Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Father's Day

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Father's Day 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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• There's a problem with the scene where Rose saves her father's life. The first time the Doctor brings her back there, she ostensibly wanted to be by his side while he died. So she watches him get hit by the car, seems to be unable to move, and then says that it was too late, that her father had died on the street alone again. So then the Doctor and Rose come back AGAIN and, hiding behind a wall, see the "first Doctor and Rose". The Doctor said "Wait until Rose runs away and then go to your Dad". But - in that case, she'd be too late again, so what's the point? The first Rose was still standing there at the moment her father died, so the second Rose would have to walk in front of the first Rose to have any chance of getting to her Dad before he died. It would have worked if a) Rose had actually run away BEFORE her Dad died or b) for more drama - had say, buried her face in the Doctor's coat, crying over her father's being hit by a car, but BEFORE he died. That way, Rose #2 could have gone out into the street. Doctor #1 wouldn't have been particularly fazed by seeing two versions of Rose. This seems like a pretty major error on the part of the writers.

Rose said it was too late not immediately after that, first she and the Doctor were standing on the road looking at Pete, and next they were leaning against some wall, clearly not on the road. that's when she said it was too late, and she said so because she heard the sound of an ambulance, and THAT when it was late, because according to Jackie's story, when the ambulance arrived Pete was dead. It means he was dying for a longer time - she could just stand there looking and then run away in fear/grief/shock, and spend some time leaning against that wall somewhere else, and all that time Pete was dying and she still had a chance to go to him, but she didn't. And then later she heard the ambulance and realised it was too late.

• If Rose can remember Jackie telling her about the blonde girl who was by her father's side when he died, that means it is impossible to change the past because the past changes would have already taken place which contradicts many events.

Rose's memory changed when the past changed. Previously she remembered Jackie telling her that no one was with Pete when he died.

Rose May now remember it both ways so her mother telling her that there was a blond may have been an additional memory to the first one where he died alone. Kind of like in The Wedding of River Song where Amy says she remembered it both ways. Basically not that Rose only remembered her mother saying there was a blond ther but that she remembered both with and without

Spoiler:Amy Pond still remembered the clerics and the Weeping Angel that got in her head after they were entirely removed from Time in Flesh and Stone, and the Doctor tells her that being a Time traveller changes the way you experience Time, implying that it makes their memories immune to changes in the time stream.

The Doctor later, in Cold Blood, states to Amy as she is trying to remember Rory that memories are not immune if one's own time stream is directly affected, which Rose's was by her father's death and her involvement in it.

Yes, but this is referring to the crack, a totally different thing than this situation.

• In the church scene, the Doctor's sonic screwdriver goes off without making a noise.

It could have a silent setting.

Why would he need to use a silent setting, it makes no sense.

It has been shown that the sonic screwdriver changes pitch depending on the setting. It is possible that this setting is at a range of sound that cannot be detected by Human ears.

Or simply the production team stuffed up

• Surely there are a number of times the Doctor has changed past events, where the Reapers should thus show up. Is the survival of Rose's father somehow more important than any of the other seemingly fixed events that the Doctor has encountered?

The Doctor said the Time Lords always cleared up problems like this in the past. With them gone, the timeline is much weaker.

The presence of two Doctors and two Roses at the scene of Pete's death was a paradox, which the Reapers could use as energy to get through.

The Doctor makes sure never to cross his own time-line. Rose's actions caused her past self and Doctor to have no reason to go back again, causing the paradox which let the Reapers through.

There are differences between changing history, preventing a change, and being part of history. Even when the change creates a paradox, it can be either constructive or destructive. This particular paradox was destructive, which is why it became a "wound" and had to be fixed. If you have any particular story in mind where you would have expected Reapers to appear; it would be more productive to discuss the issue in that discontinuity section rather than letting this be an open-ended topic here.

• What exactly is going on with the man in the car? he is stuck in some "loop", yet travels through space while everyone else carries on. How does Pete getting hit solve anything?

I'm not sure why the driver was stuck in the loop but Pete getting hit resolves the paradox as if he dies that day Rose has a reason to go back and save him (and cause the original problem) so if the paradox is resolved the reapers disappear.

• And Pete doesn't restore history. Therefore the Reapers would have been seen and documented by many people.

Something clearly reset because the we see the father of man who was getting married at the end of the episode and he had been killed by the Reapers. And Jackie doesn't say anything about the Reapers when she's talking to young Rose, the only difference is where Pete died and how there was a girl who stayed with him.

the doctor clearly states earlier in the episode when talking to Rose that once ther reapers we’re gone everything would rest and no one would remember anything. That is why no one remembers the reapers and the mans father is back alive.

• It is stated that Rose and Mickey are the same age, yet here Mickey is already quite old, while Rose is a baby.

See below in the response to the seesaw. It is possible the entire playground is from another time.

Has it even been explicitly stated that they're the same age. Certainly they're close in age, but the difference between a newborn and an infant wouldn't be as significant in adulthood. The age difference between Piper and Clarke is seven years and Mickey is seen to have his own flat, so putting him in his mid-twenties when Rose is nineteen is not inconceivable.

• The three different aged Roses have three different eye colours(blue, green and brown).

Firstly, the child Rose and adult Rose have nearly identical eye color. As for the infant Rose, the deviation from blue to brown could be due to a common deviation in melanin as a result of age (although it typically occurs during adolescence) some time before Jackie told child Rose the story about Peter.

• In the playground, the type of see-saw (with springs) was not around (in the UK, at least) until later than the 1980s. A small thing, I know...

While Rose is in the car being driven to the wedding by Peter, the radio comes on with a song that is "not out yet". Also, the phone call received inside the church. These, along with the seesaw, could be attributed to the nature of the location: some sort of time bubble created by the paradox where things from other times leak in.

• The TARDIS moves from by the park to near the church without there being a chance of the Doctor moving it!

Considering little Micky ran from the park to the church, the two places are probably close to each other. It's not clear how this is a discontinuity?

Plus the Doctor had been trying to pull the TARDIS back into reality inside the church before the Reapers got in. Maybe after time was fixed and it was able to land again, it landed as close to the place it'd been trying to materialise before as it could manage.

• I understand how a paradox would have caused the Reapers to come through. But what I've been wondering is; would the Reapers still have come into the story if the 1st Rose had pulled her Dad out of the way of that car...any ideas?

Probably, strictly speaking it shouldn't matter which Rose caused the paradox. Then again, the Doctor does say that having two sets of them there had already made it a vulnerable point in time, so who knows.