Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Inferno

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

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• On the Nuclear Output Gauge in the Doctor's workshop, Mega-volts is spelled 'Megga Volts'

Probably a rushed sign or the Doctor couldn't be bothered with changing the spelling.

The universe the Doctor lives in is an alternative universe to ours. where spelling is different.

• Bessie travels with the Doctor and the TARDIS console into the parallel universe, despite the fact that it is ten feet away from them

It seems that only those elements that don't already exist on the fascist Earth are transported. Does a police box turn up at the Brigade Leader's HQ at the same time? The Doctor was never exiled to Earth in this world - it would hardly become his favorite planet - or he was killed soon after arriving.

• If the Primords generate such intense heat, enough to scorch the painting off walls and make spanners too hot to touch, then why aren't their clothes burnt off them?

Since they possess the ability to infect others with the same toxin which has infected them simply by touch, it seems evident that they are somehow able to excrete it through their (now green tinged) skin. If so, maybe the toxin is absorbed into the clothes during the initial stages of mutation, like sweat, and hence provides a protective barrier from heat damage.

• Why didn't the Daleks, Robomen, and human slaves have trouble with Stahlman's ooze when mining the core in TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth?

They did not hit a pocket of Stahlman's Gas.

Or if they did, knowing the Daleks, they probably just sealed off the relevant section of mine, grabbed some popcorn, and gloated over the subsequent carnage...

I gather the Daleks knew what they were doing, after all they are geniuses while Stahlman is only an idiot...

• If a dimensional paradox would have resulted from the Doctor's bringing anyone from the parallel universe into this universe, why was travel between universes unlimited in TV : Army of Ghosts and TV : Doomsday? And, for that matter, why was the Doctor able to enter the parallel universe in the first place without such repercussions?

The most reasonable explanation is that the Doctor was simply lying to Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart about "dimensional paradoxes" in an attempt to keep him from trying to enter this universe. This theory is substantiated by the fact that the Tenth Doctor told Rose and Mickey that travel between universes was quite easy prior to the destruction of Gallifrey and the Time Lords.

It's possible that he was lying, but doing so did mean leaving all of them there to their deaths - not very "Doctor-like". We're almost certainly meant to believe that the Doctor is telling the truth. What he tells them is that they can't go to his universe because there are already versions of them there. Hence, he can travel between the universes himself without issue, so long as there is no version of the Doctor in that other universe. This obviously wasn't a concern for the later visits involving "Pete's World". That may well have been a different kind of "parallel universe", as we've seen that there are different varieties of them (other time streams, "bubble" universes, E-Space, etc).

Or maybe the Doctor was simply wrong? He hadn't had any prior experience with parallel universes.

RTD changed the rules/laws of physics/tv.

Technically this is a discontinuity issue with the latter stories, not this one; they came later and are contradicting what this episode is establishing. However, note that in the later stories the Doctor makes a point of noting that travel between parallel dimensions has been impossible since the Time Lords disappeared. Presumably they monitored this sort of thing to prevent the possibility of dimensional paradoxes, and the Doctor in this story is trying to prevent the possibility of such an occurrance, but since they were gone by the time the inhabitants of the other dimension discovered interdimensional travel there was no one to stop them from crossing back and forth, possible dimensional paradoxes be damned.

In the later stories, each person who moved into another dimension was explicitly replacing someone who either didn't exist (Rose) or who had at some point died (Mickey, Jackie). A "dimensional paradox" would seem to involve different versions of the same person coexisting in the same physical universe for an extended or permanent basis. If Mickey replaces the dead Ricky, or Jackie replaces her dead alternate self, then there's no harm; if the Brigadier and the Brigade Leader try to co-exist permanently in the same universe, then presumably problems start to arise (unless, say, one dies, but the Doctor isn't going to bring the Brigade Leader across just to kill him and is obviously going to have a problem with the Brigadier dying or being killed just to accommodate the Brigade Leader).

• It is stated that the Doctor's help was invaluable to the project and that they wouldn't be as far along as they are without him. So why is the fascist universe, where the Doctor doesn't exist, even further along in the project?

That's Sir Keith's assessment. Stahlman clearly doesn't agree, and the parallel dimension suggests he is right.

The Parallel universe could be ahead of ours in a similar way to how "Pete's world" is ahead of ours in Army of Ghosts (TV story) and Doomsday (TV story)

The history of the planet was different, with no/fewer wars, more time and effort was put into this project.

Allowing that Sir Keith, in fairness, has no access or knowledge of the other world, the Doctor's help being "invaluable" doesn't necessarily mean that it's invaluable only in the sense of making the project go quicker. Given Sir Keith and the Doctor's concerns over the safety of the project and Professor Stahlman's reckless attitude towards safety if his own personal glory is at stake, Sir Keith might refer to the Doctor's help being "invaluable" in the sense that it's getting the project moving along at a swift pace while also preventing everyone, well, dying horribly in some fashion. If the Doctor wasn't there, the project might be even further behind while also adhering to reasonable safety precautions. The project in the other universe, conversely, is moving quicker, but it's also clearly got very lax safety standards and results in literally everyone in the world being either killed or turned into some kind of hair monster, so in that sense the Doctor's help is pretty invaluable.

• In episode 6, while Sutton is attempting to rig the coolant hose so as to keep the Primords at bay, there are several plainly visible Carbon Dioxide fire extinguishers on the walls of Main Control. Why does no one use them? There's even an additional one in clear view on the wall of the Brigade-Leader's office before they start fighting their way in!

They certainly look very similar, but they might be other types of extinguisher.

The coolant hose would be more powerful, and last longer!

• In Episode 7, the Doctor refers to Bromley as "that technician, the one who went berserk and started killing people." Unless Bromley claimed any victims since we last saw him, then it seems like the Doctor is confusing him with Harry - who he knows is dead. Considering he dazedly refers to the Brigadier as "Brigade Leader" when asking this, it's possible he's mistaking the original Bromley for his Inferno Earth counterpart, who did kill a guy... except the Doctor saw him get killed. And even if the original Bromley did kill some people, he had to have done it while the Doctor was gone, hence he wouldn't know about it and wouldn't describe Bromley as having killed anyone. Is it a script error, or were they trying to retcon Bromley into the original infectee hoping the audience wouldn't remember Harry?

... except the Doctor also saw the Brigade Leader get killed. If he can make that confusion, he can do the same with regards to Bromley.

• It's hard to imagine any domestic UK fascist regime offing the Royals, who'd make ideal and probably quite pliant figurehead rulers, and carry a lot of the population with them. So it's arguable that the Inferno Earth regime is a communist one, but there's nothing really suggestive of that in the script or the mise-en-scene. It could be a non-denominational military dictatorship, but that brings us back to the 'figurehead' problem. Another option is that, since the evil ruler of the Inferno Earth is the Doctor, maybe he just didn't like the Royals that much.

It's possible that the regime did initially try to work with the Royals but found them uncooperative and decided to dispose of them. (A bit like revolutionary France trying to work with its royal family at first but ending up abolishing the monarchy and guillotining the King and queen).

The SS style rank markings and titles of the RSC strongly imply a regime on the far, far right of the political spectrum. Having said that, it is not hard to imagine a dictator with the ego / god complex of a Hitler eventually sickening of being the ostensible minister / chancellor even of a puppet head of state, and disposing of them as soon as he felt he was on safe enough ground assuming absolute totalitarian control and accolades.

It's not that hard to imagine when you consider the Whiggish political leanings of the Royals (excluding of course Edward VIII). If it helps them consolidate their power, a Fascist regime could do that, and many have. A lot of the top Fascists in Italy were republicans, even the Nazis were anti-monarchist. Even then, we don't know if the Royal family of the Inferno Earth was the same as that of N-Space. It's possible that someone very unpopular ended up on the throne, and merely looking at the actual Royal family tree, there's plenty candidates who never made it either due to early death (Albert Victor) or someone was born ahead of them in the succession (Ernest Augustus).

It's entirely natural that a fascist dictator in Britain would be opposed to the monarchy for the simple reason that the monarchy represents a threat to the dictator's power and authority. The monarchy in a constitutional democracy might have little direct power, but they nevertheless can mobilise popular support (often at times more effectively than the government, which actually does have the power, can). Besides, most would-be dictators want both the power and the popular recognition; outside of fiction, the "evil chancellor" secretly running things behind a puppet king is relatively rare.

I had assumed the monarchy had already been abolished and the Royal Family killed before the Party assumed power and that a lack of permanent, dependable institutions was what made fascism appealing; which is what happened in real-world Portugal.

Keep in mind that we have really no idea of the history of the other world in any kind of serious detail, or at precisely which point it diverges from ours. For all we know, it's entirely possible that the Royal Family were hated autocrats who were even worse than the fascist republic we see, or they were overthrown generations before any of these events occurred.

• In the Alternative Earth, Keith Gold is explicitly referred to as 'Sir Keith'. In a totalitarian republic, so ardently anti-royalist that they have actually eliminated the entire Royal Family, is it likely that Knighthoods would still exist or be acknowledged? Can you name any other regime where the monarchy has been liquidated and yet aristocratic titles and trappings be allowed to remain?

Many of them. It doesn't really seem to matter whether they execute the royals or not, or whether they're totalitarian republics or liberal ones; most republican revolutions don't eliminate the nobility. America and Russia are more exceptions than the rule. And look at the two other obvious precedents for Inferno England besides the USSR. Cromwell's England eliminated the House of Lords, but was ruled mostly by the gentry. In Nazi Germany, nobles retained their titles, and continued to make up a huge percentage of the military officership and civilian upper class, even if being noble hadn't conferred any rights or responsibilities beyond name use since the Weimar Constitution of 1919.

The French aristocracy were eventually allowed to regain and use their titles following the Bourbon Restoration, though with the establishing of the Third Republic they no longer have any legal status or privilege.

Sir Keith is probably a baronet. In English Law baronets are commoners and have no special privileges, so its just a hereditary form of address.