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

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Doctor Who 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.
  • How is Grace supposed to know what a Neutron Ram is?
The Doctor often speaks in technical ways that his companions don't understand. Rose Tyler and Sarah Jane Smith pointed this out in School Reunion and Donna Noble throughout the fourth series.
My Theory here is that the Master is already seeping into the mind of Grace, possibly from the injury he caused to her forearm. Note also in that scene, you can see her skin beginning to discolor. I think that because the Master is in Grace's mind, she understands Gallifreyan tools and technology (the workings of the TARDIS' transdimensional nature).
She probably isn't; the writers are presumably just trying to suggest that the Doctor, already something of a flighty and absent-minded character, is overestimating precisely how informed about Gallifreyian tools Grace is likely to be as a result.
  • How could the Eighth Doctor possibly have got any Jelly Babies?
They could have been in the pocket of the coat he took or one of the lockers he looked through.
Most people don't keep anything in the pockets of costumes they're going to wear later at a party.
This person obviously did.
It could have been a costume this person has worn before, and the jelly babies were there from last time.
  • Jelly Babies are not available in America.
They are available in specialized import shops.
They could have been Jelly Beans, Gummy Bears or another gelatinous treat which the Doctor misrecognized as Jelly Babies.
The Fourth Doctor had previously called a variety of different sweets "Jelly Babies", when they clearly weren't.
  • Why does the police motorcycle drive at full speed into the TARDIS? Surely it would slow down as it was coming up to the wall.
Evidently, the motorcycle was experiencing malfunctioning brakes. The policeman can be heard alluding to his brakes.
We do not know the Time placement in relation to the Daleks, so the execution may have happened before the planet was destroyed.
It has also been suggested in War of the Daleks that another planet, not Skaro, had been destroyed.
Skaro was also "lost" in the Time War, so it was probably brought back some how. Even after the Time war, it still existed, as shown in City of the Daleks.
There could be a New Skaro, similar to New Earth
I, (who consider every Doctor Who Novel, Comic Book, Video Game and Audio stories as non-canon,) always believe that Skaro wasn't destroyed in Remembrance of the Daleks but was instead completely burned and devasted (as we see it in Asylum of the Daleks and maybe even by its orange color at the start of this movie). I also made the theory that the master was put on trial onboard the Parliment of the Daleks (from Asylum) but that would seem to go against the Doctor's statement : It was on the planet Skaro that my old enemy, the Master, was finally put on trial. Then again, you could make the argument that the Parliment's ship was either docked on the ground of the planet of (more likely) flying in its low atmosphere.
  • The idea of the Doctor being half-Human on his mother's side is not supported by any other televised episodes.
The Forgotten suggests that it may have been a ruse.
I actually have noticed a possible clue that could serve as an argument to support the idea that he is half-human : Have you noticed that every time we see another time lord regenerate (in the show), it always goes perfectly fine with no signs of trauma, unstability, fatigue, amnesia or any major identity crisis... whereas the Doctor would regularly have multiple kinds of 'post-regeneration stress', sometimes going as far as to say that the regeneration 'went wrong' or 'is failing'. (What does that even mean, by the way?) Don't you think it's weird, that the Doctor always has trouble with his regeneration but nobody else does?
Romana's regeneration in Destiny of the Daleks depicts her "trying on" what appear to be different species.
Immediately prior to his regeneration, the Ninth Doctor jokes to Rose that he might not return with a humanoid shape.
Both versions of Human Nature hinge upon the fact that the Doctor can indeed become Human through the use of a Chameleon Arch. Perhaps either the Seventh Doctor used the
Arch for some unknown reason late in his incarnation or the Eighth surreptitiously used it
off screen shortly after regenerating?
On the other side of the argument, Journey's End suggests that half-Humanity would create a fundamental flaw in the Doctor's makeup, and prevent him from regenerating.
That flaw was part of the human-Time Lord 'meta-crisis', which is a completely different, and largely unexplained biological event.
Regeneration was not a natural biological function for a Time Lord. Their biodata was altered to allow it. It is possible that the same was done for the half-Human Doctor when he was born.
However, the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor expresses a level of disgust at being part human, why would he have this disgust if his original incarnation was half-human?
The Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor's physical humanity is manifested in a different way than the Eighth Doctor. Meta 10 has only one heart while Eight is shown to have two. We know from Journey's End that for a Time Lord, the having two hearts plays a key role in being able to regenerate.
The Tenth Doctor is also outright stated by his successor incarnation to have "vanity issues", and in general is marked by a general arrogance, hubris, and lack of humility that gradually builds to a borderline God-complex when not sufficiently checked. It is quite possible that he would rather deny his "inferior" human genetic side in favour of emphasizing the more impressive Time Lord / alien side.
It isn't supported by any other televised episodes, but it isn't contradicted either. And it is supported by some other sources (notably Lungbarrow and The Gallifrey Chronicles). The only source that contradicts it is The Forgotten—and, even if you take that as a definitive statement, you're talking about one comic book contradicting the TV movie and a slew of novels that all preceded it, so it's hard to say that the discontinuity belongs to the TV movie.
The problem does not really lie in the fact that the Doctor stated he was half human. After all the Eleventh Doctor admits that he lies frequently (Rule 1) and ontop of that the Doctor had only recently regenerated, something which is known to mess with his mind to a certain extent and cause him to act strangely. So him stating he is half human is actually easily explained away. the real problem lies in the fact that the Master not only states it but ties the fact that the Doctor is half-human to the opening of the Eye of Harmony which requires a human eye, thus adding validity to the whole notion. Having said that the Master had just been exterminated and was falling apart as it was, plus he is afterall insane, so he could've been mistaken or equally not known really what he was saying. that leaves us with the fact that the Eye of Harmony requred a human eye to open it at all. NO idea how to explain that one i am afraid
AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element goes a way towards explaining it. In that story Evelyn's retina is scanned and add to the Matrix (IIRC) so it could be used to bypass security systems.
It should be noted that the Doctor being half-human does not really contradict anything that was revealed about him in the classic series, and technically speaking any contradictions in future episodes are technically discontinuity issues with those episodes rather than this one.
  • The Doctor displays superhuman strength after his regeneration as he is able to pound down a thick steel door. He has never been shown displaying such physical strength before or since.
In The Green Death the Third Doctor showed immense physical strength.
Immediately after regenerating, the Fourth Doctor was able to chop a brick in half in Robot.
The Tenth Doctor was able to fall from an immense height in The End of Time.
The Eleventh Doctor was able to hang on to the TARDIS by little more than his fingertips, whilst it was in flight in The Eleventh Hour.
  • Why would the Master speak with an American accent?
Every body has an individual voice. Voices cannot be chosen.
His previous takeover of a person's body in The Keeper of Traken resulted in him speaking with the man's voice.
The Master even mentions that he didn't realise who he was at first, "with the walking and talking".
Voice is different to accent. The voice is part of the body, accents are not. Accents are part of social learning. These "explanations" are incorrect.
He's not American, but he's also not British. Why shouldn't he speak with the natural accent of the person he took over?
  • The Doctor died in his seventh incarnation in the BBC webcast Death Comes to Time. How can he be around to transport the Master's remains?
Death Comes to Time is generally considered non-canonical for this reason, although the events of the story are referenced in a couple of novels from that period.
DCtT is considered non-canonical for a lot more reasons than that. It's clearly in an entirely separate continuity from everything that came before--there are only a handful of Time Lords, they're god-like beings who can change reality on a whim, they're mostly in hiding on 20th century Earth, they're trained individually and then elevated to Time Lordness by the Kingmaker, etc. Also, if you paid attention, at the end of the story, _all_ of the Time Lords have either died or ascended to Godhood by the end (except for brand-new Time Lord Ace). If you take it as canonical it's the end of the series.
It is also possible that the seventh Doctor's body was resurrected by the Time Lords in the same way that they resurrected Rassilon, and or the same way the Saxon Master was resurrected.
Death Comes to Time was released several years later. So the discontinuity is really with that story and not this one.
  • The Seventh Doctor holds the sonic screwdriver the wrong way round.
Perhaps it worked both ways.
Nope, Sylvester McCoy had admitted himself that he was holding it the wrong way, in one of the 2005 Doctor Who Confidential Episodes. The screwdriver was blurred to hide the error.
Or perhaps it DOES work both ways despite being held in the "wrong direction".
It is a SONIC screwdriver; it works through soundwaves. Soundwaves do not only travel in one direction. If anything, it is the idea that a sonic device could only possibly work in one direction that would be the real question mark.
Also, Sylvester McCoy is hardly a real-life expert in Gallifreyian sci-fi technology whose statement should be considered the final word on the subject. He was holding the prop "the wrong way round" in reality, but that doesn't mean the in-universe speculation that the device works both ways can or should be so bluntly and easily dismissed.
  • When the Master was executed, the Daleks sounded completely different to Daleks we have seen in the series.
Some Daleks sound different to other Daleks. If you listen closely to past Dalek stories you can hear the variation of the voice pattern.
Daleks have never been portrayed as clones, except perhaps for those seen in The Stolen Earth.
The Daleks are also known to work with other races (such as the Ogrons) so it's possible another group did the actual termination. It might also have been Davros.
It couldn't have been Davros because you hear an echo of many Daleks and plus Davros doesn't sound that high pitched
Copyright reasons. It would have cost a small fortune to use the Dalek voices.
  • Why would the Daleks be trying the Master in a court of law for anything, crime or not? Why would the Daleks hold a trial of any kind, much less allow the Doctor, their greatest enemy, to come pick up and then transport the remains of the Master?
Russell T Davies writes, in the Doctor Who Annual 2006, that Romana II, in her capacity as President of Gallifrey, was in peace negotiations with the Daleks, and that these included The Act of Master Restitution. Though details of this Act are not offered it can be inferred that this involved delivering the Master to the Daleks, on the provision that he be legally tried, rather than executed outright. The Master's demand that the Doctor return his remains to Gallifrey may have been a legal right that the Daleks, however uncharacteristically, chose to honour. Of course, the Time Lords later resurrected the Master, so who knows?
The Daleks have, at times, behaved subserviently, as long as it helped further an ulterior motive. In The Power of the Daleks, they are initially docile, and quite happy to help the humans. Likewise, they begin The Daleks' Master Plan as allies of Mavic Chen, only to betray him later. In Day of the Daleks, as well, they are not simply "evil"; they collude with Humans to achieve their greater ends. It's reasonable to assume that their dealings with the Master might have been part of some greater plan to lure the Time Lords into believing they could be allies.
Some spin-off fiction has suggested the Master was in cahoots with the Daleks and that this was an elaborate trap for the Doctor. Bearing in mind that the Tremas incarnation of the Master when last seen in Survival was suffering from the cat infection the Master may have decided he needed a new body anyway - so why not try to steal the Doctor's remaining lives?
While it does seem a bit slimy that the Time Lords resurrected the Master after the Daleks went out of their way to honor his right to be buried on Gallifrey, it's not at all out of character with the Rassilon we saw in The End of Time, or the Romana we saw during the last time war in The Ancestor Cell.
Aside from the Doctor (who can reasonably be considered fair game by the Daleks at this point), even the Daleks are probably wary of summarily executing a Time Lord without at least a veneer of legal justification, as doing so might offend a powerful enemy that they may not at this point be ready or willing to take on. They're maniacs, but they're not completely stupid maniacs.
  • At the beginning, the Doctor sets course for the "Rassilon Era". But the Master, at that time, had not been born yet, let alone died.
The Rassilon Era likely denotes the era that the Doctor and the Master are from in much the same way Anno Domini denotes time after the birth of Christ.
In fact, the show has clearly given exactly such dates (and the BFAs have added a bunch of other instances). For example, in The Deadly Assassin, we learn that the Master was recovered from Tersurus in 6241.1 Rassilon Era.
  • How did the Master gain the ability to paralyse people with his spit and why did it not affect Grace so badly?
The Master was in the form of the snake. The paralysis spit was an ability of the snake. Bruce's body was simply a vessel for the snake.
We've never been given a full inventory of Time Lord abilities. For all we know the Doctor might possess the same ability and be unable to/unwilling to use it.
maybe the doctor can't because he's half human!
The Time vortex, when seen, can be seen as existing in space. Somehow, the Time vortex is a physical existance somewhere in the universe, meteors travelling through space can fly into the vortex, only to be deposited at some period in the past or future.
  • Evidence seems to state that the "Old Master" was the Ainley Master from the TV series, but how did he escape from the Cheetah World?
It is stated in First Frontier that he was able to recover enough to teleport from the planet.
Other "evidence" also suggests this was a different incarnation of the Master altogether, since we do not know how much time has elapsed since Survival.
Even if you ignore the novels, it's possible that the Master finally gave in and decided to use his Cheetah power to teleport home, at which point the Chancellery Guards immediately arrested him. (Rumor has it that this was Segal's explanation, until he learned that this would contradict the NAs. Since he'd just made the rabid fans happy by saying that the NAs explain why Ace isn't around at the start of the movie, he didn't want to take that away.)
  • During the "end of the world" montage sequence, it appears as if it's midnight, or a least evening, at different locations around the world at the same time.[1]
This is presumably some kind of time-related issue. The Eye is perhaps not just destroying Earth at midnight on San Francisco time, but is wiping Earth out of history altogether.
  • Why, during the surgery, were they so adamant with going through with the procedure that ultimately killed the Seventh Doctor? Since he was alert, coherent (even if claiming to be an extraterrestrial), and had clearly refused consent for the procedure to proceed, why did they continue? Certainly Grace, as a seasoned surgeon, would have realized that would have opened the hospital up to charges of malpractice -- at best -- by performing an unnecessary exploratory surgery against the explicit wishes of the patient.
In times like this, patients are subjected to everything and anything to save their life and so the doctor's wouldn't have listened.


  • Given the fact that Gallifreyan blood is shown to be completely dissimilar to any known species on Earth, (as seen in Spearhead from Space), shouldn't the medical staff have been wary about just who (pardon the expression) they were dealing with with a simple blood-type crossmatch?
Same as above comment, the doctors were too concerned with saving his life to worry about a simple blood issue. If there was a problem, then it was probably being dealt with off-screen but nothing could be done as the doctor left.
  • The Doctor actually dies and then regenerates hours later. This is reinforced by the Eighth Doctor saying, "was dead for too long". It's been mentioned many times that a Time Lord cannot regenerate if he fully dies first. So why could the Doctor regenerate hours after death?
He could have been describing a healing coma, which are said to resemble death to humans.
It's worth remembering that at this point the Doctor still has a rather spotty recollection of precisely who he is and what has happened to him; the scene in question kind of plays as him having bursts of memory about the process without him fully understanding everything about that process. So he perhaps doesn't fully get that he wasn't completely dead, but doesn't yet have the (self-)knowledge to explain it any other way.
Alternatively, he could just be dumbing it down a bit for Grace's sake. It's not like she's got an MD in Gallifreyian medicine after all.
In Heaven Sent the Doctor reveals that even when too injured to regenerate a Time Lord body will keep trying for some days. Perhaps the Doctor’s body kept trying to regenerate but only could actually do so once the anaesthetic had worn off.
  • Why didn't The Seventh Doctor check the TARDIS monitor before exiting the TARDIS.
Since when has the Doctor checked the monitor before exiting. He even mocks River Song in The Time of Angels about checking the atmosphere by sticking his head out the door and saying something like "air breathable, early afternoon, chance of rain later".
Since the Master is clearly luring him into a trap, and has just been messing about inside the TARDIS controls, it's highly possible that he did something to the TARDIS monitor, meaning that the Seventh Doctor has to see what's outside in person.
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