Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-5767263-20130619003610/@comment-4503698-20130710160301

The problem we have with this sort of discussion is Steven Moffat's love-in with paradoxes and his failure to realize that that the the term "paradox" is just a fancy sci-fi word for nonsense.

We have a similar problem in The Angels Take Manhattan because while common sense tells us that history has already happened and we have every right to ask how characters can hop between timelines just like that we have a different story. We have a story where historically the Angels die, they are killed by the paradox Winter Quay, as River (I think) explain never happened. However, from the beginning they are in possession of a book describing the full details of this "never happening" and it does stop they having to go though it again themselves. So what happened to Winter Quay, did it exist or didn't it?

More pertinently on the matter of the crack in time one of the examples you mentioned was from A Good Man Goes To War. This is actually the strongest, most conflicting example we have because while we do, indeed, have the story of the eleventh hour described in unambiguous detail we also have the Doctor explaining how all that "never happened" just so he could come to the conclusion that the first time Amy and Rory were together on the TARDIS was there wedding night. Which, of course, led to the conception of River. It was all very confusing and paradoxy and as Steven likes it.