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

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Lodger 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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• In The Lodger, the Doctor seems unable to tell how much earth currency is. "I can never tell..." However, in Voyage of the Damned, David Tennant's Doctor can easily convert Earth money into Credits in his head in a matter of seconds for Mr Copper. He seems to have a very clear idea about the value of Earth money. Unless this is just a difference in Matt Smith's Doctor compared to the 10th.

11 is also much less clear than 10 on what it takes to be a "normal bloke", and other Doctors have varied pretty widely on this in the past. Also, his babbling about which century is the recent one would have been completely out of character for 10.

Ten was also apparently unclear on financial issues occasionally. There were the "where do you get money?" bits in The Girl in the Fireplace and The Impossible Planet, though he may have been deliberately being funny.

This may not just be a personality issue. In series 2-4, we were watching a Doctor who'd been spending a lot of time in early 21st-century London, and travelling around with a human from that period even when he was elsewhere. Now, we're watching a Doctor who spent the last few years wandering through space and time without a companion, with only a few hours of that spent in early 21st-century England, before finally picking up a companion a few days ago. So, his memories of modern England wouldn't be nearly as fresh.

There is also the possibility that Eleven was being ostentatious on purpose, knowing full well that barging in and handing Craig a bagful of 3000 quid would cause Craig to let him have the room without objection much more surely than if he'd just had the normal amount of rent. It is after all implied that he also had something to do with the previous lodger suddenly getting a windfall inheritance from a previously-unknown uncle and moving away on short notice. If so, he basically secured his lodgings in the house by throwing around quite a lot of money.

• Isn't it against the rules in football to take a free kick that is supposed to be taken by another player?

It's perfectly within the rules. You see teams who line up more than one player in an attempt to confuse the goal keeper.

• The first time the Doctor contacts Amy since the TARDIS's dematerialization, she knows about the flat upstairs, even though the Doctor has not mentioned it.

It comes across quite clearly that they had been watching the house/flat for some time, with them discussing the problem of the time issues coming from there.

No, it doesn't. The Doctor reveals the only reason why he went there was the note from Amy, which her present self was still to write. And at the beginning they were trying to visit another planet. There is no evidence saying they've been watching or discussing it for some time and it was only one day later when the Doctor moved in.

Actually, the fact that Amy has an idea about what's going on IS the indication that they have been coordinating it for the past day. Along with the Doctor having vast sums of money, and the mysterious vast sums of money that had just gotten into the previous lodger's possession (which was the reason he left, and the Doctor could move in in the first place), it was perfectly clear that plot had been going on off-screen for a while before the Doctor moves in.

Correct, except that the previous flat-mate's windfall was arranged after the events of this episode by the Doctor going back in time to "adjust a will".

Either she got some indication form the TARDIS (image on the monitor or something of that nature), or the Doctor may have actually communicated in some manner with her off-screen.

• When the alien ship leaves, it should have left a hole in the roof of Craig Owens' house. How else would the people have been able to enter it from inside the house?

The perception filter meant they were probably teleported upstairs, just that they were made to think that they were walking up the stairs.

The stairs themselves could have been part of the ship. So when the ship left, it took the stairs with it and just left the intact roof.

• When the Doctor headbutts Craig, the ninth Doctor appears before the tenth.

He never said it would be in the correct order.

Surely nine normally comes before ten, or have I been counting wrong all these years?

It went 11, 9, 10, 8, 7, etc.

Maybe his ninth incarnation had just been on his mind for some reason. Again, there's no reason that he had to be seeing the Doctor's faces in chronological order.

Run through the sequence on freeze-frame and it goes 11, 9, 10, 8 and Lucie Miller, 4 and an Ood (!), 3, 2, then 1 - 7, 6 and 5 do not appear.

The images are mostly in order, but a little jumbled - it's Rose Tyler who appears after 8, and an Ood appears after 4, then at the end 11 appears with Amy (clip from The Beast Below). There's no indication that the images were meant to be transmitted exactly in order.

• Where did the doctor get three thousand pounds from? He doesn't carry money, and he has only been here for a day, so where did he get that much money?

From an ATM like on The Runaway Bride.

• If their future selves can leave their past selves messages to get them out of trouble, why don't they do that all the time they get into trouble?

Because normally when they get into trouble, they don't get messages from their future selves. They sent the message back knowing that it had previously arrived. If they sent it back knowing that it hadn't arrived, that would be interfering with their own time streams, and they wouldn't have existed to send it back in the first place.

It's generally "against the rules", for lack of a better term - as this had already been done there was little way of backing out it.

• In the TARDIS, Amy constantly seems to see something out of the screen and tries to tell the Doctor.

A silent, perhaps?

Amy doesn't try to tell the Doctor. She calls out to whoever/whatever she saw. Then seems to forget. Without giving away spoilers, she seems to have a very similar reaction near the beginning of The Impossible Astronaut.

She doesn't. I would myself prefer to believe she does see a Silent, as that would be a very cool easter egg for series 6, but she actually doesn't see anything and doesn't try to tell the Doctor about it, she's looking at the speaker (where his voice is coming from) and reacts to what The Doctor is saying - she's shocked and alerted when the Doctor says she's in big danger, she says 'hey!' to him each time when he dismisses her with 'hold on there' and 'you'll be fine, everything is fine', because she doesn't like it. That was all part of their conversation. The edit is maybe somewhat messy, so you can suspect something that's not really there.

• If this is a crashed ship belonging to The Silence (which it certainly seems to be, given that it's the same set and when The Doctor sees the set again in Day of the Moon he says he's seen one of these ships before, only crashed) and The Silence are indeed everywhere, the emergency program shouldn't have so much trouble finding a suitable pilot.

No, the Silence were everywhere in the 60s, then inadvertently ordered the kill-on-sight message. They're probably not extinct, but they'd be unlikely to find their way to a street in Colchester. Even with their tunnel networks, they'd probably be spotted.

So this is actually evidence that the Doctor's scheme in Day of the Moon worked.

• Why did The Doctor say that he doesn't know why he's called "The Doctor"?

Rule number one: The Doctor lies.

i thought rule no 1 was "Don't wander off!"?

It's normal for the Doctor to have several rules no 1. It's the Doctor we're talking about. Also, as Steven Moffat mentioned in an interview, rule one is not a part of some official rule list, it's just what you say when you want something to seem most important at the moment. 'rule two' would sound less significant.

• At the end, the Doctor says "There never was a top floor". So why is the top floor only visible to Craig and Sophie(& the Doctor and every other lodger)? Surely, it would have made more sense if the top floor was "invisible" to everyone.

The top floor was visible to everyone that the ship needed to be able to see it. All the passersby could see it and knew to climb the stairs to help when asked through the intercom. Donna describes perception filters when she says "You know it's there, but you don't want to know it's there" TV:The Sound of Drums, so it's not that the top floor is invisible, it's just that no-one really wants to look.

Why would the builders built every single house with an attic, except one?

The Silence have great influence in infrastructure and building works.

• Who built the stairs that went to the top floor, that was never there?

The ship generates an illusion of a top floor and of the stairs leading to it. Just as the top floor never existed, the stairs never existed. They only seemed like they did.