“If I knew everything that was going to happen, where would the fun be?” - A Reflection

After being a fan of the show since 2005 I thought I knew it all when coming to write this

academic blog. I thought I knew exactly what the canon of the franchise was and what wasn’t, for both 'Classic Who' (1963-1989) and 'New Who' (2005-present). However, after researching into the concept of textual poaching, while also looking slightly into the concepts of paratexts and death of the author, I have found that what I thought I originally knew is no so correct. While I’m not incorrect, I’m also not correct. Doctor Who is a complex show with a large amount of time travel and time changing events. I started by going back and looking at all the episodes where the Doctor mentioned the Time War and the outcome of those events. I saw a clear story which was only added to and remained unchanged. I then went to study the fiftieth anniversary special to see how they changed the ending of the Time War. With adding the concept of textual poaching into the mix it did start to make me question whether the anniversary special should even be considered canon. I went on to study canon in more depth and found an online essay by Doctor Who writer and well-known author, Paul Cornell.

He came at a direction to the Doctor Who canon which I had never even considered. His approach of there being no canon in Doctor Who due to all the constant time travel and changing of events, has changed my perspective of the show. Now knowing of this angle of approach to the show I feel in the future I’ll take a little longer before denying or accepting a fact within the franchise of the universe. I did enjoy the ‘last of the Timelords’ arc that the Ninth and Tenth Doctor went through when I originally watched the series on television. Yet I very much enjoyed the Doctor’s saving Gallifrey in the fiftieth anniversary as I watched it in the cinema with my best friend. It felt like the correct thing to do. The weight of the Time War was already in the episode due to eight years of us knowing how bad the War became. The Doctor has saved so many planets in his years of travelling and it felt right for him to save his own home on the anniversary of the show.

As this penultimate post comes to an end it’s finally time for me to conclude my findings which I have found through my studying and analysis of recent Doctor Who.