Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Time Heist

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 Time Heist 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. 

• So did he actually do (almost) whole heist before just to set up the heist? Why do it two times?

Causal loop? (see below a similar question).

• Why didn't the Doctor just choose without-solar-flare-time, and use the TARDIS?

Because Karabraxos wouldn't be evacuating and would still hold sway over the Teller, making it impossible to rescue it and its mate.

Unless he used the TARDIS to go directly to the personal vault. Then he could wait until Karabraxos called for the Teller to deal with the intruders (as she did in this episode). At which point, he does the same stunt, lets the creature read his mind to know he is there to help, sonics open (or lets the creature open) the door with its mate, and just pop off in the TARDIS. No real need for any of the shenanigans here, but then there usually isn't for most heist movies.

Not really feasible. Again, Karabraxos would still have her mental connection to the creature and power over it. The Doctor explains all that during the episode.

• Not really relevant to anything, but was it ever explained where the Doctor/Architect got the escape ship in orbit that was mentioned?

True. But, it's got to be trivial enough for the Doctor to get hold of a small spaceship from some point in time/space.

• What was the purpose of telling everyone that the devices were atomic shredders instead of teleporters? Other than for the surprise dramatic effect? He obviously knew what they were since he's the one that put them all there in the first place.

I guess that's because of the Teller who could read their thoughts - if he knew, Karabraxos would know, if she knew, she would cause additional problems. Basically, the less they knew about their own mission, the smaller was their guilt and the chance that the Teller would sense it - they didn't even know for sure what they're coming for.

We know that often "The Doctor lies", but another possible explaination is that here he's not lying at all, he doesn't really know that those devices are teleporters because he wiped his own memory with the worm.

• How, as "the Architect", did the Doctor get around security to plant all of those tools and items? I mean, if it took four of them to acquire them back and only the Doctor to place them where they were found, why did he need three other people?

Well, there's the usual explaination, the ontological paradox, old as Oedipus and particularly loved by Moffat and his gang: the Doctor hires three other people because Karabraxos tells him that he "robbed/will rob" the bank with three other people, on the solar flare day, with the lead pipe (no, sorry, that was from another story).

So how did the Doctor get around security to plant all of those tools?

Madame Karabraoxos could have told him all of the information given she witnessed the entire event play out, so he just rinsed and repeated before wiping his memories.

• Suspension of disbelief is important in stories, and even more important in science fiction: we need to believe the Doctor's world is real even if we know it's not, BUT that world must be consistent. At the beginning of the episode the writers 1) remove the magic blue box from the game (as usual, to show the audience that Doctor is really in dire straits), and 2) they establish that Karabraxos is the most secure bank in the universe. But THEN they destroy all suspension of disbelief with the teleporters! WHY on Krop TorHell is Karabraxos known as the most secure bank in the universe, when you can sneak in and out at will with a friggin' pocket teleporter? And if it is so easy for the Doctor to get a whole briefcase of pocket teleporters, why he never used them before or after this adventure? (out-of-universe: of course, because the TARDIS and the sonic gadgets are already overpowered game-breaking tools, and pocket teleporters would be just too much, that's why the writes made him disable Jack's vortex manipulator: Jack already had a story-breaking superpower, immortality).

Just because people say it's the most secure bank in the universe doesn't necessarily make it true.

Yes, "most secure" is certainly advertisement boasting, but I'm sure the rich customers require a certain level of security beyond simple advertisement. A telepathic guard (one single telepathic guard, for crying out loud) is ridiculously useless in an universe where pocket teleportes, transmat rays, vortex manipulators and other similar gadgets exist. So the pocket teleporters are a very bad plot device (even worse than the usual "foolish wand-waving" with the screwdriver that fixes everything if the plot requires, and fixes nothing if the plot requires): "oh, too bad, we can't use the TARDIS... but we can ***-pull a briefcase of pocket teleporters with the label "this is not a deus ex machina". There's a good (in-universe and out-of-universe) reason if Harry Potter does not simply teleport out of Gringotts :)

• The first device the gang finds in the vault enables them to make a hole in the floor. How do they get down the hole without injury?
• How was the Doctor able to get into the Bank undetected, the first time, when he left the devices for his future self?
• Why did Psi (think he had) sacrificed his life, when he was the one person that could erase his memories, and not be affected by the Teller?

Psi mentioned earlier in the episode he once erased his memories of his loved ones and regretted it because he no longer felt the love he presumed he once did for them. Given the choice between permanent amnesia and death, he'd rather die whole than live the rest of his life a shell so to speak.

• How did the Doctor know the location of the boxes inside the vault, and that they were items needed by his cohorts?

Madame Karabraoxos could have told him all of the information given she witnessed the entire event play out

• Why didn't the Teller simply turn Madame Karabraxos's brain to soup, and rescue its mate itself? The Teller knew the vault combination!