Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Tooth and Claw

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Tooth and Claw 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. 

• The Doctor tells Rose about 1979, describing it as "a hell of a year", as if he's never taken her there before. However, if the interactive mini-episode Attack of the Graske is counted, she would have already been to 1979 to attend a concert.

Rose's trip could have taken place immediately after Tooth and Claw as it is not clear when in their timeline it takes place.

It is not clear if the fourth wall-breaking mini-episode is actually canonical.

If she simply attended the concert, she would not have seen much else about the year.

• Why is nobody in Victoria's party surprised by the TARDIS materialising?

It was probably not in their sight until it had already arrived.

• Why doesn't Victoria have a lady in waiting?

If they were going on a long and potentially dangerous journey, they would not want to put Victoria and her lady in waiting in danger. This may have caused them to set off at different times.

• How does the Werewolf escape from the library? Surely the mistletoe doors should keep him in just like they kept him out.

Perhaps its allergy is strong enough for it to find a different way into the library, but not enough to stop it blasting through the doors when it's trapped inside with no recourse of escape.

The werewolf may have been able to climb the bookshelves to their tops then jump back out of the window.

• Victoria worrying about the curse of the Koh-i-Noor affecting her is wrong, as the curse is only supposed to apply to men, and not to women.

She may refer to the irony of her situation, since she is clearly in mortal danger. She was also in what was considered a man's role during those times.

• Why does the moonlight from the "telescope" vanish at the same time as the wolf does? It's unlikely that the moon moves out of the telescope's field of vision at just the same time as the wolf dies.

It is possible the wolf needed to be hit by the entire spell of the moon, so therefore the moon moved out of view then the wolf died, rather than the other way around.

Clouds could have covered the moon.

• How does the beam from the telescope physically lift the wolf into the air and keep it hovering there? Even if it's been focused into a high-powered laser, it's still just light.

There is no explanation for that; it is simply a dramatic and flashy visual effect. However, it is possible that it somehow was more than just light; it could not have been a laser, as a white laser is supposedly impossible. There was probably some magic in the beam of light.

No, it wasn't magic, as this is Doctor Who, not Harry Potter. The odd effects on the wolf were because of its reaction to the light. The point was that it drew power from the light, and it basically "overloaded" on the energy because of the telescope. One of the side effects of the energy was that it more or less levitated.

• The Doctor tells Rose that by 1879, Queen Victoria has had six attempts on her life. In truth, she had been the target of just four assassination attempts by that time. During her life, she only had five attempts on her life.

The Doctor often displays knowledge of historical facts that are not recorded in history books.

The Whoniverse isn't our universe. Victoria also wasn't attacked by a Werewolf in our universe, so why couldn't there have been two other attempts before that?

Queen Victoria herself says she already had six attempts on her life.

• When the Doctor is looking through the books in the library for a way to defeat the Werewolf, he is looking through the pages one by one. But, in Rose, when he is Jackie's flat, he looks through the magazine in under two seconds. Why doesn't he repeat this with the library book to save time and get through more books?

The Tenth Doctor's reading abilities aren't as good as the Ninth's.

No, there's no indication that he reads slower just because he regenerated. There's a big difference between reading a simple book for fun and scouring through lots of historical information in various books to find something useful to use against a werewolf that's trying to kill you. He was then focusing on a few particular things in particular books.

In the Eleventh Doctor's story Time of Angels we clearly see that there's a difference between skim reading and carefully looking for subtle clues. In that story the Doctor first skims through a book in a second. Then he proceeds to carefully review parts of the book, dissecting specific sentences for precise meaning. The reading in this story required the same level of care and attention to detail.

Plus, the kind of celebrity magazines that Jackie 'reads' tend not to have very many words in...

• How can Queen Victoria pass the curse of the Werewolf onto her children if she's already given birth to them? The story is set post-Albert's death, and she says so herself that she has had her children, therefore she can't pass it on through childbirth.

The Doctor said that she must have bitten her children for them to have the curse.

They seemed to just be joking around.

• In the beginning when the captive men and women are in the basement, the werewolf is shown to them. But surely, they would've seen only the host, not the werewolf, as the full moon won't happen until the night of the episode. However the way they scream and panic, it's as if they have been shown the werewolf.

Or, you know, a crazy person locked up in a cage next to them.

• Queen Victoria gives Rose the title of Dame Rose but the term Dame wasn't introduced until 1917.