Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Asylum of the Daleks

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 Asylum of the Daleks 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. 

• When Rory touches the Dalek and pushes it, why does it not then begin to regenerate like in ‘Dalek’? At this point Rory had travelled more than Rose so he would be more saturated with background radiation? (If that’s a factor)

Maybe it's something to do with the fact that it was catatonic, as Oswin stated.

• How can Daleks have a concept of beauty but no concept of elegance (Doomsday)?

That was the Cult of Skaro, they are meant to think differently to other Daleks. Plus, the Daleks purged their old selves in Victory so they think differently also.

• Why does the Dalek Prime Minister say it is "offensive to extinguish such hatred", but in stories such as Remembrance of the Daleks, Victory..., Revelation..., Etc. Daleks kill each other. (And before you say "they were impure", he says "hatred", which all those Daleks had, and besides, in Planet..., the Supreme kills the head Dalek because he failed.)

Yes, this is a major plot hole, unless the New Paradigm Daleks (which these are supposed to be - implausibly, but that's for another place) have completely rebooted Dalek culture.

We will recall in Victory that the new Paradigm Daleks destroyed all the old ones because they were impure. If we keep that continuity then the Daleks in this story can't be the Paradigm, because they're respecting the existence of the Asylum Daleks, who are impure. An alternative could be that the bronze Daleks in Victory were impure because they came from Davros' body rather than from 'pure' Dalek DNA. The Asylum Daleks would then be pure to them. Either of these scenarios produce continuity problems of their own, as discussed below, such as: where did the 'pure' Dalek in the progenitor come from?

• Why does the Dalek Prime Minister say they have the Asylum because it is "offensive to extinguish such beauty", but they end up destroying it anyways?

The reason why they don't destroy the insane Daleks at first is because it is "offensive" and that is why they build the asylum in the first place. They destroy it later on because there is a possibility of them escaping.

• If Oswin erased all memory of the Doctor from the Daleks, how could she (a Dalek) remember?

She probably kept the backup copy to herself.

She replaced the memory on their Pathweb. Assuming this works similarly to a typical human cloud system, any Daleks that had the information in their "local cache" wouldn't lose it immediately (although it might eventually get flushed from the cache to make room for other information), but anyone who tried to look him up "in the cloud" would find nothing.

Also, as the person doing the hacking, why would she want to forget the man in her final moments of life? In addition, the revelations of TV: The Name of the Doctor suggest other rationales for her not forgetting.

• If the man at the beginning was taken over by the security system, and designed to activate and attack intruders, what was he doing working when they arrived?

Like Darla earlier in the episode, Harvey did not realise that he had been converted.

• Similarly, if he was there to kill intruders, why not just shoot Amy and the Doctor when they were lying there, rather than masquerading as a victim until they're in the ship?

See above.

The Doctor is a major enemy of the Daleks. Maybe they thought that if they lured the Doctor into the ship with the other converted people they would have a greater chance of killing him.

• Daleks are shown having survived from "The Chase, The Daleks' Master Plan and Planet of the Daleks". But in those stories (and Death to the Daleks), no Daleks actually survived (who interacted with the Doctor anyway).

These Daleks did not interact with the Doctor, but still knew he was the enemy.

However, in two of those stories at least, there were no Dalek survivors at all. It's a stretch, but I suppose we're supposed to assume there were some off-screen?

I think that's the answer. To take The Chase as an example: The Daleks who went on the mission to chase the Doctor ended up in a battle with the Mechonoids and presumably died (and even if they didn't, they were trapped after Barbara and Ian stole their time machine). But there's no reason to believe that all of the Daleks involved in planning the mission and watching it on their Visualisers went down to Mechanus in the time machine. They didn't directly interact with the Doctor, but they had enough connection to what was going on to claim that they faced the Doctor and lost but survived.

It's also possible that some Daleks were recovered at a later date, off-screen.

The information from the Daleks may have been uploaded (or at least transmitted) to the Pathweb before the Daleks themselves were destroyed.

With the mention of Aridius from The Chase a Dalek was probably left behind, one fell into the tunnels near the end of Episode 2. With Kembel maybe some Daleks escaped the planet as the Time Destructor was activated.

• It's stated all the Daleks in intensive care are from old stories (mentioned in the point above) but they're all modern Daleks.

Since almost all Dalek redesigns happen off screen, the "new" Daleks could have been designed long ago and slowly phased in.

They do. They were some of the early Daleks from the First/Second Doctor serials, a Special Weapons Dalek, Renegades, the one from Day of the Daleks and another from Evil of the Daleks. The point is therefore moot.

The ones you mention are not the ones in intensive care, they are in the Asylum. The ones in intensive care are all 'RTD' Daleks.

• If Oswin couldn't open a simple door, how did she so quickly delete all the memories of the Daleks' greatest foe who they're all programmed to kill?

One explanation is that the Daleks' memory is just simple code which could be deleted, while to open a door she would have to find the code, wipe the part that closes it, and write in more to open it, taking longer and being harder to do given the amount of doors on the planet.

• Why did the Daleks build a force field that could disable the asylum from inside the asylum? One of the Daleks inside could easily turn it off, and they'd all be free. The Daleks couldn't have been mentally unstable enough to not know how to shut it off, since they were stable enough able to convert Oswin into a Dalek.

• Why did the Daleks leave the Doctor in the Asylum? Even if they forgot who he was, they would still kill all alien life forms, so why didn't they kill him?

These Daleks in the intensive care section were previously catatonic to all stimuli, as mentioned, and only awoke because the presence of their greatest enemy was a particularly strong stimulus. With that gone, they reverted back to their previous state.

• The dead crew members - who have been taken over by the Daleks' nanoclouds - are seen climbing down the ladder. But after the Dalek explodes, they're neither seen nor mentioned again.

Most of them move slowly and seem to lack means of surveillance, so they couldn't find them in the Asylum.

They may have just been killed in the explosion.

This is what is implied. It's just a matter of how the scene is edited.

• If the Doctor's immune to the nanocloud, why did the Daleks give him a protection bracelet?

How do we know he was? It was just Amy's theory. They might have escaped before the nanobots could convert him completely. We have yet to know if they might have done something long term to his mind in the time without the bracelet. EDIT: It seems like a copout when Amy says, "He doesn't need it, he's a Time Lord."

The Daleks may have (mistakenly) thought he was.

He was probably not immune, more likely the conversion process would just take a much longer time to affect a Timelord. Amy probably meant that he didn't need it at that point because they would very shortly be leaving the Asylum. To support this, given his age, he has one of the strongest wills in the universe evidently supported by his ability to close the door on what should be his greatest fear in the God Complex.

• Why were all the dead crewmen just sitting neatly in their seats?

Possibly because there was no need for an extra guard or one that would so obviously deter future visitors to the Asylum. They could have lain there undisturbed since their death.

• If Oswin's such a genius, why was she working as entertainer?

Because it's fun? Smart is the new sexy.

Maybe she just got the job and was yet to be promoted.

There are lots of smart people who work simple jobs at various points in life. Count how many scientists, Ph.Ds and so on have to drive taxis because they can't get work elsewhere.

Like Ace, who worked as a waitress.

Now that we know who she really is (per TV: The Name of the Doctor) she probably took the job, or found fate steering her in that direction, in order that she would encounter the Doctor.

• If Oswin was a Dalek all along, how was her human voice transmitted right until the Doctor discovered her? Or was the Doctor hearing a Dalek voice the whole time?

The voice was from an electronic source the whole time the Doctor heard it so I can hardly imagine that it would be beyond a Dalek to synthesise it. He didn't hear the Dalek voice until he was in the same room with "her".

We already know the Daleks can synthesise a believable human voice, e.g., with Bracewell.

But we know later that this wasn't just a random synthesised human voice.. he recognised her voice from the asylum later in Victorian London. I'm thinking either the Daleks can synthesise the exact voice of the converted human, or this: Dalek technology is mostly controlled by telepathic network (I think?) so for Dalek Clara to speak to them through those speaker things she might not actually have to speak physically. Given that she imagined her entire human identity was still real, it's perhaps possible that her memory and imagination of her human voice was the one that got projected, and not her actual Dalek voice.

This is probably also the way she was able to transmit "Carmen" to the Parliament, and have it apparently override her on the intercom.

• Why was there a distinct lack of gunfire from the converted crewmen?

Because Dalek energy weapons - even the primitive ones fitted into the ones into long term agents which simply stunned - possibly require more energy than the nanites can provide.

• Oswin, seemingly newly converted and perhaps carrying full capabilities of a Dalek, was able to break free of its chains; why couldn't it just go by itself to the teleport?

Oswin was still trapped in her illusion as a human and believed it beyond her capability or beyond her moral limits. She was an abomination.

• Skaro was destroyed in the Time War – which is to say, declared nonexistent and irretrievable – and nobody mentions this.

Actually no, it was Gallifrey that was destroyed in the Time War, the Daleks' planet was destroyed in "Remembrance of the Daleks"

Also, the Doctor's comments in that episode imply that the planet's still simply wrecked, like a city when it's hit by a atom bomb; this is confirmed by what we see in this episode.

Actually, Skaro's destruction during the Time War was mentioned in at least two non-TV sources. But there's no new issue here, just the same one that's come up repeatedly. By the 26th century, the Thals had chased the Daleks off Skaro (Planet of the Daleks), and yet the Daleks claimed Skaro was the capital of their empire. Skaro was destroyed when Davros used the Hand of Omega to supernova its sun, and yet the Doctor later went there to pick up the Master's remains, and then it was a battleground of the Time War. It was destroyed in the War, and yet it was there in City of the Daleks. And so on. The most popular explanation is that Skaro is just the Dalek word for "home", and every time they lose it (or abandon it) they build a new homeworld and call it "Skaro". They never directly say this on TV (they do talk about building "a new Skaro", but that's not the same thing—nobody calls New England "England"), and the only novel that confirms it is the ridiculous mess War of the Daleks, but at least it works.

A simpler explanation is that the Doctor went to a pre-Time War/pre-Remembrance of the Daleks Skaro; since it's known that only Gallifrey was time-locked, there is no prohibition on the Doctor travelling to Skaro's past.

• Apparently there are human prison camps on Skaro, even though it is their purpose, not to enslave, but to exterminate.

Like the Nazis did? The point is, why not exploit them first? They've done this before (Destiny of the Daleks) and plus, they might be used for interrogation.

• Daleks are small pink creatures with one eye. The eyestalk and the weapon is simply a part of their armour, so naturally the people who've been partially converted into Daleks should not have had these things in their body.

It doesn't turn them into a Dalek (as referenced when it's pointed out that Oswin underwent "full conversion"), it turns them into a slave; clearly the Nanogenes built these in them, to make them more effective slaves.

As this is the first time we've seen this type of conversion, we really don't have any rules to go by. Also note the human-Dalek hybrid of TV: Evolution of the Daleks doesn't match that description either.

• Daleks are obsessed with their own genetic perfection: there are had multiple episodes detailing their disgust for human impurity, to the point of committing genocide against a human-Dalek hybrid race. But according to this episode, they think it is acceptable to manipulate human corpses and putting the resultant hybrid entities in positions of command.

Only as slaves. They are using them as tools.

• Thousands of Daleks, their entire Parliament, the ship in which they reside and the asylum planet have all apparently survived the Time War, even though this is impossible.

No this is the new Dalek Parliament, the fact there are Daleks with the new colour schemes proves this. Evidently in the time they've had they've rebuilt their numbers and brought them back, plus previous stories show, only officers (or ones with special jobs) get to be coloured, the rest are just standard Daleks.

That doesn't make any sense. The New Daleks killed the old "standard" Daleks in Victory of the Daleks. The New Daleks shouldn't be working with the older, impure, Daleks, they should be killing them.

No you're misreading the comment, these Daleks in question aren't old Daleks, they're new Daleks, in the same shell type as the old, only their biology was changed not their technology. The coloured Daleks are the officers or ones with special positions, the rest are standard drones, and before you ask, the coloured drones are probably the equivalent, of personal bodyguards. Steven Moffat himself confirmed all of that in an official interview. That's about as concrete as it gets. And no, they did not bring back the bronze ones on a mere whim; they did it because many fans were angered by the New Paradigm design, and even the writers themselves decided that they had gone too far. So now the bronze Daleks are back, and here to stay.

• How did the Asylum survive the Time War and The Moment?

The Moment was not activated. The Eleventh Doctor deactivated the Moment. The combined Doctors then moved Gallifrey to another universe/dimension and froze it in time, while allowing the Daleks to destroy themselves in the crossfire. As ridiculous as that explanation is (that 100% of the Dalek fighting force came to one place and destroyed so diffusely that they were each destroyed), it made it APPEAR that Gallifrey and the Daleks vanished and history was preserved. But, perhaps because of that action, many other Daleks - such as in the Asylum - were spared to surprise the Doctor, who THOUGHT he had activated The Moment and destroyed all Daleks and Time Lords.

Presumably, the Asylum survived the Time War because it was not involved in the War, and because the Asylum was considered a "myth". It was also shielded by a forcefield which prevented any transmissions out (until the hole appeared in it), and underground, so it would have been very difficult to detect.

Time Travel is involved here evidently. The Daleks didn't bring the Asylum into the war as the insane Daleks are too dangerous to control.

Just a speculation here - perhaps the Asylum was rescued by Caan along with Davros. An insane Dalek rescuing insane Daleks?

Obviously no one here has seen TV: Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways in which it is revealed that the Doctor failed to kill all the Daleks. It doesn't matter what happened to the Daleks in the Time War anymore; POTW established that Daleks were in the process of converting others into new Daleks and Asylum simply continues this theme. All Rose/Bad Wolf did was destroy the Daleks in the immediate vicinity. The very existence of this Asylum, which houses Daleks that predate the Time War, puts paid to any suggestion the Doctor destroyed them all in the Time War. He clearly failed, which is one reason why he's so angst-ridden in the episode TV: Dalek - he killed off his own people for nothing. It's a key emotional anchor for the entire series since 2005. See TV: The Doctor's Wife - "You want to be forgiven."

• The Doctor is called ‘the Predator of the Daleks’, a name he’s never heard before, even though he’s known in their mythology as the Oncoming Storm.

How is this an error? Attila the Hun was called, "the destroyer", "the abomination", "the scourge of god", etc. by the Romans, there is no limit to the number of nicknames your greatest enemy can have.

True, but they've never called him that before. Besides, in every other New Series episode featuring the Daleks, it's been established that their primary name for him is "the Oncoming Storm". Even if it's not technically conflicting with canon per se, replacing "Oncoming Storm" with "Predator" is kind of an unnecessary retcon.

The New Paradigm Daleks may use a different name for him to show their difference from the old ones.

It hasn't been established that it's their primary name for him in every new series episode. In one episode, Parting of the Ways, the Doctor tells the Daleks that the ghosts of Skaro call him that. There are at least three more uses of the term in the series, none of them in Dalek stories (e.g., Rose to the clockwork droids). Meanwhile, the Daleks have also called him "Destroyer of Worlds" and "Bringer of Darkness" in the new series, and "Destroyer of Worlds", "Ka Faraq Gatri" and "The Enemy" in the classic series, and various other names in the novels/comics/audios, and of course "Dok-torrrr". What's one more epithet?

It may be worth mentioning that "The Oncoming Storm" was a reference to the novels. It's the Draconians' nickname for the Doctor, which he later uses when dealing with vampires. When the Doctor taunts the Daleks that the "legends of Skaro" (not ghosts, by the way) call him The Oncoming Storm, that may not even be accurate, just something he's saying to scare them because it sounds impressive.

• Before complaints about the Daleks fearing the Asylum but the Doctor saying Amy being afraid isn't Dalek, Daleks won't admit they are afraid. The Daleks would claim it would make more sense to have their enemy go into the Asylum than have Daleks risk destruction by the insane Daleks. The Daleks do seem to have some emotion but most of it has been removed and they won't admit emotion.

And Oswin's fear doesn't count because it's clearly established that she retained her human emotions.

• If the Asylum force field is unable to be penetrated by the Daleks' missiles, how was Oswin's ship able to crash onto it?

It's entirely possible that the Daleks were lying to the Doctor at first about their missile strength. After all, why send perfectly good Daleks on a dangerous mission to lower the guard of the irreparable Asylum when you can kill two birds with one stone and send your greatest enemy in there instead because, oops, you can't break through your own forcefield (and yet a starliner can, on impact)?

Bit of a rubbish cover story for the greatest warrior race in the universe to use, but hey-ho. Oswin's ship would have broken through if it had hit with enough sheer force.

Here's an idea - The shield does not stop PHYSICAL objects. However, the shield does deactivate weaponry like missiles and such. and any weapon the Daleks make to blow the surface up would have power sources susceptible to this kind of defence. Energy weapons are blocked in their entirety. so they weren't lying - the shield is for all purposes - aka a block against weapons - impenetrable.

The above idea I agree with in a way: Maybe the shield is a constantly-pulsing EMP, which would deactivate the supernuclear (that's what I'm calling it, shut up) explosives in Dalek missiles: Maybe that's why the ship crashed in the first place rather than flying quietly by; they flew too close to the Asylum and just turned off and fell?

Or maybe nothing can get in through the force field but anything can get out, kind of like a one way door.

• Oswin wipes out all Dalek knowledge of the Doctor. From this time forward, they will have no memory of him. But what about in the past? Will every Dalek story from now on take place after this event?

Time can be rewritten. Past Daleks that were pre-Asylum would remember, but all of the Dalek stories that are set after this point (mind you, a date was never established for this episode; it could be set somewhere around the 27th century since humans had functioning interstellar spacecraft by that point, so it would give them a lot of time to work with) would logically have the Daleks that could not remember the Doctor, although it should be noted that Daleks are time-travellers, so that fact could be used to circumvent Daleks in the past being unable to remember the Doctor.

In answer to the second part of the question, we cannot predict future episodes.

• If Dalek weapons can easily destroy planets (as shown in this episode and implied in many others), what was up with the series of small explosions that gave the Doctor time to escape? As soon as the first missile hit, the planet should have been space dust.

Perhaps the Daleks decided to use their surplus of small weapons, rather than waste one of their more powerful ones.

• Clara/Oswin was sent into the Doctor's time stream to stop the Great Intelligence from killing the Doctor. What exactly had he done here that she needed to undo?

Because without Oswin, the Doctor would have died on the Asylum.

Maybe the Great Intelligence's echo in this time was the one responsible for the crash of the starship "ALASKA" which broke a hole in the force field of the Asylum thus, the Daleks sending the Doctor the the planet was supposed to cause his death in the end which was avoided by CLARA's echo in this time: Oswin Oswald.

• 'Dalek Prime Minister? Dalek Parliament?' Since when did Daleks resolve issues and choose leaders by vote? 'Halt, or you will be exterminated! That is, after we have moved a bill, debated it, added some amendments, referred it to committee, enacted it in legislation and sent it to the Dalek Emperor for the royal assent!'

It's probably equivalent to the Nazis or Eastern Bloc communist parties banning other parties but holding elections/votes anyway, and the electors only had one legal option. It wouldn't be entirely unprecedented for the Daleks. If The Secret of the Emperor (1966) is anything to go by, the early Daleks gathered periodically to re-elect their Emperor, always electing the same one. When some Daleks decided they wanted change, they were obliterated. Perhaps that's the Parliament's function: a "democratic" front to root out any dissenters or free-thinkers so they can be dealt with before there's yet another civil war.

A nice attempt at an explanation, but I feel the whole Dalek Parliament thing is just adding an element of humanity that doesn't make them terrifying anymore. After all, they have only one common will: exterminate all other forms of life. It's not a complicated ethic. Come to that, asking the Doctor to help them doesn't sit well with their philosophy either. Surely they would balk at the idea of needing the assistance of an 'inferior' life-form. Perhaps the Dalek society we see is the New Paradigm failing and that's why in-story we don't see them again. They're just too namby-pamby!

Maybe 'Parliament' is just the best the TARDIS translation can do for 'Council of Generals etc. of the Dalek Empire'.

Perhaps, after the civil wars of The Evil of the Daleks (TV story) and Remembrance of the Daleks (TV story) the Dalek Prime may have concluded that it's best to at least have all the assorted ranking officers sign up to major policy decisions (even if it's a choice between 'Aye or die') at the time, to avoid any more "Why not question?" difficult conversations in the corridors later.

• As stated above there's really no reason for the Doctor to panic in the intensive care where those Daleks are without blasters. It also contradict the Dalek Parliament stating Daleks are always armed.