Blinovitch Limitation Effect - The New Series

The New Series

In the 2005 series episode "Father's Day", Rose Tyler crosses her own timestream and redoes her actions, saving her father from dying in 1987, despite the Ninth Doctor's warnings not to attempt to cross their timestreams a second time and not to touch her infant self. This paradox results in serious repercussions, dealt with in the story. The Effect does not behave as described in earlier stories, but the contact does create a paradox that summons the Reapers, which proceed to "sterilise" the resulting wound in Time by devouring everything in sight. When Rose briefly carries her younger self in her arms, there is no visible energy discharge, although a Reaper appears immediately. Speaking at the Gallifrey convention in February 2006, episode writer Paul Cornell said that although his script does not mention the Blinovitch Limitation Effect by name, it was in the forefront of his mind while writing the episode.

The loss of the Time Lords and their stabilising influence on time due to the Time War is hinted at in "Father's Day" itself, "The Unquiet Dead" (2005), and later in "Rise of the Cybermen" (2006). This fits in with Miles and Woods's suggestions of a cosmic observer effect imposed on the universe by the Time Lords, resulting in the creation of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect as a safeguard against tampering with causality. It is also consistent with the Doctor's observation in "Father's Day" that if the Time Lords were still around, they could have repaired the paradox.

In "The Parting of the Ways" (2005) and "The Girl in the Fireplace" (2006) the Ninth and Tenth Doctors respectively make reference to becoming "part of events". In the former episode, Rose asks the Ninth Doctor why he cannot go back in time and warn Earth of the Dalek attack that is happening and he replies that once he "lands in that second, part of events. Stuck in the timeline." The Effect is not mentioned by name, but the consequences stated appear to be similar to those in Day of the Daleks, where the guerillas become caught in a predestination paradox, doomed to create the very future they are trying to avert. Similar language is used in "The Stolen Earth" (2008), where the Doctor describes the events of the Time War as being "time locked" so that no one is supposed to be able to travel back to that period, though Dalek Caan was presumably able to make the transition and avert the consequences of the Effect.

In the Doctor Who Christmas Special "The Runaway Bride" (2006), Donna Noble remarks that she wishes to use the TARDIS to travel back to a point during her own wedding, as she had been transported inside the TARDIS before the ceremony could take place. The Tenth Doctor says he cannot allow her to cross her own time stream.

In "Time Crash" (2007), the Tenth Doctor attributes the aged appearance of the Fifth Doctor to shorting out the "time differential" (the same phrase used in Mawdryn Undead) between them, and stating that it will "snap back in place" when the Fifth Doctor is returned to his rightful moment in time.

In "Blink", elderly Billy Shipton tells Sally Sparrow that he often thought about contacting her prior to the time of his younger self's disappearance, "but apparently it would have torn a hole in the fabric of space and time, and destroyed two thirds of the universe." In the same episode, however, Martha Jones tells younger Billy that she and the Tenth Doctor attended Apollo 11's landing four times.

Former and recurring companion, Sarah Jane Smith, references the Blinovich Limitation Effect in The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith (2008) when declining to hold her infant self in 1951.

In "The Hungry Earth" (2010), the Eleventh Doctor discourages Amy Pond and Rory Williams from being in close contact with future incarnations of themselves, stating that it would "...make things complicated." but not specifically mentioning the Effect. Nevertheless, in "The Big Bang" (2010), at a point where Time itself is collapsing, Amy Pond makes physical contact with her younger self in an alternate history with no repercussions. At this point, there are no other species in the universe except those on Earth (the eye of the storm). Reapers do not appear. However, when the Doctor touches a present-moment sonic screwdriver to a future version of itself, sparks are emitted. This appears to confirm to the Doctor that the two identical configured screwdrivers are the same object at different points in the timeline. The Doctor subsequently directs adult Amy to give her 5-year-old self an icecream cone in "Good Night".

In "A Christmas Carol" (2010), older and younger versions of the character Kazran Sardis meet and touch without any problems at all, which reviewers have pointed out seems to violate the principle.

In the mini-episodes "Space" and "Time" (2011) which immediately follow the aforementioned "A Christmas Carol", two versions of Amy Pond, only minutes out of syncronisation from each other, interact with each other within the TARDIS without ill effect. Similarly minute-older Rory Williams and Eleventh Doctor give instructions to the trio as they pass through the TARDIS.

River Song counsels Amy Pond not to inform the Doctor of his 200-year-older self's death in "The Impossible Astronaut" (2011). When Amy argues that the Doctor has met his younger self before, her husband Rory Williams reminds her that the universe nearly blew up as a result, referring to the events of "The Big Bang".