Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Pyramids of Mars

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Pyramids of Mars 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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• At one point, the Doctor, Sarah and Laurence Scarman hide in a priest hole in the priory. This is an anachronism that even the Doctor comments on, since priest holes were a feature of the Elizabethan era and earlier, and not of Victorian architecture. No explanation is given, however.

The designer of the priory could have put it in on a whim.

There are many structures built with features that are not typical of their primary style. Priest holes were known of during the Victorian era, so there's no reason why they could not have built one.

This an example of "Lampshading", a technique where a character acknowledges the convenience of a plot device

Laurence calls it a priest hole. That doesn't mean it really is one.

The explanation is given: the Doctor notes the building is a "folly", ie a building with impractical / decorative features, often in frivolous imitation of other types of architecture.

• The Doctor claims that only he can operate the TARDIS. This cannot be true as several others have been seen to do this in other stories.

He may be lying, but his tone does not really suggest that as a possibility; also, since Sutekh could see through all his other lies, it's far more likely that he is referring to some sort of security device that is malfunctioning or is turned off.

It's also worth noting that those stories came later. Up to this point, the only person shown to operate the TARDIS without the Doctor's help was the Master, another Time Lord. If this were a discontinuity, it would belong with the later stories.

Only he can operate the TARDIS out of the people involved in these events. Presumably in future when others operate the TARDIS it is because the Doctor has arranged things to enable them to do so, which he hasn't done and isn't willing to do for anyone involved.

• From where did Sutekh gain the mummies and all of the equipment he would need to build the war rocket?

He was sealed-up with a small amount of equipment, like the view screen, and some mummies to keep him occupied during his long imprisonment by the other Osirans. However, he had been planning his escape for centuries and with the use of his mental powers he was able to cannibalize the necessary parts he needed from this equipment in preparation for the day someone would finally stumble into his tomb. No doubt he also used Scarman to make some additional components and alter the programming of his mummies.

• Why bother to send Scarman back to England instead of having him build the missile in Saqqara, on his own 'doorstep'?

Saqqara is too densely populated. Scarman's estate was a much safer place to carry-out construction undisturbed.

• Where are Horus and the rest of the Osirans? Isn't their plan to merely imprison Sutekh a little short-sighted given the fact that the Earth was heavily populated at the time they captured him, and sooner or later someone was bound to break in to the tomb?

The novelisation of this episode states that a cult was started by the Osirans to stop this.

• The defenses within the pyramid on Mars seem a little lack-luster. Wouldn't it have been more prudent to have left an army of Horus's mummies to defend it from intruders?

Perhaps, but we do not know what resources and restrictions they had at the time. Especially considering they had already suffered the destruction of their home world, and the majority of their species dying at Sutekh's hand. They did lock him up after a great battle that took all that was left of their entire culture to stop him. So its unlikely they were in anything close to a good shape at the time.

• Sarah says that the complex design of the eye of Horus 'reminds me of the city of the Exxilons' But she was never in the city in Death to the Daleks.

Perhaps the Doctor shows her some pictures, as it was one of the 700 wonders of the universe.

She did see the outside of the city however, and knew the gist of it (various puzzles to overcome as defenses). That would seem to be sufficient to remind her of it.

She may have been referring to the symbols next to the doorways rather than the labyrinth. She did get to the see the symbols on the wall outside the Exxelon City and touched them, making them glow. Hence, the Doctor warning her not to touch anything.

• Rather conveniently, Sarah puts on a period dress before realising that they've landed in 1911.

Convenient, but not unreasonable. She puts on a dress that Victoria wore. Victoria was from 1866, so the dress was 45 years behind the times.

She states that she found it in the wardrobe. The TARDIS would have known she was going to 1911, and probably took pains to prominently display it and subtly tempt Sarah into trying it on.

• The Osiran warning is in English.

It's not clear that it was in English. The Doctor does the interpreting of the message from the pattern.

• Why bury Sutekh with everything that he needs to escape?

He was sealed-up with a small amount of equipment, like the view screen, and some mummies to keep him occupied during his long imprisonment by the other Osirans. However, he had been planning his escape for centuries and with the use of his mental powers he was able to cannibalize the necessary parts he needed from this equipment in preparation for the day someone would finally stumble into his tomb. No doubt he also used Scarman to make some additional components and alter the programming of his mummies.

• If Scarman controls the mummies telepathically, why isn't the Doctor spotted when he dresses up as one?

His actions correspond more or less with what the mummies were being told to do. Also, it would be a lot easier to control them collectively, rather than individually.

• The Doctor's extraordinary babblings over a puzzle in the pyramid, involving seven stitches, binary figures and centimeters, are mere showing off over an 'odd man out' puzzle (it's the one with the vertical stripe). It also contains a mathematical error: '120.3 [should be 20.3] cm multiply by the binary figure 10 zero zero..

The Doctor showing off occasionally is quite consistent with his character.

• Why does Sutekh leave his pyramid via the space/time tunnel? Why not simply emarge from it in Egypt and begin his reign of destruction there?

Rather than emerge in the middle of a desert, he uses the tunnel to go to a location which has already been set up as his power base since his servants have been there.

The Osirans presumably rigged the prison so that the time tunnel was the only way he could get out; perhaps in order to allow someone to pull the same trick the Doctor pulls on him as a kind of last-ditch effort to prevent his escape.

• Laurence Scarman displays a lack of common sense when he sees his brother. If Marcus had not been cursed by Sutekh, he would have been tanned after spending several days excavating under the African sun in Egypt.

He's just seen his brother emerge out of a portal, burn a man to death with a touch, shape shift into his normal attire, from his Egyptian clothes, and take control of a squadron of mummies, the fact he's not tanned is hardly going to be the first thing on his mind.

Remember also that the whole point of Laurence's character, and his fundamental tragic weakness in this story, is that he is unwilling and unable to accept that anything has happened to his brother despite the blindingly obvious fact that Marcus Scarman is dead and his corpse possessed by an alien being. This is just one of the many things that he forces himself to ignore out of trauma-induced denial.

• At one point the doctor states Osiran's have dome shaped heads, but Sutekh has a jackal shaped head.

The head itself (ignoring the ears) is rather dome-shaped. It's also possible that since Sutekh was unique, other Osirians' heads had a more pronounced dome shape.

In Egyptian mythology, all gods have all kinds of exotic animal-human hybrid bodies, each individual his unique own. Seeing as how the Osirians inspired the ideas of Egiaptian gods, it's quite possible all Osirians have dome-shaped heads (even Sutekh's head is dome-shaped, as the previous person mentioned), albeit each individual his own slightly different from all the others.

• After Sarah and the Doctor discover Laurence's body (part three), the Doctor says, "Four men have been murdered, five if you count Dr. Scarman." But the count is actually six men: Collins, Clements, Dr. Scarman, Laurence Scarman, Dr. Warlock, and Namin.

The Doctor has either miscounted or, more likely, is not aware of the existence of one of these. In particular, Clements spends most of the story running around doing his own thing separate from the Doctor and the others, so presumably the Doctor simply overlooked him.

• The Doctor and Sarah use the TARDIS to hurry back to Earth, to get there ahead of the radio waves the emanate from Mars. But since the radio waves are travelling at the speed of light, this is time travel: from the viewpoint of the Earth, the events on Mars haven't happened yet. So why not go back a bit further? They could materialize right after the TARDIS departed earlier, and have plenty of time to prepare the trap for Sutekh.

What does the speed of the radio waves have to do with anything?

The Trap only has a small window where its possible to be set up and sprung, specifically in the minute or so whilst Sutekh is traveling through the Space-Time tunnel, and thus vulnerable. Even if they had succeed in arriving at the precise moment they left (remember the Tardis isn't good for such precise trips at this point) then they would run the risk of being found by Sutekh's remaining robotic servants or otherwise attracting their attention. Even if they remained undetected, then it would be pointless as Sutekh simply wouldn't have entered the Space-Tunnel (if he can sense them extending it whilst he's in it, it stands to reason he could do the same from outside). It needs to be set up and sprung whilst Sutekh is already inside, as that's the only time his power is contained.

• In alternative timeline, Sutekh destroyed the Earth along with the universe. But doesn't it prevent some fixed points in time from happening (i.e. the death of the Eleventh Doctor in The Impossible Astronaut, destruction of Bowie Base One, existance of Captain Jack Harkness, etc), causing disruption of space and time itself?

As the show has shown, anyone with a time machine can prevent a fixed point of time (with some noticeable difficulty), the danger is it causes things to start to fall apart. Sutekh is a being of near absolute power, not to mention a sadistic omnicidical mad man. If his actions cause more chaos and destruction by accident, its just less work for him in the long run.

A fixed point is fixed, but it's also a point. If- for example- Neville Chamberlain arriving back in Britain with his "piece of paper" following the Munich agreement is a fixed point- i.e. its waveform has collapsed into an observed certainty by enough observers to make it extremely difficult to change without causing widespread paradoxes until resolved, then changing it directly is difficult/borderline impossible unless you have what are explicitly noted in the text as "tremendous powers ... enough to destroy the future" rather than simply 'shape' it. Additionally, fixed points clearly depend upon other points which may not themselves be fixed- you may not be able to directly alter the outbreak of WWII, but, if you can prevent WWI, then you can successfully change the whole course of twentieth century history and onward. As the Doctor indicates on several occasions, one of the key aspects of being a Time Lord is being able- whether through an innate sensitivity as the 21st century series vaguely implies, or simply through extensive research and study, as the 20th century series repeatedly shows, or through a combination of the two leading to an instinctive understanding- to identify which blocks you can safely pull out of the temporal jenga pile to achieve your desired result.