Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Empty Child

You are exploring the Discontinuity Index, a place where any details or rumours about unreleased stories are forbidden.
Please discuss only those whole stories which have already been released, and obey our spoiler policy.

This page is for discussing the ways in which The Empty Child 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. 

• The Doctor says that only Earth uses red alert and everyone else uses mauve. This contradicts so many other things in the Whoniverse, and most importantly the red light on the chula ambulance near the end of the story.

No, the Doctor means that red alert is the highest alert on Earth, and everyone uses mauve as higher.

The red light on the ambulance was probably just to signify that it was an ambulance.

• Whilst Jack and Rose were next to (the tower that houses) Big Ben, the clock continued to show 21:30 and Big Ben's clock never stopped during World War II, it continued to tell the time.

This is set in the Whoniverse, where not only are things not the same as in our own universe, but time is also in flux.

You don't understand! The clock is staying on the same time for more then a minute so therefore its a production error

You said it yourself, the production team probably just stuffed up.

But in the Whoniverse, the clock might have stopped.

Yes but the real and only answer is that the production team screwed up. There is no need to make up some excuse for this in universe.

Other than that being the entire reason for this section existing. Simply answering 'it's a production error' to everything might be easy but it takes away the fun of coming up with an in-universe explanation

OK, here we go- if the clock on the Elizabeth tower really had suddenly fully illuminated and chimed loudly in the midst of a German air raid, with London and the RAF on full alert, then they would have noted the previously invisible spaceship which Jack had apparently turned temporarily visible in order to show off to Rose. Therefore, when Jack used his 'remote' to cancel the ship's invisibility, he was actually only rendering it visible to Rose, not to anybody on the ground. In other words, he either used some complicated form of light polarisation to make sure that the ship was only visible to people inside its field of invisibility- but temporarily extended the field to include the 'deck' of the ship as well as its internal cabin- or else he simply modified the ship's perception filter. As actual invisibility in this universe appears to be something which even Daleks find it a little difficult to master- and which is apparently lethal to even them, through light-wave sickness, if attempted for more than very short periods- Planet of the Daleks (TV story) - it seems that a perception filter is the more likely form of 'invisibility' technology for him to be using. It's also a form of technology rather more in keeping with his character as a confidence trickster.

Bearing this in mind then, if the ship was visible to Rose because Jack changed its perception filter settings to make it so, then it's likely that when he used the same remote control to visually and audibly announce the time to her in the flashiest way possible, this was also using perception filter technology- i.e. manipulating the image of Big Ben on Rose's optic and auditory nerves rather than actually modifying the Tower. The time displayed on the clock from Rose's perspective when standing on Jack's ship, therefore, is the time according to the BIOS of Jack's ship's computer. He evidently needs to replace the CR2032 as it's slipping a bit. Fortunately, the ship's annihilation at the end of this story prevents this from being an ongoing problem.