Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Witch's Familiar

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 The Witch's Familiar 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 did Davros get the confession dial? how did it end up in a box along with the sunic-glasses (yes, I just coined a phrase)

Davros states that Colony Sarff confiscated it.

• When Missy says she only has "a pointy stick", what about the knife you see her carving the stick with? She has the knife still so why is she carving the stick?

She's probably being cheeky.

• How did the Doctor a)get control of Davros' chair? b)manage to fit in Davros' chair?

a) probably by force b) why shouldn't he?

a)speaking of "force", Davros' chair was surrounded by a forcefield b)Because the chair was specifically made for Davros, who has no legs. Whereas Capaldi has long legs.

Good point if Davros has no legs why there be all that empty space where his legs should be unless he had legs in Genesis but had lost them by say Remembrance.

In Genisis its stated that Davros can't live for more than 30 seconds with out his life support but how not die then the Doctor takes out the chair? I out of it for way longer than that.

It's been a looong time since Genesis! Presumably, the technology has advanced considerably, as has the rest of Dalek technology.

a)Many force fields work against energy weapons but not against physical force (such as the Doctor grabbing Davros and yanking him out of the chair). b) Although Davros had no legs, it doesn't mean there isn't room underneath for the Doctor to put his legs - especially if he just removed some bits of tech that might have been down there.

• The Daleks understood what "mercy" was in their very first chronological story, Genesis of the Daleks (TV story).

Did they? Here's a direct quote from a Dalek in that story: "“Pity? I have no understanding of the word. It is not registered in my vocabulary bank”.

A Dalek says Mercy in The Big Bang! Written in 2010.

The Doctor did not witness that so it makes sense that he is surprised in this story to hear that.

Daleks have begged for mercy before. They might not 'understand' a concept, but they know the word and they use it when they think it could help to survive. So I'm also surprised that the Doctor was surprised...

Remember that the Doctor realises that in order to teach the Daleks the meaning of mercy, he has to undo what he did and save the boy Davros. So it was, indirectly, the Doctor who taught the Daleks to hate. So now he as to teach them mercy, or at least, sow the seeds of mercy in Davros' mind. So in the time stream in which he didn't save Davros, he is still saved somehow and his Daleks have no concept of mercy, as in Genesis. But in another time stream in which the Doctor did save Davros they do have at least the germ of the concept in their minds. Timey-wimey stuff. Makes for some interesting future stories - good Daleks?

What makes you think there even were two different time streams? No such thing is mentioned in the episode. Moreover, in DWM column Moffat implied that Davros knew all along that the Doctor'd saved him, while the Doctor didn't know it, because he hasn't saved him yet, and it was tricky to write the dialogues so none of them could mention anything to contradict the other's version.

There are a couple of things to suggest different time streams. "Davros remembers" - just what he remembers is never specifically stated, but the strong implication is that he was abandoned to die. Otherwise why would the Doctor be ashamed? Secondly, Clara's cry for mercy translated by the Dalek casing as a plea for mercy. The Doctor is surprised and wonders where this comes from. He realises that it is because he put it there by saving the Dalek creator eons ago. He then has to go back in time and do exactly that.

• Which begs another question. Why does Davros not remember the Doctor in Genesis? Different faces, sure, but he would remember a time traveller and the Tardis. After all, he extracted all this info from him under torture.

It may have originally not happened by the time the Fourth Doctor was sent to Skaro. We learn in The Name of the Doctor that, in one timeline, the Eleventh Doctor died on Trenzalore. He would have to receive a new regeneration cycle and alter the outcome of the Siege of Trenzalore first before the Twelfth Doctor could do any of his travelling, and thus encounter the young Davros. (However, Twelve appeared in The Day of the Doctor - maybe by that point, the Doctor was already taking steps, knowingly or otherwise, to ensure his future, allowing the new timeline to gradually seep through the overlap the old one).

a) he probably couldn't see the TARDIS that well with all that fog and b) the doctor only briefly mentioned that he was from the future - something young Davros could have easily just shrugged off

• Was there any explanation as to why pre-Time War series model Daleks were in this (and the prior) episode?

Davros likes the classic designs?

Rescued from the Asylum?

Perhaps the Daleks repaired some of the city's old production lines when they rebuilt the place.

They are low on resources so have to use old models.

How do we know for certain that this episode is post-Time War? All 'Time War survivors' have used the bronze casing, including the Cult of Skaro and the inmates of the Genesis Ark, who were secured away long before the war ended, so it's reasonable to assume that certain classes of Dalek used the bronze casing before the war. What Davros is doing in this story- re-engineering the Daleks of Skaro into a new hybrid form, which would probably make them seem impure in the eyes of *non* Skaro Daleks- seems more like it's in the gap between Revelation and Remembrance- i.e. early Time War- as, indeed, does Davros' manipulative behaviour, compared with the more bitter, revenge-fuelled megalomania of Remembrance or Stolen Earth. He may simply have run with the Twelfth Doctor's confessions about future Time War events, and no doubt filed the information away for future reference as he did in Genesis- perhaps explaining why, in Remembrance, he was racing ahead recklessly to achieve technological parity with Gallifrey?

There was this YouTuber from some time ago, Tardisarchives. He did quite a lot of Doctor Who-based videos, one of which was based on Davros' several dances with death and also trying to figure out how he escaped the Crucible. After he theorised how Davros had done so (and his reunion with the Daleks), he stated his thoughts that Davros might have got rid off the new paradigm Daleks from Victory of the Daleks and re-replaced them with the ones seen here.

• What caused the explosion in the sewers after Missy attacks the Dalek guard? The casing is perfectly fine afterwards when she stuffs Clara inside.

That doesn't mean that all systems are still intact, however. Certain parts may well have malfunctioned, just not parts that Clara needed and used.

• In Asylum of the Daleks (TV story) Oswin, while inside a Dalek casing, is able to both identify herself as "Oswin", and say that she is "human" and "not a Dalek". Yet in The Witch's Familiar, when Clara is inside a Dalek casing, she is unable to tell the Doctor that she's Clara, because Dalek casings ALWAYS translate that to "I-AM-A-DA-LEK!"

Oswin was able to hack into the operational systems of the Asylum and even erase any record of the Doctor in the Daleks' memory banks. If she could do this possibly she could reprogram the speech translators in her own casing. Remember too that all the daleks in the Asylum are irreparably damaged and insane.

Perhaps the casing limiting Dalek vocabulary were part of some new safeguards implemented at some point after Asylum of the Daleks - or at least after they got their memories of the Doctor back in The Time of the Doctor - to try and prevent something like that happening again.

Oswin was a human that was turned into a dalek - perhaps we can assume that the vocabulary limiter works differently in this case.

• Why would someone pretend for thousands of years that they were blind, but weren't?

I wouldn't say he's just doing it for the sake of doing it. There must be a reason, perhaps to do with his other injuries.

• Seriously though, were did the Doctor get the cup of tea???
  • His pockets are bigger on the inside?
    • What about the water, and kettle to make the tea?
      • I dare say this was the writers and/or production team trying to be 'too cleva by 'alf'. It was unecessary, did not drive the plot at all, looked really absurd and was showing off. If we want to take it seriously we can invent whatever explanation we like: the cup of tea is a Tardis, a projection from another time zone, prepared by Davros for the Doctor to convince him of his sincerity but never used, who knows?
  • I'm pretty sure the Doctor just used the old trick of his Missy previously illustrated: he carefully made use of the energy released by the Dalek shots to recharge the displacement capabilities of Davros' Dalek-casing-like chair (or a vortex manipulator, if he had one on, I don't remember) then leisurely made the tea and returned to that exact spot in space and time. We know how he (meaning either the Doctor or Moffat) likes to show off.

• How is Davros alive? He was lost in the Medusa Cascade at the end of RTD's run. When are we in his timeline?

As always with Doctor Who, there are contradictions whichever way you slice the cake (notably, a monitor which briefly shows clips of Remembrance of the Daleks and Journey's End, which, certainly, given Dalek technology, could easily be showing data from their temporal research into possible futures, but which obviously wasn't the intention), however, what makes the most thematic sense in fact is for this story to be set between Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks - at the end of the former, a be-handed Davros is being wheeled off to Skaro to meet the Supreme Dalek. By the latter, the Daleks on Skaro have been sufficiently mutated that off-world Daleks rebel against them, considering them impure, and Davros has taken over as Emperor. This story, which shows Davros on Skaro, working with the Supreme Dalek but not in charge of him, and conspiring deliberately to mutate the Daleks into a new form, seems to fit rather neatly into that gap.

As I've stated, there was this YouTuber called Tardisarchives who once did a video talking about how Davros was able to escape time after time and questioned his recent survival. He believed that Davros may have had an emergency temporal shift (having ruled out the possibility of an escape pod as he though it sounded too easy, Davros didn't seem to be anywhere near where one would realistically be and he created the Daleks so it's logical he'd have their technology). He also doubted that Davros had been working from behind-the-scenes during the time between Journey's End and now as there was no way he wouldn't make himself known and get revenge on the Doctor, instead thinking that Davros had just spent some time drifting through space until the Daleks found him following events including The Time of the Doctor where millions of them were killed.