From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated
From Address: solar.penguin{at}gmail.com
Subject: Re: "The Angles take Manhattan" - ground transport?

James Kuyper wrote:

>
> The issue is this: there's a hypervolume of space-time, of unspecified
> spatial and temporal extent, but including New York around 1938, which
> the TARDIS cannot enter due to the density of time distortions. The
> Doctor works around the problem by traveling to ancient China and
> leaving a message on a vase which will eventually end up within that
> hypervolume.
> However, wouldn't it be simpler to take the TARDIS to say, Chicago in
> 1938, and then hop on a train to New York?

The Doctor wants to arrive at a precise point in time and space.  New
York 1938 is a pretty big hypervolume of time and space, many miles
wide and a whole year long.

If his train is delayed or his taxi from the station gets caught in a
traffic jam, he might arrive too late to help.  If he catches an
earlier train and arrives too early, he might change events too soon
and cause a paradox.  Getting a homing beacon there to aim at avoids
these problems.

This is not actually explained in the epsiode, but it's pretty obvious
if you think about it.

The big problem with the vase is that the dialogue identifies it as
early Qin dynasty, and the caption confirms the date when the Doctor
goes back to ancient China, but that style of blue-and-white patterned
glaze is from a much later era!

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