Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Day of the Doctor

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• Hey guys, I have been thinking about the episode for days now and I think it leaves us with some poorly explained and / or illogical events on which I hope to get some opinions and insight. It is not about the bigger picture but about the Zygon plot:

- How did the Zygons know when to leave the paintings again? It is to assume they all entered the paintings and broke out before the doctor was called, how did they know when to do it? - On the same level: How did the doctors know when to leave "Gallifrey falls no more" again? They were standing in midst of the picture with their backs to the glass, and shatter it almost immediatly after. Why did they arrive exactly where they needed to? - If the pictures have a concept of time, did the Zygons really feel the hundreds of years they spent in it? Or are they frozen in time - which leads me back to the question on how to know when to leave the pictures again? - I understand why Elizabeth did write the letter to the doctor and leave her credentials: she could not expose the Zygons in her time, knew of their plan and arranged the letter. But when the doctor is brought to U.N.I.T, the Zygons had already escaped and one had taken over the commander. Even if the Zygons knew of the doctors cell carving, they could not have known about the time travel device in the vault and therefore had no reason to call the doctor in in the first place, despite the letter. - So the Zygons crash the paintings, hide beneath the cloth after smashing statues and one takes over the commander. Nicely elaborated but while the undergallery is surely no place visited by lots of people, someone before the doctor must have wondered where the dust came from. Also, if they just had smashed the statues there would be broken limbs and pieces lying around - or the Zygons cleaned up in which case the could have cleaned the dust aswell? The only explanation would be that this literally happened hours before the doctor came in and that brings back the question why they would call him in at all instead of just taking over. - where is the body of the horse the Zygon took over in Elizabeth's time? :P

1. The Zygons didn't "know" when to leave the paintings. Earth at the time was primitive, either they allowed an amount of time to allow Earth to develop to what they estimated would be a useful technological level or they were displaced in time and had a fair idea from their former knowledge when that would be.

2. The Doctors presumambly had some means of identifying the historical moment they were in discussion with. They then set5 the painting to release them from stasis just after that moment.

3. The painting suspend beings in time, they have no concept but the suggest is that the painting can be pre-programmed to release them.

4. I'm not sure I entirely know what you're saying but the Doctor was primarily called in response to the painting being broken, it was set up like a chain of events that would summon the Doctor. The Zygons had nothing to do with it execept that leaving their frames was set up as the trigger. Remember as the Doctors were there when they went in they probably helped set it up.

5. One had not taken over Kate, this happened when she was down there showing the Doctor what had happened. Kate called the Doctor as it was her brief to do so.

6. I'm sure you're being silly but there doesn't need to be a body, it's a horse. Zygons need to sedate humans because humans are distinguishable to other humans and the original might give them away. This wouldn't likely happen with an equine.

• Doesn't this contradict the appearance of the Time Lords in The End of Time? Rassilon and his council knew that the Doctor possessed the Moment so attempted his crazy plan to become beings of pure consciousness - this didn't happen in The Day of the Doctor. In The Day of the Doctor, the General was in charge and there was no mention of Rassilon's plan. Gallifrey did not move next to the Earth. But both these events were on the last day of the Time War.

The general just headed the war council he was only in charge of the military and strategic planning, the High Council was mentioned to have there own crazy plan, and it was later mentioned it failed. So nothings been contradicted, just reset. Basically this is how it always went.

But Gallifrey got moved next to the Earth in The End of Time. This never happened in The Day of the Doctor.

And then it was sent back, presumably this bit was offscreen, we don't exactly see the whole event. Alternatively destroying the process may have meant this bit was actually erased and never occurred in the time line.

• Did all his previous incarnations forget that they had helped to save Gallifrey too?

Yes, why should they be immune?

• How did the Doctors contact all their previous incarnations to get them to come and help?

It shouldn't be that hard considering he has a time machine and knows exactly when they would be available.

• How comes all of the Doctors were there on the cloud at the end? They were all looking up at Gallifrey, but surely if they remembered that they had all saved it then it wouldn't make sense because they didn't remember.

It's a dream of Eleventh.

• Why were there two different versions of the Seventh Doctor shown on the screens at the War Council? - a version of him looking as he did between 1987-89 in his question marked jumper and a version of him from the TV Movie. Is this a production error? There couldn't have been two versions of him there as it is stated there is only thirteen of them there.
  • I'd chalk it up to a production error. IIUC, all of the footage of Eccleston, McGann, and the earlier actors was archival. It's possible that McCoy is the only case where clips of the same actor from multiple sources is noticeable given 1) the clips were shown in black & white and 2) most of the other Doctors had either just 1 costume or costumes that were extremely similar.

• Where are the Skaro Degradations, the Nightmare Child, and the Would-be King?
  • Presumably they were destroyed by the Dalek bombardment.

• Now hang on, are we really meant to believe that every (well almost every) Dalek in existence was destroyed when Gallifrey vanished? I mean I know they "upped their firepower", but were there no Daleks ANYWHERE else in time and space that would have escaped that initial blast. If it's true that "A Dalek is a genius", then any genius knows not to put all their eggs in one basket, anyone got any ideas?

The Daleks were very intent on winning the Time War. I can imagine that once they broke through the sky trenches of Arcadia, they wanted every single Dalek present in order to assure victory. Not to mention the fact that they frequently let their personal hatred of Time Lords and especially the Doctor get the best of them.

No this is actually a huge problem. Clearly Steven Moffat decided to dedicate his 50th Anniversary to this because being "Mr. Everybody Lives" he, quite understandably, wasn't best pleased with what Russell T. Davies had the Doctor do and opted to undo it.

The problem is that Russell T. Davies supported the idea but, recognizing it was difficult, went to great lengths to justify the necessity. 9th confessed it to Rose, 10th defended it to the Master, 11th practically bragged about it to House. Which first invites the question, and I may have blinked and missed it, what was so "secret" about the "secret Doctor?"

The idea behind the "secret" Doctor, is that it is not a secret to the viewer nor the Doctor but to everyone else in the Whoniverse, he doesn't want people to know about the incarnation of him that, up until now, committed double genocide, it's a secret that he has desperately tried to keep, think about it, he has never told any of his companions (even River Song) nor anyone else in the Universe, the only people that really encountered that incarnation (until Clara) were all dead. So there was no-one to know he even existed, hence, he wasn't the 9th Doctor, just a "War" Doctor.

But that's just it, when it comes down to it, this episode showed regardless of how justified it was, it still wasn't right. To stop the war the doctor had to murder countless innocent men, women and children. Nothing can make that right.

In RTD's era the Doctor's ending of the Time War was jusified by how involved it was and what horrors it unleased. It was much more than just Time Lords Vs. Daleks many races were involved and ended up in the Time Lock. The idea that it could be ended simply by Gallifry vanishing seems highly implausible.

It was never stated over races were involved in the fighting, all those terrible things the doctor talked about such as the nightmare child could have been the weapons they were using, it was stated the war was having a horrible affect on the universe. The Time was always described as a war between the Daleks and the Time lords, one which had a devastating affect on the universe that doesn't mean that other races were involved in the fighting.

Whilst the Daleks may well have thrown everything they had at that point in time at Gallifrey, this is a war that was being fought through all of time and space, and the consequences were that the "Universe would burn" if that continued, the simple act of Gallifrey disappearing at a singular point in time at that space would in no way cause the destruction of all Daleks throughout existence, the Moment, however did have the ability to do that, and to time lock it so as to make it a dedicated point in time which would bring the war across all of time to an end. Is it really possible that every Dalek in existence was destroyed?

Oh this has got weird I wish my post hadn't been butchered somehow it would be a lot easier for me to reply. I absolutely agree the idea was always difficult but it doesn't change the fact the RTD tried his best to present it differently to how SM clearly does. It was always highly questionable, the fact of that was never the problem the idea behind why the Doctor thought it was and how deep the damage was. The idea was that the war was so protracted that whatever happened the result of letting it continue would be the destruction of everything, the Doctor saw a different path, the only one he could see at the time, and took it. The Time Lords tried to take yet another path which was what finally pushed the Doctor's hand - such was suggested in The End Of Time.

I repeat the "secret" was not kept well at all, why does it matter that the Doctor doesn't identify it was a different incarnation that committed double genocide, he admitted it to Rose, he specifically admitted the genocide of the Daleks to the Dalek in "Dalek": 'I made it happen!', he admitted the genocide of the Time Lords to House in "The Doctor's Wife": 'Fear me, I've killed all of them."He admitted both genocides frequently and used the first person pronoun on so many occasions so what really did we discover that we didn't know before and we would have lost if 9th had done it? It's a great episode to watch, but I can't see how that works.

The Time War wasn't a secret, according to this episode the Zygons lost their home during it, thus the sub plot. Races were mentioned, the Time Lords were absolutely masters of time and on all evidence of sense much better at it than the Daleks. It's hard to see the Daleks conducting anything other than a standard war without help even if very violent. Although the Time War is a hard and little explained concept and a rather strained idea perhaps. It's still impossible to believe that all the Daleks would destroy each other there were too many of them, they've eventually notice what was happening. Note the distinctive shape of Dalek ships we've always been shown.

It is not the time war that is secret, he's happy to admit to that and to committing double genocide, but the incarnation of the Doctor, the one who did it, that is what he keeps secret, the fact that he did it is different to the incarnation that did it. The War Doctor is the secret, what the War Doctor did is not, therefore the fact that the Doctor had a secret identity is what's so mysterious, because he did not take the name of the Doctor he is an incarnation of that time lord that does not exist within the known universe, no one knows that he even existed. However the issue of the Daleks destroying each other is still in my eyes a massive plot hole.

The implication is that this is pretty much it, the fighting has reached the time lords home plant, form the look of the War doctor, the fighting's been going on for at least centuries. The Daleks are on the verge of victory, they've thrown pretty much everything, no everything they have at them, because as far as there concerned there about to win, and there not going to let anything stop them now. Then the Doctors grabbed Galifrey, while the massive bombardment was going on, only now Gallifrey is gone the bombardment simply hits the other Daleks, the scale of the destruction of there weapons wiped out them all out, to fast for them to realize that Gallifrey is gone. There blown to kingdomcome, and everyone assumes that the two races must have Annihilated each other as there is no sign of either of them left on the battle field.

• If the paintings are a slice of time - stasis - how did the Zygons move to exit the paintings? How did the three Doctors fight a Dalek off an exit the painting?

Aspects of this question were previously answered above. Obviously, the stasis cubes allow those in stasis to move once they are awoken.

• What year was the events of present day London (with the Zygons)? Assuming it's 2013, Kate Stewart's timeline doesn't quite match with her first appearance in The Power of Three, where she first met the Doctor (she introduced herself and used a scanner to confirm the identity of the Doctor). The Power of Three happened in roughly the year 2020.

No year is explicitly given in The Power of Three. We also don't know with certainty that Day of the Doctor was set in 2013.

Although there is no set date in The Day of the Doctor due to the fact that Kate is on a friendly basis with the Eleventh Doctor it presumably takes place after the events of The Power of Three, so the date can be determined by dating this story. Amy comments in The Power of Three that it has been ten years since the Doctor and Amy began traveling. If she is counting from the ending scenes of The Eleventh Hour, which takes place in 2010, then it would place this story in 2020 - which is consistent with the events of The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood in which a relatively future version of Amy and Rory are seen in 2020. That would place The Day of the Doctor post-2020. However, in The Name of the Doctor Vastra's letter said that Clara lived in 2013, at least seven years before the dating explained above. The only way around this is if the Doctor shares with Kate a non-linear relationship like he does with River Song, and she first met a later version of the Doctor from The Power of Three sometime prior to 2013 and was told to pretend that The Power of Three was their first meeting.

• Tom Baker is shown supposedly playing the fourth Doctor, but the fourth doctor regenerated when Tom Baker was young so he cannot exist with the present day Doctor. The only way he can exist is if the fourth doctor who appeared in this episode was from another universe where the fourth Doctor hasn't regenerated yet.

It was deliberately left ambiguous as to whether it was actually the Fourth Doctor. and as to his age you may remember that in the Tenth Doctor mini-episode Time Crash the Tenth Doctor met the Fifth Doctor and commented that he had aged due to shortening out of the time differential. If this is the Fourth Doctor this would explain why he appears to have aged. In case anyone wonders why his clothes are different if he if the Fourth Doctor, presumably he is incognito.