed the outcome of one of the revolutions. That much makes sense. What is less clear is why the Doctor, Yaz and Dan do not appear to return to the basement a minute later each time. They keep going back to the moment they first arrived in Manchester.
Helpfully, the TARDIS is a time machine, meaning that on
each reset, the TARDIS could have feasibly arrived a minute later. It would
confirm that the time loop, whether caused by the TARDIS or someone else, is a
very deliberate, carefully coordinated act. As if someone is placing the pieces
on a chess board to begin each scenario.