Narrative and Paradoxes in Doctor Who "Time Loop" Stories

Author Tranter, Kieran

Published 2015

Book Title Time-Travel Television: The Past from the Present, the Future from the Past

Version Version of Record (VoR)

Copyright Statement © 2015 Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. This material has been published in Time- Travel Television: The Past from the Present, the Future from the Past edited by S. Ginn and G. I. Leitch, pp. 223-232, 2015, reproduced by permission of Rowman & Littlefield, https:// rowman.com/ISBN/9781442255777 All rights reserved. Please contact the publisher for permission to copy, distribute or reprint.

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Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au Chapter Twenty-One

Narrative and Paradoxes in Doctor Who "Time-Loop" Stories KieranTranter

For a television show about a time-traveling alien and his mostly human, mostlyfemale companions, Doctor Who,until veryrecently, has not engaged in any great depth with the complexities of time travel. For the bulk of the Doctor Who televised canon, time travel was simply a device to allow the Doctor to have an adventure within a particularhistorical period. The poten­ tial of time travel to meddle with cause and effect and ultimately narrative sensibility has been generally avoided by Doctor Who's writers and produc­ ers through intratext posited or natural laws of time that prevent or mitigate the contradictions of time travel. This chapter focuses on two Doctor Who broadcast stories that were directlyconcerned with time travel: "Day of the Daleks" and "Journey to the Centre of theTARD IS." In each narrative, the "this happens and then that" is maintained through "time loops" that arebracketing at the beginning/end of the stories. Withinthe loop, continuity is maintainedwhile the overall narra­ tive remains sensible outside of the loop, with the loop revealed as a "para­ dox," a "future-that-was-not." These time-loop stories are important for whatis affirmedabout living as a "being-in-time." They remind us that being-in-time involves both subjec­ tive and objective time. As creatures thrown into a technological society where objective time appears to be in ascendance, time loops, paradoxically, remind us thatto be human, there is more to "time"than objective time. That the subjective experience of the passage of time-the time of falliblememo­ ry and unknowable future-is as important for human beings as the hard ordering of cause and effect. 224 Kieran Tranter Narrative and Paradoxesin Doctor Who "Time-Loop"Stories 225 DOCTOR WHO AND TIME TRAVEL "no-sense," that concerned Stanislaw Lem in "The Time-Travel Story and Related Matters of Science-Fiction Structuring" (first published in Russian Having passed its fiftieth anniversary in spectacular style, Doctor Who is a [1970]). 8 Whereas Paul Nahin has catalogued different versions of time show that does not require much introduction. 1 It concerns the ongoing ad­ travel within science fiction (present to past, present to future, object from ventures, triumphs, and failures of a time-traveling, face-changinghumanoid future in present, visualizing future and/or past), 9 Lem was concerned with alien; his miraculous time machine; and a succession of mostly female "com­ thinking seriously about science fiction's posh1latingof time travel. For Lem, panions." On first inspection, the theme of time travel appears to be priori­ stori�s that are adventures in time, such as H. G. Wells's paradigmatic The tized. The Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS ( an acronym for Time and Time Machine, in which a traveler journeys to another time and then returns Relative Dimension[s] in Space)--frozen in its previous disguise as a Lon­ to his own, avoid the "fun" of "causal paradoxes" that come fromtime-travel don Metropolitan Police box-has been a point of consistency in a show stories. 10 The problem/fw1 emerges from the logical illogicality well demon­ whose actors, producers, aesthetics, and genres keep changing. 2 From 201 O strated by the patricidal time traveler who disposes of his or her grandfather to 2013, the TARDISsilhouette formed the show's logo, and the incongruent before he had begotten the traveler'sparent. 11 The paradox is that the exis­ formof a police box hurdling through the time vortex or real space has been tence of the traveler, and, therefore,her capacity to eliminate her unfortunate a featureof the opening credits during 1974 to 1980, 1987 to 1989, and since ancestor, is in doubt. For Lem, "the fw1 consists in the way the paradoxis 12 2005. Further, time has been a regular inclusion in episode titles: "The Time shifted from one segment of the action to another." He identifies two "au­ Meddler" (#17), "The Time Warrior" (#70), "Invasion of Time" (#97), thorial attitudes" to the paradox of time loops; either embracing the illogical­ "Time-Flight" (#123), "Timeand the Rani" (#148), and themore recent "The ity or strategies that"cleverly avoid them." 13 End of Time" (season 4, episodes 17 and 18). Even the Doctor's species is Doctor Who has displayed both of these attitudes. The first is reveling in named "Time Lords." This all suggests that time and time traveling is at the the illogicality. A celebrated example is the Moffat-penned explanation foreof theshow. "people assume that time is a strict progressionof cause to effect, but actual­ However, notwithstanding these suggestions, the complexities of time ly from a nonlinear, nonsubjective viewpoint-it's more like a big ball of travel have not been prioritized by Doctor Who. For the bulk of thetelevised wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff."14 As Lem observes, this strategy tends canon, time travel was simply a device to allow the Doctor to have an to find its registry in comedy.15 And the original scene that introduced adventure within a particular historical period. This was most evident in the "timey-wimey," with the Tenth Doctor madly gesturingto the camera while case of the "historicals," which aired from 1964 to 1967, 3 but was also the engaged in a conversation that he already had the transcript of (havingtalcen case in later episodes. The TARDIS would bookend a story: Doctor and it from the future to the past), is one of the funniest in recent Doctor Who companion arrive in theTARD IS, have an adventure, and then leave. In this episodes. While Doctor Who has had its comedic moments-climaxingwith way, the Doctor has saved Renaissance Italy (twice), 4 Victorian England (at the pairing of Douglas Adams and Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor in least eight times), 5 and caused the Pompeii-destroying eruption of Mount 1977-1978-thisattitude to time travel has not been greatly evident. Vesuvius. 6 Rarely did the Doctor use the TARDIS intra-episode, although Much more evident has been the strategy of avoidance through the de­ this tendency has changed in post-2005 Doctor Who. This has climaxed ployment of a variety of in-text legalisms that supposedly close offthe narra­ under current producer Steven Moffat, whose award-winning earlier stories, tive difficultiesof time travel. This spans an ethical principle of "not chang­ "The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Blink," set a direction where, in recent ing history" held by the First Doctor in "TheAztecs" and "The Time Med­ seasons, there has been greater inclusion of time travel within episodes and dler" to a set of Time Lord-posited rules called the laws of tin1e in the"Three season storyarcs. Doctors." Through their screened history, these rules appear both vague in This recent use of time travelwithin Doctor Who during the"Moffat era" articulationand weak in sanction. It has been stated that there is a first law of has not gone without criticism. The frantic complexity of these time-travel­ time that prohibits an individual fromcrossing his or her own time stream.16 ing episodes and season-long story arcs can be at the expense of narrative It also had been stated that this first law prohibits time-travel activities that clarity. 7 While characters moving at different chronological speeds was an would result in "distortions of history."17 In presenting these as posited rules endearingand poignantnarrative technique in "The Girl in the Fireplace" and of the Time Lord community, the suggestion is that, for the Whoniverse, the "Blink," the crack-in-time motif in season 5 and the whole River technical possibility of chronomotion, to use Lem's phrase, can allow for Song-Doctor relationship left many viewers confused. It is this danger of changes to history or for individuals to cross their own time streams: it is just time travel, of undermining the temporal frameworkfor narrative, of making 226 Kieran Tranter Narrative and Paradoxes in Doctor Who "Time-Loop"Stories 227 a good idea that this does not happen often. As such, these laws ohime are TIME LOOPS, BRACKETING, AND NON-SENSE made to be broken, as happens in theDoctor Whoanniversary specials. 18 The second category of legalisms deployed in Doctor Who conceives of "Day of the Daleks," first screened in January 1972, is representative of the the laws of time as limits on the capacity of time travelers to change history general story structures from the Barry Letts/Terrance Dicks period.19 The or to meet their future/past selves. In this category, the laws are akin to laws Third Doctor, along with theense mble of companions-Jo Grant and UNIT of nature, inherent limits to the consequences of time travel. An example is personnel Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Captain Yates, and Sergeant Ben­ the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, first introduced in "Day of the Daleks," ton-defend world peace from alien interference. The precise plot of the reiterated in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" (#71), and demonstrated in "Maw­ episode has UNIT protecting a British diplomat trying to avert global con­ dryn Undead," that supposedly prevents a time travelerfrom crossing his or flict, which is threatened by humans of the twenty-second century who have her own time stream. Another is the "fixed points in history" explanation identified the diplomat as the cause of the conflict and who have traveled back in time in order to eliminate him. Their justification is that the global used in more recent Doctor Who episodes, where the Doctor explains that he _ cannot interfere in events that are "fixed." In both situations, interference conflict so wealcened Earth that at some point in the intervening years, the generates consequences within space-time itself, from theappearance of the Daleks were able to talEleventh Doctor and "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS," viewers witness-live, to a certain his companionClara Oswald: extent-the future-that-was-not. They live the order of events from the acci­ dent through to the white stasis of the exploded engine, which is then un­ Clara:Please tell me there's a button you can press to fix this. wound in the push of a button. In"Day of the Daleks," the centuries of war and Dalek invasion between the two screened times are not shown. Further, Doctor: Oh, yes. Big, friendly button. in "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS," there is only a single time-travel event: thecritical movement of the Doctor with the remote through the crack Clara: You're lying. into the immediate past. In "Day of the Daleks," there is a veritable highway of traveling back and forth. By having the plot's resolution hinge on a single Doctor: Yep. chronomotion, the complexities aremore obvious. The viewer is leftwonder­ r Clara grabs an object that rolls toward her and bums her hand. The scene ing how many times, pardon the pun, the time loop has been ciculatinguntil ends, and in the next one, the Doctor awakens outside of the TARDIS with the Doctor gets it right. Clara trappedinside. The Doctor recruits the crew of the salvageship to enter Nevertheless, "Journeyto the Centre of the TARDIS" remains a sensible, the TARDIS with him in order to search for Clara. Once inside the TARDIS, rollicking adventure. At a cursory level, it still makes sense; the future-that- Doctor Who 230 Kieran Tranter Narrativeand Paradoxes in "Time-Loop" Stories 231 was-not was caused by the accident that the Doctor then went back in time' "it's in the diary," "booked in," "projected," and anticipated. This is objec­ and prevented. At a deeper level, as Lem would have identified, it makes tive time, the time order of physicists, economists, and machines-a mathe­ mi, 22 sense whatsoever, spiraling into an infiniteregression of cause-effect/negat­ matical fonn of time--where a past caused a present caused a future. For ed cause-negated effect. lbisis exactly what Lem's judgment on "Day of the philosophers of time, these ancient distinctions between subjective and ob­ the jective time tend not to be absolute, withmost conceiving the truthof time as Daleks" would be, although its script is tighter at bracketing time loop 23 and maintaining the semblance of order. This approach of containing the some combination of both. What essentially can be seen is a version of the time loop through the paradox approach, while more sophisticated than ins Heisenberg principle: subjective time is the experience of the flow, the text legalities, ultimately disguises and displaces the complexity of time> movement of a body in time. Objective time is description at certain loca­ travel. Lem, a rationalist who expects science fiction to be thought through, : tions in time. The more subjective time is emphasized, the less is !mown as well as a story teller to be able to identifyauthorial tricks that render time about past, present, and future. The more objective time is emphasized, the loops comprehensible, would still see the logical illogicalityof both "Dayo f less is known of the movements and transfonnationsthrough time. the Daleks" and "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS." However, Lem's concern with time travel overemphasized objective time, with its clever and critical response, a very Doctor-lilce reaction, actually misses the purity of order, its chronological-ity. The bracketing of the time loops in point. It is, to paraphrasethe Twelfth Doctor, the answer to the wrong ques, "Day of the Daleks" and "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" worked tion. The right question is, Why are these stories told in the firstplace ? Why because what were invoked were indices of subjective time: memory, a pri­ is "chronological-ity," to coin a neologism forthe logical and proper flowof mal present, and a future that is unknown. The stories remained comprehen­ time, not essential for comprehensible and entertaining stories? The answer sible because a fonn of sequence was maintained; an immediate present is that thelogical and proper flowof time is not, in itself, the human experi­ remembers past and remains open to future. The Doctor, as critics have ence of time. identified, might meddle and mingle with the epic, "external" times of his universe, but his "personal" time of memory and unknown future remains. 24 The regenerations number offfrom William Hartnell's "One." He has count­ BEING-IN-TIME lessly escaped his predicated doom, and he has visited his possible grave within a future-that-was-not. 25 Underlying Lem's concerns with time-loop Humans live throughtime intwo ways. The firstis the subjective experience: stories is a fear that, once the fonnal cause and effect of objective time is ° of time; the living in a present that is always a future that is becomingpast.2 contradicted, all that is left is a senseless singularity: a dangerous, meaning­ This is a living-in-time within a body that grows old according to the com- less chaos where there is everything and nothing. However, "Day of the mands of a biological clock. However, it is also a fonnof presentism: forthe Daleks" and "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" confinn that sense is 21 only known is the awareness of the now. At this present, the future is more resilient than logic to paradoxes and contradictions. These episodes unknown andunknowable. Thepast is only recalled through the analogue of expose the narrativetricks and authorial attitudes thatallow time-loop stories remembering. It is only known from the incomplete and the forgetfulnessof to be experienced as plausible. However, theyalso do more. memory. There is awareness of movement; a deep feeling in the immediate Time-loop stories, handled well, are important, because while incredulity of observing and participating in a passing sequence of events. This is a is suppressed as the loop is negated and a future-that-was becomes a future­ subjecting to, a throwinginto a world of change thatdemands participation in that-was-not, subjective time is affinned. Good science fiction says some­ its ordering. The experience of subjective time is to be subject to its flows thing about living as a human in a technological world, 26 in a world that is and critical awareness of this way of being-in-time comes in the frustration marching to the digital pulse of objective, external time. Doctor Who'stime­ of "not having enoughtime," the plea for "more time," the desire to "freeze loop stories remind us that this time, with its ordered logic of cause and the moment." But, notwithstanding the intimacy andfamiliarity with subjec­ effect, is only part of what it means to live as a being thrown into tin1e. tive time, it is not the only way that humans be-in-time. The second is the Sequence and flow are experienced as much as it is imposed, and meaning mastery and ordering of time. There is a past thatis known, written in history and worth are not inherently generated in logs of hours worked, past posi­ books, caught in an old photograph, or known "beyond reasonable doubt'' tions in curriculum vitae, or a diarized to-do list. Rather, it is the emotion of froma criminal trial. There is a present that is now; the current "like" tally on living the sequence or experiencing the ceaseless unfolding of a future to a social media page, an event streamed "live," the waiting at a red light with present to past that it is the locus of meaning. Viewers can watch, enjoy, and the knowledge that the green is coming. And there is a futurethat is planned: make sense of the Doctor riding the twists of the time loops in "Day of the 232 Kieran Tranter

Daleks" and "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" because there is a semblance of sequence that is deeply familiarto the experience of subjective time. Ultimately, these stories matterbecause they show the complexity of what it is to be a being-in-time, a being composed of subjective and objective time. They particularly matter for beings thrown into a technological society, where objective timeappears to be in ascendance. Time loops, paradoxically, remind us thatto be human, there is much more to time than objective time.

NOTES

1. Doctor Whohas not been consistently produced over the past fiftyyears. The original, "classic" series ran from 1964 to 1989 and was then placed in a "production halt." There was a 1996 telemovie that failed to reboot the series. The current, highly successful series was launched by BBC Wales in 2005. See Chapman, "Fifty Years in the TARDIS," for a historicai review. I would like to thank my daughter, Sophia Tranter Sleep, for help compiling my fihnography and forcorrecting my Doctor Who facts. 2. The TARD IS prop has chm1ged regularly. Over the production span of tl1e show, itsblue has gotten lighter then darker, the windows have grown and thenslmmk. It has looked shabby and more recently pristine, and the St. John Ambulance decal has disappeared and returned; Nevertheless, its referencingof a London police box has been remarkably consistent. 3. The "historicals" were a set of stories where there were no overtscience-fiction tropes such as invading aliens. Rather, in the historicals, the Doctor and companions navigated the well-known persons and politics of a historical period. See, for example, the episode "Tite Aztecs." 4. Doctor Who, "The Masque ofMandragora" and "Tite Vampires of Venice." 5. Doctor Who, "The Evil of tlte Daleks," "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," "Ghost Light,'.' "The Unquiet Dead," "TheNext Doctor," "The Snowmen," "The Crimson Horror," and "Deep Breath." 6. Doctor Who, "Fires of Pompeii." 7. Booth,"Effecting the Cause," 101. 8. Lem, "Time Travel Story." 9. Nahin, Time Machine, 2-58. 10. Lem, "Time Travel Story,"144. 11. Ibid., 138-44; Lewis, "Paradoxes of Time Travel"; Malament, "'Time Travel' in the Godel Universe," 98. 12. Lem, "Time Travel Story," 144. 13. Ibid., 144-45. 14. Doctor Who,"Blink." 15. Lem, "Time Travel Story," 145. 16. Doctor Who,"The Three Doctors." 17. Doctor Who,"TheHan dofFear." 18. Doctor Who,"TI1e 1bree Doctors," "TI1e Five Doctors," and "Day of the Doctor." 19. Chapman, "Fifty Years in the TARDIS," 50. 20. McTaggart, Nature ofExistence, 11. 21. Bourne, F'uture farPresentism, 10. 22. Stiegler, TechnicsandTime, 1:213. 23. Wolcher, Law's Task, 176-77. 24. Worley, "Timey�W.imey Stuff," 59; Tranter, "In and Out of Time." 25. Doctor Who, "TI1e Name of the Doctor." 26. Csicsery-Ronay,Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, 2-3; Tranter, "Speculative Jurisdic-: lion," 818-20.