Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Empress of Mars

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Empress of Mars 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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• We never do find out exactly why the Doctor, Bill and Nardole are at NASA in the first place. It is not because of the message being found (which would make the rest of the episode a flashback) as it's clearly indicated they went to Mars to investigate its origin.

It's not exactly a plot hole for the story, they likely were just wandering round as the Doctor always does when he's off on adventures.

I think it's that the Doctor has already had the adventure, and has gone forward in time to mischeviously see what humanity makes of what he's done.

Actually I think he was simply just taking Bill to see NASA and they just happened to be there when they discovered the "GOD SAVE THE QUEEN" message

It's called a Macguffin. I admit it is a bad interpretation of a Macguffin, but one, none the less.

• Why does the TARDIS just abandon the Doctor and Bill on Mars? It's not like there's an outward force controlling it like the Silence once did or that it shifted into another dimension like in the Pirate episode.

The episode was written before Nardole became a companion, so they had to get rid of him somehow!

That doesn't make sense, they could have just have him not in the episode? He wasn't in Knock Knock.

Then why have him travelling in this episode? Clearly, a mess was made with the character and episode.

TheTARDIS is old. She has no end of faults mentioned in epsiodes gone by. Chameleon Circut, drive stacks need replacing, navigation system is 'knackered'. The fact she just 'leaves' may be another one of her quirks. Or she sensed in order to 'birth' the 13th Doctor, Missy needed to get out of the vault somehow, fixing the TARDIS was the push she needed

Hostile Action Displacement System, perhaps?

And since the TARDIS isn't on Mars for most of the episode, how can they understand the Empress and her Ice Warriors? The soldiers have probably taught 'Friday' English, I suppose.

It's long been established that the TARDIS doesn't need to present for the translation matrix to function, as long as the person has travelled in the TARDIS.

But the soldiers and the Ice Warriors haven't travelled in the TARDIS.

See The Christmas Invasion, the Doctor is connected to it as well, maybe he extended the translation or the Ice Warriors translated to default English as the Judoon once did.

Anyway, its all academic, as the Ice Warriors can speak English! the Soldiers able to understand the Ice Warriors before the Doctor and TARDIS came along!

• How were they able to move all those rocks, at the end? (Hope this doesn't get deleted!)

I guess the super-strong Ice Warriors were able to move them.

They are not seen on screen at the time. And, how would the Ice Warriors breath on the surface of Mars?

Perhaps it was the Doctor, he is a Timelord, who are much stronger than they look.

The pull of gravity on the surface of Mars is only 38% as strong as the pull of gravity on Earth, I'd imagine moving rocks those size is a lot easier on Mars.

• I the Martians society is shown becoming peaceful in the 19th century, why is the Marshall trying to conquer Earthin The Seeds Of Death?
  • A civilization's culture doesn't change overnight. So presumably the change in Ice Warrior society occurred gradually and in fits and starts. And at the end this episode the Empress hasn't actually forsworn war. She tells the British commander, whose name escapes me, that he will die in battle defending her people. By the Peladon stories the Ice Warriors have become peaceful members of a Galactic Federation.
• The Doctor is now aware that there is a message on Mars. How would be know what time zone to go to, to arrive before the message was left?

He says they arrive just before the message was made, maybe the TARDIS scanned that area, year by year from 2017 backwards until it wasn't there, in this case 1881, then she canned the months, days etc and landed approximately around the time the message was made.

• What happened to all the other soldiers that survived? Why weren't they allowed to return home?

I guess Alpha Centauri got them home somehow. But yes, it's a bit of a plothole.

• Where did the fuel for the fires in the tunnels come from?

The soldiers brought some wood with them to Mars from Earth.

• Why was one of the soldiers in the platoon black? Don't get me wrong here, but isn't it historically inaccurate for black soldiers, if even in the army, to even be in the same units as white soldiers because society was rather racist, even in the 19th century?

Actually, society in England was actually moreover forthcoming to people of other races than the likes of America and Germany.

This point was raised in Thin Ice. History is 'white washed', although not as many as today, Britain has had a black population for a considerable amount of it's history

Thin Ice really doesn't explain it away. It was set in 1812, which is near the peak of England's (pre-1950s) black population, while 1881 is near its lowest point. And the British army had a pretty good number of black soldiers during the American Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, but very few afterward (until WWI). So, it is a bit odd.

Still, 'very few' isn't 'none at all'—and the handful of blacks that probably were scattered around the army in the 1880s were certainly not in segregated units. So, while the setup is a bit unusual, it's not at all impossible, and doesn't make the episode historical inaccurate or in need of an explanation. (Also, of course, Doctor Who's universe isn't the real world—maybe the programs to help London blacks emigrate to Sierra Leone never took off, or maybe there was another war on the heels of 1814 that required re-enlisting anyone who was up for it, or…)

• When the humans rescued Friday in Africa, he promised them riches if they were to take his ship with him back to Mars. At the time neither those humans nor Friday had interacted with the TARDIS or the Doctor, so how was Friday able to communicate with them? How was he able to promise them riches without the TARDIS translation field?

Which goes back to a previous question: how are the Ice Warriors heard in English? It's made stranger in that there is really no plot-driven reason for the TARDIS not to have been there.

• Bill sure was brave to speak to the Empress. Ice Warriors own biomechanical armour and sonic blasters. And melee weapons including swords and axes. But Bill spoke to her as person. Where was it she came to be so brave?