Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The War Machines

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The War Machines 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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• This is the story in which the Doctor is infamously referred to as "Doctor Who" by WOTAN. This is the only time on television that the Doctor is directly called this.

WOTAN perhaps refers to the Doctor in this way due to not knowing who he is. The Doctor may have given a false name at some point.

• Why does WOTAN stamp a big "W" on the boxes containing the bits of war machine? Isn't it a bit of a giveaway?

Perhaps so the otherwise anomynous looking boxes can be identified as belonging to WOTAN?

• In Episode 3, the War Machine that is ordered to kill the worker misses him completely, but the bloke obligingly drops dead anyway.

Depends on how the guns work. He could have copped a lethal backwash of radiation (in the same way a Dalek's gun in this period is rather defuse but lethal.

• Why do Ben and Polly go into the TARDIS at the end? If they think it's just a police box then surely they would think that they couldn't all fit inside.

One pushed/pulled the other.

• It seems strange that WOTAN can divine the meaning of "TARDIS".

Possibly he didn't work it out using his intellect. He might have already known somehow. Though that "explanation" would just answer one mystery with another. Or: WOTAN can read minds as part of the process of influencing them. Dodo is shown to be influenced by WOTAN almost immediately she sees it, so it could have read the definition in her mind. Also, WOTAN can sense the Doctor's "special" mind (hence WOTAN's determination to recruit him), so WOTAN might have got the definition from the Doctor.

Perhaps WOTAN had access to some sort of records or notes made by Ian Chesterton or Barbara Wright about their time with the Doctor.

• The man giving the presentation contradicts himself saying WOTAN is controlled by no one but goes on to say the professor and his team have it well under control.

• In episode four, the Doctor knocks off the end of a War Machine's gun arm with his cloak. Later, examining the machine, the Doctor stands up and whacks his head against it.

• How does the War Machine get up to the top floor of the Post Office Tower?

Big lifts.

• Sir Charles talks of Monday 16 July, which would set the story in 1962 or 1973!

Its possible at some point before this episode an calender change similar to the loss of 11 days in 1752 occurred.

• Why would the guard let the Doctor go up to see WOTAN?

Psychic Paper? Bluff? the guard was asleep? He called Sir Charles and convinced him to listen to him fairly quickly, the Doctor has some pull in the scientific community even now. Either that or Torchwood was watching the Tower and knew not to get in the Doctor's way.