Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Daleks' Master Plan

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Daleks' Master Plan 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:

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::This is a counter-argument to point one.
:::This is a counter-argument to the counter-argument above
* This is point two.
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::Further discussion and query of point two.

... and so on. 

• Marc Cory's tape message is different from the one he left in Mission to the Unknown.

Although a great deal of time has passed as evidenced by  Corey's body having decayed to a skeleton. The Message Tape was presumably damaged in the time between stories and is thus different.

The tape being damaged would not have actually changed the words in the message.

• If the Grand Alliance is so expendable, why have it in the first place?

Mass manipulation by the Daleks, to acquire the materials needed to build the Time Destructor. Several lines of dialogue referring to the Delegates making contributions to the weapon support this. Also the Daleks only turn on them after the Time Destructor is complete. In addition, the militaries of the Alliance worlds would be expecting the Daleks as Allies. So they would be open to Dalek attack .

• The Doctor's sudden address to the viewing audience in "The Feast of Steven" ("breaking the fourth wall") is almost impossible to rationalize.

It is not necessary to rationalise. It obviously belongs to the 'real world', not to the Whouniverse. There are times when characters of popular TV shows step out of the show to acknowledge their fans.

Alternatively, the Doctor was perceptive enough to notice the similarity between the recent events and a TV special, and addressed the "camera" jokingly.

Plus, he's not the only person with a time/space visualiser. Perhaps he was speaking for the benefit of anyone else with one.

The TARDIS records the experiences of the Doctor- and others, provided they are "within the collection range of a TARDIS" - "The Trial of a Time Lord" - such information being potentially accessed by the Matrix in the future. While the Doctor was presumably not planning on uploading details of his travels to the Matrix, being on the run, perhaps he was light-heartedly wishing a Happy Christmas to posterity, and any Time Lords back at "home" who might one day review his adventures.

And in Remembrance of the Daleks Doctor Who coming on. Maybe there is a television show about the Doctor's adventures in the Whoniverse, and he knows this. Or maybe he acknowledges that every universe is a televison programme in another universe, and therefore says it to the audience of an alternate universe. but maybe he was just joking...

• Why don’t the Daleks use their time machine to go back to a time where planets are easier to colonise, rather than go to the effort of completing the Time Destructor to do the same?

They've tried that- q.v. Day of the Daleks (TV story) - where their time travel technology is a lot more primitive so probably earlier from their perspective - it didn't work, thus the more drastic weaponisation of temporal technology.