Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Pyramid at the End of the World

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Pyramid at the End of the World 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:

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• Bill says the current president (of the United States) is "orange". Even if we were to go under the assumption that the president at this point in the DWU was a different "orange" man and not Donald Trump, this goes against what was depicted in the simulation in Extremis where the unnamed president appears to be a pale-skinned man.

It was a simulation. We can't be sure it is 100% accurate, more like 98,99. Regardless, whose to say the president isn't orange in another sense; it was never clarified she meant skin.

Also, real-life politics do not align with those in the Whoniverse. In the Whoniverse it is implied that Barack Obama succeeded one Arthur Coleman Winters as president, and that in the second half of the 2000s the prime minister of the UK was Harriet Jones.

• Although they are referenced, the otherwise total absence of UNIT is difficult to reconcile given its mandate is to investigate things such as a pyramid appearing out of nowhere. Certainly once the Doctor realized they were looking for a specific event he should have called in the entire might of UNIT. In addition, the previous two appearances of Boat One suggest the aircraft itself is operated by UNIT.

Perhaps they were there, it's just the other three nations go priority, bring representative of the 3 strongest nations.

• Why didn't the lab suits have their own oxygen supply?
• Why did the airlock/door have that strange combination lock? Surely, it would be retina print, hand print, card swipe or keypad?
• How did the Monks observe the humans before the invention of CCTV?

They're an advanced alien race; they probably had other means, and then simply hacked into CCTVs once they became common.

• Considering that Bill was standing next to Nardole when he was giving a visual description to the Doctor through a microphone, why hasn't Bill worked out the Doctor is blind?
• How did the airlock reset itself?
• Why did Erica use her bag to stop the door from shutting?

She probably didn't have a doorstop and needed something.

• Why was Douglas allowed to continue working when he was clearly intoxicated?
• We see three submariners leaving the pyramid. An active nuclear submarine carries more than three personnel.
• Why did Douglas use his bare hands to transport the gunk, when he should have been wearing protective gloves?

Well, he was hungover...

• Erica is aware that the amount of chemical used that killed the plants was excessive, why wouldn't Douglas have realised before typing in ten times the amount?

He probably meant to type in "11.89" and was simply too hungover to realise that what he'd actually entered was "118.9".

• Why can't the Sonic Sunglasses detect body heat?

They probably just weren't designed with that in mind, and the Doctor wouldn't have been able to modify them to have that feature when he couldn't even see what he was doing.

• From what I can make out, as it's a very bad edit, Nardole moves the TARDIS from the lab Erica was in to another lab. Why?
• In what situation would three military leaders make a decision when it's their governments that would do that?
• Why couldn't Erica have stopped off at a chemist or supermarket on her way to work and picked up a set of replacement reading glasses? Reading glasses don't need specific prescriptions (unlike distance glasses), so she could have just grabbed a pair of generic glasses and used them as a temporary replacement.

She was probably in a rush and didn't have time.