Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Destiny of the Daleks: Difference between revisions
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Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Destiny of the Daleks (edit)
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::Production error, as the original Genesis sets would have been destroyed. | ::Production error, as the original Genesis sets would have been destroyed. | ||
:: Also, after however many centuries Davros had been buried there, the process of natural decay and erosion would have resulted in the place looking almost unrecognisable anyway. | |||
* Why do both the Doctor and the Daleks look for Davros, assuming him to be alive? | * Why do both the Doctor and the Daleks look for Davros, assuming him to be alive? | ||
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* The Daleks' attitude to Davros is one of unquestioning obedience. But they 'killed' him in the belief that they were superior to him and thus he was unnecessary to them. Why not simply command Davros to obey their will rather than submit to an inferior being? | * The Daleks' attitude to Davros is one of unquestioning obedience. But they 'killed' him in the belief that they were superior to him and thus he was unnecessary to them. Why not simply command Davros to obey their will rather than submit to an inferior being? | ||
::If Davros dies they lose their advantage against the Movellans and it’s against Dalek programming to lose. So instead, they make him think he is in charge. They use a similar tactic in ''[[The Power of the Daleks]]'', in which the three reactivated Daleks make the colonists think that they are in charge. This was a ploy by the Daleks to get the materials they needed to reactivate the Dalek factory and build new Daleks. Once the colonists' usefulness had ended, the Daleks began exterminating them. | ::If Davros dies they lose their advantage against the Movellans and it’s against Dalek programming to lose. So instead, they make him think he is in charge. They use a similar tactic in ''[[The Power of the Daleks (TV story)|The Power of the Daleks]]'', in which the three reactivated Daleks make the colonists think that they are in charge. This was a ploy by the Daleks to get the materials they needed to reactivate the Dalek factory and build new Daleks. Once the colonists' usefulness had ended, the Daleks began exterminating them. | ||
* The Doctor detonates the explosives in order to kill Davros. Yet without knowing that the explosives did not kill him, he assumes he is still alive afterward. | * The Doctor detonates the explosives in order to kill Davros. Yet without knowing that the explosives did not kill him, he assumes he is still alive afterward. | ||
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::Another small but glaring inconsistency: if self-sacrifice is illogical, then how come the Movellan lieutenant offers himself to be the living detonator for the Nova Device? Of course, it is logical (as an AI, Lan has no fear, and blowing up Davros and the Dalek recovery squad will help the war effort no ends), but the line just serves to make a mockery of this story's assertion that Daleks are logical creatures. | ::Another small but glaring inconsistency: if self-sacrifice is illogical, then how come the Movellan lieutenant offers himself to be the living detonator for the Nova Device? Of course, it is logical (as an AI, Lan has no fear, and blowing up Davros and the Dalek recovery squad will help the war effort no ends), but the line just serves to make a mockery of this story's assertion that Daleks are logical creatures. | ||
:::Actually the dalek statement about self sacrifice being illogical is flawed. There is nothing in the idea itself that is illogical. If it serves a higher, desirable end it is evidently logical. | :::Actually the dalek statement about self sacrifice being illogical is flawed. There is nothing in the idea itself that is illogical. If it serves a higher, desirable end it is evidently logical. | ||
* Several references are made to the Daleks as 'robots', like the Movellans. The Doctor makes some of these. Davros does too. This is in apparent contradiction to other Dalek stories, such as ''[[Genesis of the Daleks]]'' and ''[[The Daleks]]'', where they are described as mutant humanoids in mechanical casings.(In ''The Daleks'' they are mutated [[Dal]]s; in ''Genesis'', mutated [[Kaled]]s). | * Several references are made to the Daleks as 'robots', like the Movellans. The Doctor makes some of these. Davros does too. This is in apparent contradiction to other Dalek stories, such as ''[[Genesis of the Daleks]]'' and ''[[The Daleks]]'', where they are described as mutant humanoids in mechanical casings.(In ''The Daleks'' they are mutated [[Dal (species)|Dal]]s; in ''Genesis'', mutated [[Kaled]]s). | ||
::Their behavior in regards to the war with the Movellans is equivalent to that of robots, hence it is a fair approximation for them to make. | ::Their behavior in regards to the war with the Movellans is equivalent to that of robots, hence it is a fair approximation for them to make. | ||
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::Terrance Dicks attempts to clarify the situation in the Target novelisation, having the Doctor describe the Daleks as "semi-robots" and "as good as robots" (Chapter 11) ... although this could just be interpreted as signifying that even at the time, Terry Nation was failing to sell the concept of purely robotic Daleks as a good narrative move. The amount of squishy green Dalek flesh on display in their next two TV appearances would certainly imply the BBC quickly grew keen to bury this plot strand. | ::Terrance Dicks attempts to clarify the situation in the Target novelisation, having the Doctor describe the Daleks as "semi-robots" and "as good as robots" (Chapter 11) ... although this could just be interpreted as signifying that even at the time, Terry Nation was failing to sell the concept of purely robotic Daleks as a good narrative move. The amount of squishy green Dalek flesh on display in their next two TV appearances would certainly imply the BBC quickly grew keen to bury this plot strand. | ||
::Now that "The Power of the Daleks" is finally with us again (sort of) the "robotisation" of the Daleks looks even worse (and ironic) in retrospect. In the earlier story, it is precisely Lesterson's naïve assumption that the Daleks are mere robots that deludes him into thinking he can control them ... until the sociopathic, emotionally unstable mutant organic racists inside them give the game away. | |||
::The word 'robot' has only come to mean 'automated computer-brained mechanism'. Its original and more literary meaning comes via the play Rossum's Universal Robots and is closer in meaning to 'slave'- a slave to logic, in this case, although essentially in the original context a created (organic) being designed, like the proletariat in the analogy, to obey with all free-will absolutely circumscribed. Consider the plight of the Dalek - or, at least, of the lower ranking 'drone'; higher ranking ones may have more free will as indicated by both the novelisation of "Remembrance of the Daleks", the EDA "War of the Daleks", and the position and freedom of the Cult of Skaro as described in "Doomsday) as described in "Into the Dalek", where non-Dalek thoughts are purged from their minds by their onboard battle computers- or "The Witch's Familiar", where it's indicated that non-Dalek sentiments simply cannot be expressed. Then consider "Engines of War" or "Revelation of the Daleks" or "The Parting of the Ways" - the Daleks have considerable form for surgically, chemically, and nano-technologically butchering other races to create their (presumably lower-caste, given their ideology) lower ranking cannon fodder. | |||
Your average Dalek is, in fact, very much a robot. Vat-grown ("Power of the Daleks"), forced into a body designed for fulfillment of a function, mind equally forced into function, free will shackled and butchered and made into a barely autonomous slave to the predetermined aims of its superiors. | |||
:::It's more "Destiny's ..." unfortunate insistence that "organic = intuitive, illogical, good", while "AI = slavish, logical, bad" that makes this as weak a script as it is. As all those other stories demonstrate (and indeed the original Dalek story), the Daleks never had any trouble with being brainwashed, ruthless, one-track minded ideologues in spite of being organic beings. At best, their physical "robotisation" seems like a very unnecessary plot development just to make them more family-friendly (which JNT and co. clearly disapproved of, to judge from the disgusting squirmy Dalek corpse they showcase on their next screen appearance). | |||
* Romana says that they 'were once humanoid themselves', though under Dalek interrogation by a lie detecting device she had said she knew 'nothing about Daleks'. According to the information text of the DVD release the scripted line was 'I don't know anything about Dalek operations'. The same text suggests that either the on-screen line was misread or Romana was capable of misleading the Dalek truth detector. | * Romana says that they 'were once humanoid themselves', though under Dalek interrogation by a lie detecting device she had said she knew 'nothing about Daleks'. According to the information text of the DVD release the scripted line was 'I don't know anything about Dalek operations'. The same text suggests that either the on-screen line was misread or Romana was capable of misleading the Dalek truth detector. | ||
::Romana was either capable of misleading the truth detector, or believed what she was saying to be truthful, even if it didn't come out sounding as she had intended. | ::Romana was either capable of misleading the truth detector, or believed what she was saying to be truthful, even if it didn't come out sounding as she had intended. | ||
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::An unfortunate production artefact according to the DVD infotext - the actors and extras had to hold position after being shot so that the VFX artist could correctly apply the negative mask, hence why all the deaths are rather static and peaceful (compared to the screaming, writhing deaths of "Genesis ..."). In-universe, one could always speculate the negative effect is some kind of force field that holds its victims in place until they are satisfactorily exterminated. | ::An unfortunate production artefact according to the DVD infotext - the actors and extras had to hold position after being shot so that the VFX artist could correctly apply the negative mask, hence why all the deaths are rather static and peaceful (compared to the screaming, writhing deaths of "Genesis ..."). In-universe, one could always speculate the negative effect is some kind of force field that holds its victims in place until they are satisfactorily exterminated. | ||
:: Also, the producer had been told to 'Ease up' on the horror in the episodes. Therefore, goodbye writhing and screaming in agony a la 'Genesis'. | |||
* During a countdown the Daleks count in seconds. | * During a countdown the Daleks count in seconds. | ||
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::He knowingly created the Daleks with the specific intent that they should strive to become masters of the universe and conquer all other forms of life. Therefore, he can be held at least in part responsible for the terror and destruction they have caused for humanity since then. In any case, Tyssan's actual words are "crimes against the whole of sentient creation" (although Tyssan himself, as a human who has recently been enslaved and brutalised by the Daleks, has every reason to personally resent their unrepentant creator). | ::He knowingly created the Daleks with the specific intent that they should strive to become masters of the universe and conquer all other forms of life. Therefore, he can be held at least in part responsible for the terror and destruction they have caused for humanity since then. In any case, Tyssan's actual words are "crimes against the whole of sentient creation" (although Tyssan himself, as a human who has recently been enslaved and brutalised by the Daleks, has every reason to personally resent their unrepentant creator). | ||
:::Yet this idea of being tried is still odd, given that Davros did not create the Daleks with the intention of destroying 'all sentient creation.' He created them to ensure the survival of his own people, albeit in a mutated form. It is true that after meeting the Doctor he learns of what they will do in the future, but he never gets to do anything about it. The tape made from the interrogation of the Doctor are destroyed. Evil as Davros is, it hardly seems just to try him for crimes he could not have foreseen himself when creating the Daleks, especially as he did not believe there were inhabited worlds beyond Skaro until he met the Doctor. Perhaps the 'trial' was merely a show trial, a bit of pantomime to justify his perpetual confinement. | :::Yet this idea of being tried is still odd, given that Davros did not create the Daleks with the intention of destroying 'all sentient creation.' He created them to ensure the survival of his own people, albeit in a mutated form. It is true that after meeting the Doctor he learns of what they will do in the future, but he never gets to do anything about it. The tape made from the interrogation of the Doctor are destroyed. Evil as Davros is, it hardly seems just to try him for crimes he could not have foreseen himself when creating the Daleks, especially as he did not believe there were inhabited worlds beyond Skaro until he met the Doctor. Perhaps the 'trial' was merely a show trial, a bit of pantomime to justify his perpetual confinement. | ||
::::In fairness to the human judicial system, we know that Davros was put on trial. We don't know the outcome, other than that he ended up frozen. Those very arguments may have been made in the court case 'in universe'- and are potentially the reason that in the next story, Davros sneered at humanity lacking the guts for "judicial murder", instead choosing to freeze him indefinitely. It's wholly possible that the point that he could not have been said to have knowingly set the Daleks on the human race, since he didn't know the human race existed, may have been the mitigation which saved his life. | |||
* If the Daleks believe that self sacrifice is illogical ergo impossible, what is their rationale for the "Blakes Seven" inspired scene in which they shoot the hostages in order to force the Doctor to surrender? | * If the Daleks believe that self sacrifice is illogical ergo impossible, what is their rationale for the "Blakes Seven" inspired scene in which they shoot the hostages in order to force the Doctor to surrender? | ||
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* Scissors, Paper, Stone is a very poor (in fact, a completely invalid) example of a strategy based game, and therefore not a reasonable analogy for a war. In fact, the Movellans' readiness to play the game makes it seem bizarre that they got into their impasse with the Daleks in the first place (if they are, seemingly, capable of making random choices with no strategically preferable option and hoping for the best outcome). | * Scissors, Paper, Stone is a very poor (in fact, a completely invalid) example of a strategy based game, and therefore not a reasonable analogy for a war. In fact, the Movellans' readiness to play the game makes it seem bizarre that they got into their impasse with the Daleks in the first place (if they are, seemingly, capable of making random choices with no strategically preferable option and hoping for the best outcome). | ||
::Yes, and there is no reason to suppose that the Movellans playing each other should achieve the same result every time. A robot would deduce that there is no way of predicting what the other would do, since all three options are potentially equally successful. | ::Yes, and there is no reason to suppose that the Movellans playing each other should achieve the same result every time. A robot would deduce that there is no way of predicting what the other would do, since all three options are potentially equally successful. | ||
:::Another point that the Terrance Dicks | :::Another point that the Terrance Dicks Target novelisation tries to clarify: "But you two [Agella and Sharrel] are robots, and your minds follow logical paths — the same paths. So you get a draw every time." i.e. They may be randomising their results, but since their minds both use the same software / variables it still makes no difference - though they mimic sentience, they are incapable of truly random or individual action (Given the vagueness of the Movellans' depiction, it is debatable how well this holds up with the TV versions). | ||
::If one follows the game between the Doctor and Sharrel, it makes some sense, as Sharrel is predicting the Doctor's moves based on his preceding ones. This being the only "logical" evidence he has to go on, he slavishly sticks to this technique, and thus the Doctor outwits him. Of course, this says very little for Sharrel's intelligence, as even real-life AIs can adapt to player strategies. Perhaps K9 was really kept out of this story because of the danger he might have felt sorry to have seen his fellow AIs getting hammered at simple parlour games by the Doctor, and thus might have sought to cheer them up by showing them the TARDIS chess leaderboard... | ::If one follows the game between the Doctor and Sharrel, it makes some sense, as Sharrel is predicting the Doctor's moves based on his preceding ones. This being the only "logical" evidence he has to go on, he slavishly sticks to this technique, and thus the Doctor outwits him. Of course, this says very little for Sharrel's intelligence, as even real-life AIs can adapt to player strategies. Perhaps K9 was really kept out of this story because of the danger he might have felt sorry to have seen his fellow AIs getting hammered at simple parlour games by the Doctor, and thus might have sought to cheer them up by showing them the TARDIS chess leaderboard... | ||
::The idea of the scene seems to be to imply that the Movellans all share the same AI / personality (or lack of) and are thus incapable of original thinking. A sound enough premise, miserably let down by the rest of the script: Agella, Sharrel, and Lan all seem to have quite distinct ideas about what strategies to adopt (Sharrel being blasé about flash-frying Romana, while Agella finds it wasteful; Lan suggesting an improvement to Sharrel's strategy by offering to guard the Nova Device). Their deadlock in Rock, Paper, Scissors thus comes across as nothing more than a dumb, and very unlikely coincidence. | |||
::As a curious sidenote to this, there are actually a few strategic elements to Rock, Paper, Scissors, or at least psychological: "A strong rock paper scissors player integrates a rich stream of information about their opponent's body language and recent plays to help approximate their opponent's mental state and therefore make an educated guess about the next play. These players will also use subtle movements and phrases to prime their opponent to think about a certain play." (Cal Newport, "Digital Minimalism", 2019, Penguin Books, p.129) Ironically, however, this would give the Movellans - with their perfect poker faces and robophobia-inducing lack of body language - all the advantage. | |||
* Radiation, which figure so prominently in The Daleks (1963) seems to have referenced and then forgotten. We do not see the Doctor and Romana taking the anti-radiation pills. Tyssan, despite being a prisoner of the Daleks for some months, seems not to be affected (but tortured in other ways). | * Radiation, which figure so prominently in The Daleks (1963) seems to have referenced and then forgotten. We do not see the Doctor and Romana taking the anti-radiation pills. Tyssan, despite being a prisoner of the Daleks for some months, seems not to be affected (but tortured in other ways). | ||
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* Are we to believe that after two centuries or more of war (albeit of the static variety) the Daleks have never even seen a Movellan nor gained any intel on them? It is certainly strange that, having shot Lan, the Dalek patrol do not seem particularly concerned that there are Movellans stalking about their base (they do not bother to report the incident as more than a common intrusion), and they do not attempt to finish him off properly. | * Are we to believe that after two centuries or more of war (albeit of the static variety) the Daleks have never even seen a Movellan nor gained any intel on them? It is certainly strange that, having shot Lan, the Dalek patrol do not seem particularly concerned that there are Movellans stalking about their base (they do not bother to report the incident as more than a common intrusion), and they do not attempt to finish him off properly. | ||
:: Worse still, they clearly have extensive enough intel on the Movellans to furnish Davros with a detailed report (in the lovely form of a rainbow disco ball), yet they still ignore Lan's not-a-corpse, leaving him to recover and make good his escape (and this, after they have made such a fuss about perp sweating poor Romana for every tiny scrap of intel she has). The Movellans do no better. With a full force, superior agility, and guns that can one-shot Daleks, they have no excuse for not launching an all-out attack on the subterranean base, where they would have all the advantage (rather than waiting for the evil little racist space tanks to engage them in open ground). For all the script tries to convince us the war is going nowhere because both sides are too logically advanced for their own good, what actually comes across is two forces evenly matched in stupidity and random exploitable weaknesses. | |||
* Clumsy scripting raises so many more questions than it answers. Not only do the Daleks fluctuate between being the sadistic, sociopathic cyborgs one loves to hate, to being dimwitted robotic stooges, as script demands: the Movellans also suffer, failing attempts to establish them as cunningly-designed but soulless human facsimiles (such as the rock-paper-scissors game, the zombie-like behaviour of the extras, and their eerie coordination). Their hive-mindedness (or at least their programmed-mindedness) is undermined by a) the curious Movellan soldier at the Nova Device test, who wants to know how it works, b) Agella and Sharrel disagreeing over whether to fry Romana, for the sake of a cliffhanger, c) Lan crushing a rock for no apparent reason other than AI boredom, etc. All of which plays into the general sense that cast and crew lacked any consensus at exactly what sort of story they were supposed to be shooting. | |||
:Agreed. Consider also Sharrel asking if the Nova device has malfunctioned when it doesn't go off, and having to be told that it was only a ruse to trap the Doctor and didn't need to. | |||
::Indeed, their logic does not seem to factor in decent communication ... There are times the story feels as if it was written (or edited) to play up and parody the clichéd, plot-serving stupidity of villains in melodrama, with the Movellans coming off as particularly bad offenders (Having tried to preserve a guarded trust for two episodes, they suddenly start bullying and threatening their allies for no reason, then pointlessly reveal their own plans to conquer the galaxy ... ironically just at the point when their alleged devotion to logic becomes a major plot point). If so, though, one suspects that Terry Nation was not in on the joke. | |||
* Bearing in mind that it doesn't have a single organic crewmember, it seems an astonishingly fortunate coincidence for all concerned that the Movellan ship is apparently equipped with suitable life-support facilities (assuming Tyssan and co. do not simply suffocate off-screen, of course). | |||
:The Movellans might not breathe, but they clearly interact with lifeforms that ''do'', so presumably maintain some kind of atmosphere generation on their ships for the benefits of them, if only so that they don't have to leave their ship every time they want to interact in-person with a being that needs to breathe. | |||
:Alternatively, the Movellan spaceship was not originally built by the Movellans, but was commandeered by them from a lifeform which did (their creators, perhaps?). | |||
* It be grand if Sarah J was involved. It rock if she faced Tyssan and fought back instead of bein wimpy as Romana, if she surrender to Daleks to save a younger slave, if she was tough in the torture only 'breaking;' when they blackmail they;'d kill the younger slave if she zero answers, if she faked her death, if she and the Doctor hugged, if she cause trouble for Davros including when she slaps him to shut him up from scaring the younger slave and hrting the Doctor, if she quickly saw through the Movellan's lies, if she was the one who destroyed the Dalek Commander, and if she did her own 'Bye, bye, Davros'. How'd you think the Doctor react if she did all this; especially to be brave? And how'd you think Davros react to her being this way including ehr slapping him over a creature zero her kind? | |||
* Davros slapped the jelly babies away,. WHy? | |||
[[Category:DW TV discontinuity]] | [[Category:DW TV discontinuity]] |