Maybe it'll just be a case of setting Lucy on a Tardis to Hell, and leaving her to come around of her own accord, but surely everyone bar Alan would be keen to go back to Hell?

You would expect one of their prime objectives to be to go back in time again and try to avert the goose crisis until they finally get it right. 

---
Dr Tristan, Extractor of Cheese
 

----
"Would you like a cup of tea?"
 

There's been some debate on this, but I'm now of the opinion that "Babysham" is set in the real Sheffield, some time after Episode 9. My reasoning is:
a) Why would Babysham / Hell conjure up Sheffield as a setting?
b) The roof-tops in Ep7 aren't Sheffield.
c) Alan doesn't seem to be having a particularly rough time in "Babysham", from what we know so far. As he's a latent Christian, Hell is hostile to Alan.

So presumably SMG goes back to hell (with amnesia) while Babysham and Alan go to Sheffield. 
As for the others (Alex in particular) who knows...

----
DarthPat.
 

And you'd think such a past would be discussed in Eps 8 and 9, especially if BS sacked Alan. 

It could just be that they relocated though, or that Hell-Sheffield is a bit different to real Sheffield. There's no requirement for Alan to get the sack, is there?

Trouble is... Alan's life in hell needs to be crap, but Babysham's needs to be good. So unless BS is a masochist:
a) why relocate?
b) why fall out with or otherwise lose Jade (presuming as we do a romantic involvement)?
c) why have the hard time he does in "Babysham" (Tomy; being mugged and framed etc)?

----
"Would you like a cup of tea?"
 

Well he's living a Raymond Chandler fantasy, so he needs a bit of grief to keep the plot going... 
Hell must be pretty dull if there's no bad stuff every now and again to keep you on your toes.

And you've not addressed the Tomy point at all. You've just ignored it.
 

And you've not addressed why it's Sheffield. You've just ignored it.

----
"Would you like a cup of tea?"
 

Maybe Babysham likes Sheffield. Maybe Stew likes Sheffield. He was in charge of Hell at the time after all, and he comes from there...

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

No.
 

If our heroes went back in time and stopped the destruction of the Earth, then their timeline would cease to exist, allowing Sarah Michelle Gellar to return in Episode 6. If they solved the crisis by sorting out Alan's belief structure circa Episode 7, then the natural continuation point would be Episode 7 -era Hell, i.e. "Babysham".

Alan has problems in Hell because of latent Christianity, but they are all Christian to the extent that they are aware of a God and his resurrection-prone son, Stew. One assumes therefore that Alan's problem is the result of God-worship rather than God-belief. If the party go back to Alan and persuade him to stop subconsciously worshipping God, he will cease to experience problems in Hell, and he will not arrange MI7's goose-based escape plot.

I am assuming here that the geese would not be able to rebel without the aid of MI7.

----
A-P-O-C-A-L-Y-P-S-E
 

Like the theory though.

----
A-P-O-C-A-L-Y-P-S-E
 

Given that there's so little to do, it makes you wonder if there might yet be an Episode 10?

Of course, this scheme allows SMG to die, and Alex to be very unwell, and yet for both of them to continue on account of the fact that this timeline would cease to exist and everyone would get another go from Episode 7.

This would mean that:
Jim's Dr Who thing would still be secret.
Jim would not know about possibly being Rod.
Jim and Caroline would still be unaware of their feelings for each other.

Unless they were told any of this by the timetravellers.

There's a problem though... the old time-travel paradox. If X goes back in time to avert the events that led to X then X ceases to exist and so would be unable to avert the events that led to X...

In Episode 8, this was overcome by everyone losing their momeory of the time-loop. But they weren't exactly amnesiacs, they just forgot about the time-travellers. So I suppose what would happed with our Episode 7 heroes is... they wouldn't be able to remember stuff that could only have been told to them by the Episode 9 heroes.

But the Ep9 cast could pretend to be the Ep7 cast and the Ep7 cast would not forget what they were told because they wouldn't know there was a problem... what I'm saying is, Ep9 Babysham could go back to Ep7 Alan and sort him out, and Ep7 Alan would think that Ep9 BS is Ep7 BS. And Ep9 Leon could knock Ep7 BS out with a shovel to cover any disagreement. I think that that would be the safest way of sorting Alan out without the risk of him forgetting everything.

Episode 8 showed us that people can go back in time to correct the future and THEN be erased, as if there's some sort of delay, but they will leave their mark on the timeline all the same...

Hey! But... In Ep9, everyone forgets JimPD, and yet when they see him later they recoginse him as Jim. So maybe memories of info are preserved, but not memories of people and their actions... That makes sense. Just about. If you squint hard enough.

While I'm hacking at Ep9...
Stew, Leon and Alex claim to be "from the future". Yet Alex is fine. And none of them seem to have experienced the subsequent events of Ep9 before.

So my current question: Where was the bookshop?

     ALEX: "As we already explained, we were in Heaven when we were dragged back in time. 
               But the moment it happened must've been seconds before everything got blown up."

So the future was only just the future, and at the time they arrived it was actually the past.

The DVD explains where the second Alex comes from, by the way... Starting from the point where there are two, oringinal Alex (from Hell) goes with one of the Jims and ends up in Heaven and back at square one. He then teams up with Alana again while the original Alex (from Hell) goes with one of the Jims...etc...

I know that the whole Ep9 thing is confusing, and we all keep tripping up on it, so I've made a table which tries to explain the comings and goings of EVERYONE in the Barbican sequence:

ALAN - enters through the door and ends up in the Stargate with Babysham
ANT - there at the start; there at the end
JIM2 - there at the start; somehow gets squished (death)
EST - there at the start; somehow gets squished (death)
ROD (JIM) - enters in monolith; disappears in a puff of logic
LEON (POSTMAN) - enters in monolith; disappears in a puff of logic
JIM (FS) - enters in monolith; goes splat in monolith (regenerates as Tom2 (see below))
CAROLINE - enters in monolith; goes splat in monolith (eternal pain)
JEREMY - enters in monolith; goes splat in monolith (death)
TOM (JIM) - enters in Tom's Tardis; gets squished (regenerates as Jim (AH) (see below))
SARAH - enters in Tom's Tardis; there at end
BABYSHAM - enters in Tom's Tardis (later); ends up in Stargate with Alan
WILLOW - enters in Tom's Tardis (later); gets squished (eternal pain)
ALEX - enters in Tom's Tardis (later); goes off with Tom2
ALANA - enters in Tom's Tardis (later); there at end
CRAIG - enters in Tom's Tardis (later); gets squished (eternal pain)
ANNA - enters in Tom's Tardis (later); gets squished (eternal pain)
TOM2 (JIM FS) - regenerates after going splat in monolith; goes off with Alex 
SALLY - enters in monolith but goes splat instantly (eternal pain)
ZED - enters in monolith but goes splat instantly (eternal pain)
LEON (EP8) - enters in monolith but goes splat instantly (eternal pain)
(CHRIS - burns up in Central Hall (eternal pain))
(SAI - burns up in Central Hall (eternal pain))
JIM (CE) - enters in CE's Tardis; goes back to 1985 in CE's Tardis
STEW - enters in CE Tardis; there at end
LEON (FROM HEAVEN) - enters in CE Tardis; there at end
ALEX (FROM HEAVEN) - enters in CE Tardis; there at end
JIM (AH) - regenerates after getting squished; there at end

And now for a lesson in Tardis Mathematics... You'll notice that three Tardises enter the Barbian: Tom's, Christopher's and the monolith. The monolith destroys itself, leaving two police boxes (presumably the same Tardis). Now we see at the end of Episode 8 that CE needs a Tardis to reach 1985, and that this is stolen by Ant. If Ant gives this to Tom2, he can return with it as Tom and then use it as AH later. But why would Ant need to steal it? 

Perhaps the answer here lies with the time-loop memory-loss syndrome. It seems highly likely that JimCE had some memory loss prior to the events of 1998. If would make plenty of sense for this to occur in 1985, directly as a result of the time-loop. So CE donates his Tardis to Tom2 then forgets about Tom2 and presumes the Tardis was stolen. Why Ant delivers the Tardis though is unclear...

Neither Tom nor Tom2 bring about their own non-existence, and so continue to exist, unlike Rod.

But this does raise another question... CE's trip to 1985 requires the goose crisis. If they go back and avert the crisis, Jim wouldn't be able to go to 1985 and lose his Tardis... so he would erase his own presence in the New Soap... 

Crikey, we've killed off Jim!

----
Darth Pat.

Can't the Ep9 team just work all of these problems out on paper in advance, then go back and sort everything out in order so as not to erase more than they clearly do (for "Babysham" to fit)?

Perhaps they don't have to. Perhaps the problem doesn't exist.

There now follows some brainstorming during which I shall attempt to come to some sort of conclusion regards the nature of time.

==First Analysis of the Jims==

Firstly, I'm going to assume that PD is right and that we are dealing with time loops rather than parallel universes.

In Ep.8, CE's regeneration should wipe out all the Jims from time, but it doesn't, presumably because FS (TB)  is able to become (AH) PD and go back to sort out the problem. Once PD moves his predecessors to the Barbican and out of danger, he effectively destroys himself. His disappearence happens midway between the destruction of the Earth and the arrival of CE, and if we assume that CE leaves Earth at the very last moment, we might be able to assume that PD disappears at about the same time that CE's (and subsequent Jims') survival is assured.

(So it looks to me like so long as the potential is there to set something right, you can't erase yourself. I mean... if you were an ordinary mortal and went back and killed youself, that'd probably wipe you, but Jim continued to exist even when the odds were stacked up against him. It's as if there's a grand scheme but still some free will. It's not that the universe is a clockwork single entity, otherwise you couldn't have Ep9 given Ep8 (as time-frames are changed), but there's some degree of that, in a way...)

It's quite a confusing system really.  Think of it this way:
2000 mk1: CE goes to 2000. Maybe something happens, who knows, but he ends up in 1985 and becomes the Jim we all know and love.
2000 mk2: FS exists in 2000, lives through the goose crisis and becomes TB. CE does his thing, presumably separately.
2000 mk3: TB comes to 2000, and intervenes in such a way as to jeopardise Jim's existence. This is Ep8.
2000 mk4: PD comes to 2000, and intervenes in such a way as to secure Jim's existence, but in so doing destroys himself. This is Ep9, and the paradox is obvious and impenetrable. If going back and changing events can destroy PD, surely it would destroy his corrections. But evidently not. It destroys him beyond his corrections, the deed having been done.

When TB goes back to destroy his own existence, his matter lives on, but when PD does the same he disappears... Why? If PD lived on he could go back and preserve himself, just as he did... Maybe that's the point. 

When CE get's "killed" in Ep8, that should wipe out TB and FS, because they are reliant on CE doing the first few episodes of ANS. But instead we get this timeloop created that allows the contemporary Jim to go on and save the day by coming back. 

Really, we're dealing with the grandfather paradox. TB's intervention leads to CE's "death". But this wipes out TB and prevents him from killing CE. So instead of locking up, the universe seems to just ignore the problem and hope it sorts itself out. 

At its simplest, killing CE would make Jim FS in Eps 0, 1 and 2, and TB in the rest. And so when TB (FS as was) gets killed in Ep8, TB (as was) has to be AH and so regenerate as PD - in other words, when the three die we should see CE->FS, TB->AH, and AH->PD. It should be Frank, Tony and Peter that come out fighting, not Frank, Tony and Tom... 

But that is only what would happen at the simplest level. The truth of the matter is that their behaviours in their new guises would be sufficiently different as to blow the whole thing apart. So when CE gets killed we should really see a completely different storyline. 

TB's intervention has caused CE to regenerate early and the actual effects of this would be to cause some serious rewriting of history. Rather than bother with that, the universe chooses to instigate a paradox and hope no-one notices.

What about the other scenario?

When PD intervenes, he is saving the "life" of FS. It's a subtly different arrangement. But it's still denying his own existence and so denying the intervention. So shouldn't PD continue to exist? Well there's a catch...

PD is the descendent of FS. FS became TB at the end of Ep8. But when he regenerated into AH in Ep9, he caused an identical paradox to our original scenario. The TB from Ep8 should cease to exist. If TB ceased to exist, he wouldn't have triggered the chain of events that killed CE and brought about the first paradox (good), but he wouldn't've triggered the chain of events that led to AH destroying TB (not so good). 

So we have three scenarios. 

A: TB causes CE to regenerate past FS, preventing TB causing CE to regenerate past FS.
Solution: TB causes CE to regenerate past FS, but the backstory isn't corrected, relying on a future event to set things right.
B: A results in FS regenerating past TB, destroying TB and so preventing A, but consequently preventing B.
Solution: A results in FS regenerating past TB, but the backstory isn't corrected, relying on a future event to set things right.
C: B allows PD to go back and prevent A, preventing B, but consequently preventing C.
Solution: B allows PD to go back and prevent A, preventing B, and preventing PD from continuing beyond the A region.

In effect, A and B cease to have their potential effect by relying on C to bail them out. But C is a bit of a cheat.

The thing that sets C apart would seem to be that it is comparatively pro-active. A and B are accidental; passive even. C is deliberate and active. 

It's all rather confusing really.

In A, two possible futures exist simultaneously, and in B, another is added. In C, these co-existing futures are corrected, and the correcting future is deleted. 

Divine intervention? An idle and opportunistic universe? Three wrongs make a right? 

A increses the number of futures by one. As does B. C reduces the number to 2 (including itself). This, I suggest, is the key difference. 

Increase the number of paradoxes and you will continue to exist? Reduce them and you will destroy yourself? Interesting reward scheme. And all a bit of a jam. The whole thing looks a bit fishy, and if you poke at it it falls apart.
 

==Application==

How might what we've looked at so far equivalate upon the Ep9 team?

Firstly, effective removal of the goose crisis may not necessarily destroy JimCE, because he made it through 2000 mk1. Did the goose crisis occur in 2000 mk1? How does visiting your own future work out? This may be our knottiest problem here... So let's leave it for later...

By going back to Ep7, the team will effectively erase the future, destroying themselves. How does this compare to the previous paradoxes?

The Ep.9 team contains JimAH (the TB of previous paradoxes) and JimSD (a decendent thereof, we presume). Let's ignore SD, and concentrate on AH, who I shall call TB.

So TB goes back and contrives an arrangement that will bring about his destruction. This is effectively what happened in all the previous scenarios. 

In ending the goose crisis, you remove the PD fixer-paradox, but possibly gain a CE paradox in addition to either an A/B paradox or another fixer-paradox. From one barely-perceptible paradox we move to two or three. It's necessarily an increase. So the Ep9 party would continue to exist.

How's that work out? Well as we've been finding, all the scenarios are proving somewhat similar... Let's look more closely at exactly what's going on...

Effectively, the regenerations split Jim into two parallel paths. But they coexist in the same time-frame: there's no parallel universe involved, but it's not entirely dissimilar.

JimA is Jim mk1. Presuming that CE doesn't interact with a future Jim in 2000 mk1, then JimA is the Jim we watched in Eps 0-7: CE in Eps 0-2, FS in 3-7. He is also the TB we see at the start of Ep8.

When TB impinges on FS in Ep8, he alters his own past and divides Jim such that:

JimA is CE 0-2, FS 3-7, FS-TB prior to TB's intervention; current TB.
JimB is CE 0-2, FS 3-7; FS's new future.

When TB and FS meet CE:

JimA continues much as before. He is the TB we are following.
JimB is the FS we are following.
JimC is the new CE.

If JimC were to go back to 1985 and meet JimA, JimA would become JimD. The JimA that is TB in the above would still continue however.

In this system it is impossible to change JimA's past, but it IS possible to create a new future for a new JimX.

Where does that leave us?
PD in Ep9 is effectively JimB. When he goes back and meets the JimB of Ep8 (FS) we get:
JimB=PD (the ANH Jim we're following)
JimQ=FS (the ANH Jim as was), formerly JimB

When they meet TB:
JimB=PD
JimQ=FS
JimA=TB

Essentially, every individual in every time frame has a certain past present and future that may be shared with a similar individual in the next time frame, but if they meet, their futures will diverge. The Jims are all essentially different people because they are all from different times, and while each can affect the others' present and future, none can affect their past.

So why does PD disappear into a puff of logic (along with Leon)? 

Perhaps their disappearence is related to the Stargate, or some other outside force, rather than anything to do with time-travel.

This system is the only one that can work without recourse to a paradox (and dodgy cheats that don't hold under scrutiny). It means that when PD goes back to put his past right, he is actually creating a second past for a separate Jim. 

The Jim we've been following all this time has disappeared and we don't know why!

So, like TB in Ep8, the Ep9 team could go back in time and affect a past that is identical to their own, and in so doing create a new future for their historical counterparts. But this future will not affect the Ep9 team who will continue to exist.

The Ep9 team could sort out Alan and prevent the goose crisis, and could then move back into Hell. But Hell would have two lots of our heroes, one set younger than the other.

If this were to be the plan, who can say which Babysham and Alan we follow in "Babysham". I would expect it to be the original and older model. The new Babysham would be with Willow in the setting we saw before, while Babysham and Alan, after their time in the Stargate, feel confident enough to set up business together elsewhere.

It's not a "many worlds" theory, just a "many time-travellers" theory...

----
"Would you like a cup of tea?"
 

It does kind of make the DVD a bit wrong about Jim, doesn't it? I mean it says in the character profile: "Then he disappeared in a puff of logic because he'd rescued version 5 of himself before he got chopped up." It makes that whole biography a little over-simplified.

I don't know. It all seems a bit inelegant... I don't really get why it can't be the paradox-fixing thingy that causes PD to disappear, but maybe I'm being stupid...

----
DarthPat.
 

But it doesn't. Episodes 8 and 9 show us that we can revisit what appears to be our own past and alter it without any problems. When PD cures TB's paradox he creates the very same paradox, so why would he disappear and TB not? It just doesn't make any sense.

The only explanation I can come up with is that PD's disappearence was nothing to do with the paradoxes. But I have no other explanantion for the disappearences and the memory loss. Perhaps it was an alien abduction? Or maybe it was somehow connected with the destruction of the Earth. Who knows... maybe there was a trans-dimensional phenomenon of some kind.

As far as the DVD biographies go, they're not STRICTLY canon; but even the script refers to puffs of logic... It depends how much a stickler for canon you are, I suppose. I'm trying to stick by what I see on the screen, and what I see on the screen doesn't add up if you go by the DVD explanations...

I don't profess to KNOW the answers, but mine's the best theory I've seen. If anyone can come up with anything better and more elegant, I'd love to hear it.

----
"Would you like a cup of tea?"