It’s hard to believe, but prior to the post-2005 modern era of Doctor Who, the show wasn’t that focused on time paradoxes. Yes, the Doctor has always been a time traveler, but the scrapes they’ve gotten into before the 21st century weren’t always connected to mind-bending time traveler twists. Before 2005, the best examples of time travel paradoxes in Doctor Who came from stand-out episodes like “The Day of the Daleks” in 1972, which foreshadowed various bootstraps aspects of The Terminator and specifically inspired X-Men comic book writer, John Byrne, to later write “Days of Future Past” in 1981.
But any of the timey-wimey paradox action of vintage Who is nothing compared to the endless parade of paradoxes in the modern era. And with the latest Who Christmas special, “Joy to the World,” one very tricky paradox has been reintroduced in a big way. Here’s how Steven Moffat’s time-travel twist in “Joy to the World” references an earlier 11th Doctor twist in “The Big Bang.”
