Topic: Doctor Who (linear time)

[Diabolico]

When the Doctor is on earth prior to travelling, or returning from somewhere, the time period he keeps returning to is a time vector. Time can only move forward, but yet the Doctor has a time machine which makes it possible to go to any time period and anywhere in the universe.

So why keep returning to earth following a time vector?

[redlandslide]

Possibly so he doesn't accidentally cross his own time line, but more likely because his companion is still ageing at a normal rate, so if for example he leaves Earth in 2009 and travels through space & time for 20 years then returns his companion to earth, the companion would have aged 20 years so he'd return her to 2029, not 2009. Then she can put her absence to travelling or emigrating to another country, whereas explaining why she'd aged 20 years in a few minutes would be harder to explain.

[Diabolico]

Possibly so he doesn't accidentally cross his own time line.

Some of his travels were random, the Doctor didn't know where he would end up. Off the top of my head, one of those times he ended up on Skaro, but didn't recognise the planet straight away, the Doctor states this is an familiar place/planet [sic] (Genesis of the Daleks I think >_>).

but more likely because his companion is still ageing at a normal rate, so if for example he leaves Earth in 2009 and travels through space & time for 20 years then returns his companion to earth, the companion would have aged 20 years so he'd return her to 2029, not 2009. Then she can put her absence to travelling or emigrating to another country, whereas explaining why she'd aged 20 years in a few minutes would be harder to explain.

I'd buy that. Similar to the Fight of the Navigator (1986):

A 12 year old boy goes missing in 1978, only to reappear once more in 1986. In the eight years that have passed, David hasn't aged. It is no coincidence that at the time David 'comes back', a flying saucer is found, entangled in electricity cables.

Thank you

[redlandslide]

Some of his travels were random, the Doctor didn't know where he would end up. Off the top of my head, one of those times he ended up on Skaro, but didn't recognise the planet straight away, the Doctor states this is an familiar place/planet [sic] (Genesis of the Daleks I think >_>).

The Doctor didn't intend to go to Skaro. He was using the transmat he'd just mended (in the Sontaran Experiment) and was intercepted by the Time Lords who put him on Skaro to try to stop the creation of the Daleks. The reason he didn't recognise Skaro was because the other time he'd been there (The Daleks aka The Dead Planet) was after the nuclear war between the Daleks and the Thals and everything had become petrified, whereas Genesis of the Daleks took place before that war (come to think of it that means the Doctor didn't cross his own timeline anyway).

Thank you

You're welcome.

[Diabolico]

That explains it; can't remember either of those episodes, got a vague memory of the Dead Planet. Sontaran Experiment follows the Ark, so will download that next.

*Edit:

Found a website with RS downloads of all the classic Doctor Who episodes .

[Robin-Graves]

Thank goodness im not the only Whovian in the universe! lol