Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Time of Angels

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Time of Angels 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 is clearly unaware of the TARDIS' stabilizers. However, in TV: Pyramids of Mars, he mentions a "stabilizer failure".

This is a different version of the TARDIS. Different TARDISes have different buttons for things.

There may be different stabilizers that stabilize different things. In fact, he's talked about at least two different stabilizers in the past. Presumably he knows enough about the TARDIS (and we don't) that he knew she couldn't be talking about any of the things he knew of as "stabilizers".

He could easily have also been lying, because he didn't want to use the stabilizers.

• Although in this episode the Angels can telepathically influence people if they look into their eyes, in TV:Blink, both Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale looked the Angels in that episode in the eyes, but they remained fine.

In this episode the Doctor says something about the one's he fought on Earth being "barely alive scavengers", perhaps this means that they were too weak to affect Sally and Larry in that way.

The Angels wanted Sally and Larry to go into the basement, and that's exactly what they did. So, maybe they didn't need to influence them - or maybe they actually did influence them, which is why they went into the basement.

• If the TARDIS noise is caused by the brakes always being on due to the Doctor's clumsiness (as implied by River Song), how come all the other TARDISes make that sound? For example, the Master's TARDIS in TV: Terror of the Autons.

They may all leave the brakes on, or the TARDIS turns it on for safety. It could also be that, without the brakes on, the TARDIS makes no noise at all when landing. Even with a functioning chameleon circuit, turning up some-place without realising it could cause problems (especially since travelling through the Time/Space Vortex does take time). So they may leave it on just so they know when they have landed, should they be away from the controls. (Although this does tend to announce to anyone who is present where a TARDIS lands, that something strange is going on. But something randomly appearing out of no-where would be shocking whether or not it made any noise at all.)

It's possible that River's flying instructor (whoever that happens to be) figured out on his own that you don't need the brakes on to land, but that nobody else (including the Doctor, the Master, Chronotis, etc.) ever realised that. After all, it's pretty normal to have the brakes on when you land anything else; coming up with a way to land, say, a 767 without the brakes on would be an impressive feat.

As it was established (in the Tom Baker episode TV: Underworld) that even the pillars of TL society had TARDISes that made the noise, it likely is indeed a safety feature; and what River did was "reckless driving". That the Doctor did not correct her suggests that he recognised River's skill in "hot-dogging" the TARDIS and not crashing it; even if he'd pointed out the risk she took, he would then only have been highlighting her skill in avoiding that risk.

It being a parking brake might also explain why for the first 10 or so years of the show the materialisation and dematerialisation noises were inconsistent.

Another note: when a TARDIS materialises, I think you'd want to know about it just in case you were lying down or walking past where it's 'landing' so yes, River Song = bad driver.

Actually, in TV: Let's Kill Hitler, It is revealed that River Song's teacher was in fact, the TARDIS matrix itself. Also, it is noted in an older episode that a TARDIS is "grown," not made. The TARDIS matrix may be aware of things that even Time Lords are not aware of. The TARDIS matrix can also see into the future as shown in TV: The Doctor's Wife, so it may have sensed that Amy was going to die. And as a result, taught River everything in order to save Amy. Also, in TV: Let's Kill Hitler, it is revealed that: if a TARDIS that has a shifted dimension inside it, or bigger on the inside, and it materialises where an object is, that object is transported into it. However, in TV: The Doctor's Wife, if a TARDIS console without the hull materialises where something is, the object will be redistributed. In that same episode, when the TARDIS matrix gets sucked out and put into a woman,the woman is able to make the same sound the TARDIS makes, so the sound may just be the matrix.

It being a safety feature is discouraged by River saying "It's not _supposed_ to make that noise." The implication is definitely that the Doctor flies the TARDIS "wrong", but in a manner more interesting/comfortable to him. Which doesn't match the behaviour of other TARDISes we've seen, and doesn't seem easily reconciled.

In the episode where the Doctor meets Martha, he explicitly mentions taking parking brake off, yet it still makes the sound.

It seems likely that River was simply "taking the mickey"—she seems to enjoy discomfiting him by revealing things about the TARDIS that the Doctor himself does not know yet (like the "snap your fingers to open the door" trick from TV: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead). But there is no guarantee that everything she says has to be true.

Nevertheless, whatever she was actually doing, it worked--the TARDIS landed without making a sound. It may be interesting to note that in several of the earliest episodes, the TARDIS lands silently (The Keys of Marinus is an example). I've heard reports that Verity Lambert intended for this to be part of the camouflage system to avoid drawing attention to the landing TARDIS.

It's worth noting that when she piloted it again (or previously) in TV: The Pandorica Opens, it also made that sound.

• If the Weeping Angels wore away and looked like regular statues, surely that would mean that their clothing stays the same, as one Weeping Angel that was reverted to look like a normal statue was wearing a toga. But in fact, none of the Weeping Angels wore anything that resembled a toga - just a dress.

I doubt the clothes have much to do with an angel. It seems to me they don't behave like physical beings as such and so the clothes are just part of the 'disguise'. None of the statues had wings like the one from the ship either.

• In Blink, Sally Sparrow has a photograph of a Weeping Angel.

The Angel created by being in the photo might be waiting for an ideal time to act.

The doctor refers to the newly created Angel that attacks Amy as a "projection". It is possible that if the original Angel is in a state of quantum lock that they cannot act through a projection. Since all the Angels from Blink are now trapped in a state of quantum lock, this explanation is plausible.

The Doctor also refers to the Angels on Earth as "scavengers barely surviving." So, perhaps they didn't have the power to to act through a projection as well.

• When Amy's hand turns to stone, it is seen that it is actually stone. But just before the Doctor leans down to bite her, it is seen as just her plain hand, not stone. Also, it is clearly visible the Doctor doesn't actually bite her hand.

It is her plain hand that is seen because in Doctor Who Confidential, it is revealed that Amy only thinks that her hand has been turned to stone because the Weeping Angel plays with her mind - it isn't stone, Amy just thinks it is. When we see her "stone" hand, we see it from her perspective. Also in Confidential, Matt mentioned he would actually bite Karen for the scene which she agreed to.

Well, it's not just Confidential that says this. It's also the script itself, which is very plain on this point. Adam Smith's direction is equally clear. When we see her hand as stone, it's because we're seeing it from Amy's POV; when it's not stone, it's because we're seeing it from an objective "3rd person" angle.

• In the Delirium Archives, the TARDIS isn't shown in the background until The Doctor and Amy run to it with the Home Box.

The TARDIS was in a different area of the museum, as you can see from the guards running around the corner, and the display case where the Home Box would be if that was the right area isn't destroyed or opened.

If you look at the displays you can see they are exactly the same as seen earlier. The TARDIS is parked right next to the first display we saw after the "12,000" years later" message. The 2nd and 3rd display are also exactly the same, while the others are too far to know for sure. The big stained glass and the picture on the wall are also exactly the same. This is definitely the same room. Guards running around the corner simply means they just entered the room, and the missing smashed display case is another error. So he's right, the TARDIS is missing until they run into it.

There are several possible explanations of course. The Doctor may have "hid" the TARDIS from view (for whatever reason), such as he did in End of Time. The display cases and decorations that look the same may actually be different ones in a different room, they just look the same as the other ones we saw. We're dealing with a culture and setting many thousands of years removed from our own.

• River states that she has met all the doctor's incarnations. If that was true, shouldn't the tenth doctor recognise her in Silence in the Library.

River hasn't met all the Doctors, she just has pictures of all of them.

This also helps serve to further explain how River recognised the Tenth Doctor as being young in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, since she'd recognise him from the "spotter's guide" as being an earlier incarnation than she'd previously met (presuming the Doctor "numbered" the pictures for her, that is).

See below--she explicitly says that she _needs_ a spotter's guide (and therefore doesn't have one), and that the pictures aren't enough because he never shows up in the right order.

Whatever pictures she does have was obviously good enough to recognise Doctor #10, so there doesn't appear to be a discontinuity here.

• Amy says to The Doctor "You're letting people call you sir. You never do that". How would she know this?

Perhaps she noticed it in Victory of the Daleks?

Or maybe another non-television scene has happened between Victory of the Daleks and this episode.

There's ample opportunity for him to have mentioned it to her as well.

• The Space Time of the universe 2606 2010, if you notice is the date of Amy's clock when the Doctor runs back into the TARDIS with Amy 26th June 2010 her wedding day?

It's the time where the crack started which is the day of her wedding. This proves significant in later episodes.

• If the Weeping Angels were erased into the time crack, that means Sally and Larry must have forgotten about them right?

No, these weeping angels are not the ones that Sally and Larry encountered.

• Why doesn't the TARDIS translate the writing on the home box and in the book?

When did anyone have trouble reading the book? The only two we see handle it are the Doctor and River. And both seem to have been able to read it fine. Also, the Doctor reads Old High Gallifreyan, so the TARDIS doesn't have to translate for him. Just as it sometimes doesn't seem to translate Judoon and French. For that matter, it probably doesn't translate English for him, except in cases where people are speaking with incomprehensible (to him) accents (as in TV: The Gunfighters).

It might have been translated for the Doctor but we just didn't see it that way. All language is probably translated into Gallifreyan for the Doctor anyway, so that would be no help for us to see. River probably either saw it in the language of the gamma forests (supposedly her first language) or Gallifreyan, which she has also learned to read. There would be no point translating it into English because technically, no one looking at the book could speak it, it was all being translated by the TARDIS into the people's own language.

• If River Song has a spotters guide for all the Doctor's incarnations then why did she have to ask the Tenth Doctor what encounters he experienced such as "The Crash of the Byzantium" from this episode. Therefore meaning that she thought that the Tenth Doctor may have actually been an incarnation after the Eleventh?

"I've got pictures of all your faces. You never show up in the right order though. I need the spotter's guide." So she _doesn't_ have a spotter's guide, and she may not know which order they come in.

It's more than likely, and heavily implied, that River doesn't know the order of the Doctor's incarnations. She may have thought that Tennant came after Smith.

I think you're really misunderstanding the sense of "need" in what she says. The "spotter's guide" is clearly the pictures she has. She's not saying that she needs a spotter's guide because she doesn't have one. She's saying, "I've got pictures of all your faces, because you never show up in the right order, and so that's why I need the pictures." Though given her behaviour with the Tenth Doctor, I agree that she probably doesn't have numbers to go with the faces.

• Why was the Doctor so shocked that the person he rescued was River Song when the Old High Gallifreyan message she sent him was "Hello Sweetie"?

He wasn't shocked, especially since he had just watched her whole airlock escape via the recording in the home box. He was reacting more out of a disbelief/confusion in regard to the whole situation.

It is also likely that he has not figured out "Hello Sweetie" is her greeting to him.

• How come River Song did not recognise Amy Pond in this episode when she had already met her in the episode about the Pandorica Box?

It was most likely to not confuse her.

Additionally - she doesn't at any point 'not recognise' Amy. She just doesn't acknowledge her. This could be for any number of reasons. River Song is a mysterious character.

In TV: The Wedding of River Song, River explains to Amy that she had just done the Crash of the Byzantium and she was pretending not to know her the whole time.

• Right at the start, when River got sucked out of the airlock, she told the people to find something to hang on to. One of the guards had nothing to hang on to, and yet was not sucked out of the airlock.

In TV: Midnight, at the end, when Sky Silvestry got sucked out of the airlock, no one was holding on to anything, and they all survived (except for the hostess, which was the one that opened the airlock).

She was clearly saying that for dramatic effect - not as an explicit warning.

• When they first enter the maze The Doctor sets up a gravity globe. At the end of this episode, The Doctor shoots out the gravity globe to create an updraft and get them onto the ship. But as they reach the upper levels The Doctor realises that each statue is an Angel. To confirm this he gets everyone to turn off their torches and checks to see if the angels move in the dark. If it is completely dark without the torches, where is the gravity globe?

The gravity globe likely only works in the main open area of the maze, and not in any covered tunnels.

• This one is very minor. At the beginning we are shown a looped clip of the angel in the ship. It is bad quality and looks fuzzy and degraded, like an old VHS tape. In reality, already analogue images have been replaced with digital imagery. The digital signal from modern TV and DVD's looks completely different when quality or signal is lost. The story is set in the 51st Century, if we have digital now, I find it hard to believe we are back to VHS by this time. (Maybe BETA makes a comeback).

I also would find it unexpected that video tape "makes a comeback". However, it does seem completely reasonable that they have some kind of recording media that we in the 21st century known nothing about. How that unknown media functions, and what it looks like when it starts to degrade, would be difficult to speculate on. It may very well resemble what we currently would think of as similar to an old video tape.

• The screwdriver that River has with her is the Doctor's screwdriver from the future. But it looks like the 10th Doctor's screwdriver with additions. Rather than the 10th Doctor's.

• The Angels most likely flew to Alfava Metraxis as there was no mention of a spaceship when the soldiers colonised the planet. Considering the Angels were immensely powerful, what was stopping them from leaving the planet once they'd wiped out the Aplan population? Unless they had already weakened while still killing them, which is unlikely. Why would they have stayed on the planet to literally wear away?