Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Boom Town

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Boom Town 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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• Shouldn't later Jack hear the Tardis?
• After the Doctor reads the Welsh banner Blaidd Drwg, Rose asks what it means even though the TARDIS should have translated it in her head. Considering that written Latin was translated for Donna in The Fires of Pompeii, this is an anomaly.

The recurrence of 'Bad Wolf' in the Doctor's Time stream may be so unique as to be beyond the ability, or will, of the TARDIS to translate.

By the time Rose was the Bad Wolf Entity, she knew that her past self saw it in Welsh. Being able to see the whole of Time and space, she would have known not to change this and cause a paradox, so likely stopped the TARDIS from changing it.

Blaidd Drwg wasn't being used as a Welsh word. Margaret says that it just "came to me". The intention behind the word wasn't the use of a foreign language, and so isn't translated, just as "deja vu" would not be translated to English.

It takes a while for the translation to work on a written word, at least according to River in A Good Man Goes to War.

• It cannot be legal to demolish Cardiff Castle to build a nuclear power plant in the middle of a major population centre. Besides, the site is almost certainly not big enough to house a nuclear power station.

Margaret had manipulated the situation politically to suit her needs and killed anyone who stood in her way.

• The time scale of Margaret's rise to power doesn't seem to work. In six months, she's gone from landing in a skip on the Isle of Dogs to having been Mayor of Cardiff long enough to rush through the plan for the nuclear power station. However, her spell as mayor is recent enough to warrant a recent newspaper headline.

The Slitheen have been on Earth quite long enough to have laid the groundwork for this as a contingency plan.

It is possible that Margaret also used the past Mayor's skin to begin the plans, then when their role was over, returned to the other suit.

• MI5 should have noticed that Margaret was a Slitheen as she used to be employed by them.

Only one person saw the Slitheen in Downing Street. It is possible that the man never saw the Cardiff mayor, especially if it was only recently she became the mayor.

This would be exactly why Margaret was so loathe to have her picture taken? She didn't want to be recognised.

• In the real world, the Mayor of Cardiff is a ceremonial role, rather than one with any power.

Even without power, Margaret could easily use the role for influencing other people.

• The man in the cafe doesn't seem confused or upset at the Doctor ripping the newspaper out of his hands.

Different people react to situations differently.

If you look at him when the newspaper is taken, he is clearly annoyed.

• Why don't the Welsh speakers in Cardiff make any comment on the name of the project. "Bad Wolf" isn't exactly the most reassuring name for a nuclear power station. It can't be due to Cardiff being less Welsh than the rest of Wales, as Welsh is taught in all the schools and knowledge of the language is on the up.

Perhaps they did, simply not on-screen.

There are many projects with bad names, it's doubtful that there would've been much outcry over that.

• Harriet Jones should have seen that Margaret is still alive yet she said nothing about it.

Not necessarily. Remember, Margaret has been actively avoiding personal publicity.

• near the end of the episode the Doctor constantly makes the sister slitheen come back but in aliens of London she teleports away and he can't find her for a while.

What exactly do you mean?

• Does 'Blaidd Drwg' really work? In Welsh, blaidd means wolf, but blaid (pronounced the same) means party. So if Rose and the Doctor had heard it verbally instead of reading it, they might have thought the power station was just a lame party. Or is this because the Bad Wolf already knew that the would read it?