Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Four to Doomsday

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Four to Doomsday 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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• Tegan is able to draw very quickly and incredibly detailed sketches in less than a minute.

• The Doctor describes the Maya civilisation as having reached its peak "8000 years ago"; the very earliest Maya settlements began 4000 years ago.

The Doctor has previously shown historical knowledge which has been lost to human history.

And he's also previously been wrong, off by a few millennia here or there.

• The Doctor claims the population of the Earth to be 3 Billion, where as it was around 4.5 Billion by 1980, being about 3 Billion in around 1960. [1]

It's just an estimation. Given the range of history the Doctor deals with, being off by 20 years is amazingly close,

• Few non-indigenous Australians speak an Aboriginal language (of which around 200 exist) as fluently as Tegan demonstrated with her conversation with Kurkutji. It is almost certain that the language that Kurkutji spoke 40,000 years ago would have since evolved into a totally different language that his people would be using today.

• The Doctor was unable to understand the indigenous Australian language even though the TARDIS translates every known language telepathically.

The Doctor is the one who programed the translation circet so if he doesn't know the language then neather does the TARDIS.

Never heard that one before. Got a source for claiming the Doctor programmed the translation circuit?

Perhaps the "Time Lord Gift" of translation only works on living organic brains, and not on the artificial speech synthesisers of androids, however sophisticated. That does leave the question of why the Doctor could not understand Tegan's Aborigine speech, though (unless it wasn't really all that comprehensible). Alternatively, given the constant surveillance of Monarch, the Doctor could just be feigning ignorance in order to prevent Monarch realising the full power he and the TARDIS have (which might increase his desire to possess it, and spur him on to more ruthless tactics).

• Why did Monarch choose to stay in the 'Flesh Time', given his beliefs?

He was a hypocrite, and was afraid to abandon his real body.

• When the TARDIS is ejected from the ship, it drifts off into space. But in TV: Voyage of the Damned, the Doctor mentioned that, when set adrift, the TARDIS is programmed to lock on to the nearest centre of gravity. Shouldn't the ship have qualified as the nearest centre of gravity?

It wasn't drifting, it was still being powered; the time rotor is still operating. It was travelling along with the ship.

• After the Doctor jumps out of the ship, he drifts towards the Tardis, slows down, and stops. Since there is no friction in space, the Doctor should have continued moving towards the Tardis at a constant speed.

We know the TARDIS has a force field around it (and the ship might as well). Both the Doctor and the TARDIS were inside the ship's force field.

• The Doctor is able to enter the TARDIS while in flight, hovering outside Monarch's ship. This contradicts what happens in TV: The Enemy of the World (TV story) and The Web of Fear (TV story) when Salamander attempts to steal the TARDIS, but begins flight while the doors are open, causing him to be sucked out.