Talk:Closing Time (TV story)

Baby
Craig's baby is no longer a myth, as he plays a part in the preview video on the bbc website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/videos/p00kmzlm). Can this be changed already, or is this against the spoiler policy? I'm assuming the bbc site can be taken as an official source? Geek Mythology 18:34, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguate
There's a Torchwood short story by the same name from TM 16 and 17. Please rename Closing Time (TV story). -- Tybort (talk page) 16:23, September 24, 2011 (UTC)

Sonic
Should we mention that the sound the sonic screwdriver made when deactivating the cybermat was the same sound the orginal Sonic Screwdriver used?

Cybermen
I know it wasn't directly referenced, though due to their behaviour and appearance (i.e. no Cybus logo), among other things, it's fairly safe to assume that these are in fact, Mondasian Cybermen. ProtoKun7 19:05, September 25, 2011 (UTC)


 * Speaking of Cybermen, has it been stated WHY Criag does not know what they are? --Confused


 * It's discussed under Continuity. Boblipton 02:13, September 26, 2011 (UTC)


 * Needless to say this discussion about Cybermen is nothing new. I for one don't see why it's often theorised that just because one small change to the Cybus design is made, the Cybermen are assumed to be Mondasian - I don't see why the Cybusmen couldn't change their designs too. But if any conclusion is to be made, it probably wont happen for a while yet. Hopefully I'm wrong in that assumption.


 * It is not just their redesign, but also the use of Cybermats, spacefaring capabilities, "conversion" instead of "upgrade" etc. Another theory is that the two groups of Cybermen have somehow joined forces and the series 6 Cybermen are a result of a merger between Cybus and Mondas Cybermen. Ausir(talk) 16:00, September 26, 2011 (UTC)


 * The Pandorica Opens shows that the Cybusmen have become a space-faring race too. Whether that was intentional, or if the production team meant to change the Cybus logo to the new logo but didn't for any reason, the space faring Cybusmen has, at the end of it all, been canonised. Perhaps time had planned such for the Cybus Cybermen all along, perhaps even for the Mondasmen as well. Anyway, back to the main topic at hand, it's still pretty unclear. An episode focusing on a new Cyber design would be handy for us. They did it for the Daleks, I say the Cybermen deserve that sort of attention as well. I suppose we can only wait. 90.200.188.165 16:35, September 26, 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe they were supposed to be Mondasian but the costume department didn't have time to alter the armour. You could try and retcon it and write in that for a while the Mondasians had C for Cybermen...? ProtoKun7 13:51, September 28, 2011 (UTC)


 * Doesn't work like that. Pretending that the Cybusmen were the Mondasmen goes against canon, and the wiki doesn't work that way. We know that the Cybusmen have had the C logo on their chest plates since their creation (Rise of the Cybermen), so the Cybermen in The Pandorica Opens were the Cybus versions no matter how much you pretend. The Cybermen varient in A Good Man Goes to War and Closing Time have not been specified, so for now it's safe to believe what you want and make up some theories, but they can't be posted on the wiki.90.200.188.3 15:46, September 28, 2011 (UTC)


 * Except ProtoKun7 is right, they intended for TPOs C'men to be Mondasian, but the costume department neglected to alter the armor appropriately. However, someone on TVtropes has made the astute observation that Cybusmen extract the brain of their victim to be placed into Cybusmen armor, while Mondasian Cybermen retain the whole head/body, which was the case not only in Closing Time, but also in The Pandorica Opens. Add in that they've been underground for centuries (the Cybermen have never had time travel in any universe) and it's quite clear that these Cybermen are from Mondas. d ● ● ●  08:33, September 29, 2011 (UTC)


 * Evidence perhaps but I was meaning how ProtoKun7 said you could retcon it an rewrite is so the C logo means something else, which is pretty much fan fiction - none of that can be put on the wiki. Anyway, the ship was underground for centuries but the exact details of how it crashed weren't given, so it's at least possible that it fell through time, whether the Cybermen have time travel or not. Actually, I could ramble on about possibilities, but I'm still going to think Cybus until their origin is set in stone; don't get me wrong, I want the Mondasians to return to the show as much as any Who fan, but it'd be nice for the production team to actually put some effort into a re-design.90.200.188.161 16:51, September 30, 2011 (UTC)

Date
I read somewhere that the date on the newspaper seen in this episode is April 19th, 2011. Since two days pass, The Doctor leaves on April 21st, 2011 and heads for America. This would imply that the Amy/Rory seen in the store are not the ones we just left in The God Complex, but the one that are just about to get the invitation's to go the America. --Future Companion

It would be nice if you could cite where you read it -- a screen grab would be nice. Alternate explanations include this is not the Doctor who dropped them off or that he actually dropped them off a considerable time earlier. Or that this adventure takes place a significant time in the future. If true it is probably significant, but just how is unclear. Boblipton 19:16, September 25, 2011 (UTC)

Here is a link -- Future Companion

There it is. Thanks. I checked for myself and it is dated 19 April 2011. Assuming it's not an oversight like the Rory namebadge controversy, it undoubtedly is significant. Hm. Maybe Rory is Flesh too. After all, the Doctor told him to stand away when he aimed the sonic at Ganger Amy to dissolve her. Come to think of it, how could he dissolve her as Flesh when the interior of the TARDIS had 'set' the gangers as 'real.' Boblipton 19:39, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * It's still entirely possible that Amy was kidnapped and turned to Flesh in the months-long interim between The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon, especially since the Silence said that Amy had been there for some time... d ● ● ●  21:01, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * Being inside the TARDIS didn't "set the gangers as real" it stabilized them so they would stop shifting between forms.The powers talk to me 16:07, October 4, 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is a mistake because the Doctor keeps saying he is running of time and he also says that tomorrow is the day he dies. -- Future Companion

The trouble with this is that Amy and Rory's timeline is now compromised. For one thing, it's likely they would both know what "Petrichor" means before having encountered Idris. Also, if Amy is so popular as to have people asking for her autograph, then they would have no need for the house the Doctor gives them. The naming and slogan are too much of a co-incidence. Also, if the Doctor dropped them off too early in their timeline, would not "past Amy" be aware that another version of her was running around selling perfume?

Either someone made an error or this may be the start of the time-folding paradox that seems to be part of the final episode24.117.13.108 22:04, September 30, 2011 (UTC)

I suppose it's possible the Doctor dropped them off early in the year, so that they existed twice over with their selves from the beginning of "The Impossible Astronaut", but it seems so... unlikely. Not to mention that Sophie would be "away for the weekend" from Tuesday to Thursday by real-world dates. Although if Amy and Rory were present twice-over in April 2011, it would explain why their post-"God Complex" selves would be hit with the memory of the aborted timeline after it happened. -- Noneofyourbusiness talk to me16:39, October 3, 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the newspaper may have simply been an old newspaper, or even one from the future. Mandalore74 talk to me 03:16, November 9, 2011 (UTC)

Alfie as a companion
Can we add Alfie as a companion? I think he deserves it. MaGnUs 22:46, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no "deserving it", Craig hasn't done enough to be considered a proper companion. d ● ● ●  22:55, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree, but still; I'm talking about this episode in particular. Craig is listed as a companion for this episode, as well as for 'The Lodger', same as Astrid Perth or Christina de Souza, who were was listed as companions in a single episode. The "deserves it" is a joke; but I do think that Alfie, as a character, functions as a companion in this episode, taking part of the adventure with Craig and the Doctor. MaGnUs 23:01, September 25, 2011 (UTC)


 * An ally, surely.Boblipton 23:04, September 25, 2011 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that to be considered a companion one must have traveled in (or been offered the chance to travel in) the TARDIS? -- Future Companion

If only it were so easy! There's a big article on Companions in this wiki that will leave you knowing as little going out as you did coming in, except as a source of fanwankery. Boblipton 23:24, September 25, 2011 (UTC)


 * If it worked that way, then Craig wouldn't be listed as companion in both his episodes. MaGnUs 10:15, September 26, 2011 (UTC)
 * The debate over what is a companion is probably more appropriate there, however Craig is just as qualified as Liz Shaw (who never travelled in the TARDIS either), and other one-off companions (officially recognized as such by the BBC) such as Lady Christina and Astrid Peth. Craig also has the edge that he is directly referenced on screen as being a companion. If in doubt, go with what the BBC says. If they say he's a companion, then he's a companion. Put another away, if this were a Christmas special, and the Doctor wasn't with regulars, Corden would have been billed in the opening credits. 68.146.80.110 14:04, September 26, 2011 (UTC)


 * I personally wouldn't consider Astrid or Lady Christina companions, but I'll let that go because the BBC said it. Craig, however, was never called a companion, so shouldn't be listed.
 * Also, Amy and Rory, seriously? Does that cameo deserve them a place in the companions list? Should we start listing every companion cameo during the fifth doctor's regeneration, or come to think of it, all the companions in The End of Time? TemporalSpleen 17:31, September 27, 2011 (UTC)

Amy and Rory Timeline

 * I added this. The fact it's post-God Complex is clear from the episode. I left "TBC" in the second column because Wedding of River Song hasn't aired yet and we don't know yet if it occurs before or after Amy becomes a fashion model in their couple's personal timeline. 68.146.80.110 14:04, September 26, 2011 (UTC)
 * The date on the newspaper clearly establishes that it is before the Impossible Astraonaut on earth. We know that they were on earth at that time, and they can't be there twice, so they had to have been dropped off at the end of the god complex after they were picked up at the beginning of Let's Kill Hilter. This means that the cameo in this episode is from before The Impossible Astronaut from their POV.
 * Sorry, I'm confused. Why can't they be there twice? There have been two of many characters on the Earth at a time before. Couldn't the Doctor have dropped them off after 'A Good Man Goes to War' at some point in Earth's timeline before 'The Impossible Astronaut', meaning there'd be two sets of them on Earth at that time? Besides, it's been hinted in the trailer for the coming episode that there's 'something wrong with time' so we can't take anything for certain.210.49.167.47 15:48, September 27, 2011 (UTC)
 * If it was before The Impossible Astronaut and it's the same house they would run into themselves causeing a paradox which we all know by now is bad. Tivis014 16:59, September 27, 2011 (UTC)

The Episode takes place at the end April 2011, which places it BEFORE "The Impossible Astronaut". -- Future Companion

Yes, it does. It happens a couple of days before TIA, which causes enormous problems, since Amy apparently got pregnant the evening of her wedding to Rory (June 26, 2010), when two years earlier she had been earning a living as a Kiss-o-gram. That sort of celebrity does not arise that quickly, unless we posit some huge and so far unseen changes due to the Big Bang 2. Even with Gangers and time travel, there are enormous holes there which cannot be filled with any certainty. Assuming that Amy is a celebrity, can she just fly off to Utah on 24 hours -- I wouldn't try to get from thirty miles outside Gloucester to the middle of nowhere, Utah, in less than three days, even if I could make all the connections. There's a lot of plot points that Moffat is going to have to fill in Saturday or tag "to be continued" and the Williamses' placement here should remain problematic for a while. Boblipton 23:03, September 27, 2011 (UTC)

The only evidence we have that this is after "The God Complex" is Petrichor--that's from "The Doctor's Wife", and I don't think it's a coincidence that she was modeling for a perfume with the same name before that adventure...mainly because Idris told her what it was, and she used that to help her. Does anyone think this could be like Rory's nametag, where it said he became a nurse in 1990? Maybe the headline of the newspaper was a mistake; it was barely in the frame for long. I didn't see it. I thought it felt like it was post-God Complex and was intended to be that way. Glimmer721 talk to me 01:08, September 30, 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The entire point of having Amy and Rory appeared really seemed to be to show that they were moving on with their lives and to show what they were doing. The petrichor reference also really makes more sense if this takes place after The Doctor's Wife, and even the slogan "For the girl who is tired of waiting" could be interpreted to mean that Amy isn't waiting for the Doctor anymore, since he left her at home without suggesting that he would ever pick her up again. She was clearly still waiting for him in The Impossible Astronaut. If this was supposed to take place before The Impossible Astronaut, they would have called it out in a much more obvious way then just putting it on a newspaper that is only on screen for a second. They would have either mentioned the date in dialogue, or at least made the date on the newspaper more obvious to the viewer. We'll probably get some kind of indication of when the episode is set tonight though.Icecreamdif talk to me 21:51, September 30, 2011 (UTC)

This is post-God Complex for all the reasons above. When Doctor says his death is tomorrow, he is not talking about the date. -- Noneofyourbusiness talk to me 14:03, October 2, 2011 (UTC)

name tag
In continuity with the name tag and him forgetting his name in the movie; correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't he lose his memory again in the Eighth Doctor novels at some point? Tivis014 15:43, September 26, 2011 (UTC)