Doctor Who Season 4 Episode 1 "Voyage of the Damned"
Entry posted by Rshadler
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In this episode, the Tenth Doctor is on-board an intergalactic cruise ship modeled after the Titanic (yeah you would think they would've known better) which has traveled from a distant planet to observe the Earth holiday of Christmas. That's not what I am here to talk about though. When the ship gets hit by meteors, the compartment where the T.A.R.D.I.S. (time and relative dimension in space)- which is the Doctor's time-travelling spaceship- was being kept gets destroyed and the spaceship gets set adrift. The T.A.R.D.I.S. has been referenced numerous times as being bigger on the inside, and the interior has been likened its own dimension. Which brings me to my point. When he sees the T.A.R.D.I.S., the Tenth Doctor says "...once it's set adrift, it's programmed to lock onto the nearest centre of gravity, and that would be the Earth." And that is all well and good. But this is not.
This spaceship has just fallen from orbit to Earth and yet its wooden exterior is untouched and the ground underneath it is perfectly flat. Impossible. The Tenth Doctor said that the T.A.R.D.I.S. had locked on to Earth's center of gravity, meaning that it was being acted on Earth gravitational field. The T.A.R.D.I.S. is bigger on the inside, so if all that mass is accounted for, the force due to gravity (Fg=(massobject)(acceleration due to gravity)) would be immense. That kind of force would create an enormous crater. And the wooden exterior should have caught fire during the decent as it entered Earth's atmosphere due to the friction created when moving from the empty vacuum of space into an atmosphere. Yet, the T.A.R.D.I.S. is unharmed. If the T.A.R.D.I.S. has no calculable mass, then Earth's gravitational field could not act on. But it is impossible to have no mass. And if the T.A.R.D.I.S.'s mass was only that of its interior it still should have caught fire upon entering Earth's atmosphere and it still should have shown some indication of hitting the ground. Simply put, there is no way for the T.A.R.D.I.S. to have landed without showing some sign of having hit the Earth's surface, there should have been a crater. So how do we explain this? Well, there is an easy explanation, just ask the Doctor.
Yeah, Time Lord science does't follow Earth's rules. That's the best I can give you. If you have read this and have a theory though I would love hear it, just put it in the comments.
Ok, now the fun part. I couldn't resist this. The alien tour guide in the episode is supposed to know all about Earth Culture and Christmas, but he has no clue what he's talking about and it is fantastic. Observe:
To which one can only respond:
Thought anyone reading this could use a laugh. That's all for now, stay tuned!
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