Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Earthshock

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Earthshock 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 Cybermen use emotional words like "Excellent". Positive emotion is supposedly absent in Cybermen. The Doctor elaborates on this when the Leader uses "fondness", but the Leader claims it is a word like any other, just like "destruction".

As stated, they view these as being just words, without the underlying emotional connection that humans might associate with them.

The Cyber Leader does seem unduly proud of his emotionlessness, however, considering he clearly has a sadistic little chuckle at the thought of human beings dying in terror, and he is decidedly less than stoical in his own death scene. This is probably intentional scripted irony, though (possibly inspired by the equally hypocritical though rather less menacing Cyber Leader of "Revenge of the Cybermen"). Either the Cybermen have taken the Dalek lead that a little of the nastier emotions makes more effective killers, or their diminished power has made them sloppier at brainwashing their converts.

To add to the above point, Cybermen have been seen to take strong-minded individuals to become Cyberleaders. These individuals have then also been seen to retain some of their emotions and/or personality after conversion.

We've seen their processing to be fallible on any number of occasions, and in a way, Cyberleaders are likely to be the most vulnerable to it- they're required by their job to spend time trying to figure out, or remember, how emotional adversaries would have thought. Also, while if a Cyber-lieutenant started to show emotional behaviour, they'd probably be ordered off to get their inhibitor looked at in short order. If a Cyberleader did so, then presumably only the Controller would be in a position to give that order, and that would only happen if the emotional responses were adversely affecting the Cyberman.

• Why did they draw attention to the Cyber-bomb on Earth by having androids kill anyone who approaches it?

As stated in dialogue, they don't start killing people until they've actually reached the cavern where the bomb is being held, so this may have been a last resort.

• Why didn't the Doctor take some troopers with him to talk to the Captain rather than trying to convince her with a pretty suspicious-sounding story?

He couldn't see that far ahead.

• When the Cybermen are deactivated or 'asleep', they are placed in large metal cannisters. When the Cybermen are woken up in Episode 3, they rip the canisters apart to get out, so why are none of the cannisters seen ripped open and instead seen in a normal state throughout Episode 4?

Not all Cybermen may have been activated as the activated Cybermen evacuate the ship afterwards.

In fact, the above is explicitly shown to be true when one of the remaining Cybermen is activated accidentally as the Cyber-Lieutenant leaves the ship.

• As Scott prepares to gun down the two Cybermen, the emotionless creatures seem to be gossiping, complete with hand gestures.

They are simply communicating. Nowhere is the implication given that they are "gossiping".

• During the cliffhanger, it's obvious that the three columns of Cybermen are mirror images: watch the middle one's right hand disappear

It's a directorial trick, not intended to be believed in the first place. The director just did it to look cool, he wasn't implying that it actually looked like that.

Although it was presumably intended to indicate three columns of Cybermen, it was indeed a conscious directorial choice. It isn't even a production error, and certainly does not qualify as a discontinuity or plot hole.

To the extent that this is a discontinuity / error, it is one that the audience is expected to politely overlook in favour of marvelling at how many Cybermen there are involved in this story.

• The steel bulkhead the Cybermen destroy flaps around as thought made of cardboard — the pieces of door also look like cardboard.

While the doors doubtlessly were made of cardboard, there is a narrative reason for their flimsiness. The bombs are specially designed to change the molecular structure of the materials they are attached to.

• The Cybermen set four explosive charges around the outside of the bulkhead, but only the middle is damaged.

It is somewhat unclear whether this is a production error or not. While it may not have been the most desirable special effect, it does have a logical narrative explanation. Constructions such as walls and bulkheads are often at their weakest points in the middle, where they are not being buttressed by other bulkheads.

• Not only does the Cyberdevice miraculously allow the freighter to travel through time, it also transports it to the side of the Galaxy that Earth was on 65 million years ago.

Time travel is usually shown to occur with fixed spatial coordinates relative to their start point in spacetime.

As the Doctor indicates, the device is fixed on Earth. As it travels, it maintains that fix.

• If the Cybermen are fully anticipating the bomb to destroy the Earth, why are they concealed on the freighter in the first place?

The limited range at which they can remotely detonate the bomb/control the androids, means they would have to be within the boundaries of human space and the best place to hide is on an Earth ship.

The answer to this is explicitly given in dialogue. The bomb was initially intended to go off as the freighter was near to Earth. The Cybermen would emerge at that time, destroy any survivors, and then have Earth under their control. They only altered the plan because of the Doctor's involvement.

• The Androids seem to be good shots early on - killing 3 people in a matter of seconds - but when they reach the Doctor they completely miss!

During their initial assault the androids are not under fire themselves, but when they fire on the Doctor and the battle continues the androids are receiving fire from the remaining troopers. Even though they are androids their accuracy will be diminished by having to evade incoming fire.

• No-one in the Earth crew expresses any surprise at the size of the TARDIS- nor do they question the Doctor as to where he came from and how he got such technology.

Lt Scott expresses surprise through his facial expression, but presumably he feels there are more pressing matters than asking questions about the TARDIS.

• What happened to the person viewing the scanner screen? And why do the radios stop working? - surely he'd alert them to another dot (when Adric came out of the TARDIS) coming on the screen.

As indicated earlier in the story, the signal from the androids disrupts the humans' communications. Even if the radios were working, Scott and his team were under fire from the androids and not really concerned as to what was appearing on the scanner at that time.

• The Cyber Leader says the sentence "Your technology is primitive next to ours, mistakes will not be made." in a distinctly sing-song type of voice.

Not that "distinctly". Didn't sound that way to me.

• Why does the guy reading the scanner pick up only the Doctor as an alien? Nyssa is a Trakenite, is she not?

Maybe Trakenites are so similar to humans that they can't be distinguished by the scanner's technology, but Gallifreyans are different enough that they can. After all, she doesn't have two hearts, a different internal temperature, or various other reasonably easy-to-detect differences that he does.

To add to the above, the only difference he explicitly comments on is that one of the signals has two hearts.

• Where did the Cybermen get copies of Doctor Who clips from? And why do they show one from The Wheel in Space, when describing the events of Tomb of the Cybermen?

We've seen that the Cybermen obsessively monitor transmissions. And from Remembrance of the Daleks, it seems like Doctor Who is an in-universe series. But they haven't watched Wheel or Tomb as many times as human fans, because they still have all the missing episodes.

More seriously, in-universe they obviously weren't actually using clips of old episodes, that's just how it was represented on screen. Kind of like the fact that in-universe they were actually Cybermen rather than human actors in costumes.

To expound upon the previous point, they were intended to be either recordings or other displays from various encounters the Cybermen had with the Doctor. For the Second Doctor clip, they're simply showing the incarnation who confined them to their ice tombs, not saying this was the moment that it happened.

• Surely the Doctor could have used the TARDIS to materialise on the freighter to save Adric?

As he says, though, the console is damaged at the key moment.

• According to Plate Tectonics, the arrangement of continents and sea changes throughout time. But the Earth shown in freighter's screen is highly similar to 21 century earth.

Could certainly be a recorded image (what the computer screen "expected" to see rather than what was there, similar to what happened to the TARDIS view-screen in Full Circle). Alternatively, it could have been a view of Earth from a perspective that appeared similar to modern day.

• Several scientific evidences indicate that the asteroid(or the freighter, in Whoniverse) that caused KT extinction fell in Yucatan Peninsular, Mexico. But when the freighter smashed into the Earth, its screen showed Korea Peninsular.

There is doubt about that even in the real Universe. In the Whoniverse, the explosion of the device may have occurred anywhere. an atmospheric explosion from an alien bomb may well have been enough, rather than it being an actual impact on the surface.

• These Cybermen know about the events of Revenge of the Cybermen, when that story took place much later on in terms of linear time, and this specific race of Cybermen only acquired time-travel shortly before Attack of the Cybermen.

It's possible that they did have some time-scanning (if not time travel) technology by this point. They device interfacing with the freighter does accidentally cause it to time travel, after all.

David Banks' Cybermen book dates Revenge of the Cybermen before this story.

• Where is Mondas at this point in time? It's assumed that the Moon ultimately displaced Mondas, but when the moon shows up is variable. If we go by Doctor Who and the Silurians, I think the K-T extinction event would be after Mondas left and we'd be fine, but other Silurian time markers could place the Moon's arrival... later. The Cybermen know about Mondas, so surely they know about where Mondas could potentially be in the past.

Who ever said that the Moon replaced Mondas? Either way, it really doesn't factor into the plans of the Cybermen. They intended to blow up Earth in the present, the time shift was accidental.

• How had Scott never heard of the Cybermen when Earth was forming an alliance to defeat them?

He was sick that day of history class, and automatically tunes out anything remotely political. Or something a bit closer to Donna's accidental avoidance of extraterrestrial invasion.

• Bearing in mind that the Cybermen seem to have ironed out gender as an unnecessary appendage among their own kind, why construct visibly female and male android guards? One would assume not for the emotional well-being of said androids, and since their modus operandi is to melt intruders on sight, it could scarcely be considered useful for liaison purposes.

They do it precisely because they are 'androids'. Cybermen are humans who have transcended humanity and headed toward the machine. Androids are the reverse; machines designed to ape the form and function of humans. Humans come in two distinct types, so far as the basic frame is concerned. It's not reasonable to waste time creating both types distinctly of a variation which is functionally irrelevant to the androids actual mission- but it is logical to do so.

There is a potential logic to it, however; it can potentially create ambiguity and confusion regarding the activities of the androids if anyone witnesses them, thus obfuscating their actions as long as possible. For example, suppose someone witnesses the "male" android retreating after killing someone. The witness reports that the assailant was male. Consequently, someone who encounters the "female" android may not view it as a threat (until too late) because they're on the alert for a male assailant, not a female. Then, if the "female" android is witnessed doing something, potential clashes between witness statements may arise as one party insists the assailant is male and another insists that the assailant is female, not realising that there are actually two. The ability of the enemy to counter the actions of the androids is thus undermined.

• I take it that the three crew members that were mentioned by Ringway and Briggs to have gone missing were secretly kidnapped by the Cybermen to be converted into Cybermen themselves?

Almost certainly.

• How did only that Cyber Leader know about the Doctor when the rest of the Cybermen stories have all the Cybermen know about him?