Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Bells of Saint John

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Bells of Saint John 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. 

• How does the Doctor know where Clara lives?

The Doctor tracked the phone.

• The 'Spoonheads' rotate their heads around very slowly to capture their victims. And yet, during this time, not one person decides to take the opportunity to run. Any explanation?

They're too freaked out to move. Besides the rotating head is super creepy but not obviously threatening. And the Spoonheads are taking the shape of human beings. A strange girl descends the stairs in Clara's house and her first instinct is to find out why. There the heads start spinning (the Spoonhead's and Clara's). The reactions that people are having are likely a combination of fear, concern and the inability to comprehend what's happening.

And it might be moot anyway, as if the person runs they could still be within range of the "transmission".

Even Clara doesn't run, having happened to her a second time!

• The way the monks react at the beginning, implies the Doctor has instructed them to watch out for the bells to start ringing. But when they do start to ring the Doctor is clearly surprised and didn't expect it to occur.

He probably thought some other bell might ring. Maybe the internal telephone or, if he was gloomy enough, the cloister bell...

There's no indication that he gave them any instructions regarding ringing bells. They know the TARDIS is connected to him, so when it starts ringing, the Abbott concludes they should let him know.

You can tell people to watch out for something and still be surprised that it happens. Parents give babysitters instructions on what to do in an emergency (doctor's numbers, other emergency numbers) but they're probably still surprised if something happens. Besides, I can easily see the Doctor telling the Monks a long list of things to be aware of when he leaves it in their care, even if it's not intentional, "Right, so I'll be leaving her with you, oh, don't worry about, she's fine, she's a tough old girl (adjusts the doors and the phone TARDIS makes a sound of some kind, he pats the handle again, catches the eye of a Monk, continues talking) oh, don't worry about that, she's just temperamental, she might pipe up from time to time but it's nothing to worry about, although if she starts (acts out a sound) you should probably give her room and it she starts (acts of sound), no, she won't do that, will you girl?" - this could easily continue on for quite a while

The Doctor says "That is not supposed to happen", when the phone rings, but the phone has rung in The Empty Child and The Beast Below.

Well, yeah, he had pretty similar "that ain't right" reactions then too. It's something he doesn't view as positive when his companions aren't in sight; he's only displayed at in ruining in the presence of his friends.

• How did the Spoonhead get upstairs into Clara's room?

My first thought was that they worked through teleport, but that doesn't seem to be the case judging by the rest of their technology. Since the link with Clara wasn't properly active yet it maybe homed in on the laptop first?

That still involves a server entering her house, going up the stars and not being noticed. It's not like it's pretending to be a sign post on a street or something mildly plausible. Doctor Who loves to say that there are things like this all the time and our noticing is a trait intrinsic to humanity. The TARDIS lands in ancient Egypt and it doesn't need to pretend to be a statue, not one will notice either way. But this case stains the credibility. Either there was a Spoonhead in her bedroom for an extended period of time (meaning it was already there when she first tried to get online) and it managed to get up unseen and stay hidden, or a Spoonhead entered her locked house and walked up the stairs and snuck past her. Now maybe once they are stationary they can look as though like anything, but still it would have had to enter her house and get upstairs without being noticed. Besides, why would it have bothered to sneak into her house and hide? There isn't any clear motive for tying up a server for that long, their portability is supposed to be a big benefit. Besides, they're being fairly blatant about all of this; stealing consciousnesses, servers everywhere, turning people off and on. Why would they bother to find a way to get a server to sneak in somewhere and hide. Anyone who finds them is just taken and controlled. So that a Spoonhead managed to get into her room (and maybe hide there) without any notice just makes no sense.

Couldn't the server have come through the computer? Using the webcam?

• How did the Doctor get his motorcycle up the stairs out of the TARDIS doors?

Would that be the anti-grav motorcycle that he later drives vertically up the side of a building...? It presumably can handle a few stairs.

The Day of the Doctor shows Clara riding her motorcycle directly into the TARDIS without there being any stairs between the doors and console, meaning the interior reconfigured in some way to give her a straightaway. Presumably this is the case in this episode too. And even if not, there's only a couple of steps; anyone with riding skills could navigate them.

• Miss Kizlet "hacks" Alexei, increasing his IQ exponentially in order for him to come up with a "creative" solution to the problem of Clara escaping. Why then didn't she jack up his IQ when he was in the process of being out-hacked by the Doctor earlier?

A better point, why not keep the levels always up?

So they don't threaten her position?

Maybe the person has to be mentally "at rest". Sort of like how driving a stick-shift you might be in 1st gear and speeding up, but jumping directly to 5th gear might cause problems or damage.

Plus, this is the Doctor, it's takes a true genius to beat him at something like this.

• Clara was not open to a random guy dressed as a monk showing up at her door. She gave him a minute, but he just freaked her out beyond belief, knowing her name and everything. She then wakes up in her bed with no memory of how she got there, water, flowers and Jammie Dodgers on her nightstand and the Doctor parked outside, guarding her. Why doesn't she freak out, accuse him of doing something to her, call the cops etc? Why isn't she more suspicious of him? Instead, she opens up to him. What?

TV: The Name of the Doctor explains why.

TV: The Name of the Doctor doesn't explain it. The Clara fragments did see the Doctor, but if they were streaming information back to Clara why would they stream back to a past version? It's her future that knows the Doctor not her past.

Maybe Clara is just that sort of person, a control freak with her own weak spots, she likes things to go the way she wants, but if something completely unexpected happens (like in this case), she can get confused and seek help from the only person who seems to know what's happening. She didn't trust him completely then, for example, didn't want to get into the TARDIS when he asked. Plus, the Doctor, Eleventh especially, can look really likeable and trustworthy sometimes ('Closing Time'), it just happens when you feel you can trust a person, well, you're not always right, but in this case she was. Plus, it was implied several times that Clara fancied the Doctor, maybe she felt this affection for him almost immediately and wanted to know him better. Plus, we don't know what exactly was going on in her head, she could've been really suspicious all that time and hiding a baseball bat under her dress just in case.

In addition to this, a prime aspect of the Clara character arc throughout Series 7, 8 and 9 is how she and the Doctor were drawn to each other. The fact the "woman in the shop" was orchestrating their meeting also suggests Clara was chosen because she was likely to be receptive to the Doctor.

• At the end of the episode the Doctor rides his anti-grav bike to the Shard and saves the day before revealing that he was a Spoonhead the whole time, that he never left the cafe and is still sitting with Clara. Why does he look fully 3-D then? Front of head, back of head, everything in it's proper place.

Wasn't he wearing a motorcycle helmet that hid his lack of back of head?

He was. We never see the back of his head until he takes the helmet off inside.

Wouldn't the helmet fall off if it was only held on by one side of it's head?

It had a strap, like all bike helmets do, otherwise they'd fall off regardless what shape your head is.

The helmet would certainly move about, as it isn't a tight fit!

• Why exactly does Miss Kizlet bother giving Clara encyclopedic knowledge of Computer systems and the Internet?

She doesn't, Clara's sudden knowledge is a freak accident, of the Doctor downloading her off the server, something which is supposed to be impossible.

No, when Miss Kizlet starts to download her, she says "Give her the Computer Skills Package."

It isn't known why she was downloading/hacking people. Maybe the computer skills package was essential to this.

Also there are lines of dialogue suggesting that there is something notable about Clara, so Kizlet might well have seen her as a candidate for something.

• Clara doesn't recognise the Doctor, despite having met him as a child in the prequel.

We can't (and don't) remember everyone we met. Clara just forgot him.

• The Doctor says that Time Lords have 27 brains. Even though it was exaggeration, it implies that Time Lords have many brains. But in "The Brain of Morbius", Morbius has only one brain.

He was exaggerating.

• How could the Spoonhead work the tablet? You need a human finger to operate a capacitive touchscreen.

Well it's not a normal tablet, it probably has technology way more advanced than modern day iPads.

In real life efforts are underway to develop alternatives to using tactile interfaces like this (you try using a pad with an artificial hand). Presumably in the Doctor Who universe this technology is already in place.

• Not a plot hole per say, but no explanation has been given to why in all the promo images for Bells of Saint John, The Doctor dons the purple waistcoat and gold chain he wears in Akhaten, Cold War and Hide. But in the episode the waistcoat and chain are absent, despite all the promos showing him wearing it.

No explanation is needed. It's common for publicity images to show characters wearing outfits that differ from what is actually seen on screen. Note also that in none of the publicity images are Jenna-Louise Coleman and Matt Smith shown wearing safety helmets while riding the motorcycle, and the main promo image for The Snowmen showed the Doctor holding Clara as she appears to be falling from the ladder leading to the cloud while wearing her barmaid outfit, none of which was ever shown on screen.

• The episode takes place in 2013, yet Clara is said to be 24 years old, which would suggest a birth year of 1989. Death in Heaven, however, confirms that she was born in 1986, which would make her 27.
• Why does no one notice the comatose/empty/dead bodies lying all over the place?

The Wifi affects everyone, especially everyone in London, so Miss Kizlet could use a program wired to make sure all bodies in and around London Ignore the bodies being controlled by the WiFi Via Lowering their IQ, Raising their Ignorance.

• Why does the Doctor appear to act normal until the audience realise its the server? The server then acts differently.

The Doctor could access Clara by hacking her and bringing her back to the real world, it's shown throughout the episode (and particularly in the scene) that he has some Tech Skills. He could be using those computing skills to add animate and characterise the Spoonhead to make it look as if he was the Doctor, after the audience realises, there is no reason for the extra characterisation of the Spoonhead.

• Why does the server that uploads Clara, take the form of the child on the cover of the book?

The Spoonheads need an image of a human to get around, which is why they must take the form of the most available body. When the Spoonhead tracked Clara down, it must've copied the form from the book, which was left lying around.