Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/A Christmas Carol

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 A Christmas Carol 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. 

• How can Abigail's family not age, yet Kazran does?

By the the year 4000, it can be assumed that longevity has been extended somewhat, so Abigail's family- who live fairly normal and presumably not-too-stressful lives- wouldn't have appeared to age all the much, whereas Kazran lives a rather bitter and negative existance, has appeared to age far more greatly.

Yet, her young nephew is still a child when they meet old Kazran. Even with prolonged longevity, a child would most likely mature into adulthood at roughly the same rate.

Obviously a number of years has passed because her sister is shown to be a middle-aged woman when she meets Kazran for the first time.

Abigail's family does age. The confusion is due to the child actor playing two roles. Look at the credits, Bailey Pepper is credited as playing both "Boy" and "Benjamin." Meanwhile, Steve North is credited as "Old Benjamin." When Abigail's family goes to plead for Abigail's release, it is her sister Isabella, Isabella's son Benjamin, and Ben's two children, one of whom is the boy who throws coal at Kazran. Just as Michael Gambon plays father and son, Bailey Pepper is cast as two generations of the Pettigrew family.

• How can the Doctor so casually alter time?

The long and short is "suspension of disbelief". If we're going to theorize though on how the Doctor gets away with it... The people he is acting to save and manipulating are the "little people" - the ones that really don't count so changing their fate doesn't affect much. Also there is a swing to the changes in Kazran - the Christmas at Sinatra's being the obvious push-back.

In the Doctor Who Confidential that accompanies the episode, Moffat says the Doctor changes time and people's lives every time he lands on a planet. He's just being more direct about it. And not that long ago, in The Waters of Mars, the Doctor showed he could, in theory, even change a fixed point in time, at least briefly, if he set his mind to it.

• How come Kazran seems exactly the same when time has been altered? These were huge changes.

The POV the story follows is for the most part that of Kazran. He is aware his history is being manipulated, and for the story to work, is comparing the changes. Also, the only physical change shown was to the paining. We don't see the stash of photos or the damages sonic screwdriver "appear" in the present nor do we see them prior to Kazran unearthing them.

• Abagail never spent a whole day outside the chamber at a time. So technically she still had time left.

Yes, she had a day left. But very little is established as to how long she was out in the Christmases we saw, or that those were the only ones that occured. With out that, the timer could be counting down the interval between each thaw and refreeze, or it could be ticking off a "day" per opening and closing of the unit.

• The Doctor says that he has changed Kazran so much that the machine won't work for him. Surely the machine would have been altered to fit within the new timeline?

The controls "catching up" with Kazran depends on how watching a timeline change actually works. The termoral dynamics could be such that the controls or Kazran hit an end state first. They are out of synch and the Doctor gives the most obvious answer at the time.

It's also possible that, due to Kazran's "nicer" temperament after the Doctor's interference in his childhood, Elliot decided to design the controls such that they only responded to himself; that is, he didn't even trust "new Kazran" enough to let him run the machine.

• Why did Amy and Rory have the policewoman uniform and Roman armour anyway?

Use your imagination - they are on their honneymoon so a few possibilities immediately present themselves.

Also, it's an indication that contrary to some fan speculation, they do remember the events of Series 5 (and maybe the Doctor had a centurion outfit in his wardrobe).

• In the time that the Doctor disregarded rules set down for the universe's safety, he could have probably got all the ship's inhabitants into his TARDIS and taken them to a friendlier planet.

It is said at the beginning that the TARDIS cannot lock on to the crashing ship.

• Amy and Rory already went on their honeymoon - it was mentioned in Death of the Doctor.

And we at the end the episode with them about to go on another.

Also the ship they were on might have been from that planet.

The episode is set immediately after Death of the Doctor, given the fact the Doctor arrives from elsewhere.

• When the two Kazrans touch, this should result in a paradox due to the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. (DW: Mawdryn Undead, Father's Day).

Yes, and that's a valid point. However, several possible explanations have been given above. The Doctor may have taken precautions to prevent this. We know Time Lords can do so, and note that the TARDIS door is distinctly open while the two Kazrans interact.

Another possibility is that the young Kazran is from just after he and the doctor first met, and as such, before the doctor changed Kazran, meaning that although they were the same person, they different versions of the same person, like how amy was able to touch her younger self withought any problems in the big bang, because due to the changes in time, they had become to different people.

It seems like it is possible in the Whoniverse for there to be two "endpoints" in time which are joined together. One endpoint moves through time at the normal rate, whereas the other end moves at a faster rate (e.g The Girl in the Fireplace, Prisoner Zero). So perhaps Timelords have some ability to control this. The Doctor creates two endpoints, one in Kazran's "present", the other in his past, and links them, perhaps by means of the "movie projector". The endpoint in Kazran's present moves forward at a normal rate, so he can be aware of changes being made in his past. The other endpoint moves forward at a faster rate. The Doctor is changing Kazran's past, but in such a way that it only affects Kazran and Abigail. Another way to think of this might be: - when the Doctor travels into Kazran's past and starts changing things, this creates an alternate universe version of Kazran. Over the course of the episode, the original version of Kazran is gradually replaced by the alternate universe version of him, whilst everyhting else - e.g. the controls, remain in their original universe state.

The episode dialogue explains why they can touch. The Doctor changed Kazran so much that he is "not the same man". He has changed to the point where the isomorphic controls no longer recognize him. Therefore he can easily touch his younger self because he has basically regenerated. The same argument can be used to explain how Amy Pond is able to touch her younger self, and Rose Tyler her infant self, because they are no longer the same people once they travel with the Doctor (physically, too, since an episode of Torchwood, TW: Meat, establishes that the Doctors' companions are physically altered by travelling in the TARDIS).

This isn't actually correct, as Rose touching her infant self does create a paradox. I propose a different explanation: the TARDIS can alter or stabilise paradoxes that are expected (presumably, the Doctor has taken active precautions for this). The main support for this theory is that the Doctor is actively messing around with Kazran's timeline, but there are no side effects of this (the changing of Kazran is intentional, thus not a side effect). The interior of the TARDIS is not present for most of episode in DW: Father's Day, after an unexpected timeline change when Rose prevents her father's death. In DW: The Big Bang the two versions of Amy have a different personal history with the lack of stars (it's implied that Young Amy can still see them but she is questioned by psychiatrists about them, which doesn't occur in the original timeline; also, it's not known whether her original meeting with the Doctor occurs in this timeline), this is why she can touch her younger self (because they are people with the same genetic makeup, but different personal histories. This also explains why the Blinovitch Limitation Effect does occur with the Sonic Screwdriver, as it's an inanimate object, it does not have an alternate timeline.