Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Big Bang

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 Big Bang 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. 

• This is a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey thing, of course, but how does the Doctor get out of the Pandorica in order to be able to tell Rory how to get him out of the Pandorica? If it's simply a case of somehow getting your future self to rescue your present self - well, this terrifying prison would appear to be about as effective as a chocolate teapot...

Well, to be fair, they never suspected he'd be out to free himself, and no one had a sonic screwdriver (which I'll admit was a bit anti-climactic, ie the ultimate prison foiled by a bit of sonic).

Indeed, if the goal of the Pandorica was to trap The Doctor, it is a reasonable strategy to have it open up in the face of evidence that The Doctor is on the outside trying to get in. DorianX 00:33, June 29, 2010 (UTC)

Short answer: Rory let him out. Long answer: it's perfectly consistent temporal cycle but presumably incredibly unlikely to arise spontaneously. Maybe the Doctor got lucky or it was a trick he could only employ because the Universe was on its way out. Maybe the energy of the Tardis explosion was keeping this part of the Universe alive and the Doctor's connection to the Tardis allowed him to play temporal tricks with the small corner of the universe that remained. BenAgain 08:19, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

It does make one of those weird time paradoxes that always turn up in sci-fi, but I think the thing about it being a terrifying prison is fairly legitimate. It wouldn't be possible to rescue himself without someone nearby on his side (Rory), a form of time travel (River's vortex manipulator) and either the power of the sonic screwdriver, or my reasoning, which was the doctors DNA carried in the screwdriver (as the doctor suggests it was programmed only to open with his DNA on the outside of it). Plus, the 'alliance' that locked him in was expecting that would stop the cracks appearing, thus they would've been able to guard it, and stop anything getting in or out.

• When Rose made contact with her past self in Father's Day the Reapers appeared, why didn't they appear when Amy made contact with her past self?

The reapers only appeared due to Pete Tyler surviving when he should have died, the amount of Rose's didn't matter.

The two versions of Amy were now different people - the present Amy wouldn't have remembered going to the museum and seeing the Pandorica.

Also, since the TARDIS is destroyed, this could also mean that time and space is destroyed. Since the Repears exist outside time and space, they may have perished along side everything else.

Everything occurs in a parallel universe, meaning the Reapers don't need to intervene.

The Reapers feed on damage to time. At this (subjective) point, the entire universe is being constantly destroyed at every single point in history simultaneously. The Reapers didn't emerge to feed on Amy's time-line crossing, because after 1,894 subjective years of this, the Reapers are possibly too metaphorically fat to move, let alone hunt.

Alternately, if at that point everything except the Earth had never existed, t may be that the Reapers never existed either.

Normally, the two touching Amelia's would have caused the Blinovitch Limitation Effect to come into play. (Remember that Rose never physically touched herself in Father's Day, at the insistence of the Doctor.) However, given the Effect is time energy, and space-time has all but collapsed, the residual energy would be incredibly low, maybe not even detectable. The Doctor had already noted time travel worked differently (the vortex manipulator, for one.) The temporal physics involved in the Blinovitch Limitation Effect may be different or completely ineffective.

This is false. The Doctor explicitly states in Father's Day that the presence of two copies of himself and Rose was what caused the weak spot in time that allowed the Reapers in when Rose saved her father.

You just answered your own point. The two copies of Rose caused a weak spot, only when Rose saved her father did they actually come down, because that was the anomaly. So, it was either the two copies allowed the reapers to notice/come into that time, but they only became a threat after Pete lived, or it was a combination of the two negative events that caused them to appear.

• The two Eleventh Doctors are able to touch.

Different incarnations of the Doctor have touched before without the Blinovitch Limitation Effect coming into play. Perhaps it works differently for Time Lords.

See the counter-arguments to the above point as well.

• The Doctor is exterminated by the Stone Dalek, but he doesn't regenerate.

It's firepower may not have been strong enough to kill him, just weaken him. Plus, it's possible that he halted the regeneration process long enough for him to get into the Pandorica, possibly meaning that you can't regenerate inside it.

To quote River Song: "The Doctor always lies." The Doctor didn't die, therefore he shouldn't regenerate

Indeed - when the future Doctor says something to the present doctor, he then collapses - then the present Doctor just pretends that the future one is dead (go back and look at his reaction)

• What caused the cracks?

It would probably be the TARDIS, possibly the cracks came from damaged time that gained from the TARDIS' repeating explosion, with itself repeating for many thousands of years, it may well have the cause of the cracks.

The Tardis exploding - have you not been watching?

I would think the cracks came from the eye of harmony being released and tearing apart the universe.

Ok, re-correct that, possibly the cracks came from damaged time that gained from the TARDIS nearly coming to exploding for two thousand years, it may well have been the cause of the cracks. The Eye of Harmony's an idea though (if it's still in the TARDIS somewhere).

The Doctor acknolwedges that the destruction of the TARDIS should not have led to the destruction of the universe, but dismisses this as a "problem for another day." The outside force which drew the TARDIS to Amy's wedding day and spoke of "Silence" falling somehow contrived a set of (presumably highly abnormal) circumstances under which the explosion of the TARDIS would have that effect.

• How is Rory alive again? Considering the timeline was restored and Rory was killed before he was erased.

When the Doctor leapt into the cracks, he and they were negated from time; therefore the timeline was reset so that Amy & Rory never met the Doctor, in other words the events of the entire series never happened until theyremembered them happening. Because they never went to 2020, Rory never died there. QED. Then how much else of series 5 is gone, also if they remembered them happening and as you said they then happened he should die there

There are two phenomena at work here and they seem to have different effects on the story. The Doctor's reboot of the Universe rewrote time in the standard way, modifying history so things that once happened no longer did. Anything that came about as a result of the Tardis explosion did not occur in the rebooted universe. So series 5 never happened. On the other hand, the crack seemed to have a much more minor effect on time. Things that were taken by the crack did not disappear from history, but seemed to disappear from the memories of history. Amy couldn't remember her parents, but she must have had parents or she wouldn't have been born. Luckily all our companions are time travellers now and therefore remember everything. BenAgain 08:57, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Was Rory always a nestene or was he human then his consience transferred to the nestene duplicate (aka like the human cylons)?

The Pandorica rewrote every point in history based on the extrapolation from the atoms that had been sealed inside it when the Doctor was imprisoned (He explains this when he introduces the concept of Big Bang 2), which implies that only very minimal net changes to history occurred. Anything actually "changed" is not the direct result of the Pandorica having rewritten it that way, but rather the indirect result of history "filling in the gaps" where the restored history is now anomalous due to the absense of the cracks or the Doctor. For example, the Amy of June 25, 2010 was recreated by the Pandorica with the memory of having no parents, because the Amy of June 25, 2010 had no parents. But the absence of the crack caused her parents to still exist, causing Amy, when she awoke on June 26, to be momentarily confused by the conflict between the parentless state of her memories as written by the Pandorica and the "parentful" state of her memories necessitated by history.

This is kind of what's said above, but the events actually happened in Rory, Amy and the Doctor's timelines, just not in the perception of the normal world. In other words, the universe was 'rebooted' and Rory and Amy sent back to when they first left with the Doctor. The universe was parallel, including Amy's parents being back and Rory presumably not being Nestene, but the events that caused the universe to reboot in the first place still had to happen in order for that to be the case. Amy and Rory's true memories were repressed, but the Doctor made sure Amy had memory triggers enough for him to have had to exist, and Rory remembers the truth after seeing the Doctor ("How could we have forgotten the Doctor?"). It all happened, in thier timelines, even if it may not technically happen in the new rewrite of the universe.

"Repressed" may not be the best word; it seems more like those memories were in something analogous to a state of quantum superposition, with two version of the memory both not-quite-existing (The version as created by the Pandorica, which included the Doctor, and the version necessitated by the Doctorless history, without him). Amy's unusual nature allowed her to "choose" (in the same way she failed to do for Rory) for the Doctor-ful memories to become the "actual" ones.

• Since when has a Dalek cared for its own safety, like the Dalek in this episode?

Firstly, in The Daleks , when a frightened Dalek clearly says "Stay Away From Me!" when attacked by ordinary humans. More recently, in Dalek - "Have Pity!" "Why? You never did!" - and countless other episodes since then when their eyestalks were impaired, and so on. A Dalek will naturally have a sense of self-preservation if it wants to remain alive. In this case, by the voice it was the Supreme - an ego-inflated model - and its forcefield was down, so that it could no longer rely on that for a defence. Then, when its last defence, relying on the compassion of its enemy, was broken down, like all bullies it was revealed to be a coward underneath its arrogance.

The Daleks in the Daleks were different in other ways to later Daleks. Other Daleks have only retreated because of logic not cowardice as they are meant to have no emotions other than hate not egoIf the Dalek believes that River, being a companion of the Doctor, is disposed to show mercy, then begging for its life needs be nothing more than a strategy to achieve its desired goal.

However, baseless hatred is impossible. It has to be based on fear, or jealousy.

That's true only for beings who aren't sociopaths. The Daleks, by human standards, are sociopathic.

• How does believing in someone make them exist if they were meant to be erased.

Because if you can remember something then it clearly existed or else you wouldn't be able to remember it.

Also, because it erased them from peoples' memories, so if you remember them they are no longer erased... that doesn't make much science fiction sense, but that's the explanation.

As I described further up (and despite how it's described) the crack doesn't seem to remove people from history it just seems to act as a perception filter, removing any record of people. So maybe all it takes is for one person to be certain you existed and you come back. Maybe Amy's better than normal at this (having lived next to the crack). Or maybe the Doctor's in so many people's memories that there's traces of him everywhere. Amy might have been the tipping point. BenAgain 08:57, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Additionally, remember that Moffat's big 'theme' here is fairytales or simply stories - isn't the best way of 'keeping someone alive' to tell a story about them? Amy restoring the Doctor by telling the wedding guests about him as a character in a story is comparable to Martha (in DW: Last of the Time Lords) restoring the Doctor by getting people to have faith in him as a messiah-like saviour. DeadWalrus 21:11, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

It's also possible (and more sciencey... well, for Doctor Who, anyway) that remembering somebody after they've been erased creates some sort of psychic connection that they can use to pull themselves back into the universe from the outside.

One way to look at it might be something akin to the observer effect in quantum mechanics. The Doctor, Rory, and Amy's Parents had all been erased, but the cause of this erasure also ceased to exist, and, thanks to the Pandorica restoring the prior state of the universe, many of the effects of their existences (Various effects of the Doctor's intervention; the engagement ring; Amy herself, as her parents had been erased) still remain. This places those erased beings in a kind of ontological superposition, in a sense both having-existed and also not-having-existed. By remembering Rory, her parents, and the Doctor, Amy breaks the superposition, forcing their existence to be the "real" state of the universe.

• How does a Tardis exploding cause this, the tardis broke up in The Mind Robber and the Daleks were going to blow it up in Journey's End. Alright something could have been done differntly here but still, no explanation is given.

In neither of those instances (I believe) was the tardis in flight. In this one it was. Please correct if I'm wrong but i would think that has something to do with it.

Like the Doctor, The TARDIS is a complicated anomaly in time: it exists at the beginning and the end of the universe, at the same time. The universe attempting to erase the TARDIS (that fought back using a time loop) may have been the cause behind this violent reaction. Then again, not even the Doctor knows what or why the TARDIS exploded, as stated in the final scene of The Big Bang.

Also the Tardis blew up from the inside, ie allowing the spacial-temporal 'crack creating' powers to escape.

Yeah, not all explosions are created equal. A simple explosion could just destroy the Tardis, but a chain reaction that fed off the Time Vortex could be an entirely different phenomenon. BenAgain 08:57, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

That and it was being controlled by an external force, which could have magnified the force of the explosion.

• How come the sonic screwdriver could open the Pandorica? I thought it had deadlocks.

I do not recall anyone mentioning the Pandorica actually had deadlocks, many other devices were mentioned but not deadlocks. Although I may be mistaken.

Doctor said in the last episode that its easy to get in, but impossible to get out.

If it's not made of wood, the Sonic will open it. Simple as that.

While it is easy to get in it surely can't be that easy that a tiny sonic screw driver can get into it.

The Pandorica did have deadlocks, but these were only from the inside to stop the Doctor getting out, not in.

The Doctor explains that he's recoding the Pandorica to heal Amy and re-open when her younger self touches it because of the DNA. Perhaps it was the same when it was coded to him, so that only his DNA being on the outside could open it (the perfect prison if you have no time travel). If this is the case, then the sonic may have carried and projected the Doctor's DNA.

• Why would the Alliance turn to stone when erased from time?

The Doctor stated that this is because they were an "after image" - like the footprint of something that never existed.

They are "fossils", anomalous remnants resulting from the fact that the universe is collapsing. We may assume that, had the alliance been erased in a method other than by the destruction of the universe itself, the fossils would not have formed.

• How come the Earth seems the same despite there being no stars? Without alien races this would have affected all history. This episode is overelaborate and harder to understand then the Matrix films. Which person made it? They must be on drugs to keep trying to make everything bigger.

The Earth seemed pretty consistent with real-world Earth, and as far as I'm aware, we haven't had any contact with alien races. So how exactly should the Earth be different?

Uh huh, but we aren't talking about the real world here - in the Doctor Who universe, I believe the present day Earth got to its present day state through an awful lot of alien contact.

The course of events had changed as well, there were Egyptian penguins, Himalayan Pharaohs, and other things wrong with the timeline.

But still many alien races helped (by accident) to create the planet, life and humanity. The first life on an otherwise uninhabitable Earth billions of years ago was only created by the huge radiation given out by a jagaroth spaceship exploding, the Fendahl manipulated the creation of humanity so that it could use it to take over etc. Also Earth wouldn't exist at all if not for the sun, as it was the gravitational pull of the sun that pulled the pieces together to form Earth.

The TARDIS, while burning up, is protecting the Earth, which is why it still exists. This could mean that it's holding the timeline of earth together despite the inconsistencies. Although clearly it's doing a pretty shoddy job.

For one, the earth is far from the same. But more importantly, the only sun we really need (from when the Doctor was locked in the pandorica onwards)

• How would married Rory remember Auton Rory's memories??

It is never explicitly stated how much Rory remembers, only that he remembers the Doctor. EltharionDrax 15:51, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Rory explicitly states "I was plastic". He absolutely remembers being an Auton.

Because he had been Auton Rory. The events of the episodes still happened in the personal timelines (or rather, the repressed memories) of Amy and Rory, so even though thier lives were re-written, including Rory being non-Auton, they did still experience those events from before the 'rewrite', as that's all it was, a change in the way the universe was rather than a change in what actually happened.

Alternately, River stated that they would "Wake up where (they were) meant to be", so perhaps he's STILL an Auton but just suppressed the memory. Or even, he's normal-Rory but his memories are that of Auton-Rory, in that his MIND woke up where it was meant to be - his body.

• Turn Left showed a dystopian alternate universe created because the Doctor never saved the world in Series 4. Shouldn't the world Amy wakes up in be similar, since the Doctor never existed?

Due to the Universe being slowly destroyed, all the alien races that would have invaded Earth in the Doctor's abscence never existed and as all the stars are gone. With only the Tardis explosion keeping the Earth warm, Earth is the only planet with life in the universe.

Actually, it's the same reason that Amy still existed when her parents were erased. In Lost terminology, where the cracks are concerned, "What happened, happened."Zythe 23:35, June 28, 2010 (UTC)

• Even if Rory was restored to existance, wouldn't he have still been killed by Restac?

He never travelled in the TARDIS as the Doctor never existed so he didn't go to 2020 to meet the silurians.

• If the Cracks never existed, how did the Doctor stop the Weeping Angels?

The Weeping Angels never existed, as the only lifeforms in the universe were humans. The reason the Doctor goes back and sees himself running in the forest AWAY from the angels is because he remembers doing it - he is going back in his own timeline.

• If the Doctor never existed (after going into the cracks) surely the TARDIS couldn't be there at all? It was 'borrowed' by him from the timelords, so may have been destroyed previously in the time war. I know that that never happened but surely he stepped in there before the pandorica's light had restored everything from the TARDIS' explosion. By this logic surely the alliance could have just chucked the Doctor into a crack, as this would not only have stopped the TARDIS from being able to blow up, but also seal it as he is a complicated space-time event.

The whole reason of the Alliance was that they did not know the exact nature of the Cracks and assumed mistakingly that the Doctor was somehow responsible. Besides, how would they remember that throwing something into the Cracks would erase it from existence, since they wouldn't even remember throwing something into the Crack? EltharionDrax 15:49, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

• How was River Song at Amys wedding? She presumably didn't time travel because the doctor still had her vortex manipulator.

• River Song had been in June 26 2010 immediately prior to the destruction of the universe, so that was the state which was restored by the Pandorica when it recreated the universe.

• When Rory releases the Doctor from The Pandorica, the "light" clearly shines on a Dalek, and some other enemies in the alliance. why didn't they come back to life - the Doctor and Rory were clearly there for long enough for something to awaken, and when they brought Amy's body.

• Why didn't Auton Rory get erased as did the other autons?

The Autons were erased because the Nestene consciousness and its home planet were erased also; however, Auton Rory doesn't just owe his existence to the Nestene, but also to Amy's memory of him, the Doctor's memory of him, and his own memories of being alive, and so he would remain around unless those two were erased also. DeadWalrus 17:08, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

• Why is The Doctor so willing to have himself erased in the new timeline? Surely he should think up some other solution as by now he must realise that without him every universe would be destroyed anyway, he has too much of an important place in the history of everything to not exist considering he saves the Earth everyday practically and saves the universe every month and the multiverse every year practically.

Yet this Doctor has also shown a bit more faith in humanity than the previous two (or, as compared to Tenth Doctor, more of an affectionate hope than a patronising infatuation). He probably honestly believed that humans could solve their own problems without him. Or, more likely, he hoped that someone would be able to remember him back into existence. Also recall that several of those invasions may have been directly or indirectly caused by the Doctor's presence on Earth - especially by the Master or other enemies who know that our planet has a soft spot in one of his hearts. DeadWalrus 17:08, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

Still he is taking a big risk considering not all invasions are caused by him I.E. Autons in Spearhead from Space, Dalek invasion of earth, tenth planet. if he wasn't around the daleks and cybermen would still be causing chaos also sutekh remember in pyrameds of mars when you saw what would happen if the 4rth doc and sarah jane were not there, he is taking a big risk on just having someone remember him into existence also while he has become maybe more trusting in humanity surely he has not become so niave that he believes they will stand a chance against all of these monsters, also he has caused so many important events in history such as the fire of rome if he isn't there to cause that lord only knows what that would cause. While the doctor is always willing to die to save people being erased is different.

• How come River Song remembered the Doctor enough to give Amy her blue diary? If she remembered the Dr, why did it take Amy also to remember?
• How come if there was two Stone Daleks only one came alive?

Because the light only shown on one of the Stone Daleks (from camera angels).

• If Amy's parents were erased by the Crack, how can she have existed.

Maybe she's a trace, like the ring, and Rory's face in a photograph.

• Also if there were no stars how is amy even born. No Stars would change the history in so many ways if there was nothing beyond the earth but darkness then religion would dominate science indeed several religions were stars are significant would not exist and Amy would never ever be born. You cant say the TARDIS would hold this event in time because nothing in the show says that and its bad not thought out writing if everyone else has to make up stuff that isn't there to make sense of the plot also why would it hold certain things like amy being born but not others like what you see in the museum.

"Were all stars to disappear or die,

I should learn to look at an empty sky

And feel its total darkness sublime,

Though this might take me a little time." - W H Auden, The More Loving One

Life goes on, with or without the stars. Why would religion 'dominate science' without stars? Physics and biology and chemistry were still holding true on earth, just... No stars.

• Time in the Doctor's universe is not linear or instant. Because Earth was at "the heart of the explosion" it's timeline remained intact to a degree. Also, the TARDIS may have acted like a Paradox Machine, holding the timeline together despite the inconsistancies.