Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Giggle

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Giggle 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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• I keep seeing people say that after the Fourteenth Doctor's retirement he will "fully" regenerate into the Fifteenth Doctor but would that really be necessary? The Fifteenth Doctor already exists and thus would Fourteenth even be able to regenerate again? And if he could, Wouldn't he instead regenerate into a different incarnation?

15 says he's ok because 14 "got better", which implies that he still comes AFTER 14's "retirement", as he has those memories. So my interpretation is, at some point, 14 will die again, and then in the regenerative process he'll somehow be transported to the top of the helipad as 15 to come out of younger 14

Ah, that makes sense. I was mainly confused because if he did regenerate again and Fifteenth was instead "plucked" from a random point in his life then Fourteenth wouldn't be able to remember the encounter but if Fifteenth was instead "plucked" from Fourteenth "full regeneration" then it would indeed make sense as to why they still both get to keep their memories as they are both still the current incarnations of the character.

That seems to be the intent of RTD too.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

13:24, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

• Why does "everyone thinking they're right" equate to "everyone becomes paranoid bigots". Yes, SOME people would, but even Kate starts having a go at Shirley and thinking there's some red headed conspiracy theory going on.

Think about it for a second. If everyone in the world started believing they were right then yeah it would be total madness. I mean you try to have a civil discussion with them and they just keep correcting everything you're saying as they think they're right and you're wrong. The Toymaker and The Doctor themselves both also point out that 21st Century Earth is a pretty f'ed up place already. All the Toymaker did was push everyone over the edge so that everyone believed they were "right" which is pretty much just a blunt way of saying superior to everyone that isn't them which somewhat explains Kate as well as she saw herself as "right" and superior to Shirley and the red-heads (and presumably everyone that isn't her). I suppose long story short, the Toymaker didn't just make everyone believe they were "right," he instead made everyone believe ONLY they were right which essentially means they believe everyone else was wrong.

But there's still a difference between "I'm better than Shirley" and "you don't need a wheelchair you're faking", and a difference between "I'm better than people with red hair" and "oh my god there are 2 people her who are redheads this must be some grand conspiracy".

If everyone believes they are right, then they also believe what they think and say is true. In the moment of passionate anger, Kate had the thought of conspiracies cross her mind - she thought her thinking that was right, so she believed the conspiracies were true, hence then saying what she said. The Toymaker removed people's ability to use logic and rationality in all aspects, so naturally Kate did too.

Its important to remember a key part of Kate's job is looking out for hostiles and imposters, and uncovering conspiracies, including vetting her staff (after all it would be far from the first time an enemy agent or a hostile alien either corrupted or flat out impersonated a seeming loyal member), so her mind is inherently looking for inconsistencies and signs that people around her aren't trustworthy. In a scenario where she convinced all her initial thoughts are correct and can't conceive being wrong, their isn't really any scenario for that does involve her descending into being a paranoid bigot convinced that everyone, especially those who even marginally different, isn't a dangerous hostile plotting against her.

• One potential plot hole has occurred to me. In the episode, the Doctor makes it clear that the Toymaker can't help but follow the rules of a game and accept to play a game when challenged by the Doctor. In both instances he does this, the Toymaker instantly stops his meddling and taunting and proceeds to play the game. Per the fairness rules, this seems to also limit the Toymaker's power to that a regular human given (in both the High Card and Catch games) he doesn't do any of his outlandish elemental manipulating actions. Therefore, since challenging the Toymaker instantly causes him to stop his meddling, why does the Fourteenth Doctor take so long to challenge the Toymaker to the third game? In the build up to the second game, it makes sense because the Toymaker is literally "toying" with and mocking the Doctor, inciting him to play the second game and risk losing since (at that point) the Doctor had already won their first game so did not need to play a second game - he only does as he concedes it as the only way to stop the Toymaker meddling with Earth and to shut him up about the tragedies he has committed between his 11th and 14th bodies. However, in the third game, he spends loads of time shouting and berating the Toymaker and demanding he leaves his friends alone. When challenging the Toymaker is the way to stop this - and he has to do it anyway to abide by the "Best of Three" rule - why does he take so long to do it? Had he done it earlier, he could have (potentially) averted his regeneration and would have stopped the Toymaker harassing his friends.

The Doctor was also spending a lot of effort trying to keep his friends and UNIT from provoking the Toymaker, and his proposal to go play with the Toymaker across the cosmos away from Earth, might actually mean that the Doctor wasn't confident he would win the third game and wanted to try something else before taking that risk.

Yes, he does. He offers him to join together and conquer the universe together with “infinite games”. But he still only offers that ages after the song and goes back to the whole begging and shouting without offering a challenge. Plus, the Doctor’s fear of losing is not why he still resists challenging - his own logic dictates he has a better chance of winning game 3 since he won game 1 and he already did game 2 despite his supposed caution that time concerning winning the game. It doesn’t make sense.

• The Toymaker implied this is the second time he faced the Doctor. 'I played the first game with the First Doctor, I played this game with this Doctor...', and also the best of three rule. Thereby ignoring all their previous encounters before. (6 in Nightmare Fair, 12 in Relative Dimension, more... have a look at the Toymaker page)

The Canonicity of Non-Television appearances has always been foggy to say the least. Now I don't want to say that Russell T Davies purposely was trying to decanonize the Toymaker's non-television appearances. Instead, I have the feeling that it's more likely an oversight on Davies part...