brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (07/12/84)
You can't expect to find consistency in the Doctor - the producer, director and script editor change too frequently. In the "Hand of Fear", Eldrad was indeed powerless in the Tardis, due to the so called state of temporal grace. Some feature of the Tardis which makes it exist outside normal space also stops harm within it. But lots of things contradict this. Several times when the Doctor has visited Galifrey, patrolmen have pointed weapons at him inside the Tardis. But that's pretty easy to explain - they are Time Lord weapons, and can counteract the effect. Things like a knife or a club certainly work inside. And who knows, probably a Janis thorn. Sutek could control the Doctor inside. The Keeper of Traken could do things also, while the Black Guardian could not. In that plague episode (can't recall title, 19th season) Nyssa used a sonic weapon against an attacking robot. And of course, after that (perhaps the temporal grace circuit was damaged) the cybermen were able to force their way around inside. And we all know weapons can be used inside the Master's Tardis. And who knows about the modern Time Lord Tardis that is carried around in your pocket and lets you move at will (Cho-Gi had one, Planet of the Spiders, as did the Time Lords in Genesis of the Daleks, I think) Most interesting however was the episode "Death to the Daleks". The Tardis lost ALL power, so that they had to open the door by a hand crank. Yet it did not lose its trans-dimensionality, and remained the shape of a police box. Interesting. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ontario (519) 884-7473
jsk@iham1.UUCP (Dr. Todd M. Kent) (07/16/84)
The question of "Temporal Grace" in the TARDIS came up in a recent issue
of the "Whovian Times". The producer of Doctor Who, John Nathan Turner, was
asked the question, "Why was temporal grace violated by the cybermen in Earth-
shock?". His answer was that the question would be answered in a later episode,
probably in the 21st season. So don't worry who-fans this question will be
answered.
Doctor T.