Why Bother?

[Kovarians-Eye-Patch]

The Doctor could have just told river on the beach the first time and saved all the hassle of having the time tracks messed up and whatnot. Instead he went through another 200 years of travelling to ultimately get to the same point and then do the reveal. From a story point of view it was sort of pointless. Also, now I think on it it makes the ending make less sense as well. We see Amy sitting in her garden and moping because the Doctor is dead, but for her nothing should have changed. She should have gone off to the Diner like she always did, find the younger Doctor and go off travelling, still unaware that River is her daughter, but instead she just goes home and already knows about River?

[Saber]

In terms of telling River first time out, I guess he wasn't betting on her messing with a fixed point and so hoped to be able to go through with his plans with Amy and River never knowing he was still alive, but on his second (that we see) visit to the beach he has to reveal to her to stop her messing with time again.

As for the Amy part thats a good point that I don't really have an answer to. I can't remember if it said '6 months later' or anything like that so it is perhaps an oversight, but perhaps something that happens later. Would it perhaps even cause a paradox for her? Because she goes off with the younger one she always ends up back at the beach? That's probably not right but I have brain ache and can't think it through properly right now

[Vampyros Adric]

Its a really interesting point - and actually if you think to hard about the ending then the whole season kinda collapses! The story centred around the death of the Doctor but it actually should have been the damage done to Amy, Rory and Melody.

[TheDoctorDonna]

Doesn't it sort of open a huge paradox too? By having the Doctor surviving what happened at the lake, there will now be two Doctors going around for at least the next 200 years, and then when we get around to that point again and the Doctor doesn't die, there will then be three and it will just keep adding up. Perhaps I am being confused by the timey wimey of it, but thats how it seems to me.

[Miss Wright]

Doesn't it sort of open a huge paradox too? By having the Doctor surviving what happened at the lake, there will now be two Doctors going around for at least the next 200 years, and then when we get around to that point again and the Doctor doesn't die, there will then be three and it will just keep adding up. Perhaps I am being confused by the timey wimey of it, but thats how it seems to me.

That only makes sense if you think that there has always been a paradox on the show. This fixed point doesn't actually change a thing. The Doctor is constantly doubling back on his time stream, but it didn't cause anything. There is only one Doctor living through the 200 years, the one that "died." The major point is that there is only one Doctor, just at different points in his time stream. The events of the episode were erased in a way.

If any of that makes sense.... just my interpretation! 

[Nyki]

What Miss Wright said

[Tardis-Console]

Doesn't it sort of open a huge paradox too? By having the Doctor surviving what happened at the lake, there will now be two Doctors going around for at least the next 200 years, and then when we get around to that point again and the Doctor doesn't die, there will then be three and it will just keep adding up. Perhaps I am being confused by the timey wimey of it, but thats how it seems to me.

That only makes sense if you think that there has always been a paradox on the show. This fixed point doesn't actually change a thing. The Doctor is constantly doubling back on his time stream, but it didn't cause anything. There is only one Doctor living through the 200 years, the one that "died." The major point is that there is only one Doctor, just at different points in his time stream. The events of the episode were erased in a way.

If any of that makes sense.... just my interpretation! 

What Miss Wright said

I actually agree with TDD. When do we ever see the Doctor doubling back on his time stream? We know that he can technically (because of time travelling in the TARDIS) be in all places at once but there is still only one Doctor, now though we essentially have two because the paradox was broken.

Doctor A (the one who died in TIA) dies on the beach and is burned leaving a past version of himself (Doctor B) still on the 200 year path to his death. Before the finale this all made sense because as far as we had been told Doctor A was dead. This caused a paradox meaning that these 200 years 'should' now always be repeated because in 200 years time Doctor B will be Doctor A sending a letter to Doctor B etc. Its confusing but made sense.

THEN, in the finale we find out that Doctor A never died after all. It was all a plan of his so once they all left the beach to go to the diner to see Doctor B, Doctor A climbed out of the teselector and went off on his travels doing whatever for the next 200 years until Doctor B is back at the beach doing the same thing. Time goes wonky in the middle but the outcome remains the same so now Doctor B is climbing out of the burnt robot and off doing his thing as well meaning that it isn't a case of doubling back on a timeline. There are two seperate Doctors out there, possibly following the same path and always being 200 years apart or perhaps following very different paths. This essentially should carry on forever until there are millions but after the finale things seemed to have changed. Instead of going off with the younger Doctor, Amy and Rory went home and moped that he was dead, so it could be that in breaking that circle the paradox was broken too, but there are still at least two Doctors out there. The only way the paradox would have been broken without there being more than one Doctor is if Doctor A really did die and Doctor B was the first to use the tesselector, which is possible but we weren't told either way, though it was indicated that things were the same until River changed the fixed point, by which point he was already in the robot and so that was his plan all along, meaning that this is what happened either way.

It's sort of confusing and if you think too hard about it then it makes less and less sense. In the grand scheme of things I think Moffs plan is that there is still just one Doctor and that's that, but its actually a gaping big hole in the plot if you choose to look that deep.

[Nyki]

I still don't see that.  There are only two Doctors at the same time if you think of different points in his time-stream as being simultaneous.  He's interacted with himself before (The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors etc) - the only difference here is that it's the same regeneration, but that doesn't mean they're identical, any more than I'm identical to myself ten years ago.  Doctor B, when he gets to the point of climbing out of the Tessalector, won't be following in Doctor A's footsteps - he'll actually be Doctor A.  No paradox.

[Miss Wright]

What Nyki said.