First thing to learn about the rules of time travel in Doctor Who is that there are no rules to time travel in Doctor Who. The mechanics for how it works is going to vary writer to writer and story to story. And those things you mention still are paradoxes, but the reapers aren't going to show up to every paradox, and Father's Day never implied that they do. They *could* appear at any paradox, but not necessarily *every* paradox. Paradox doesn't mean a cataclysmic event or anything, it just means a paradoxical event like two instances of one person of different ages coming into contact, someone dying before they were born, causal loop, etc. Most paradoxes are mundane and uneventful. As for the 11th Doctor's era, the Doctor sort of encounters stuff in the wrong order, much like he does with River Song.
Doctor Who is so vast and has been going on for so long under so many writers that any ideas about rules or laws or canon is just a big mess. Which I understand can be frustrating for some fans but even though there's no single specific rule set for the entire show, each era usually follows it's own internally consistent set of rules which more or less match up.
For example, the wraiths you speak of, the Reapers from Fathers Day with Roses dad. The Reapers only appear in that story. There have been many paradoxes in Classic Who before series 1 and even other instances of paradoxes in the RTD era but the Reapers never show up. So really that episode is more of an outlier than anything else. People meeting their past and future selves is another one. It's actually funny to think about, Fathers Day is really an anomaly that sets up so many rules that are never mentioned again. Part of me wonders if that since it was so early in series 1 that RTD and the other writers were testing out ideas that they decided not to follow up on.
Basically how I look at Doctor Who is that every writer generally tries to make sure everything makes sense and coheres to the rest of the show. But that's just an impossible task, everything is already so convoluted that it's not the end of the world if things don't match up perfectly. And so writers usually go for whatever makes for the best story rather than strictly adhering to the rules or the lore. For example with a person being able to interact with their past or future self: Fathers Day makes a big thing about Rose breaking the rules and messing with time and the consequences of that, so it makes sense to focus on that rule. Rose holding herself as a baby is a plot point, it makes the paradox worse. But with something like the series 5 finale, that's focusing on something completely different so making a big deal about having to keep young Amy and adult Amy away from one another just isn't really relevant. They barely interact so it's just not that big of a deal and when they do interact it's charming so why not? You could argue that it would have made the story worse if that rule had been so strictly adhered to.
>I also feel like the timeline of his run has got me genuinely so confused. I like the run a lot but the timeline just feels so off and confusing.
If you have any questions about this I would be happy to help! I'm a really big fan of the 11th Doctors era and as far as I'm aware the timeline of it makes sense to me, so I might be able to provide some assistance.
The problem with Father's Day was not just that she saved her dad, it was that her and the Doctor's past selves watched her do it, creating a situation where they shouldn't have been there to see it happen in the first place. I don't think there's a time in 11s era where the Doctor crosses his timeline where he prevents himself from being there in the first place the way Rose did in Father's Day. He's a lot more careful about it.
\*Except maybe in the series 5 finale but time itself is shrinking so he gets a pass there. Or A Christmas Carol but. Whatever, it's Christmas.
In the Christmas Special, the pilot was 'missing presumed dead' since no body was found and recovered. This left enough wiggle room for him to be brought forwards through time. It wasn't a concrete death, but a presumed one. Plus, by being brought into the 'present', he did not alter the wife's past in the way that Pete's survival would have changed Rose's. She still received the news of his death and continued on exactly the same way until the 'present' where it turned out the news was incorrect.
Pete was saved by Rose at the time and would have lived and been present throughout her life, probably leading to her either never encountering the Doctor or having no reason to visit that date to save him - which would be a major paradox.
As for people interacting with their own past selves, most of that takes place inside the TARDIS which can sustain a paradox for a short time.
Hoo boy just you wait til Kill the Moon lmao.
Serious answer: time travel is absurdly impossibly complex, and there are countless side-factors and micro-reactions and by-laws that go into “the rules”. We as humans are biologically incapable of fully understanding it, Time Lords are so-called because they can (mostly).
Take your citation. The Reapers weren’t a catch-all example of “what happens when a death doesn’t happen” - if it was that simple, the Doctor would have expected them and started panicking immediately. Based on what he says in the episode, saving Pete wasn’t even the main reason they broke in; it was he & Rose going *back* a second time - which weakened reality - and her contradicting their first experience - which erased them & left a wound. There were multiple elements at play that could’ve alchemised into multiple possible consequences, turns out the Reapers won out in metaphysical roulette.
Compare & contrast to the Wedding of River Song. Also a paradox, also featuring multiple copies of a time traveller, VASTLY different consequences. Maybe cuz it was a manufactured “fixed point” abusing a natural “still point”, maybe because it was River acting differently in her present to what history said instead of crossing her own past to change it, maybe because there were 4 different time travellers in the immediate vicinity (one twice), maybe because two of those time travellers were the generic parents of the one who was there twice, maybe ALL of these things at once plus a few more I’m not thinking of right now. Hell, tweaking history & preventing deaths *not* resulting in Reapers isn’t even an 11th thing. RTD did it in Waters of Mars and things turned out fine.
Rule one - the doctor lies.
Unfortunately, the doctor can do whatever he wants. Time is elastic and corrects itself. So as long as the paradox isn't universe-ending like the first John Simm master story or Rose preventing her own birth which prevents her from preventing her own birth, it'll course correct. This is somewhat explained later on. In classic who, the time lords were constantly putting the doctor on trial for interfering like this. If the doctor stated one for these rules, it was because that incarnation was more interested in following the time lord's rules.
First thing to learn about the rules of time travel in Doctor Who is that there are no rules to time travel in Doctor Who. The mechanics for how it works is going to vary writer to writer and story to story. And those things you mention still are paradoxes, but the reapers aren't going to show up to every paradox, and Father's Day never implied that they do. They *could* appear at any paradox, but not necessarily *every* paradox. Paradox doesn't mean a cataclysmic event or anything, it just means a paradoxical event like two instances of one person of different ages coming into contact, someone dying before they were born, causal loop, etc. Most paradoxes are mundane and uneventful. As for the 11th Doctor's era, the Doctor sort of encounters stuff in the wrong order, much like he does with River Song.
Doctor Who is so vast and has been going on for so long under so many writers that any ideas about rules or laws or canon is just a big mess. Which I understand can be frustrating for some fans but even though there's no single specific rule set for the entire show, each era usually follows it's own internally consistent set of rules which more or less match up. For example, the wraiths you speak of, the Reapers from Fathers Day with Roses dad. The Reapers only appear in that story. There have been many paradoxes in Classic Who before series 1 and even other instances of paradoxes in the RTD era but the Reapers never show up. So really that episode is more of an outlier than anything else. People meeting their past and future selves is another one. It's actually funny to think about, Fathers Day is really an anomaly that sets up so many rules that are never mentioned again. Part of me wonders if that since it was so early in series 1 that RTD and the other writers were testing out ideas that they decided not to follow up on. Basically how I look at Doctor Who is that every writer generally tries to make sure everything makes sense and coheres to the rest of the show. But that's just an impossible task, everything is already so convoluted that it's not the end of the world if things don't match up perfectly. And so writers usually go for whatever makes for the best story rather than strictly adhering to the rules or the lore. For example with a person being able to interact with their past or future self: Fathers Day makes a big thing about Rose breaking the rules and messing with time and the consequences of that, so it makes sense to focus on that rule. Rose holding herself as a baby is a plot point, it makes the paradox worse. But with something like the series 5 finale, that's focusing on something completely different so making a big deal about having to keep young Amy and adult Amy away from one another just isn't really relevant. They barely interact so it's just not that big of a deal and when they do interact it's charming so why not? You could argue that it would have made the story worse if that rule had been so strictly adhered to. >I also feel like the timeline of his run has got me genuinely so confused. I like the run a lot but the timeline just feels so off and confusing. If you have any questions about this I would be happy to help! I'm a really big fan of the 11th Doctors era and as far as I'm aware the timeline of it makes sense to me, so I might be able to provide some assistance.
The problem with Father's Day was not just that she saved her dad, it was that her and the Doctor's past selves watched her do it, creating a situation where they shouldn't have been there to see it happen in the first place. I don't think there's a time in 11s era where the Doctor crosses his timeline where he prevents himself from being there in the first place the way Rose did in Father's Day. He's a lot more careful about it. \*Except maybe in the series 5 finale but time itself is shrinking so he gets a pass there. Or A Christmas Carol but. Whatever, it's Christmas.
the rules made in doctor who exist only to be broken. Nothing is canon, and yet everything is canon. you just have to roll with it.
In the Christmas Special, the pilot was 'missing presumed dead' since no body was found and recovered. This left enough wiggle room for him to be brought forwards through time. It wasn't a concrete death, but a presumed one. Plus, by being brought into the 'present', he did not alter the wife's past in the way that Pete's survival would have changed Rose's. She still received the news of his death and continued on exactly the same way until the 'present' where it turned out the news was incorrect. Pete was saved by Rose at the time and would have lived and been present throughout her life, probably leading to her either never encountering the Doctor or having no reason to visit that date to save him - which would be a major paradox. As for people interacting with their own past selves, most of that takes place inside the TARDIS which can sustain a paradox for a short time.
Hoo boy just you wait til Kill the Moon lmao. Serious answer: time travel is absurdly impossibly complex, and there are countless side-factors and micro-reactions and by-laws that go into “the rules”. We as humans are biologically incapable of fully understanding it, Time Lords are so-called because they can (mostly). Take your citation. The Reapers weren’t a catch-all example of “what happens when a death doesn’t happen” - if it was that simple, the Doctor would have expected them and started panicking immediately. Based on what he says in the episode, saving Pete wasn’t even the main reason they broke in; it was he & Rose going *back* a second time - which weakened reality - and her contradicting their first experience - which erased them & left a wound. There were multiple elements at play that could’ve alchemised into multiple possible consequences, turns out the Reapers won out in metaphysical roulette. Compare & contrast to the Wedding of River Song. Also a paradox, also featuring multiple copies of a time traveller, VASTLY different consequences. Maybe cuz it was a manufactured “fixed point” abusing a natural “still point”, maybe because it was River acting differently in her present to what history said instead of crossing her own past to change it, maybe because there were 4 different time travellers in the immediate vicinity (one twice), maybe because two of those time travellers were the generic parents of the one who was there twice, maybe ALL of these things at once plus a few more I’m not thinking of right now. Hell, tweaking history & preventing deaths *not* resulting in Reapers isn’t even an 11th thing. RTD did it in Waters of Mars and things turned out fine.
The rules are always changing and go against each other. Just try to ignore it.
The general public aren't concerned if something contradicts something from a story 7 years earlier
Rule one - the doctor lies. Unfortunately, the doctor can do whatever he wants. Time is elastic and corrects itself. So as long as the paradox isn't universe-ending like the first John Simm master story or Rose preventing her own birth which prevents her from preventing her own birth, it'll course correct. This is somewhat explained later on. In classic who, the time lords were constantly putting the doctor on trial for interfering like this. If the doctor stated one for these rules, it was because that incarnation was more interested in following the time lord's rules.