Doctor Who and the Hypocrisy of the Fixed Point
By David Hill
The fixed point. It is one of the aspects of Doctor Who that can drive the viewer mad. Seemingly picked for arbitrary events, it is essentially a cop out for the Doctor to avoid changing history, something that he does at a whim anyway. While there are, in theory, consequences for altering the unalterable, like the Reapers that appeared when Rose’s father was spared from being killed when he was hit by a car, these changes seem to occur without any issue.
One of these fixed points was supposed to be when Mount Vesuvius exploded and buried the city of Pompeii. While everyone should have died, the Tenth Doctor, at the urging of Donna, spared the family of Caecilius. The Reapers did not reappear, and the world continued on as though nothing happened, aside from this one family being saved and the Doctor being turned in to the family deity. Or what about the “fixed” point when the Doctor was supposed to die, but he managed to emerge quite well and without regeneration?
It is enough to wonder if some of these “fixed” points are truly fixed. Since one family was able to be spared from death at Pompeii, and the Doctor continued upon his adventures, are there other “fixed” points that are able to be altered? Could the events of the Holocaust, for example, be prevented if River Song was allowed to kill Hitler, instead of the Doctor hiding behind the mantra of it being a fixed point in time?
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Or could it be that some fixed points in time are, somehow, considered more important that others on Doctor Who? Is it possible that, for some bizarre reason, the death of Pete Tyler is more important in the universe than the destruction of an entire city? What other fixed points would be considered so vital to the very fabric of time and space that their alteration would summon the Reapers?
It would be interesting to see the Doctor go back and explore other “fixed” points in time. Perhaps, due to the idea that different points in time have different levels of importance, the Doctor could fix previous events, stopping the loss of important historical knowledge or saving an alien planet from genocide. In fact, he did just that when he changed the events of the Last Great Time War, which, as a fixed point in time, should have had the Reapers descending in waves.
The fixed points have long been a plot hole in the new incarnation of Doctor Who, events seemingly chosen without rhyme nor reason. Maybe, as the Doctor goes back through time and comes across other fixed points, he will come to realize that they may not be that fixed after all.