Moving Pictures: There is Too Much Time Travel in Doctor Who

Before you jump down my throat, I don’t mean the Doctor time-travelling in the TARDIS with Companions. That’s the entire premise of the show, which I’ve literally just spent two years watching every episode of. Watching and/or listening to them, at any rate, due to “lost” ones.

And don’t come at me with comics, books, or audio productions which “explain” anything I’m about to say, I’ve watched almost 900 episodes, specials and movies in 730 days, so I’ve absorbed none of the other stuff. In fact, I’ve also watched all of Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures too, so that’s almost 1,000 episodes of Who-related shows!

I’ve had my issues with the show (especially Modern Who), but I’ve really got a gripe with how widespread time travel is in Doctor Who. The first serial in which the Daleks managed to follow the First Doctor through time was a shocking development! Now, they could turn up anywhen, and once they could levitate and chase the Fifth Doctor up and down stairs, they could be anywhere too!

To its credit, Classic Who didn’t give many villains the ability to traverse space/time. A couple of rogue Time Lords, the odd cosmically powerful being… But then we get to Modern Who.

The Eleventh Doctor was locked in a cell by an alliance of aliens, all of whom were familiar with the Doctor and for the most part bore them ill will. Daleks, of course, had time travel tech. Cybermen, sure I can buy that after hundreds of years they worked it out. But amongst the other races present, who arrived on “at least” 10,000 starships, were Sontarans, Terileptil, Hoix, Blowfish, Roboforms, Sycorax, and Silurians.

The first time the Sontarans appeared, it was implied that a scout ship had crash landed in the 13th Century because they happened to be flying past. Not time-travelling, just pootling along then smash. The alien then used a device to grab people and equipment from the future, but it was unable to stay in the 20th Century for long. So, maybe they stole someone’s time travel tech by that point.

The Terileptil, okay, the only other on-screen appearance was a bunch of convicts in 1666, so I can’t say explicitly that the species doesn’t have time travel technology. The Hoix, however, just lived to eat and kill, and seemed to only ever appear as a result of the Cardiff Space-Time Rift, so I’m not even sure they had interstellar travel. Same with Blowfish, actually.

Roboforms only appeared at two Christmases, and other than trying to kill a Companion not much was revealed, so they might have time travel. The Sycorax are another one that we’ve not seen enough of to confirm one way or the other.

The Silurians are another thing entirely. It’s not a surprise that they’re on Earth, as they predate Humanity and lived alongside the dinosaurs. However, why they were even present is a mystery, as they were in hibernation. The episode takes place in the year 110, so the Doctor wouldn’t chronologically meet the first one until 1888, and then a group woken from hibernation in the 1970s. So, where did these ones come from?

In fact, where did any of them come from? Even as part of an alliance, the Daleks aren’t going to tow thousands of ships across space-time! And bear in mind that I’ve only listed aliens who we see are actually present — they also list off Slitheen, Chelonian, Drahvin, Sycorax, Haemo-goth, Zygon, Atraxi, and Draconian! How did they all get there?! And if the Slitheen family had time travel, how did three human teenagers continually defeat them?!

The Doctor’s acquaintance River Song (usually) travels through time using a Vortex Manipulator, which is a quick and dirty way to get around. From what we see, those devices are rare, probably because they were invented by the Time Agency and the technology to copy them doesn’t exist before the 51st Century. So, a small group of aliens could potentially use one, but certainly not for a starship, let alone a fleet of them.

Here I am trying to think of reasons that all of these aliens could have been in 1st Century Wiltshire, when it’s clear that the production staff didn’t put this much thought into the episode. “They can time travel” is lazy, unless the solution to the episode’s problem is also time travel. If your plot needs them there, come up with a reason for them to be there. If your reason is “time travel”, then the plot probably doesn’t need them, it could be anyone.

Unless it’s Daleks, they explicitly copied the TARDIS on-screen, they get a pass.