Theory:Doctor Who prose discontinuity and plot holes/The Scales of Injustice

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Scales of Injustice 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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• In the memos in the prologue, Liz's arrival at UNIT is dated both Monday 21st October and Monday 31st October. The memos also make reference to the University of Warwick's department of applied sciences. I'm not sure about the late 60s/early 70s, but by the 90s there definitely wasn't such a department.

This could be one such instance in which the Whoniverse differs from our own. Alternatively, the department never existed in any official capacity, but more as an unofficial, Dead Poets' Society type.

• It's about 8 months since Liz joined UNIT [so June/July], yet Marc Marshall dates it as March 27th.

Clearly Marc is so bored that he can't even remember what day it is. Or perhaps he's writing the date without really thinking, and getting it wrong as a result. Personally I once dated a test September 7th after being informed the date was November 9th.

• The claims that only 38 civilians and 29 people from UNIT and Wenley Moor died during The Silurians when Who Killed Kennedy establishes the total death toll as over 400.

Perhaps the journalist in Who Killed Kennedy exaggerated slightly for dramatic effect. Though jumping from 67 to over 400 is a bit out there...

• There are several points where Hastings is described as being in Kent, when it's actually in Sussex. And it's very likely, given geography, that the hospital should have been in East Kent rather than Hastings.

For some reason, everybody involved has become geographically inept. Could it be part of the Silurians' sinister scheme?

• In the café scene, Jana at first says that she's at home in street cafés, and a few minutes later says that she can't think there, and needs to be inside something like a restaurant.

Perhaps the place she feels at home features lots of noise to drown out having to think. As such, she decides that a more highbrow establishment is likely to have a better thinking atmosphere.

• Is Irlam O'the Heights (where Alan Marshall is MP) really in Manchester (where his son Marc lives)?

More or less. Specifically Pendleton, Salford, Greater Manchester.

See previous counterpoint regarding geographical ineptitude and its joking connection with the Silurians.

• When recapping the history of C-19, Group-Captain Ian Gilmore and Professor Rachel Jenson are said to have joined the ICMG only after 'The Shoreditch Incident' (Remembrance of the Daleks), when they are clearly members of it during that story.

They only 'officially' joined Counter-Measures after Shoreditch. Unofficially, they've been members since at least that event.

• I don't think it's a feasible timescale for Kate to be five, and yet be conceived around 18 months after The Web of Fear.

Nothing in the UNIT era is of a feasible timescale. Though yes, five does seem to be pushing it. I'd say two would be a more reasonable age...hmm.

The one thing that was always true was that The Invasion was four years after The Web of Fear, and that Spearhead from Space was several months after that.

It would seem Liz Shaw's time at UNIT was longer than previously reported.

• I think Steve Robins from The Silurians actually ended up dead when this book says that he was sent to the glasshouse.

He was only on the brink of death, and after a miraculous recovery was sent to the glasshouse.

• The man with the scar claims that the British Space Programme has been abandoned following The Ambassadors of Death. However, Dancing the Code and The Dying Days make it clear that it continued for some time afterwards.

Officially, it has been abandoned. Unofficially, Britain isn't out of the Space Race just yet.

• One of the bodies in the Vault is that of George Hibbert from Spearhead from Space. However, Hibbert's body was disintegrated

Perhaps this body was falsely identified as George Hibbert.