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

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 Visitation 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. 

• Believing the Doctor and Richard Mace to be warlocks, the villagers attempt to burn them by setting fire to the mill. This is somewhat historically incorrect, as while persons accused of witchcraft were burned on the Continent, in England and Scotland they were more often hanged.

"More often", perhaps - but sometimes, they were burned. This is one of those instances.

They were also suspected of having the plague, so it would make sense to burn the bodies.

• During the fight in the first episode, the Doctor apparently loses his trademark stalk of celery from his lapel. But a short time later inside the barn when he goes behind a pillar, a replacement stalk appears in his hand.

The Doctor often carries an odd assortment of useful items in his pockets. The fact that it is in his hand indicates that we are meant to assume he picked it up somewhere, from pockets or elsewhere, and it was not simply an oversight by the production crew.

• The ornaments in Nyssa and Tegan's room disappear in episode four.

They were damaged during the destruction of the robot.

The TARDIS knew that Tegan was leaving, so it started cleaning up her possessions.

• The Terileptil Leader's refusal to accept the Doctor's offer of help seems rather irrational. Even if they do wipe out the human race, they will still face the prospect of a primitive existence on Earth, and will be forever in danger of the authorities of their home world recapturing them. Plus, isn't the whole Earth a bit big for just three of them?

It is acceptable to assume they were behaving rashly - they were fugitives after all.

They probably mistrusted the Doctor and assumed he would return them to custody.

• Doesn't it seem unlikely that the Terileptil could get scarring such as he had in only one place in the universe?

They probably didn't mean it completely literally, just that it was rare and where they were sent was the most common place for it to occur.

The implication is that it's some form of criminal-branding ritual. At various times and places in human history, people convicted of various crimes have been branded with a hot iron as part of their punishment (for example, in early colonial America, proven adulterers might face branding with the letter "A" as a form of public shaming); wherever they went, people would be able to see the mark that identified the crime they committed. Presumably Terileptil law proceeds in a similar fashion, and the Doctor recognises the scars the Terileptil Leader has received as being those given out to Terileptil criminals serving a sentence at that particular facility.