aramis87

I think the elevator one is the same as escalators: to minimize traffic disruption. If you’re facing away from the elevator doors, you can’t tell if you’re at the right floor (causing a delay), you can’t see if there are people interested in entering (another delay), people interested in entering will likely assume this isn’t your floor (yet another delay), it takes time to turn around when it is your floor (delay), and you disrupt anyone behind you in the elevator who also wants to exit there.

So, the mandate is the BBC is (was?) to inform, educate, and entertain, which was the mandate they created Doctor Who under. The entertainment is obvious, but where’s the informing and educating? Go back to the first Doctor: the stories alternated between going back into the past and going forward into the future. To inform and educate the viewer, we had history teacher Ian and science teacher Barbara, who would briefly include some information within the episode.

Also, if you watch the opening credits of (I think, it’s been a long time for some of them!) the Doctors’ color episodes, not only do you have the Doctor/TARDIS going forward and back (movement in time), you also have the colors red and blue in the background colors, denoting red shift/blue shift (movement in space).

Anyway, I would argue that Old Who had a more factual/educational underlayer through most of it’s run, making it the more “science-y” of the two versions; while NuWho, while much flashier and with generally stronger storylines, is much more space opera/space fantasy, without the underlying educational layer.

I don’t understand the clock one.

Part of the western Florida panhandle (WFP) is on Central time. Part of southeastern Oregon (SEO) is on Mountain time. That puts them one hour apart.

In the fall, when we go back into Standard Time, when the clock hits 2am, you flip the clock back to 1am.

So, during a normal night, WFP would be at 2am and SEO would be 1am. But on the night the time changes, WFP hits 2am and immediately flips their clocks back to 1am - which means that, for one hour a year (until SEO hits 2am and flips their clocks back), part of Florida and part of Oregon’s clocks are showing the exact same time.

I kinda struggled over how to word this - they’re not in the same time zone, but for this one hour they might as well be.

For one hour each year, part of Florida and part of Oregon have the exact same time on their clocks.

Sharks have existed long enough as a species to have orbited the entire Milky Way Galaxy - twice.

By 1963, the amount of soybean and cottonseed oil claimed to exist in a single facility by Allied exceeded all the soybean and cottonseed oil in the country.

Oops!

A lawyer once said something to the effect of, “If the legislators can envision themselves or their family doing it, it gets a light sentence. If they can’t, it gets a harsh sentence.”