Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Doomsday

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Doomsday 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. 

• The Doctor expressly states that there is nothing in the void in "Army of Ghosts" and earlier in "Rise of the Cybermen"... so where has the "void stuff" come from?

The Doctor was wrong, was lying, was simplifying a complex topic, or was merely discounting the value of seemingly unimportant subatomic particle radiation. As Rose mentions in this episode, travel in the Time Vortex soaks you in harmless radiation; this information primes us for the realization that travel throughout the void does a similar thing.

• Why does paper start billowing around the room when the void opens? I doubt paper had gone through the void before.

It only billows when the Daleks fly past through the open window; it's because of drafts.

• When Rose was about to be sucked into the void when Pete rescued her. Wouldn't he have been sucked in?

The Daleks and the Cybermen had spent years crossing the void and would be completely coated in the void radiation. Pete would not have been exposed to as much of the Void stuff as he had only been transported across the void about 3 times.

It may take time before the void stuff begins to get sucked into the void. Before flying into the void at high speed, the Cybermen hovered for a second, seemingly only being pulled in very slowly to begin with.

The same happened to the Genesis Ark.

Even so, Rose had only travelled about as many times as Pete. Why was she sucked forcefully?

The effect built as time went on to those affected. Pete, having just appeared, had a few moments before being affected.

• How would Pete have known when and where to teleport to grab Rose or that she even needed saving?

He didn't need to know where to teleport as the teleporter goes to the same spot in the other world, and he caught her on instinct/reflex.

Also, Pete wasn't showing up to catch Rose, he likely coming back to please Jackie.

• How does the Doctor know "hope" is going to come with Jake's return?

In a deleted scene, the Doctor talked to a Cyber Leader about emotions. "Hope" is an emotion, and, in this case, is the emotion felt when wanting "something", in this case Jake, to intervene and save him.

The Doctor has additional senses and could have possibly have felt an impending distortion. At that point, any change would give him hope.

• How did Rose know that she had used the Time Vortex at the Heart of the TARDIS to destroy the Dalek Emperor? She didn't remember anything at the end of The Parting of the Ways.

There was ample opportunity over the course of the intervening season for the Doctor to explain anything which Rose may have forgotten, which is likely as she may have questioned why he had to change further.

• The Doctor tells Mickey that if the Cult of Skaro tried to open the Genesis Ark by force they would have destroyed the sun. How could he possibly know this with no knowledge of the Genesis Ark or the technology available to the Daleks?

He may know how it opens, simply not what is inside it.

He also may be suggesting one of their possible courses to make Mickey feel better and shut him up.

The Doctor was simply stating the lengths the Cult would be willing to go to in order to open it.

He already spoke to the Daleks about opening the Ark and why they needed others to open it so he was aware of how they were opening it and was just stating what would've been their alternative had they not succeeded in opening it as intended.

The Doctor was probably familiar with Time Lord tech, so he would have been aware of the consequences involved in opening the genesis ark, even if he didn't know much about it specifically.

• When Rose and The Doctor are sucking the Daleks and Cybermen into the Void, Rose's switch is pulled down. She pulls the switch back up and the switch locks. Why didn't the switch lock the first time?

The Doctor could have been in a rush to suck in the Daleks and the Cybermen into the void and could have forgotten to lock Rose's switch.

This doesn't make sense since if you look closely they should automatically lock as the lever handles have to be pressed together before they can be moved.

Sometimes even ratchet lock mechanisms will slip if not be properly seated.

• When the void first opens, pieces of paper are seen floating around. How would they be attracted to the Void if the paper obviously hasn't travelled through the Void.

The Void could be creating enough energy to blow some paper around.

Also, the Daleks and Cybermen being pulled into the void would displace air as they flew toward the breach. This air movement could cause the paper to fly around.

Ambient void stuff radiation from prior openings returning to the vortex could move the air in a manner similar to how water moves air in the hydraulic ventilation used by fire-fighters.

• Shouldn't the TARDIS and the Daleks' Void ship have been sucked into the Void as well? The TARDIS should have had Void stuff from when it travelled to Pete's World.

The Doctor probably put it in 'park'. That, and the TARDIS was several hundred floors down inside Torchwood Tower itself. That the Void Ship didn't smash through the floor to get to the breach suggests the TARDIS could also have been contained by the building.

But the void pulled in Cybermen from across the globe, considerably more distance than from the base of Torchwood Tower.

The TARDIS was mostly dead when it landed in Pete's World. Perhaps the void stuff can't “stick” to inert objects.

The TARDIS has a Hostile Action Displacement System, this can also apply to being sucked into the void.

The Void Ship was designed to travel across the void and doesn't register mass, temperature, etc. It is “invisible” to the Void and thus unaffected by it.

Also, we don't know how heavy the TARDIS is. Maybe it can't be lifted, except by its own propulsion systems.

We have seen its exterior lifted with fairly little effort several times. To name one example, when Caecilius was sold it in The Fires of Pompeii.

The TARDIS has defences, even some that can be set to automatic, such as the forcefield from the Tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator. Moreover, we're shortly to establish that at this point in the Doctor's TARDIS lifespan, she can manipulate at least some of her own settings TV:Utopia (TV story). She's also recently been seen to resist the gravitational pull of a black hole. TV:The Satan Pit (TV story)

So, assuming the TARDIS is immune to the effects of opening the void, why didn't the Doctor just think to lock a void stuff riddled Rose into the TARDIS until he'd solved the problem? Rather than trying to send her off to Pete's World.

There's no way she could have got to the basement without running into Cybermen.

Bessie, the Third Doctor's car, should also have been sucked in due to the events of Inferno (TV story). While Bessie isn't mentioned in this episode or later televised episodes, the car does make an appearance in the UNIT audios in the possession of John Benton.

Void stuff may only apply to those that travelled to Pete's World. Also, travel to other universes was easier before the Time War as the Doctor mentions. The Third Doctor and Bessie could have avoided such void stuff because of the Time Lords

• Why were all the Cybermen sucked into the Void? Many of them had been converted on earth, and so had never been through the Void - such as Yvonne and Lisa in Torchwood. Lisa wasn't pulled through, yet all of the others appear to have.

It is possible that the materials used to make the Cybermen were brought through the void with the Cybermen and so would have gotten void radiation on it. As Lisa was one of the last converted, the Cybermen may have run out of materials from Pete's World and used materials from this world, meaning that she would not have been pulled into the void.

• When Dalek Sec and the Genesis Ark rise out of the battle with the Cybermen, why didn't the rest of the Cult of Skaro join them?

They were no longer needed to aid the Genesis arc. All that was then left to do was to destroy the world, starting with the Cybermen.

• How can Pete teleport Rose safely away when Mickey clearly said the teleport only works on 1 person, and Pete was shown with only one teleporter in hand?

Pete could have had a second one in his pocket.

The teleport may only work on one person, but the universe travelling may not support only one.

Pete had one on a chain around his neck and a second one in his hand.

However when he returns to his world we clearly see that he is only in possession of one teleporter, also when he grabs Rose he only activates one teleport so he shouldn't have teleported back.

Pete could have had a different model teleport.

Pete and Rose could have had similar enough DNA that the teleport would treat them as the same person.

Pete was wearing one around his neck when he appeared and used a second one in his hand to teleport them back. As shown when the group teleported earlier, each device carries one person, but multiple can be used with one's activation.

• When Dalek Sec says "emergency temporal shift" he should be getting sucked into the void like the other Daleks, not levitating still in the air.

Before the Cybermen got sucked they hovered in the air for a moment, so Dalek Sec probably went up a bit which alarmed him (it?) and thought of using the emergency temporal shift.

• When the Cybermen on the streets firing at the Daleks are sucked in, only two out of a group of 32 are shown to be dead. Although they had Daleks shooting at them relentlessly for 5 minutes.

The Cult of Skaro are said to have far superior capabilities to normal Daleks. Perhaps the weapons and shielding of the Genesis Ark Daleks is inferior to the Cult, meaning that the Cybermen could hold their own against them.

It's also possible that while on ground level the Cult saw the need to exterminate the Cybermen fast, but once airborne the Daleks didn't have this issue. Since they boast a lot, it's possible the Daleks have so much contempt for Cybermen abilities over even that of humans they simply chose not to target them as much as they could have, effectively mocking them.

There's no evidence to support that the Cult of Skaro had abilities superior to standard Daleks aside from their added imagination capabilities.

• Sarah Jane Smith has time travelled before meaning she has the "void stuff" she should have got sucked into the void as well.

Time travelling doesn't equal void travel watch the fore mentioned episodes and check your facts.

Also, travel in the void before the demise of the Time Lords may have hazards that weren't present before. They may have had devices to atomically cleanse anyone's void stuff on your re-entry to normal space that no longer work with Gallifrey gone.

• How did the Daleks know the Doctor was a threat? They haven't seen this incarnation.

It probably struck them as odd to see someone wandering about when there was a Cyberman invasion, and then they scanned for the reaction (Rose's heartbeat) and when she said it was the Doctor, it obviously struck a chord for them.

Or there is something in the void with corrupted information on later incarnations of the Doctor and they had access to it.

Any incarnation of the Doctor scares the Daleks.

Seeing the "male" behind the Cyberleader who was clearly not a Cyberman meant that he was involved in what was going on, but how was unknown so he was simply registered as a threat without further classification until Rose reacted.

• It seems awfully convenient that when the Void sucks Daleks and Cybermen from all over the world, that their travel path is redirected through the same window on the building. This would seem to imply that the "void-sucking force" is unidirectional when near the Void but omni-directional further away.

A bit like a funnel?

• When the Cybermen give the order to converge on London, how could they realistically expect the Cybermen on the other side of the world to get there in time by just marching?

The order was for all Cybermen to converge. Those closer would arrive to help, but due to the clear threat the Daleks posed, it would be likely the fight would continue for some time and they would need more than that.

• Why was there debate about Jackie and Rose going to Pete's World? Jackie didn't have void stuff and wouldn't have been sucked in and Rose could just do what she ended up doing and hung on with the Doctor. Pete only started the idea of them coming with him since he was giving up on their world.

Pete had decided that the Earth in the normal universe was going to crash and burn and so wanted Jackie to go with him to the parallel universe in order to keep her safe. Jackie and Rose going to the parallel world was more guarenteed to keep them safe whereas there was still risks involved with them staying on their world.

• When Rose is sucked into the breach and brought to Pete's world, why couldn't the doctor have called Rose on her phone, since it was modified by him to be able to receive and make calls across time and space.

She wasn't sucked into the breach and he couldn't call her because the dimensions are separate in time and space. If the TARDIS couldn't normally travel back and forth between the dimensions the phone wouldn't be able to get a signal. He later contacted her by orbiting a supernova and burning out a star and that was only because he was using the "last tiny gap in the universe".

• What ever happened to the Void Sphere in the end?

It's possible another Torchwood division came in and cleaned up or reclaimed the building, taking it into their possession. Or the Doctor disposed of it, as we never see what he does immediately after he walks away from the wall.

• Couldn't the Doctor have saved Rose by using the sonic screwdriver to lift the switch?

He didn't think of it in the panic and heat of the moment, it may not have been strong enough to work against the power of the void, it too was soaked in void stuff and may have flown out of the Doctor's hand, and whenever the Doctor reached in Rose's direction telling her to hang on he immediately grabbed back on to the handle; he may not have possessed the strength to hold on and have a hand free without losing his grip and falling into the void as well.

• Why does Torchwood tower even exist in Pete's World? The only reason it was built in the Doctor's universe was to reach the breach created when the Sphere came through. Even if it was built for another reason. why are the levers still in place on the top floor? They would have had no function.

Canary Wharf exists for a real-world reason beyond Torchwood's secret control of the site. Pete's World could easily have followed this continuum.

What's more, Torchwood itself was only created after Queen Victoria met the Doctor. If the Doctor doesn't exist in Pete's World, why does Torchwood?

Perhaps parallel torchwood was set up to combat the cybermen rather than the doctor. The levers were perhaps used to open the breach so that the teleports could work across universes. Then once the breach was wide enough, the levers were no longer required for the teleports to work.

Torchwood is mentioned by Pete in Rise of the Cybermen (TV story), therefore it would have to have been created before the Cybus conversions. Torchwood is named after Torchwood House, perhaps Victoria is killed in alternate events in Tooth and Claw (TV story). This would lead to Edward VII coming to the throne earlier. Anyone who knows about his private life would know he was rather scandalous, though by 1879 he had long been married. This also perhaps leads to Prince Albert Victor ascending to the throne instead of dying, Albert had been the subject of much speculation with his mental health and many conspiracy theories (including, though debunked, Jack the Ripper). These factors combined could lead to a republican (or Communist) revolution which establishes the "People's Republic" Jake mentions taking control of Torchwood in this episode. Without the Doctor, this also would explain why Pete's World's Torchwood is seemingly so advanced compared to the Doctor's universe.

re: parallel torchwood even existing, I would argue that you can go a lot simpler than the above answers. It's a Parallel Earth, that has loads of things that shouldn't exist. Why would someone with Pete's exact DNA exist? The chance of that is miniscule, let alone that he'll have the same name and the same wife, but timey-wimey parallel earth things mean that the same things exist, even in a completely different world. Echos across the universes or however you want to explain it.

• When Rose was explaining to Mickey about background radiation she said that Mickey had also travelled in time but technically he had never travelled in time at that point but rather had only fallen through the void in a dead TARDIS to a parallel world and back to the regular world through a device that hops the void. Void stuff and background radiation are supposed to be 2 different things accumulated by different circumstances. So Mickey couldn’t have possibly powered the Genesis ark unless simply traveling from location to location in the same time also gathers Background radiation. Or if Mickey had travelled through time in a previous off screen adventure.

Mickey had traveled through time. In the episode "The Girl in the Fireplace" The Doctor, Rose and Mickey landed in the SS Madame de Pompadour in the 51st century.

• When we see the daleks flying into the breach at the end, why don't we see any cybermen at all? During those few minutes there should have been approximately 5 million flying in (allowing for casualties/battlefield conversions) but we only see daleks. How come?

There are (according to the doctor) millions of Daleks, and all of them are centered right outside the window, having just come from the Genesis Ark. The Cybermen meanwhile are scattered all across the world, with only thousands in London. The ones further away might not have reached the breach, and the ones in London - I guess you'd just have to assume they also got sucked in, we just didn't see them compared to the huge amount of daleks. (and any that have been destroyed wouldn't be spotted, and any converted might not have void stuff on them, having been made in our Earth)

• The parallel world discs seem to vary in how they work. Sometimes when someone presses one, it only transports them. Sometimes it transports everyone in the vicinity who is wearing one.

I'd guess there's settings that they can change that we don't see.

• Well, Earth suffer the price for Queen Victoria's arrogant and rash choice to forge the Torchwood Institue. By doing so, she was responsible for the Canary Wharf Battle; thus setting events in motion leading to the rebirth of the Dalek Empire and the origin of the Cyber-Legions. How'd you think she react if she knew about these events happening because of her? And how'd you think she react to the Doctor proving the real hero while she proved the real monster, and saw her own prejudice within the Daleks?