Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/An Unearthly Child

You are exploring the Discontinuity Index, a place where any details or rumours about unreleased stories are forbidden.
Please discuss only those whole stories which have already been released, and obey our spoiler policy.

This page is for discussing the ways in which An Unearthly Child 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. 

• When Susan says "I like walking through the dark," neither Ian nor Barbara seem bothered about the thought of a teenage girl walking alone at night.

However, this was 1963, a more innocent time.

Why should they be? It would be a perfectly normal occurence, as in November sunset in London goes from around 4.30pm at the start of the month to nearer 3.00pm at the end of the month. Nothing out of the ordinary would have been happening.

There is no proof that it is November.

There was nothing innocent about the sixties.

• Why does Susan ask Barbara for a book about the French Revolution and then leave it in the classroom (as revealed when Ace finds the book in Remembrance of the Daleks)?

As far as she is concerned, she will be at school the next day.

When last seen, Susan is reading the book and stating "that's not right" in response to what she was reading. Perhaps she thought the book was unsuitable and abandoned it. Or she might have speed-read the book right then and there; later, the Doctor would be shown on several occasions to have this ability. It could also have been a different printing of the book as this is a chunky brown book while the version in Remembrance of the Daleks is sleek and black with gold lettering.

• At the end of Episode One the cave man's shadow is seen to extend much further than it really should.

That depends on the angle of the light source.

• We see Horg leave to go and capture the travellers at the end of Episode Three, but at the beginning of Episode Four he is back with other members of the tribe, waiting for the rest to come back.

He turned around and came back at some point before the others.

• Whatever happens to the Doctor's bag?

The bag presumably was never recovered. Although the implements within it could potentially have changed history, the odds of them ever being found are remote.

It's recovered by his fellow travellers after he gets captured, yet they clearly lose access to it when they too are caught.

But why did they not ask for it back?

The Doctors matches were in it, thus it would make their fire-making much easier. Not to mention leaving it in the tribe's possession could prove disastrous to history.

As mentioned above, the other three travellers initially find it, then they too are taken by the tribe. At this point, they've lost track of it. Although some of the implements within it could potentially have changed history, the odds of them ever being used by the tribe or found after that are remote.

• Susan's claim to have made up the name TARDIS is not supported by later stories that indicate that it's a term in widespread use on Gallifrey.

Some names catch on quite quickly. Presumably she thought of it on their planet and others heard it and liked it. The true origins of the term TARDIS and how the Doctor came by this one are still very unclear.

Time Lords speak in Gallifreyan; Susan was therefore the first to invent an English name for the TARDIS and the TARDIS later translated its name whenever it was mentioned by Time Lords to that specfic name.

As pointed out above, the true origins of the term and how it spread are not yet explained. There's not necessarily any inconsistency, as the possible explanations (such as the ones given here) are numerous. If there were a discontinuity, it would be more properly attributed to later stories.

She is a girl and may have been bluffing.

What does age or gender have to with an individual's propensity to bluff, make false boasts, or any other similar explanation?

Considering the name TARDIS is simply an acronym, it is highly probable that many people could have 'made up' the name independently. Furthermore, such a name would be very likely to catch on an spread easily.

• Susan states that 5 dimensions have to be used to solve a simple math equation, with the fourth, Time, and the fifth, Space, in addition to the length, width, and height that she was given. However, space is not the fifth dimension according to physics, but is made up of the first three.

Susan is not referring to Space in that sense (length, width, height), but more as a hypothetical construct much like Time is. There are multiple dimensions of Space just as there are multiple dimensions of Time. She needed to go at least to the fifth dimension to solve the problem to her satisfaction.

Who's to say that "our physics is correct"? The point is that she considers space to be an independent dimension.

• The door closes behind the travellers as they leave - how did it know to do this, and why doesn't it do it in other stories?

It sometimes does. The TARDIS, as later shown, is semi-sentient.

• The Cavemen at the end of Episode 4 are different to the ones in the rest of the story.

There are more people in the tribe.

No they are the same, it's just that the end sequence was filmed sometime before the studio recording, leading to differences in make-up and such. Derek Newark (Za) is plainly visible but looks slightly different than he does in the later studio shot sequences, for example.

• How did the cavemen beat the travellers to the TARDIS in Episode 3 - and how did they know where it was in the first place?

They live there, and know the quickest route to get somewhere. They knew where it was from description of where one of their tribe had originally grabbed the Doctor.

The travellers were slowed down by having to care for the injured Za and then carry him. The cavemen were led by Kal, who had seen the TARDIS materialise.

• How do the cavemen see inside the cave during the night (while orb is not shining) if they don't have fire?

Moonlight and natural phosphorescence in some rocks, plus vision that has adapted to having little light.

• It is scientifically impossible for an object to be bigger on the inside.

Dimensional transcendentalism is a scientifically plausible hypothetical construct, which contends that the "inside" of the TARDIS is actually in a different dimension than the "outside" - i.e., when you pass through the opening of the police box exterior, you cross a dimensional threshold to a completely different dimension, which could certainly be much larger.

• When Ian and Barbara enter the TARDIS for the first time Susan uses the door switch but later, when the Doctor electrocutes Ian, he uses the same switch.

This is likely a result of the Rassilon Imprimatur, which gives a Time Lord, and only a Time Lord, control over a TARDIS.

Different controls on the TARDIS can do different things at different times - much like hitting any given key on your keyboard can have different results depending upon what program you are running on the computer at that moment.

Actually, if you re-watch that part, the Doctor is at the console right beofre Ian goes to open the doors. If you look closely, he does something or flicks a switch on the console before Ian goes and tries to open the doors.

• Ian claims that the Doctor shut the TARDIS doors although it was Susan.

Ian was in a very bizarre situation at that moment, and could certainly be forgiven a simple mistake like that.

• Susan claims she made up the acronym of TARDIS from "Time and Relative Dimension in Space" however that would only work if the Time Lords spoke English (The gallifreyan versions of the words all starting with the same letter seems to big a coincidence). If its simply a translation, why do all other Time lords refer to it as Tardis, rather than what ever the acronym is pre-translation.

The Time Lords in general likely speak Gallifreyan all the time (at least on Gallifrey), but with the show being broadcast on Earth we wouldn't understand it, so their speech is translated to English for our benefit; maybe they DO refer to TARDISes as whatever the acronym is pre-translation and we're just hearing the translated term.

Or, perhaps Susan made up the acronym "TARDIS" from the initials of the translation of the phrase that they actually use to refer to a TARDIS in Gallifreyan?

It might be worth noting that the official/standardised name for a TARDIS on Gallifrey is simply TT Capsule.

• It seems highly unlikely that a group of cave dwelling proto-humans would not share the secret of fire within their own tribe. The old woman even says she never saw Za's father make it. It is highly suspect that a group like the one depicted here would not be awed and intensely curious about making fire, and want to learn how, or that the one person who knew would be able to keep the others from learning how as they watched him do it.

Explored to some extent - Za's mother not only recalls that her late husband jealously guarded his skills, but that in good time this annoyed the tribe so much that "they killed him for it". Possibly Za's father was an ambitious outsider from a more advanced tribe, or just as likely a cunning but selfish individual who lacked the strength or charisma to be a natural leader, and thus used fire in a fatal attempt to blackmail his way up the greasy pole of paleolithic politics.

Whoever has the power to create fire would have immense power. I'm not surprised it was kept a secret!

• Why do the tribe speak english?

The TARDIS translation matrix.