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

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Genesis 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.
  • Whatever happened to the computer program that was supposed to act as a failsafe from the Daleks threatening their creator? (Nyder having warned him about this danger)
The Daleks evolve over the course of the story. They've bypassed any such failsafe, and by the end have become far more autonomous than Davros anticipated.
The Doctor might not be telling the truth, but he is attached to a lie detector - although such detectors and mind probes do not always work reliably on the Doctor (incidentally, the trailer for The Dalek Invasion of Earth dated the story in 2000). He did not mention all Dalek defeats, this could be a separate attempt to take over earth as in 'Dalek Invasion of Earth'. Alternatively, he may simply have been using a different timescale, as Anno Domini dates would likely be meaningless to Davros.
This, alas, does not explain why he then goes on to recite the plot of the Peter Cushing film version of that particular invasion, stating that the Daleks were overcome by the "magnetic properties of the Earth" (as opposed to the big-ass bomb that Ian Chesterton jammed into their command centre). Interesting though it would be to conjecture that the Doctor was psychically linked even to alternate universe non-Timelord counterparts of himself, the whole incident has a bizarre sense of trying to pander to viewer memories (the film version being more recent, and possibly more widely viewed) while blissfully unaware that the home video age was just around the corner...
A lie detector can only detect a conscious falsehood, and the Doctor's memory is not infallible. We know from The Ambassadors of Death (TV story) that the Doctor watched television during his exile. Evidently he must have caught one of the traditional Saturday summer afternoon TV repeats of the Peter Cushing films during his time at UNIT - they would likely have caught his attention in the TV schedules - and, the actual events being a long time and two regenerations away from his perspective, misremembered this as being what actually happened. As for the date, anno domini is no more his native dating system than it is that of Davros, he probably simply forgot.
  • Why does Harry say in Part 1, that it's "a war of attrition - but backwards"?
It is most likely just a way he would describe the events of two races who, rather then attempt to break down each other forces (as in normal attrition), both races are attempting to evolve to a higher form than each other, to eventually be able to defeat them with ease, so in terms of attrition the rocks are attempting to outsize their opponent first before attacking, at which point the larger rock would win easily over the smaller rock.
Despite this explanation however, "a war of attrition - but backwards" is not the best way to describe that war.
Harry's a doctor, not a military historian! This mistake could be his just as easily as it could be Terry Nation's, so there's no reason to call it a discontinuity or plot hole.
What he actually seems to say is "a war of attrition: going backwards" (defining rather than qualifying what he means by "attrition").
  • Since the Thals have radiation suits, why not issue their slave workers with them, and save themselves the trouble of "recruiting" replacement workers every few hours?
Why bother? They're close to being able to launch the rocket, and it's easy to get more "expendable" mutos/Kaled prisoners. Radiation suits are likely relatively scarce, and reserved for Thal troops.
  • According to The Daleks, the ancestral race of the Daleks was called "Dals." However, they are identified as Kaleds in this and all future appearances. Among the theories to explain this apparent discrepancy include that "Dal" is the name for the Kaleds in the Thal language, or that the Dals were an earlier evolutionary form of the Kaleds themselves. They may even be another race allied with the Kaleds.
More simply, the two terms most likely apply to the same people. There is nothing terribly inconsistent about the term "Kaleds" and term "Dals" being used interchangeably in regards to the same people.
How can Sarah Jane be called English sometimes and British other times? Or both white and Caucasian? Or a human female and a woman? Or a human and an Earthling?
Actually, The Dalek Handbook states that the Dals were a separate race entirely, but eventually disappeared, apparently subsumed into one of the races.
I once heard a theory (I can't remember where) that there were Kaled Daleks and Dal Daleks: the Dal daleks were mutated Dals that found some Mk 2 travel machines and built a city, where found by the kaled daleks and used as a workforce.
  • The Daleks implied that the Daleks evolved gradually into their mutated form over hundreds of years.
This apparent discontinuity is usually explained by the Doctor's interference with their history in this story. Events set into motion by the Doctor's presence caused Davros to prematurely accelerate the development of the Daleks, creating unstable creatures which he could not control.
History is not always recorded perfectly, and the characters in The Daleks were talking about events from at least 500 years previous.
The original explanation is at least paid lip service to in Genesis, as it is repeatedly stated that the original aim of the Dalek project was simply to devise an efficient and defensible life-support system for the pathetically degenerated mutos that the Kaleds would finally be reduced to. The artificially accelerated mutants in the incubator were only supposed to be a proof of concept, rather than actually take up the Kaleds' mantle (after having butchered them all). Possibly in the original timeline, without the Doctor interfering and forcing him to hasten his plans, Davros was able to overcome the anti-muto prejudices of the Kaled government and persuade them that his plan was the only possible means of survival for his race. In this case, "natural" Kaled mutos would eventually have become the original Daleks, albeit probably with some of Davros' "improvements" to their psyche...
Perhaps these cities managed to keep out of the war until the final stages.
Also, their proximity prevents the use of more destructive weapons, such as nuclear warheads and nerve gases, which would most likely destroy both cities.
They may also represent the last remnants of larger nations destroyed over the course of the war, but the mutual hatred of the survivors is such that they have deliberately gathered their remaining forces into two closely-located settlements to better facilitate the continued slaughter with the poor, short-range quality of weapons left available to them.
  • If the Kaleds can get into the Thal dome so easily (right up to the door of the Thal cabinet room), then why the war of attrition?
They can get a couple of spies in relatively easily. Leading their whole army down that service tunnel would be a more daunting prospect.
  • At the end of Part 2, Sarah falls outside the gantry: in episode three's resolution, she falls onto a platform inside it.
It was not an absolutely straight fall - perfectly reasonable, given that she did not jump straight down.
  • Will it really take the Daleks 1000 years to get through a blocked tunnel?
The 1000 years refers to the time it will take to recreate Davros' work following the destruction of the incubators.
  • Why is everyone so scared of the completely motionless clams?
They were not completely motionless, as evidenced by their movement... When they grabbed Harry, their intention was to drag the victim off and attempt to devour them.
While an intelligent being would have to be pretty slow or unobservant to fall victim to these (cough, Harry), it would be a pretty horrendous demise: presumably having one's leg slowly crushed by pressure and dissolved by enzymes, while one's protruding upper end was munched on by other passing mutations. Thus, they are at least worth taking as seriously as the landmines in episode one.
  • The Daleks shown in this story are supposed to be the earliest and most primitive of the species; however, they are shown to be more advanced than those shown in The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth. They have the solar panels on their mid-sections that were first seen in The Chase and are able to travel off of metal, an ability that was only first shown to be possible in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Since this story takes place, chronologically, before these earlier episodes, maybe since then the war on Skaro had had many changes to the Daleks, and lost them many resources, so when they made more Daleks and more casing, they couldn't access the specific material or technology to create the solar panels. Being entombed, solar panels would soon become useless and would be discarded as such. Needing an alternate form of power - and not traveling outside due to being confined to the bunker, static electricity emerged as an alternative energy source.
Alternately, The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book reconciled this by stating that the Daleks that ran on static electricity were early prototypes created by Davros from inhabitants of the wastelands, whom he later left to their own devices within the city.
Also, it has to be remembered that the Doctor's presence drastically alters the sequence of events in Dalek history. It's possible that in the original version, the Dalek machines were accepted by the Kaleds, but as time went on the Kaleds grew fearful of the desolate, mutation-haunted wilderness outside their city, and redesigned the Daleks so that although they would survive, they would be restricted to the confines of the city. It was only later that the Daleks began to grow curious about the outside world and seek a way to leave their city.
I think this was probably just a production error; they may not have paid attention to detail, or those were the only models they had. If you want the canonical explanation, maybe this change was effected simply by the Doctor's presence; sort of the "step on a butterfly" effect.
  • The Daleks weaponry is more advanced. Up until this point, a piece of metal inside the gun stalk would rapidly move up and down and the image would turn negative to indicate that the gun was being fired, but between Planet Of The Daleks (bullets were used in Death to the Daleks due to the power drain) and this story the BBC have utilised the effect of overlaying a cone of blue light onto the screen, to represent a death ray. Did they lose the ability to make deathrays such as this after the explosion?
Just because the special effect is more advanced, does not mean that the weapon is more advanced.
  • Why is there a switch which will effectively kill Davros located on his console in the most obvious of locations? Under what circumstances would he want his life support system to be so easily terminated?
If he was captured by the Thals and didn't want them to interrogate him, he could use that button to commit suicide.
There could be any number of situations where Davros would need to be removed from the chair/his life support (switching to a new one, undergoing a medical procedure, etc), in which case having such a switch to shut off the system might be handy. We simply don't have enough details to say the switch shouldn't be there.
Purely speculative, but given the massive ear-splitting klaxon the button activates, perhaps Davros exaggerated its importance somewhat, in order to tempt the Doctor into pressing it (guessing that Nyder or the guards were bound to be in earshot).
In Destiny, Davros says that death would be a blessed relief. The button might be there just so that he knows he can end it all at any time if he wants.
  • What would Davros have done if someone had actually pressed the Big Red Destruct Button (or put a box file or cup of tea down on it accidentally for that matter) ? Judging by his own attempt to press it in the finale, it seems to be the real thing. In fact, why didn't someone press it when he offered it? By the same token, why doesn't the Doctor blow up the incubator room at the first opportunity? The Kaleds have even more reason than him to be conflicted at the prospect of completely destroying their only hope for the survival of their species (bearing in mind that Davros has, by this point, blown up any Kaled women on Skaro). They also lack his knowledge of the dire future consequences of that survival.
All of this is explained very clearly in the story. The Kaleds are voting on whether or not to end/alter Davros' work, but are destroyed themselves before they have a chance to "push the big red button". As for the Doctor, he goes through an internal debate on-screen over the morality of committing pre-emptive genocide of the Daleks. Before he reaches his decision, he learns that the Kaleds are planning to put an end to end Davros' work, so he is no longer forced to make that decision (at that point).
  • Surely the creation of the Daleks would be a fixed point in history, meaning that the Doctor would have drastically changed history.
The Doctor has the full backing of the Time Lords on this adventure. It's likely that the entire Time Lord government working together would be able to stabilize history after this. After all, the Time Lord in the beginning of the episode said that destroying them before they were ever created was acceptable.
  • Sarah-Jane loses her yellow trousers from The Sontaran Experiment and gained a dark coloured skirt in the transmat beam.
Look again. She has on precisely the same out fit at the end of The Sontaran Experiment as she does at the beginning of Genesis of the Daleks. The only yellow piece of clothing is her coat, which she has in both stories.
At the end of The Sontaran Experiment she is wearing a pair of bright orange wellingtons. At the beginning of Genesis of the Daleks these have changed into red leather platform boots.
  • There's no clear explanation for why Sarah-Jane changes outfit in the later episodes.
It's been several days at least running around in the same clothes. The change of clothes she finds is undoubtedly very welcome.
The following episode Revenge of the Cybermen was filmed before Genesis of the Daleks and she is wearing the camo outfit. Since they used the Time Ring to return to the TARDIS in Genesis of the Daleks, but end up on the Space Station Nerva instead in the next episode, there needed to be a reason why she appears in a different outfit.
The costume people would have checked all the scripts and worked out the costumes between Revenge of the Cybermen and Genesis of the Daleks and would know that Revenge would need to begin with her in the outfit she wore at the end of Genesis, whether it be the same outfit worn all along or a new one. The real reason Sarah-Jane changes outfit is because, well, it's Sarah-Jane. She likes to change outfits. From a production perspective they can't have her in the same outfit too long as that's boring.
  • The Doctor suddenly starts wearing his overcoat and hat again in Part 6 despite not having worn them for at least the three previous parts.
He knows that they will be leaving shortly, so he clearly retrieved them from where the Kaleds had stowed them.
  • While the Doctor, Sarah and Harry are on Skaro, the TARDIS is elsewhere. How, then, are the three travellers able to understand the Kaleds and Thals without the TARDIS' translation circuits?
The Time Lords undoubtedly accounted for this. The time ring probably has similar translation abilities. We also know that part of the translation ability resides within the Doctor.
  • How did Sevrin know where to find the Doctor, Sarah and Harry?
Mutos have a highly developed sense of smell, necessary for surviving in the harsh conditions of the wasteland.
  • Just what is the difference between the Thals and the Kaleds anyway - they are both almost exactly the same. Only the hair colour differs - is hair colour really a big enough difference to warrant being two different species?
It is never specified that they are two different species. They could just be two racist cultures, much like on Earth.
We also have no idea as to their internal physiological differences or similarities. They look similar, but also look just like Humans and Time Lords, which we know to be two different species.
The Thals' historical records from "The Daleks" perhaps offers some clue, as they depict themselves (with shame) as a warrior race and the Kaleds/"Dals" as erstwhile philosophers and scientists. Perhaps at first the war was simply an attempt by the Thals to conquer/raid a people whom they saw as weak, but who used their intelligence to adapt and fight back, unfortunately becoming a mirror-image of their ruthless attackers in the process (which, given the plot of "The Daleks", would make the whole history of Skaro a sad lesson in irony...).
  • When Sarah first materializes at the start of episode one, she states "This isn't the beacon". Nerva station was called "The Ark" when she had been there and wasn't referred to as a beacon until the next story, so how did she know it had been a beacon?
Any of the Nerva sleepers or the humans from The Sontaran Experiment could have referred to it by its historical Nerva Beacon name in front of her.
  • Even though the Doctor and Harry both witness Davros betraying the Kaleds in the Thal dome and bringing about the destruction of the Kaled dome, there's no indication that either of them ever told the Kaled scientists in the bunker. If they had known, one would think they would have treated Davros as a traitor and war criminal and not accepted his surrender.
There's no indication either way, that they mentioned it or that they didn't. If they did, it's likely Davros denied it. Given his history of serving the Kaleds, and that many of the remaining kaleds still believed in his work, it's unlikely that things would have transpired any differently from that point on.
  • Why did Nyder leave during the meeting? Presumably to somehow ensure the Daleks were arriving on time but it looks like after his encounter with the Doctor he rushes right back to Davros' side and the Daleks still arrive right on time. Part of me can't help but think he left for entirely more innocent reasons and the Doctor just ensured he died with a full bladder!
Davros does tell him earlier to "Wait a few minutes, then check that everything is ready.", so it's likely that's where he was going. It's possible he did check the Daleks were on their way after locking the Doctor, Harry and Sarah in Davros' office before going back back at the meeting, having found everything to be in order. However, I do think your bladder theory may well have some truth in it! We rarely see characters visit the toilet in Doctor Who, after all.
  • If the Kaleds say that "[their] race must be kept pure" and "imperfects are rejected", and Davros is crippled and horribly malformed, then why do the Kaleds accept him as part of their race?
Simple answer - hypocrisy. The muto rejection policy is evidently flexible when said muto is indispensable to the war effort. That being said, one could plausibly conjecture that Davros' plan for the Kaleds - to replace them all with mutants - contains an element of intentionally ironic payback for the stigma he may have suffered himself as a muto.
In World War Two, Joseph Goebbels (the Reich Propaganda Minister) was very far removed from the Aryan perfect man image - he had a club foot and walked with a limp, but was a leading figure in the Nazi Party hierarchy.
They needed Davros for his knowledge. And Ral said zero had it to kill him, hence the poison they gave him.
  • I wondered if Sarah J's younger companions Luke, Maria, and Clyde heard about this. What if they were capture by Daleks and brought to the Crucible. And Davros reveals them to blackmail Sarah J. And mentions events on the Genesis one including how Sarah was willing to commit genocide. And when they call him a liar, he points out Sarah's remorse. How do you think Luke, Maria, and Clyde react if they find out Davros was telling the truth and Sarah wanted to commit genocide; thus helping to start the Time War?
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