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

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Doctor Dances doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

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• The phrase Schlechter Wolf, "Worse or Inferior Wolf", on the bomb is a direct and literal translation of Bad Wolf, but the German term is Böser Wolf, "Evil or Bad Wolf".

The person who put that there may be able to see the whole of Time and space, but that doesn't make them a linguist.

Is it not the TARDIS/Rose/Bad Wolf that leaves the messages?

This happens with the French Mal Loup, which should be Loup Mauvaise (I think). You're right, there is no good in-universe reason for this. Rose/Bad Wolf would have been able to translate the words correctly. The writers on the other hand...

• If Jack's vortex manipulator is working well enough to transport him from a space station in the year 200,100 to Earth in 1869, why doesn't he just use it to time-jump off of his exploding Chula warship?

People forget things under stress.

It is possible the ship was somehow attached to the device.

It is perfectly possible that the vortex manipulator had broken, just as it would after the jump from the spaceship, or that it didn't receive this ability until later.

Jack says in Sound of the Drums that his Vortex Manipulator only started working as a teleport after the Doctor upgraded it in Utopia. He could have time travelled, but without a teleport he would have just been left in space without the ship.

• If the Nanogenes are so advanced and, indeed, so small, why could they not have scanned Jamie's genetic structure and ascertained what a Human should look like?

Jamie was dead and the Doctor reasons that he was probably killed earlier that day so there wasn't much left of him to scan.

If Jamie was dead, his cells in his body would be dying off. The Nanogenes may have chosen to heal him first than to risk his cells fully dying first, something which they may not have been able to fix.

• If "dance" is a metaphor for sex, then why after discussing it do the Doctor and Rose literally dance?

Rose commented on the fact that Jack physically danced with her, so the Doctor wished to prove that he could too. Since Rose then had an attraction towards Jack, partially for the dancing, they then used "dance" as the metaphor. Had Jack cooked for Rose, they would have probably used the word "cook" instead.

RTD loves innuendos.

• If the Nanogenes are so amazing at healing everything, with the ability to re-write a whole race - why does the Doctor suffer so many losses? He has a time machine. Every time he has to regenerate - from Ten's "I don't want to go" to Nine, to the Classic Doctors - why didn't he simply travel to a place where nanogenes could fix him? Everyone who died for him - Jenny, Lorna, you name it - all could have been fixed up by nanogenes in a heartbeat.

Its stated in Asylum of the Daleks, that Time Lords are immune to Nanogenes, also just because they exist doesn't mean they are available everywhere, we have a cure for most diseases now, but have you ever tried to get hold of it in Africa? Existence doesn't always mean availability.

If Time Lords are immune to Nanogenes, how were they able to repair the burn on the Doctor's hand?

Those were clearly different types of Nanogenes, ones for healing and ones for the Dalek puppet converting. Also, it was only Amy's assumption he never needed the protection bracelet at all, she could be wrong and maybe the Doctor in fact isn't totally immune, it just takes Dalek Nanogenes much longer to affect him, that much longer that there were no signs of change until he eventually left the nanocloud area and never later, too.

• If mauve is the intergalactic colour for danger (see episode "The Empty Child"), why are the controls of the medical ship blinking red?

It presumably comes from a galaxy, where they haven't adopted this colour scheme.

It is an ambulance so the red could be to show that.

• If the Nanogenes gave the people who were "infected" by Jamie Chula warrior strength, radio control, etc., does that mean that the same people would have those things after the Nanogenes were "fixed"?

Yes, when they’re turned back to normal, they become pure humans again, something as advanced as a Nanogene, surely wouldn't make such a mistake twice.

• When the Nanogenes found Jamie and fixed him they went on to try to fix everyone else to be just like him. At the end the Doctor says he's using the Nanogenes to email the upgrade and return everyone to normal. But the Doctor isn't human, so why didn't all those people end up with Gallifreyian characteristics?

Do we know that they didn't? Perhaps we just aren't shown - they might well have two hearts!

The nano-genes didn't use the Doctor as a blueprint. They specifically wanted to use Jamie's mother, i.e. Nancy. So everyone would be fixed according to human genetics.

• When the Doctor realizes Nancy is the child's mother, he says she was 15 or 16 when she had Jamie, making her "a teenage single mother in 1941." But the episode is “set” in 1941 - Jamie would have been born in 1936 or so.

The Doctor could be just saying about the events now, not then.

Production Error.

Seems unlikely, as it was all in one sentence, the Doctor mentiones her age '5 years ago' and then calls her a single mother in 1941. If she was a single mother 5 years before that she would be very likely to stay that way all the 5 years since then, so he could simply be referring to her STILL being a single mother 5 years later, which is why she kept hiding and lying all that time.

• Captain Jack Harkness leaves his WWII overcoat behind at the end of the episode when the TARDIS lands on his ship and then when he gets on the TARDIS with it not in his hands, and doesn’t quickly go and grab it as we see him in the TARDIS in every single frame until the episode ends. However, he has his jacket in Torchwood and further appearances in Doctor Who.

He probably liked that jacket, so got a new one when he experienced World War II again during his long time on Earth.