Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Turn Left

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Turn Left 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.
  • If the TARDIS translates all writing immediately for its inhabitants, how come the signs at the beginning of the episode are still unreadable?
as river has said many times, it takes a little while for the TARDIS to translate the written word.
  • If Donna never appears inside the TARDIS in The Runaway Bride, what draws The Doctor's attention to The Racnoss?
Russell T Davies states in the Confidential episode that another temp presumably got dosed.
  • If the Doctor met another temp, why did he die? Would not the other temp have fulfilled Donna's role and saved the Doctor's life?
The Doctor said the hormones from the wedding are what made Donna get to the TARDIS. The wedding was only caused because Donna insisted Lance to marry him. Another temp may not have asked Lance to marry her.
Not necessarily. Donna is a very confident person, if the other temp was more submissive or shy, she may have accepted the Doctor's way of dealing with a problem she didn't understand, or may not have even have been with him at the moment he needed "stopping".
Since when is the Doctor so useless he needs stopping? The Doctor has been in far worse situations than this in the past. Donna didn't even save his life in "The Runaway Bride", not the way the Doctor has been saved in other stories like "Smith and Jones", "Rose" and "The Ark in Space". Though the Doctor has come close to death, it has never been because he is so vicious and reckless.
The Doctor is out of control at the end of The Runaway Bride, when he floods the pit to kill the Racnoss. The room was flooding, and fires were burning around him, but he didn't notice/care (bear in mind this took place shortly after he had lost Rose, and so wouldn't be feeling at his best). It isn't until Donna shouts "Doctor! You can stop now!" that he comes to his senses and escapes before being killed.
It is worth noting that this uncharasteristic agression was probably due to the recent loss of Rose.


  • If Rose has been appearing in that reality since Christmas then she should logically have been doing the same in our universe, there's no reason why she shouldn't that has nothing do with Donna. Why hasn't she found the Doctor throughout the whole of series 3? Furthermore why wasn't she around in "Last of the Time Lords" during the year that never was? She could have been a big help to martha with her technology from the other universe, even if she couldn't it's not like rose to just give up and she would know who martha was considering martha was meant to be a legend in the year that never was. If rose could find the doctor in donna's world on christmas day she should have been able to in our world the time lines were the same at that point, why didn't rose go to torchwood or unit throughout the whole of series 3 and 4. For instance if she had gone to unit during series 4 when martha who had a phone that could summon the doctor to earth was there why didn't she go introduce herself to martha get her to phone the doctor then warn him about the darkness several months before it happened, when he would have had a better chance of stopping it.
If someone wants an answer to this question, it needs to be clarified a bit.
I think the question is simply if Rose can appear in Donna's world (the timeline most of Turn left is set in), why didn't she just appear in the regular timeline during the events of series 3 or 4 and look for the Doctor then?
And I think my answer is that jumping from Rose's world (would you rather Pete's world?) to ours is impossible. Though the Reality Bomb makes travel between Rose's world and Donna's timeline possible, there's no guarantee that it makes travel between any two parallel worlds possible. Especially since the particular link between Rose's world and ours was sealed in Doomsday.
  • Why aren't there Cybermen ruling the Earth, there would have been no Doctor to stop them in the Battle of Canary Wharf (if in Donna's World Rose is still able to cross realities then the Cybermen would still be able to end up in Victorian England) there should also be Daleks since the Doctor would be dead and unable to stop the Cult of Skaro in Manhattan in the 1930s.
When creating Andrea Yates' World, the Trickster told Sarah Jane that he prevented those invasions.
However is the Trickster really a match for either the Daleks or the Cybermen? He seemingly can't stop them when the Darkness is coming in Donna's World.
It's hard to know who the Trickster is or isn't a match for. Given that he's a transcendental being (like the Guardians, the Eternals, etc.), it seems likely that he's a match for the Cybermen or a handful of Daleks in normal circumstances. The fact that he couldn't stop the Darkness spreading from the Reality Bomb doesn't prove anything except that the Reality Bomb wasn't normal circumstances — that's kind of the dramatic point of that episode, that a mere mortal like Davros is about to achieve something that even the gods couldn't.
Furthermore if he was able to defeat them wouldn't he stop the Cult in the 1930s in such a way that they would all die and therefore there would be no Caan going back in time to rescue Davros (it would be very unlikely that only Caan would have survived again) hence no reality bomb.
Even if the Trickster stopped the Cult of Skaro in the 30s, the Reality Bomb was detonated in another universe (the main continuity) and spread to every universe. The Trickster couldn't prevent it from happening if it were in another universe.
The bomb was stopped in the main reality. Also Donna's world is the main reality, with its history changed if it was some different world were there was no reality bomb then donna would not have to go back and change it so that she met the doctor.
Donna's world was an alternate timeline shooting off from the main timeline. That alternate timeline had to be collapsed in order to restore the main timeline, with the Doctor and his friends, so they could stop Davros.
Meanwhile, how do you know how the Trickster would have stopped the Cult?
This was written out of time by the Time Cracks.
Also the CyberKing wouldn't be written out as the time cracks would never have happened in this reality due to the doctor having died before the Tardis was blown up.
It hadn't been written out of time by the cracks yet. When it was erased, so were the events of The Stolen Earth, so the whole issue becomes irrelevant.
Why would the Trickster (or his Brigade, for that matter) stop the Cult of Skaro/Pyroviles conquering Earth, when they allow the Titanic to crash, the Sontarans to invade, the humans to be turned into Adipose, the MRI machine to irradiate the entire Earth, etc all of them events just as bad (particularly the Sonataran invasion), if not worse, than the cult of Skaro trying to revive the Daleks/Pyrovile invasion?
The Sontaran invasion wasn't just as bad, because Torchwood stopped it from killing everyone. The Trickster presumably knows a lot more about what has to be stopped and what doesn't than we do.
It could be argued that since Donna's World is an alternative timeline, only events that occurred after the point of change would be affected. In other words, the Daleks, Cybermen, Pyroviles, Carrionites, etc. would still have an echo of the "real" Doctor shaping events as originally set. Or it could be said that events that happened before Donna's world (The Battle of Canary Wharf, the Pyrovile incident, and the Carrionite incident) would take longer to assert themselves. This could also presumably create a "weaker" reality in Donna's world, leading to an earlier collapse from the Reality Bomb, and allowing Rose to enter that reality more easily than her own.
  • Donna lives in Chiswick in West London. Presumably, the job with Jival Choudhury is also in Chiswick, as Sylvia says at the beginning of the episode that "it'll only take a minute" to turn right and see him. The Thames Barrier is on the other side of town 13 miles away in the Docklands area of East London. When Donna sees the web she follows it on foot, so how does she get from Chiswick to the Thames Barrier?
No indication is given where she started from (i.e., what pub they were at), nor where she ended up (i.e., where UNIT recovered the Doctor's body).
  • If Mr Saxon never existed in this timeline, how was the Racnoss ship shot down?
Presumably someone else gave the order.
Could have been Torchwood.
Well, Torchwood shot them down in the original universe, so presumably they did in Donna's world too. The question is who gave Torchwood the order if not Saxon. And, as the first answer says, "someone else". It doesn't really matter who.
It was just the British Army.
Alien Threat killing loads of people. Protect yourself seems kind of obvious, no?
UNIT would have given the order.
  • In Voyage of the Damned, it's stated that everyone except the Queen and Wilf have left London, so why is everybody dead when the Titanic hits the earth?
Possibly because they've not gone far away enough to avoid the blast/radiation etc. Roughly how many nuclear bombs would an exploding nuclear storm be worth?, Also, everyone leaving could have been influenced by the Master confirming aliens, which wouldn't have happened in this timeline, as Yana wouldn't have been reminded. OR it could just be that in this universe, for whatever reason, the people of London decided not to leave.
  • The Doctor died in Donna's World, but he survived in the real world, so shouldn't he still be able to stop the reality bomb with the real Donna?
The parallel world was created "around" the real Donna--and there may also have been a parallel reality bomb.
No, it seems clear that there's one reality bomb in one universe that destroys all realities. The problem is that the alternate timeline of Donna's world seems to have overlaid the main timeline. Either there is no world where the Doctor and "real Donna" exist until Donna collapses the "Donna's World" timeline, or there is, but it's not the "main" one, and therefore you can't get to Davros from there.
Technically the question is irrelevant, as the "real" Doctor DID survive, and he DID stop the Reality Bomb.
  • If the Trickster stops catastrophes that affect his plans wouldn't he stop the bomb
The Reality Bomb is beyond even him. Davros explicitly says that he's going beyond the power of the gods here, and the Doctor seems to agree with him. That "dark apotheosis" is the whole point of the episode, as RTD has explained.
It is not uncommon (indeed, it's a rather popular trope) for the evil schemes of villains to backfire and spiral out of control.
  • Also where are the daleks. If the stars are supposed to be going out because of the reality bomb then in order for the bomb to work wouldnt the daleks have snatched the earth and thus Donna and Rose should be living under a Dalek ruled earth. There would be no reason for the Daleks not to use Earth as it is weaker now without the Doctor the Valiant, Torchwood Sarah Jane and Martha.
The Daleks snatched the Earth only in the main reality, not in every reality. (They had no reason to snatch any others, even if they could.)
  • The stars were going out in the alternate reality, but would the Doctor be dead so he wouldn't have been able to stop the Final Experiment so it would have gone through and Dalek Caan wouldn't have gone and rescued Davros.
It was said in the main reality that the blast would spread to all realities. But the bomb was stopped in the main reality.
  • The sound and shaking of the Royal Hope disappearing is heard before it actually vanished, whereas in Smith and Jones the sound was heard during the incident.
Different perception of the same incident. It might take a long time for sound waves to trvel from the hospital to her office, but no time at all if you are in the building.
  • How is it possible for the Doctor to die too quickly to regenerate?
In TV The End of Time the Doctor states that regeneration is impossible if he dies before the process can start. A sudden death, perhaps an impact injury while being caught up in the flood, could have killed him in this instance. The only time the Doctor has been declared dead in a regeneration episode was in the 1996 TV movie, but his body functions may have been greatly slowed by the anesthesia.
The possibility of the Doctor dying forever is also necessary to maintain dramatic tension, otherwise the "Superman as God" dilemma arises. In recent years there have been several references to the possibility that the Doctor can die, without regenerating. For example, the Ninth Doctor expresses a fear of dying in TV: The Unquiet Dead.
And there have been references in plenty of classic episodes and non-TV stories as well, all the way back to The Deadly Assassin, telling us that there are a wide variety of ways that Time Lords can die and not be able to regenerate.
Since the Doctor likely died by drowning it's possible that he did regenerate while underwater, but then drowned again, and so on until all his regenerations were used up. This may be why the Doctor's face is covered when the paramedics retrieve him, it may actually be the 13th Doctor.
He 'dies' in the Impossible Astronaut, by being shot twice before being able to regenerate, and the universe believes it, therefore it must be possible for him to die without regenerating.
In the Eleventh Doctor's case, though, he was out of regenerations until the Time Lords gave him more energy
  • The Doctor revealed that the Nuclear Storm drive would wipe out all life on Earth. This is incorrect as it only destroys London.
Someone on board the ship could have prevented it having such a bad effect - perhaps Astrid or Frame. This can possibly be proven by the fact that the Titanic pulls up in the news report. Although in real-life this is due to the fact that it was the same footage from The Voyage of the Damned, if taken from an in-universe perspective, someone might have tried to pull-up the Titanic, and although they ulitmately failed, it wasn't a direct impact, and so the effect were reduced.
In The Voyage of the Damned, the Doctor could have been explaining what could happen in the worst-case senario, i.e. a full impact.
It's also possible that the Doctor exaggerated or was mistaken.
Or, in TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? it's established that the Trickster intervened during this time period to prevent world-ending catastrophes caused by his meddling; perhaps he did so in this case as well.
Then wouldn't the Trickster make sure the bomb didn't happen as it would obviously compromise his plans.
This is already raised multiple times.
  • Why would an emergency government, greatly limited in funds already, install the probably expensive ATMOS in all its vehicles?
The UK government doesn't install ATMOS nationally. That's why Britain is not as strongly affected by its activation. This is stated in dialogue.
  • Why is Captain Jack transported to Sontar?
For study, most likely. Invincibility would be a handy asset for Sontaran soldiers.
It might have been his only choice as the ship was being blown up by Torchwood and the teleporters to Earth disconnected for some reason.
The beetle was part of the Trickster's brigade - perhaps the Trickster stopped those invasions. And once again, in his previous appearance it was established that the Trickster intervenes to prevent world-ending catastrophes caused by his meddling if the alternative would be more chaotic. This can apply to all post-Runaway Bride incidents directly caused by the Doctor, except for the Master trilogy, which is discussed below. Alternatively, for the Pyroviles, there planet was never taken in Donna's alternate reality, so they didn't crash to Earth. (Which mean's it's possible in the alternate reality that Pompeii was never destroyed.)
In DWM 438, it is suggested they were stopped by UNIT and the Roman Empire
  • What about the reality bomb though surely that would compromise his plans more than any other alien invasion and he would do something i.e. stop the bomb or put time back to its normal place.
This could be how Rose ended up in Donna's alternate reality. Remember she said "this is wrong, this is all wrong".
This is already raised multiple times.
Same rationale as above; the Trickster likely intervened. Also, some of the events depicted in Series 1 of SJA may not have happened, or happened differently, due to the collapse of UK society and the destruction of London which is where most of the adventures took place.
  • Donna looks at the sky and the stars were disappearing. It is also revealed the same happened in Rose's universe. If the stars got destroyed, it would take many years at the speed of light for the people of Earth to begin seeing the stars disappearing, and the stars would disappear very very slowly over many many years. By that time Earth would be destroyed before anyone can see it coming. This also leads to a big plot hole in later episodes as to why Rose began to search for the Doctor.
Could The Darkness be something that destroys not only the stars but also (or conceivably even rather) the light as it travels to Earth? If the Reality bomb cancels out Atoms, as said in Journeys End, stars would be some of the first to go as their atoms are widespread, whereas Earths' are compact(stars are gas or plasma, and earth is solid and liquid.
The reality bomb works by canceling the electromagnetic field that holds atoms together. In other words, canceling photons. This would also eliminate all light (which is also photons).
It would, yes, but only when the bomb wave reached it. The problem is if the very light that comes to our eyes right now (originated millions of years ago) is destroyed by the wave, then the wave must have catched up with us, which means we would be already shattered to elementary particles.
  • It's established that (at least prior to the March of the Adipose) the UK is the only part of Earth in dire straits after the "Titanic" crash. Why, then, don't the Nobles, and their friends, simply leave the country?
It's established that some countries have closed their borders, so presumably others did the same. Also, it still takes money to travel, something the Nobles and friends do not have. And it's also established that restrictions on movement have been established, suggesting they couldn't leave if they wanted to
Most of the survivors would be thinking the same, and most airports would have been desroyed in the explosion, meaning extremelly congested airports
It's also established that the military takes almost immediate control, as demonstrated by their forcing relocations. Most likely they declared total quarantine and martial law, and blockaded all traffic in OR out.
The are copious examples in real life where conditions in a country become dire, yet people are simply unable or unwilling to leave.
  • It is stated in Journey's End that the Dimension Jump needs 30 minutes to recharge. But Rose used it at the start and the end of her second meeting with Donna, which only lasted under 5 minutes.
Rose didn't use a dimension jump, she used the machine UNIT used to send Donna back in time.
  • What about the Lazarus creature? After Smith and Jones the next 'present day' episode is The Lazarus Experiment. Surely the Lazarus creature would have attacked the people of London without the Doctor to stop him?
It would not have happened. The Lazarus Project formed part of a plan by Harold Saxon,, to trap the Doctor and Martha. With the Doctor dead, Professor Yana would not have reverted to the Master, and so Lazarus didn't get funding for his project.
Even if it did happen, dozens of people killed by a bizarre monster before the British Army or UNIT could take it down would hardly be as big a story as all of the other things that happened.
  • It is never explained in this or either of the following episodes how Rose was able to manifest the Bad Wolf imagery.
As stated in The Parting of the Ways, the words "Bad Wolf" had been scattered by Rose "throughout time" as a reminder of the connection between herself and the Doctor.
Then shouldn't Rose have known about the darkness since series 4 and tried to warn the Doctor sooner like say when the Cult of Skaro first arrived.
The Parting of the Ways, just before the regeneration, establishes that Rose forgot much about her experience as the Bad Wolf.
It's also possible, remembering that Rose had access to the TARDIS in the alternate timeline, that she somehow got it to communicate with the real-time TARDIS and have it project the imagery, perhaps as a fail-safe in case Donna was unable to remember the message.
It is said in dialogue from Rose that 'one word in he wrong place and whole worlds can change". perhaps this is the case if she whispers it to Donna as he is dying, the idea spreads through to the real world
  • In Donna's universe, the Adipose still came to Earth. In this universe, the Adipose breeding planet would not have been lost (not stolen by the Daleks) and they would have no reason to come to Earth.
The Adipose breeding planet could have been lost or rendered unusable by other means.
  • How did Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria and Clyde all die if Maria and Luke had not yet met Clyde? Also, presumably Maria had no contact with Sarah Jane and Luke between the defeat of the Bane and the attack by the Slitheen.
It's never specifically stated when in the timeline Maria meets Sarah Jane, though it's generally assumed that the events of Invasion of the Bane and Revenge of the Slitheen take place after the Battle of Canary Wharf, but before Saxon's election. This episode would seem to put them before Smith and Jones. Also, with the Doctor being dead, it's made clear that Sarah Jane took on a more proactive role, so events may have progressed differently.
  • How did the Sontarans put their ATMOS plot in motion if Martha was dead (She was used as a clone to infiltrate UNIT) and Britain (Where Luke Rattigan is from and the main ATMOS factory is located) was economically crippled?
The Sonatarans could just have easily set up their plans with another genius and clone in another MEDC.
  • Wouldn't the swarm from Planet of the Dead still come through the wormhole in London causing the whole world to be turned into a desert?
This timeline ends (i.e., UNIT sends Donna back in time) before the swarm arrived on Earth.
Indeed, no stories broadcast after Turn Left should be considered because the alternate timeline ends with this episode.
But Planet of the Dead is supposedly set before Stolen Earth (Planet at Easter in 2009, and Stolen in May/June that same year), meaning it should've still happened during the span of this timeline.
  • The police would have noted Donna's death and reported it to her family. At some point someone in the real world would have noticed that there are two Donnas, one of them dead.
Since she stopped herself turning right, she never would have walked in front of the car (basically a paradox). Even still it is not definite that the police could identify her since Donna was not missing at that time, therefore her body would most likely be put on an "unknown" list. Also there's a possibility UNIT or Torchwood or whomever Rose works for would have covered it up; Rose might have even taken Donna's body back to Pete's World for burial. Or the alternate Donna might have simply vanished.
  • Once Titanic hits, Donna, Sylvia and Wilf go outside to see the explosion, but however their clothes are different so they must have changed them but this would take a few minutes, by then the mushroom cloud would have vanished.
The mushroom cloud caused by a nuclear storm may take a while longer to dissipate than that of a nuclear bomb.
  • When the Titanic hits, The TV gets cut off then they feel the shockwave, why the delay?
Light travels faster than shockwaves. Television broadcasts are at the speed of light. Same reason you see lightning before you hear thunder.
  • In Voyage of the Damned, everyone in London went to the countryside at Christmas. When the Titanic crashed, the only people who would have still been there is the Queen. Why do they apparently stay in this episode when there is nothing has changed since the Doctor's death to make it so?
  • If the Trickster is responsible for "fixing" the major events happening on earth, why did he so arbitrarily leave out the ones that happens in recent times? Based on the episode he 1) Stopped the Cult of Skaro in Manhattan in 1920s; 2) Stopped the Pyrovilles from conquering the Earth; and 3) Stopped the Carrionites in 1600s, and yet he did nothing against 1) the Sontaran Invasion (stopped by Torchwood); 2) the Spaceship Titanic and 3) the Adipose. Why the former three and not the latter three, and why the ones who occur in modern times?
The Trickster exists to cause chaos, those events which he still allowed to happen are an example of that chaos.
The major difference between the events the Trickster is hypothesized to have stopped, and the ones that he did nothing about, were that the former would have resulted in the total extinction of the human race, while the later were localized disasters (the Sontaran Invasion could have destroyed the human race, but if Torchwood was able to stop it the Trickster might have felt it unnecessary to intervene). From this we can infer that the Trickster needed the human race alive for whatever he was planning.
  • Why does the titanic only destroy London when in Voyage of the Damned it states that when the titanic hits the earth all six billion people would be killed?
This is already covered above.
  • How can the Migrant Bees be disappearing in Donna's World if there was never a Reality Bomb built there? Donna's World is affected by the Reality Bomb from the main timeline, so the Daleks' transmat should only be agitating the Migrant Bees in the Doctor's universe since they, too, are in that universe.
as with pretty much question from this page, it couldve happened for another reason
  • Would the death of a ninth of the US population really stop financial aid from being given?
I was thinking the exact same thing (although it's more like a fifth of the population), although I guess losing so many people would cause disruption as there would be mass mourning and the country would go into chaos as there are suddenly 60 million less jobs being carried out. But the thing that would make most sense would be to relocate the 20 million homeless people from southern England to America. There would be plenty of room and jobs as three times as many people there have just died.
  • How would Sarah Jane have gotten to the hospital on the moon? Also if she did, why was she not there in the original timeline? She couldn't have known the Doctor was at the hospital, so surely she would still have gone and tried to save the day in the original too.
    • It was suggested above that Sarah took on a more proactive role after the Doctor's death. Perhaps this newfound proactiveness saw her keeping a closer eye on more alien activity, which allowed her to see the same hints that brought the Doctor to the hospital.
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