Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The War Games

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The War Games 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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• When Smythe is shot dead, the gun is visibly firing into the floor by accident.

Ricochets and misfires can easily kill someone even if the gun is not pointed directly at the person.

• Given how many resistance groups there are said to be in the zones and how many zones there are, only two other groups and leaders turn up.

This is not true -- if you listen he says they are hiding in the forest, presumably waiting for the moment to strike.

• If the Time Lords have a policy of not interfering in other planets' affairs, why do they exile the Doctor to the planet where he has interfered the most?!

This is explicitly explained by the Time Lords: they have accepted his argument that there is a need to fight the great evils in the universe, and so are putting him where he can still do some good for the planet he has shown to be his favorite.

• When Jamie and Zoe leave to return to their own times, they depart in the dark-colored SIDRAT the War Lord's guards arrived in, not one of the lighter coloured TARDISes.

The SIDRAT is perfectly capable of returning them to their own times, so why not use it?

• Why do the troops shoot Jamie and the others with guns that don't work -- and why don't they kill when they do so on other occasions?

They're deliberately stunning Jamie and the others.

• The War Game leaders repeatedly call their home world "the home planet" instead of using its name.

This is intentional by the production crew. The Time Lord "home planet" is also not referred to by name in this story, nor are individual names given to either the Time Lords or the War Lords other than their titles or pseudonyms. It is meant to leave a degree of mystery around both races.

This is a fairly common dramatic convention. Characters in programmes such as "The Avengers" and "The Prisoner" would often refer to "the home country" (or use some similar phraseology) in order to disguise their true origins from the audience.

• When the War Chief and the two Time Lord technicians are shot dead, why don't they regenerate?

The series has long established that regeneration is not guaranteed (otherwise maintaining any sort of jeopardy for the Doctor would be impossible). It's possible they regenerated off-screen. Or the weapon caused sufficient damage quickly enough to prevent regeneration.

• A man is shown speaking French in the Doctor's presence, yet no one seems able to understand him; what happened to the Doctor's gift of translation? If it isn't active for some reason, then why are the resistance members along with Jamie and Zoe able to understand the Mexicans and Russians?

The lack of the Doctor's ability to understand French may be explained by the fact that he has, at this point, surrounded the chateau with a time zone barrier, thus isolating himself partially from the TARDIS and its influence. Alternately, it may have had something to do with the side-effects of the soldier's mental conditioning and a head injury.

We hear the Doctor speak languages other than English in stories like The Mind of Evil and Planet of the Spiders and people can't understand him so he can obviously "suspend" the gift if he chooses. He probably didn't think it was worth translating for Du Pont when Carstairs could do a passable job as a translator. Maybe the Mexicans and Russians can speak English.

• The Doctor needed the help of The Time Lords to return everybody to their own time line; however, they all remained in personal jeopardy because they were all taken from actual war zones.

The Time Lords are not intending to set every one of the kidnapped humans up happily ever after in a comfortable life, simply to return them to their proper place and time.

• Zoe had supposedly memorised the names and faces of the resistance leaders in episode 5, but when she met Villar in episode 8, she failed to recognise them.