Have when Rose consumed the Time Vortex by looking into it and 'The Moment' be a pivot in the story. A "That's what could have happened" rug pull to the entire thing.
Rewrite the entire story with Paul McGann regenerating into a new Doctor with all those memories of the "What if" still present in their head, keep both universes alive through him but establish a retcon without anything from the 2005-onwards storyline having happened in it. Seal it off as a potential that both happened and didn't. It could even account for his amnesia in the 1996 movie, some retroactive anti-time associated with his entire regeneration (Half-mother and everything).
Pick at it vaguely as some sort of Master/The Matrix trickery in future stories. Nothing to dismiss it completely but enough to let everyone know that the Bad Wolf timeline did and did not happen.
That way fan favourites like the Angels and River can still be part of the lore, but Pigs in Manhattan, The Star Beast and The Next Doctor can be oddities that never truly happened.
Both a big FU to Bad Wolf productions and a nod to the quirkiness of the show's timeline handling generally.
Done properly this could still hold the splendour that the 50th anniversary obtained and leave room for ideas like mistakes having happened and getting over them; a lesson well learned for the next generation to witness.
This allows for Cushing's Doctor to both be canon and not too :p
It keeps that whole stop at Capaldi (Who was brilliant!) thing from happening, just stop at McGann and go in a completely different direction. There can still be echoes (Or ghosts) of that reality but it's not the one the Doctor is on anymore.
Allows for all the silliness to be gone but the good stuff to be sort of kept.
Heck, if I put my mind to it I could even have it go in the other direction as well, have this 'new' Doctor Who sometimes bump into the lore established under the Bad Wolf lot.
Just have it all bounce along nicely, keep those watching its attention and it will just be another part of the overall story of what's good, and bad, about the Doctor Who situation(s) over the years.
Have when Rose consumed the Time Vortex by looking into it and 'The Moment' be a pivot in the story. A "That's what could have happened" rug pull to the entire thing.
Rewrite the entire story with Paul McGann regenerating into a new Doctor with all those memories of the "What if" still present in their head, keep both universes alive through him but establish a retcon without anything from the 2005-onwards storyline having happened in it. Seal it off as a potential that both happened and didn't. It could even account for his amnesia in the 1996 movie, some retroactive anti-time associated with his entire regeneration (Half-mother and everything).
Pick at it vaguely as some sort of Master/The Matrix trickery in future stories. Nothing to dismiss it completely but enough to let everyone know that the Bad Wolf timeline did and did not happen.
That way fan favourites like the Angels and River can still be part of the lore, but Pigs in Manhattan, The Star Beast and The Next Doctor can be oddities that never truly happened.
Both a big FU to Bad Wolf productions and a nod to the quirkiness of the show's timeline handling generally.
Done properly this could still hold the splendour that the 50th anniversary obtained and leave room for ideas like mistakes having happened and getting over them; a lesson well learned for the next generation to witness.
This allows for Cushing's Doctor to both be canon and not too :p
When Rose looked into the time vortex, that was the first instance of the moment manifesting consciousness.
Sure it's a retcon, but this stuff writes itself.
It keeps that whole stop at Capaldi (Who was brilliant!) thing from happening, just stop at McGann and go in a completely different direction. There can still be echoes (Or ghosts) of that reality but it's not the one the Doctor is on anymore.
Allows for all the silliness to be gone but the good stuff to be sort of kept.
Heck, if I put my mind to it I could even have it go in the other direction as well, have this 'new' Doctor Who sometimes bump into the lore established under the Bad Wolf lot.
Just have it all bounce along nicely, keep those watching its attention and it will just be another part of the overall story of what's good, and bad, about the Doctor Who situation(s) over the years.