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

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Power of the Daleks 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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• Not only does the Doctor regenerate, but his clothes do as well.

A side effect of a first regeneration?

Doctor's first regeneration was less violent than the others, so it is possible that he had more control over it.

This still doesn't explain how it could happen. Would we have to consider it as a production error?

Its suggested that the Troughton Doctor is a younger Hartnell Doctor. And, they have swapped places. It was first referred to as a rejuvenation, and not a regeneration.

• How do the colonists not recognise the Daleks after the events of Doomsday and Journey's End?

It is revealed in The Time Traveller's Almanac that the events of Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways, and therefore all Dalek stories since, didn't "happen" until after Dalek had "happened". Also, it is speculated that there are two Dalek histories in different timelines. The first ends with the events of The Evil of the Daleks. The second begins with the Fourth Doctor interfering in Dalek evolution in Genesis of the Daleks and includes the events of Journey's End. The Power of the Daleks may belong to the first timeline, in which case Doomsday and Journey's End never happened.

Also, now as of TV: Victory of the Daleks it appears Amy Pond does not remember the Daleks, implying the timeline has been messed with at some point, so what this means in relation to these events is yet to be seen.

It's pretty well established that even many people from the early/mid 21st century--from Zoe Heriot to Henry van Statten--didn't know about the Daleks. If this does get explained away, it seems likely that people from farther in the future wouldn't know about those events either.

The history of the Daleks is a continuity nightmare. As far as I can tell, there are at least four lines of continuity: 1) From The Daleks to Evil of the Daleks; 2) From Genesis to Remembrance; 3) From Dalek to Victory; and a completely new line for with Pandorica. And even these are confused. For example, the Tenth Doctor references Invasion in the third line.

It hasn't happened, yet. Power was made in 1966. Doomsday was made in 2006.

Following up on the first answer given above, time in the Whoniverse is two-dimensional; Power may be after Doomsday along the fourth dimension, but it's clearly before it along the fifth. To limited species like humans who only sense 4 (or 3.5) dimensions, anything which is later on either time dimension is unknown.

How do the colonists not recognise the Daleks after the events of "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth"? Vulcan is referred to as an Earth Colony. Presumably the Earth Empires reach into the further colonies (that was the established canon of these early stories) did not occur until AFTER the Inasion of Earth that took place in the 2100's? The humans involved in the Dalek Masterplan all recognised the Daleks from this earlier incident. How did Vulcan forget this history if it was indeed in regular contact with Earth still and not a remote cut off colony?

This could also depend how well they know their history and where they originated - not to mention when. Not everyone knows their history as well as they should.

It's also worth noting, by the way, that any such potential discontinuity should be attributed to the later stories, not to this one.

In the 11th Doctor novel The Dalek Generation humans don't know of the Daleks as villains. We don't know when the story takes place, so bad history records is an easy answer to this.

Perhaps the simplest explanation is the one given in Remembrance: humans just have an extraordinary ability to forget past events (hence why Ace knew nothing about Yetis in the Tube, or the Loch Ness Monster in the Thames.

• IIRC, Ben says the Doctor was always going on about Daleks before regenerating. But didn't we see mostly every moment of their time together before this, with no mention of Daleks? The War Machines went directly into the Smugglers went directly into the Tenth Planet, right. Apologies if I've gotten show/novelization mixed up.

I suppose the Doctor must have made off-screen references to the Daleks.

We didn't see every moment. For example, The Smugglers takes place over far more than 100 minutes of in-universe time.