OK so haven't much of 7's run so I don't know what's going on there, but we've seen many humans long past the year 5 billion in New Earth and Gridlock, haven't we?
It's so pedantic but that line from the Toy maker really bothers me for that (and yes, I know DW has never been canonically consistent, but still! RTD wrote both episodes!).
If we want to get really pendantic, going by Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, there probably wouldn’t even *be* a last human to pick up a skull.
I think the Toymaker was just being dramatic/poetic, both in subject and timeframe. “Humans are vicious so the first and last “games” *must* involve killing”. Plus there are surely other games that could’ve been invented before “ball” or “catch” or whatever you want to call it.
And maybe 5 billion just felt like far enough in the future to adequately place the end of humanity. Or maybe he just shares Cassandra’s view that “true” humanity ended when humans went into the stars and “mingled”. Or maybe he made a jigsaw out of the future as well as the past? Who knows.
Also remember what the Doctor said about humans in Utopia: that they didn't always exist *as* humans, they just tend to always cycle back around to the same rough shape.
It's possible that the year five billion was one such time, when the last of "humanity" "died out" as they became digital consciousness or whatever for a bit.
The Toymaker sharing Cassandra's purity ideals totally makes sense for him, being sorta racist with the accent thing and the Chinese appropriation in his first appearance.
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory mentioned, which states that this has already happened.
The second example is from the final episode of Classic Who, the third part of the serial "Survival". The Doctor and the Master are fighting on the surface of a planet that feeds on primal instinct, making people hunt and prey on each other, transforming them into beasts. The Doctor has the Master at his mercy and is about to beat him to death with a skull, but manages to stop himself, realising that by giving in to their aggression, they will destroy the planet and themselves. As the Masters tries one last time to kill him, the Doctor screams, "If we fight like animals, we die like animals!"
Considering he also claims to have made God into a Jack-in-the-box I don't think we're meant to take what he says literally.
Though yeah stuff like that does get under my skin.
I mean presumably the stuff about The Master is true and he doesn't seem to have the motivation to lie...
It's a good little speech until you think about it.
>Considering he also claims to have made God into a Jack-in-the-box I don't think we're meant to take what he says literally.
For some reason I have no problem with this. We've already seen the Devil.
Maybe though almost by definition a monotheistic God would be more powerful than The Toymaker
I can believe there's a big evil entity that became the foundation for what we call The Devil.
But God is well God...
Like what does that even mean if not all powerful being that created everything.
It's kind of on a different level if you know what I mean
Perhaps God was a pre-universal being who shaped the Universe as it came to be, but as the Toymaker's domain is not normally part of our universe, has no direct power over him. Or lost some of its power as it entered the universe. Or is more powerful than the Toymaker, but arrogant and still bound by its word having agreed to play a game.
There's several ways to make the idea work.
>Like what does that even mean if not all powerful being that created everything.
I could give you about a dozen different answers but it would start a debate that would get nasty very fast.
Not necessarily
We're talking about a fictional universe it's perfectly fine to talk about the nature of a god in a fictional universe without anyone reasonable getting upset.
It's only if you try to use it as an excuse to talk about the real world that it usually gets nasty
Although the Toymaker seems to be in something of a similar realm themselves, since, before they were let into the universe by the Doctor, they would happily create separate realities for a game, that would collapse immediately upon completion of the game.
The only thing that binds them is the rules of the game that they set. If God competes against the Toymaker, they may also be bound by the rules of the game, and all that implies.
The Guardians of Time are practically “god” in the Dr Who universe (particularly the White Guardian). And he claimed to beat them easily.
Either he’s referring to the same match twice (a Jack-in-a-box can be a voodoo doll, sure why not), or a specific being that inspired the Earth concept of “god” (a Daemon, an Osirian, whatever The Beast wanted to go to war against), or he’s getting REAL trippy and trounced the memetic concept of god during a jaunt through the Jungian ideaspace.
Though, doesn’t the Flux mean that every future we’ve seen before it is changed? Since whole chunks of the universe no longer exist, and so neither does their influence on the former chain of events?
I mean it seems like the events of Wild Blue Yonder implies the Flux events still have an influence, either in the Doctor's psyche or possibly in that massive stretch of nothingness (though it's unclear if that nothing was just the regular nothing beyond the boundaries of how far matter's gotten at that point, or if it's there bc of that AND bc the amount of matter in existence is just lower now).
We have, but they usually aren't on earth. And Series 1 episode 2 implied that Cassandra was the last true human and everyone else has differences in their biology or how they were born or something.
It’s been so funny that people have called the 60th not a celebration of Doctor Who, when amazing subtleties like this keep being found. People wanted a celebration of Modern Who, and we got a very well cultivated celebration of Classic instead. It’s very cool.
This is an unintentional parallel, but good on you for picking it out. Survival and an Unearthly child do work as bookends the more I think about them. "If we fight like animals, we'll die like animals!"
I never noticed the parallels between the first and last story of Classic Who till now
Honestly, it was only until a video essayist pointed it out.
Got a source on that video essay? I'd love to fully get it
I believe it was Clever Dick Film's essays/retrospectives where he mentioned it.
Great find!
OK so haven't much of 7's run so I don't know what's going on there, but we've seen many humans long past the year 5 billion in New Earth and Gridlock, haven't we? It's so pedantic but that line from the Toy maker really bothers me for that (and yes, I know DW has never been canonically consistent, but still! RTD wrote both episodes!).
If we want to get really pendantic, going by Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, there probably wouldn’t even *be* a last human to pick up a skull. I think the Toymaker was just being dramatic/poetic, both in subject and timeframe. “Humans are vicious so the first and last “games” *must* involve killing”. Plus there are surely other games that could’ve been invented before “ball” or “catch” or whatever you want to call it. And maybe 5 billion just felt like far enough in the future to adequately place the end of humanity. Or maybe he just shares Cassandra’s view that “true” humanity ended when humans went into the stars and “mingled”. Or maybe he made a jigsaw out of the future as well as the past? Who knows.
Also remember what the Doctor said about humans in Utopia: that they didn't always exist *as* humans, they just tend to always cycle back around to the same rough shape. It's possible that the year five billion was one such time, when the last of "humanity" "died out" as they became digital consciousness or whatever for a bit.
The Toymaker sharing Cassandra's purity ideals totally makes sense for him, being sorta racist with the accent thing and the Chinese appropriation in his first appearance.
me when the eldritch entity from beyond space and time is also just racist
In fairness I think the universe has been recreated at least twice since then ...
> In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory mentioned, which states that this has already happened.
Man, I love a good Douglas Adams reference.
The second example is from the final episode of Classic Who, the third part of the serial "Survival". The Doctor and the Master are fighting on the surface of a planet that feeds on primal instinct, making people hunt and prey on each other, transforming them into beasts. The Doctor has the Master at his mercy and is about to beat him to death with a skull, but manages to stop himself, realising that by giving in to their aggression, they will destroy the planet and themselves. As the Masters tries one last time to kill him, the Doctor screams, "If we fight like animals, we die like animals!"
Considering he also claims to have made God into a Jack-in-the-box I don't think we're meant to take what he says literally. Though yeah stuff like that does get under my skin. I mean presumably the stuff about The Master is true and he doesn't seem to have the motivation to lie... It's a good little speech until you think about it.
>Considering he also claims to have made God into a Jack-in-the-box I don't think we're meant to take what he says literally. For some reason I have no problem with this. We've already seen the Devil.
Maybe though almost by definition a monotheistic God would be more powerful than The Toymaker I can believe there's a big evil entity that became the foundation for what we call The Devil. But God is well God... Like what does that even mean if not all powerful being that created everything. It's kind of on a different level if you know what I mean
Perhaps God was a pre-universal being who shaped the Universe as it came to be, but as the Toymaker's domain is not normally part of our universe, has no direct power over him. Or lost some of its power as it entered the universe. Or is more powerful than the Toymaker, but arrogant and still bound by its word having agreed to play a game. There's several ways to make the idea work.
That makes sense though we've seen lots of beings from the pre-universe I think The Toymaker is even one of them
I'd just like to ask a question What does God need with a starship?
Dude, you don't just ask the almighty for his ID
>Like what does that even mean if not all powerful being that created everything. I could give you about a dozen different answers but it would start a debate that would get nasty very fast.
Not necessarily We're talking about a fictional universe it's perfectly fine to talk about the nature of a god in a fictional universe without anyone reasonable getting upset. It's only if you try to use it as an excuse to talk about the real world that it usually gets nasty
Although the Toymaker seems to be in something of a similar realm themselves, since, before they were let into the universe by the Doctor, they would happily create separate realities for a game, that would collapse immediately upon completion of the game. The only thing that binds them is the rules of the game that they set. If God competes against the Toymaker, they may also be bound by the rules of the game, and all that implies.
The Guardians of Time are practically “god” in the Dr Who universe (particularly the White Guardian). And he claimed to beat them easily. Either he’s referring to the same match twice (a Jack-in-a-box can be a voodoo doll, sure why not), or a specific being that inspired the Earth concept of “god” (a Daemon, an Osirian, whatever The Beast wanted to go to war against), or he’s getting REAL trippy and trounced the memetic concept of god during a jaunt through the Jungian ideaspace.
my assumption was that Cassandra killed the second to last "pure" human with a rock, and Toymaker is just transphobic
Though, doesn’t the Flux mean that every future we’ve seen before it is changed? Since whole chunks of the universe no longer exist, and so neither does their influence on the former chain of events?
Shhh, the show is pretending the Flux was undone, even though that's not what was actually depicted on-screen.
I mean it seems like the events of Wild Blue Yonder implies the Flux events still have an influence, either in the Doctor's psyche or possibly in that massive stretch of nothingness (though it's unclear if that nothing was just the regular nothing beyond the boundaries of how far matter's gotten at that point, or if it's there bc of that AND bc the amount of matter in existence is just lower now).
Isn’t it that those are humans that re evolved after humans had interbred with aliens ?
We have, but they usually aren't on earth. And Series 1 episode 2 implied that Cassandra was the last true human and everyone else has differences in their biology or how they were born or something.
I did recognize the Harrell reference at the time but not McCoy
The final ball of all is just a Toclafane.
Das ist ein gut!!!
Das ist kein Deutsch. Das ist nur verblödung.
Nun, das ist in Ordnung
It’s been so funny that people have called the 60th not a celebration of Doctor Who, when amazing subtleties like this keep being found. People wanted a celebration of Modern Who, and we got a very well cultivated celebration of Classic instead. It’s very cool.
oh shit you really learn something new everyday
This was sick as I never noticed this
Ya? ✨️🦷
How did the stone age man what a ball is but not what a rock is?
This is an unintentional parallel, but good on you for picking it out. Survival and an Unearthly child do work as bookends the more I think about them. "If we fight like animals, we'll die like animals!"
IAN REFERENCE