Time Crash (TV story)

"Cause you know what, Doctor? You were my Doctor."

- The Tenth Doctor to the Fifth Doctor

Time Crash was a special "mini-episode" produced for the 2007 Children in Need appeal. It featured a brief encounter between the Fifth and Tenth Doctors and was penned by Steven Moffat. It also served as the explanation of how the Doctor's TARDIS was breached by the Titanic at the end of Last of the Time Lords. As such, it was very much a part of the overall continuity of the BBC Wales series of Doctor Who.

Synopsis
The Tenth Doctor accidentally pilots his TARDIS into the path of the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS--which threatens to rip a hole in space and time the size of Belgium!

Plot
This story follows on from Last of the Time Lords: the Tenth Doctor has just said goodbye to Martha, and is attempting to take off when the TARDIS suddenly goes haywire.

Suddenly, someone else is in the TARDIS: the Fifth Doctor. The Tenth Doctor realises straight away this is his past incarnation and is soon reminiscing about his adventures as the Fifth Doctor, much to the latter's confusion. The Fifth Doctor decides that the strange skinny bloke in his TARDIS is an obsessive fan of his--possibly affiliated with LINDA--and the Tenth, to his own bewilderment, can't convince his past self otherwise. Meanwhile, the collision of the TARDIS with its past (or future) self threatens to tear a hole in the universe; one the exact size of Belgium--which, as the Fifth Doctor remarks, is a rather undramatic description. The Fifth Doctor despairs of finding a solution in time, but the Tenth purposefully--if maniacally--manipulates the TARDIS controls and averts the disaster.

Stunned by the unexpected solution, the Fifth Doctor realizes that the other man is in fact his future self. The Tenth Doctor bids a warm farewell to his past self; and, with a final warning to his future self to restore the TARDIS shields, the Fifth Doctor rejoins his own timeline.

But suddenly, it's too late to put up the shields... the Titanic has plowed through the wall of the TARDIS.

Cast

 * Tenth Doctor - David Tennant
 * Fifth Doctor - Peter Davison
 * Martha Jones - Freema Agyeman (uncredited)

Production crew

 * Written by - Steven Moffat
 * Produced by - Phil Collinson
 * Directed by - Graeme Harper
 * 1st Assistant Director - Dan Mumford
 * 3rd Assistant Director - Andy Newbery
 * Additional Assistant Director - Kevin Myers
 * Driver - Kevin Kearns
 * Continuity - Non Eleri Hughes
 * Script Editor - Brian Minchin
 * Focus Puller - Ant Hugill
 * Grip - John Robinson
 * Camera Assistant - Tom Hartley
 * Jimmy Jib - Arun Taylor
 * Boom Operator - Ramon Pyndiah
 * Electricians - Ben Griffiths, Clive Johnson
 * Supervising Art Director - Arwel Wyn Jones
 * Associate Designer - James North
 * Senior Props Maker - Penny Howarth
 * Assistant Costume Designer - Rose Goodhart
 * Costume Supervisor - Lindsay Bonaccorsi
 * Costume Assistant - Barbara Harrington
 * Make-Up Artist - Morag Smith
 * Assistant Editor - Carmen Roberts
 * Post Production Supervisors - Samantha Hall, Chris Blatchford
 * Post Production Co-ordinator - Marie Brown
 * 3D Artist - Mark Wallman
 * 2D Artist - Simon C Holden
 * On Line Editors - Matthew Clarke, Mark Bright
 * Colourist - Mick Vincent
 * Dubbing Mixer - Tim Ricketts
 * Sound Editor - Paul McFadden
 * Sound FX Editor - Paul Jefferies
 * Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer
 * Casting Director - Andy Pryor Cdg
 * Production Executive - Julie Scott
 * Production Accountant - Oliver Ager
 * Sound Recordist - Ray Parker
 * Costume Designer - Louise Page
 * Make Up Designer - Barbara Southcott
 * Music - Murray Gold
 * Visual Effects - The Mill
 * Visual Fx Producers - Will Cohen, Marie Jones
 * Visual Fx Supervisor - Dave Houghton
 * Editor - Ceres Doyle
 * Production Designer - Edward Thomas
 * Director of Photography - Rory Taylor
 * Production Manager - Jennie Fava
 * Executive Producers - Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner

Story notes

 * This is the third filmed contribution by the new series production team to Children in Need. In 2005, they had offered the Children in Need Special (aka 'Pudsey Cutaway'). In 2006 they provided a live concert of music during the traditional Children in Need charity time period, and subsequently offered it to home viewers prior to the original broadcast of The Runaway Bride.
 * After it was cancelled, the original series was briefly revived by the inaugural Doctor Who filmed entertainment made especially for Children in Need, entitled Dimensions in Time. In 1993, The Five Doctors was also broadcast as a part of, though not made especially for, the Children in Need charity drive.
 * This story marks the first appearance of a Doctor from the original series appearing in the new series, although recognisable drawings of original series Doctors can be seen in Human Nature.
 * This story is directed by Graeme Harper who also directed Peter Davison's last story (DW: The Caves of Androzani).
 * Steven Moffat (writer) also wrote the Comic Relief story, The Curse of Fatal Death.
 * The special was introduced by Terry Wogan and John Barrowman.
 * Peter Davison's name appears in the credits, the first time (discounting the 1996 TV movie) that an original series Doctor has had his name at the start of an episode.
 * The Fifth Doctor remembers how to save the TARDIS when he is the Tenth Doctor because, as the Fifth, he saw what the Tenth did. This is a reference to time going in a straight line, which makes sense, but was not discussed in The Three Doctors or The Five Doctors.
 * This is the first official episode of Doctor Who written by Steven Moffat that doesn't use his theme of highlighting childhood fears.
 * This episode marked the final use of the 2005 arrangement of the "Doctor Who theme" by Murray Gold; a new arrangement by Gold would be introduced in the next proper episode, Voyage of the Damned.
 * According to writer (later executive producer-designate) Steven Moffat, in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine #389, the events of Time Crash are considered canonical.

Ratings
to be added

Filming Locations

 * Upper Boat Studios, Cardiff

Myths and rumours

 * When the Fifth Doctor asks if the Master "still has that rubbish beard," the Tenth replies, "No ... well, a wife." This was interpreted by some fans as being a gay culture reference; a "beard" is a slang term for a member of the opposite sex who joins a homosexual individual in a marriage or other relationship in order to mask the fact that one or both partners is gay.

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * If the Tenth Doctor recalls this meeting from when he was the Fifth Doctor, then why was the Fifth Doctor so worried about his regeneration in The Caves of Androzani? Perhaps in the heat of his impending "death" the Fifth Doctor simply forgot about his future encounter or perhaps time was in flux. There also seems to be a strong suggestion that the ringing of the cloister bell triggers the Tenth Doctor's memories.


 * If the Tenth Doctor tells the Fifth Doctor about meeting the Master in that incarnation then he would have known that he wasn't the last of the Time Lords (although this may partially explain the Doctor's extreme reaction to the news that Professor Yana has a Chameleon Arch fobwatch). Possibly, because The Doctor met the Master several times after his Fifth incarnation, he assumed that the Tenth meant one of those other encounters (such as the TV movie, in which the Master has a wife, no beard, and acts in a rather camp manner; see the above reference to the double meaning of "beard").


 * The Tenth Doctor was at least as much confused meeting himself as the Fifth Doctor and he did not expect the Fifth Doctor thinking he is a fan (Although he should have remembered it). It might be that the Fifth Doctor, being aware of the problems that paradox may cause, locked these memories in the back of his mind, and remembered at the moment he heard the Cloister Bell.


 * Throughout the story, the Doctor's hand-in-a-jar is located to the right of the console (as seen by viewers), but with the glass turned away from the camera (the illuminated interior can barely be glimpsed. It is in this position as Ten says goodbye to Five. Immediately after, the crash into Titanic occurs, and the hand-in-a-jar is suddenly positioned at the same spot on the floor, but with the glass facing the camera.


 * Two episodes previously, in The Sound of Drums, the Doctor claims that Time Lords can always recognise one another, and in that episode and the preceding Utopia, he recognises the Master on sight (even after having spent a considerable amount of time knowing the Master only as his human form, Yana). However, in Time Crash, the Fifth Doctor does not recognise the Tenth. Perhaps Time Lords, for whatever reason, cannot identify their own future incarnations. In The Five Doctors, the First Doctor does not realise who the Fifth is, although it doesn't take that much to convince him. The Fifth Doctor, however, instantly recognized his younger self; similarly the Tenth Doctor identified the Fifth without any delay. It's also possible the circumstances could have caused the Fifth Doctor to become temporarily addled - especially if The Five Doctors hadn't yet happened to him.


 * When the Tenth Doctor asks where the Fifth Doctor is in his life, why does he only reference Nyssa and Tegan and not other companions, particularly Adric. Perhaps he didn't want to cause any time-paradox issues by mentioning a companions the Fifth Doctor may not have yet met (Nyssa and Tegan travelled with the Fifth from the very start). As for Adric, he presumably didn't want to remind his younger self of his death. Avoiding a paradox is also presumably why he didn't take the opportunity to warn about Adric, or for that matter the impending Time War. It is also probably why the Tenth Doctor chooses not to indicate that the Master had in fact just died (as far as knows, anyway).


 * The presence of two Doctors apparently will create a Belgium-sized hole in the universe. This did not occur any other time different incarnations of the Doctor met (at least onscreen). The damage is suggested to be in fact caused by the two TARDISes merging. Also, in The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors the meeting of the Doctors was at least partially orchestrated by the Time Lords, who may have been able to negate any such effects.


 * The revived series has expanded on the idea of the TARDIS being alive, and Jack Harkness (and possibly also the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor) has a quantity of "TARDIS coral" with which they can grow a TARDIS. In The Impossible Planet, the Doctor confirms that TARDISes are grown and not built. The TARDIS's "coral" appearance is presumably meant to reflect this. However, this episode reveals that the coral look is only one of several possible "desktop themes". Perhaps the coral theme is the default, as it was how the TARDIS looked when it was originally grown. There has also never been an on-screen reference to "TARDIS coral" from Harkness or anyone else; a deleted scene from Journey's End (included in the Series 4 DVD set) shows the Doctor giving the Meta-Crisis Doctor a piece of the TARDIS, but it is never referred to as a coral and is never shown in great detail.


 * The two Doctors address each other as "Doctor". Is the Doctor's name really such a secret that he can't even tell himself? Perhaps he does not want the TARDIS, sometimes implied to be sentient, to find out his name. Alternatively, it could be that the Doctor does not ever want to utter his own name; as Steven Moffat suggested, there must be some "terrible secret" about the Doctor's name. In the Five Doctors, the Second Doctor addressed the Fifth Doctor as Doctor.

Continuity

 * This is the first on screen TV appearance of the Fifth Doctor since Dimensions in Time (and the first 'official' on screen appearance since DW: The Caves of Androzani).
 * The Fifth Doctor previously met the first Four Doctors (First Doctor, Second Doctor, Third Doctor, Fourth Doctor)  in The Five Doctors.
 * The Fifth Doctor has also met the Sixth and Seventh Doctors in BFA: The Sirens of Time.
 * The Fifth Doctor has also encountered the Seventh Doctor in MA: Cold Fusion which (implicitly) involves the later Doctor remembering having experienced the events as his earlier self, as in this story.
 * The Fifth Doctor also encountered the Eighth Doctor in EDA: The Eight Doctors.
 * The Titanic was seen crashing into the TARDIS at the end of Last of the Time Lords. This story occurs inbetween those final scenes.
 * LINDA last appeared in Love & Monsters.
 * The reference to "Time Lords in funny hats" is to DW: Arc of Infinity and possibly The Five Doctors, although it could just as easily also refer to earlier Time Lord adventures such as The Invasion of Time and The Deadly Assassin. Considering they're reminiscing about the old home town, it's not exactly a timeline-altering issue.
 * Fifth Doctor identified new series' TARDIS console room's as a desktop theme named "Coral". Also says it to be worse than "leopard skin". His criticism of the TARDIS' redecoration is similar to that made by the Second Doctor to the Third Doctor in The Three Doctors. The revelation that the TARDIS console room design can be changed like a computer desktop rectifies continuity issues caused by the differing look of the TARDIS interior in the 1996 TV movie, and minor changes seen over the years during the classic series. (The different appearance of the console room during the mid-Tom Baker era (DW: The Hand of Fear, et al) is explained on-screen as being a secondary control room.)
 * This is the first multi Doctor story to account for the aging of the actor returning to play a previous Doctor, by explaining it as a byproduct of meeting himself; this covers off the aging of the Doctors in The Five Doctors but not The Two Doctors as the Second Doctor (not to mention Jamie McCrimmon) appear considerably older long before they encounter the Doctor.
 * The cloister bell is heard for the first time since the Children in Need Special of 2005. It is possible to speculate based upon on-screen evidence that the tolling of the bell might trigger the Doctor's memories of meeting himself in this circumstance, based upon the Tenth Doctor exclaiming "that's my cue!" after it's heard and suddenly knowing how to rectify the situation. If this is the case, it rectifies paradox issues, at least regarding this encounter.
 * The Tenth Doctor exclaims "Snap!" when displaying his glasses to his younger self. While this is a common expression, it is interesting to note that it is the same word that the Sixth and Second Doctors used to greet each other when they met in DW: The Two Doctors. (The only other recent use of the expression is uttered by Owen Harper in TW: Fragments and when the Doctor met another important person in his timeline, River Song in Silence in the Library.)

DVD and other releases

 * Released in the Series 4 DVD boxset in November 2008 along with the rest of the Series.
 * Released in a vanilla edition alongside Voyage of the Damned on 10th March 2008. Extras include the Children in Need Special: Time Crash and Dr Who Confidential Cutdown