Question: During The Five Doctors, why did Borusa give The Doctor enemies to fight? Wouldn't he want The Doctor's journey to the Dark Tower to go as smoothly as possible without the threat of death and interference?
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Question: How could one nuclear weapon destroy the Psychlos' home planet?
Chosen answer: It's actually very similar to what scientists of the time thought would happen on Earth if a nuclear bomb was ever detonated. They were convinced that the entire atmosphere, being made up of several combustible gasses, would erupt in flames killing everyone on the planet. On Psychlos, their atmosphere reacted with the radiation released by the bomb. It's the reason the Psychlos could not enter the irradiated areas of Earth where the last groups of free humans lived: their breathing apparatuses would explode.
Question: What caused the original nuclear devastation depicted in the movie?
Answer: I think that this is meant to be a mystery. Taylor/Charlton Heston, an astronaut, leaves a world set somewhat in the future after 1968 (when the movie was made) but still recognisable to cinema-goers at the time, to travel through a "time vortex" to arrive in a world in a distant future, which has changed beyond recognition. Taylor meets the orangutan Zaius/Maurice Evans, and Zaius hints that he has some idea of what had happened, but Zaius' knowledge is either limited, or else Zaius is not going to tell Taylor (or his fellow apes) the full story. At the end of the movie Taylor discovers that, at some point between his leaving his own time and arriving in the "Planet Of The Apes", the world had been devastated by a nuclear war, but I think that the exact time, causes of, and course of this nuclear war are deliberately left as a mystery. Sometimes I think a bit of unresolved mystery actually improves a story, and I think this is the case here.
Chosen answer: World War III.
Question: Does anyone know why the BBC isn't showing these in the States at the same time they're released in the U.K.? The Christmas Special JUST aired on BBC America on the 27 June. I find it odd that they don't just release them on both stations at the same time.
Chosen answer: BBC America is a separate entity. It is not a "station" of BBC. It airs shows from other UK networks (ITV etc). So, for one reason, it must arrange its schedule to show the shows it wants to show. For another reason, the shows shown on BBC in the UK are paid for by taxes on UK TV sets. It wouldn't be very fair for BBC America not to pay for the rights to show the shows after all there are a lot more of us than them. All these payments and broadcast rights must be worked out for every show. In addition, BBC can sell to other networks as well (e.g. Dr Who and Primeval on SyFy, and Dr Who on PBS are generally another year behind BBC America)
Last of the Time Lords (3) - S3-E13
Question: Why does The Master want to create a new Time Lord empire? I would have thought that as a renegade Time Lord he would have been glad they were all gone, also, how could he create a Time Lord empire when they were all dead?
Chosen answer: He likely means an empire where he, a Time Lord, rules over all creation.
Question: Towards the end of episode 4, The Master transmits a message to the peoples of the universe, saying that if they do not acknowledge his rule, he will send a signal to close the CVE and restart the collapse of the universe. My questions are: How does The Master expect the peoples of the universe to respond to him in time? And what happens if the peoples of the universe don't comply with The Master's demands? Would he just close the CVE anyway?
Chosen answer: Two possibilities. 1: They can reply on the same frequency he's transmitting from. 2: He intends to close the CVE anyway and this is simply an act of cruelty.
Question: Why does AMEE prolong the death of the crew? Why not kill them all the minute they try and remove her power source?
Chosen answer: At first, she's assessing the threat level. After she determines them to be a threat, she then decides how to eliminate them. She decides on guerilla warfare because she can fare better in the environment than humans can. She was damaged, so if she tried to attack them all at the same time, she would likely lose the battle.
Question: In the movie, AMEE is shown to have various settings, such as 'Navigaton' and 'Military'. It is also stated that AMEE is on loan from the marines. My question is, before giving her to the crew of Mars-1, why didn't the marines remove the the military part of her programming? What possible use could it have been to the crew?
Chosen answer: It was disabled. The part of her program that was in effect was merely the survival instinct, given to it so it could protect itself.
Question: What exactly are those little bug things on Mars and how do they produce oxygen?
Chosen answer: They aren't given a name. They act like plants, except instead of absorbing carbon dioxide and expelling it as oxygen, they eat plants and release oxygen from their bodies. It's probably more effective than using plants since they weren't expecting to be able to breathe on the surface.
Castrovalva - S19-E1
Question: Why does The Master come up with these ridiculously elaborate plans to kill The Doctor when he could have killed him at the beginning of the first episode, just after his regeneration, when he was very weak?
Chosen answer: Because he wouldn't be satisfied simply killing The Doctor when he's weak and infirm. The Master needs to outsmart him.
Question: It's been shown in the film the the aliens are technologically more advanced than us. Then, how come, with all their technology, they were unable to defend themselves from something as simple as a computer virus?
Answer: Remember that the aliens had to interface with our satellite computer code first...David simply "reverse engineered" the code to create the virus. When it was uploaded, they didn't have enough time to combat it.
Answer: It was also a bit of a tribute to "War of the Worlds", in which the alien invaders with much more advanced technology ultimately succumbed to ordinary terrestrial pathogens in the original novel by H. G. Wells as well as its many screen adaptations.
Chosen answer: Its supposed to be an exercise in demonstrating how the aliens underestimated their opponent, but in reality it's merely a convenient plot device.
Answer: I was wondering the same thing. Since the Harvesters had our satellites meant they could eavesdrop on every single conversation. David and other people in the facility probably put up a firewall on the computers and cameras, so that the aliens couldn't see or hear what they were planning on doing.
Answer: Maybe there were no viruses in the planet where these aliens came from so they didn't have any countermeasures against them.
Answer: They could defend against it, hence why they bring the nuke. The virus drops the shields, and the nuke destroys The Mother Ship. David even says that the shields will be down for a few minutes.
Utopia (1) - S3-E11
Question: The Doctor says that if a Time Lord were to absorb the energies of the time vortex they would become a vengeful god. Why exactly would they become vengeful?
Chosen answer: Given that their entire race was wiped out by the Daleks in the Time War and the Daleks are still around, I'd say that a Time Lord would have something to be vengeful for. That much power would go to anyone's head.
Question: What happened to Wheels (the little remote controlled car that Mikaela was turning into a pet) at the end? The last time I remembered seeing him in the movie was him entering that one building in Egypt, where Bumblebee, Mudflap, and Skids can't get into. He mutters something about "stupid Autobots". But, after that, he kind of disappears? Or was he around and I just didn't notice?
Answer: After the tomb, he doesn't appear onscreen again. There's no indication as to what happened to him.
Question: If Mildred Kemp is in the mental institution under her real name, then why in the article does it say that she is still at large? Is this just part of the delusion that Anna is playing out?
Chosen answer: The newspaper article saying she was still at large was 20 years old. It can safely be assumed that she was caught and put into the institution during that 20 year time frame.
What? I'm still so confused. Are Rachel and Mildred the same person? Who killed the three children?
Anna has a disorder, which is another reason she was in a psychiatric institution and not jail. Her personality disorder is called dissociative identity disorder, where she takes on alters, aspects of her personality who handle stress, when she cannot. Alex and Mildred were alters of hers, which is why Anna thought Rachel was Mildred. The MIldred alter did the things she couldn't do, killing Rachel because she thought she was evil. And a Mildred alter can be thought of wanting to revenge her capture, so why not make a mini Mildred out of Anna?
No... Mildred was in the mental hospital with Anna and told Anna stories about her murdering the children I'm sure (since she asked when Anna left the hospital who she was going to tell her stories too). Anna wanted to kill Rachel to begin with and when she faked being mentally health enough to escape, her intention was to be home to kill her. She did and then goes back to the hospital, where the real Mildred Kemp is.
Question: On the Federation ships, in addition to the signature photon torpedoes and phaser banks of the series, there were arrays of small anti-aircraft-like cannons that fired rapid tiny blue energy bolts. 'Probably most-prominently seen on the USS Kelvin, but other ships might have used them. I was wondering what they were (i.e. if there was an official designation).
Answer: Those turrets firing the blue bolts are actually the torpedo launchers. According to Memory Alpha, the Kelvin was fitted with "rapid-fire, double-barrel torpedo launchers that fired blue photon torpedoes". Due to the relatively low-tech weaponry of the Kelvin compared to ships like the Enterprise (which from then on were implied to have been developed based on the information gathered from the Kelvin's fight with the futuristic Narada), the torpedoes are not as advanced as the larger, more powerful, slower-firing red torpedoes shown thereafter.
Question: My friend swears the lead female actress changes at about 10-15 minutes into the film. He says Yancy Butler of Witchblade fame plays the lead at first, and then someone else (I assume it must be Kate Beckinsale) takes over the role. My research to date tells me my friend is nuts. Is he? Is there any explanation related to this? (I think maybe it's due to my friend's pain medication/s - a side effect of some sort.) Thank you for the help. He paid me to research this for him (only two bucks) and so far I've spent over two hours on it. But I did at least learn about these actresses.
Answer: This could be a confusion over characters. If I remember rightly, the film opens with a scene set somewhere around 1200AD, showing the three vampire elders, Markus, Viktor and Amelia, leading a war party. Possibly your friend has mistaken Amelia, played by Hungarian actress Zita Görög, for Selene, who doesn't appear in the film until after this lengthy flashback sequence has finished.
Question: At what point does Will actually realise that Thomas Kent is really Viola?
Chosen answer: When they are in the boat, just after "Thomas Kent" delivered Viola's farewell letter to Shakespeare. After a brief discussion about Will's feeling's for Viola, Thomas (Viola) kisses a surprised Will Shakespeare, then rushes away when the boat docks. The ferryman comments to Will that it was actually Lady Viola.
Question: What is the name of the song being played when "Gil" is at the tower looking for the "biggest baddest mother in the yard"?
Chosen answer: "Click Click Boom" from Saliva.
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Chosen answer: They were a diversion to keep The Doctors focused on escape rather than thinking about who had collected them from time and why.
Captain Defenestrator