Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Gridlock

You are exploring the Discontinuity Index, a place where any details or rumours about unreleased stories are forbidden.
Please discuss only those whole stories which have already been released, and obey our spoiler policy.

This page is for discussing the ways in which Gridlock doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

Remember, this is a forum, so civil discussion is encouraged. However, please do not sign your posts. Also, keep all posts about the same continuity error under the same bullet point. You can add a new point by typing:

* This is point one.
::This is a counter-argument to point one.
:::This is a counter-argument to the counter-argument above
* This is point two.
::Explanation of point two.
::Further discussion and query of point two.

... and so on. 

• If such a large portion of the population died from using a chemical or drug, how is said drug no longer available unless people know about the danger, implying that they also know the fate of those dead?

It's implied that the virus existed only in the Uppercity - Bliss was never on sale below because the Undercity was inhabited by poor people, otherwise the Undercity and the motorway wouldn't be sealed safely. The poor and the rich seem to have been separated completely.

• Before entering the motorway, pedestrians outside already imply they know that the motorway is so clogged that people spend their entire lives stuck there without reaching their destination. Since nobody has ever made it to their destination (instead being killed or dying naturally while waiting) or received communications for that section of the city, why would anybody in their right mind get onto the motorway?

The Bliss killed everyone above about 24 years before the events of the episode, the gridlock began after that, so the maximum of how long anyone could spend stuck there is 24 years, which is not exactly a lifetime. Plus they thought it was all because of some repairing and kept hoping all that would end soon. Also they had no idea of people being killed there - you only get killed if you go to the fast lane, which is Macra's territory - and i guess not that many people would die naturally in 24 years, so there was no obvious danger. As for the communications - they could also think those were the glitches because of the assumed repair.

• Early in the show hover cars are shown freely flying about through the air. Why would a motorway be designed specifically to negate the effectiveness of real flying cares by cramming them into an underground tunnel?

The underground was for the poor people.

• Since flying vehicles are established, how is it possible-even with quarantine- that nobody capable of flight can bring any information about the ones who died of the drug/virus years ago?

How, if the Undercity was sealed completely? There was simply no way in and out, that's basically what quarantine is.

• How does the virus or deadly chemical kill everyone at the same time? People's punctual deaths would have to mean that both the drug kills within an exact time frame AND that every single member of the population did the drug at the same time.

As mentioned in the episode, it became airborne. You didn't have to use the drug at all to be infected. As for why it killed everyone so fast - well, it was superadvanced and superfast, that's the point.

• Why didn't the Macra fly up and kill any other people in cars not in the Fast Lane?

The Macra are giant crabs. They do not have wings and cannot fly.

• If the Face of Boe truly is Jack Harkness, it does not make sense for him to die, since he is immortal.

Jack still ages, just at a much slower rate. Assuming no further time travel, he's now over 5 billion years old.

Jack gave the last of his energy to open the motorway. This last energy could have been the energy that was keeping him alive.

On several occasions in both Doctor Who and Torchwood, Jack "died" and did not immediately revive until some time later. We don't know for certain if Boe really died and could have revived later.

There is no guarantee that Jack was even telling the truth about his nickname. He could have learned by other means that the Doctor and friends were acquainted with the Face of Boe, and be playing an elaborate joke on them.

Jack isn't immortal. He is described as a "fixed point in time". He survives until he can pass his message to the Doctor.

• Why would the automatic quarantine let people into the motorway, possibly letting the virus in, but not let them back out?

The quarantine was to separate the lower city and motorway from the upper city, not the lower city from the motorway.

• Wouldn't any of the later entries to the motorway have noticed that nobody ever came out, or even try to get out through the entrance shafts?

As far as later entries knew, those who had gone before were on their way to get out, not join a continuous loop. They did not know that they would never get out.

People from the under city were aware no one came back after going to the motor way. But how could they possibly "know" that no one ever reached the upper city?

• What happened to the Macra after the events of Gridlock?

When the motorway opened up, the gas keeping the Macra alive would have spread away and they would have died.

• In New Earth, the Doctor said that New Earth is in the galaxy M87, which is a real galaxy in the Virgo cluster. It is half a million light years across and 60 million light years away. Yet here the Doctor says that New Earth is 50,000 light years from Earth. In 5 billion years the Milky Way and M87 ought to be millions of light years further apart, not closer together.

Perhaps the people of the year 5 billion have the ability to move solar systems and galaxies around.

It is possible that M87 had been renamed or reclassified since now.

The Milky Way galaxy and Andromeda have already collided in 5 billion years and by forming a new galaxy probably renamed.

• If there is self-replicating fuel, then how can the three passengers to go in the fast lane rule be meant to save fuel?

Although fuel is self replicating, it does not mean that it replicates the same amount that it uses. Perhaps only one in one million tonnes of fuel used is lost.

• How does the self-replicating fuel and recycling waste products work? The second law of Thermodynamics means that you need some external input to keep your fuel supply going for that long. Especially if all the cars are generating exhaust fumes and hence losing some of their fuel as part of the process of using it.

Perhaps the fumes are the external input.

The fumes are the output of the fuel combustion anyway. So it would not give enough energy to fuel the vehicles due to the second law of Thermodynamics.

We do not know how technology will have advanced 5 billion years in the future. We could have discovered a way around the laws of Physics.

• If it takes 6 years to go 10 miles, why don't people just walk?

Everything is sealed off, so the motorway is the only way to get anywhere.

• What did the carjackers mean when they talked about being "too poor" to have a third passenger?

Some people may pay others to live with them so they can get into the fast lane.

• When the car turns off all its systems, including the engines, how does it stay floating?

By 5 billion they could have invented a material that naturally repels gravity.

How would the cars land?

There would be a system to cause it to become relative to gravity.

The anti-gravity system could be part of the motor-way, and the reason that the Face of Boe still needed to contribute his life force to sustain it.

• If the undercity was sealed off, then why is there both sunlight and rain in the section that the Doctor and Martha arrive in?

It was most probably artificial - to create an undercity illusion of climate.

Couldn't the energy used for this artificial climate be used to open up the motorway/lower city?

Yes, but not easily if the two systems ran on isolated grids. People from under-city may have been able to organise something along those lines. But only if they knew it would be necessary, and then only if there were a way to learn that upper city was safe again.

• And how can a virus possibly infect an entire planet in just seven minutes?

Novice Hame mentions that everybody tried the mood drug Bliss and a virus mutated inside the chemical, then became airborne. In this state it wouldn't take long for the virus to spread through ventilation systems, especially if the majority of the population was taking it.

• How was Boe sustaining the motorway?

By giving up his life force using some technology we don't understand.

It is merely an alternate form of energy. All things need energy/a power source, usually electricity, but in the absence of enough of any other kind of power source, the face of boe was using his own life force as the energy source required.

• How could the people in the undercity not know something catastrophic had happened above? They suddenly can't access the upper city, and the motorway goes nowhere. They must have had communication with the upper city that stopped too. Why in the world would the motorists believe police were coming or that the government was still operational?

They thought it was because of some repair and kept waiting for it to open. Also it's implied the rich and the poor were separated and the Undercity could function quite independently even before the virus.

• Why didn't the Face of Boe and Novice Hame just do the same thing that Doctor did 24 years ago? He just plugged in the machine, turned it to highet power, got extra power from Boe and that was it. Hame could have done that herself.

• How does it take Brannigan 12 years to drive 5 miles, but Cheen and Milo can drive 10 miles in 6 years. Surely the years are the wrong way round?