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

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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.

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• 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.

Considering they have the resources to build themselves a fairly sophisticated laboratory, they presumably have enough resources and know-how to ensure a reasonably comfortable life for themselves, if perhaps not an ideal one.

• 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.

• The Doctor fails to destroy the Terileptils' escape pod and their underground lab. Does this mean both are still lying around in England somewhere, waiting to be discovered?

Presumably.