Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Image of the Fendahl

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Image of the Fendahl 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 episode four the Doctor says that the Fendahl killed the hiker and Mitchell, but he cannot possibly know their occupations or names.

There are several opportunities for him to have learned that information from characters off-screen.

• How does the Doctor get out of the locked cupboard in episode two?

He had been using the sonic screwdriver on it in the previous scene.

• Why did the Time Lords take such an extreme measure of time-looping the 'fifth planet' in order to contain the Fendahl but did not take similar precautions with the Sutekh (See Pyramids of Mars), who was surely no less of a potential threat to the cosmos?

By the time the Time Lords did time-loop the fifth planet the Fendahl had already destroyed all life there, so there was no harm in doing it, whereas there were millions of people living on Earth at the time of Sutekh's imprisonment and it would have meant condemning the entire human race to eternal imprisonment.

Who was the skull? The early mystery hinges upon a homo sapiens-proportioned skull from a period millions of years before homo sapiens existed, with it later revealed by the Doctor to have been manipulating the natural selection of human ancestors in order to produce a suitable species- so the skull's owner came first, and humans were shaped into its image to suit the Fendahl's designs. Since Fendahleen appear to be giant slugs, the humanoid core part of the gestalt is probably something else. "Eustace" was very probably Gallifreyan, before his death- the thirteen-member Fendahl gestalt entity perhaps points that way as well. The whole thing may have been an early regeneration experiment gone hideously wrong; at any rate, the Time Lords "criminally" time-looped the planet and conveniently declined to record that they had. As with "Ravolox", the thing smells of cover-up.

• There is a "cheat" when the cliffhanger to Part One is reprised in Part Two: Leela is seen to pull back from the doorway before Ted Moss shoots.

If you watch Leela's movements closely, you'll see that she actually spins around behind the wall after leaning in, which matches with her body movement at the end of episode 1 where she starts to lean in. There is a delay between the time the camera cuts to the gun and it goes off which matches the time it took to spin.

• Where does the Fendahleen at the end of Part 3 and beginning of Part 4 come from? The Fendahl had not yet manifested itself in Thea and started converting the cultists in the cellar into its other components.

In episode two when Thea falls unconscious in the kitchen while Adam Colby watches and the Doctor arrives warning him not to touch her and inquiring about the deaths, two Fendahleen appear and are already seen feasting on her energy. One of them is most likely the one that appears at the end of the episode, having fed on the energy as they were shown to feed on Thea's and had grown throughout the time period.

• Why did the security guard not say anything about the small Fendahleen?

You mean David Mitchell? He was killed during his first and only encounter with the Fendahleen, how could he have said anything??