Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Satan Pit

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Satan Pit 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 The Impossible Planet the TARDIS fell into a crevasse. How did the TARDIS get down the seal and into the Beast's pit?

The Beast has been shown to be able to telepathiclly link to living things and take control of them. The TARDIS, being a living thing, could have been taken control of by the Beast.

The crevasse could have been down near the pit, and the quakes from the seal opening could have opened it even further. Also, remember that the Doctor mentioned that the TARDIS didn't want to land? Even if she could see she would get the Doctor back, she would have seen the fall was coming. Maybe she didn't want to get anywhere near the beast.

As shown in the Visual Dictionary, the crevasse leads directly to the Beast's pit.

• If the Beast was imprisoned before the universe, and assuming that he was always imprisoned in Krop Tor, then how did Krop Tor and the black hole survive the Big Bang? How could they be carried over from one universe to another? The same could be asked of the Beast himself.

The Ancient Lights survived the Big Bang. As an extremely powerful entity, even more so than the Ancient Lights, the Beast may have been able to survive as well and have the ability to hold surrounding objects. Due to the technology holding the planet being unseen and incomprehensible, it is likely that the Disciples of Light created a way of keeping the black hole static, with the planet around it.

• The Doctor claims that he could not save the Ood as he only had time for one trip. But he has a time machine. How could he not have enough time?

In The Runaway Bride the Doctor states he cannot use the TARDIS to time travel if he has become "part of events". This is because he would be in the same place at the same time in twice or more circumstances. The episode Father's Day shows the extreme danger of attempting it.

We also see in The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story) that once the Doctor has seen how an event turns out, it's fixed for him and he can't change it.

• It is clear in The Impossible Planet, that the Beast has total control of Toby and can work his will through him, so why is it necessary to actually open the underground seal at the end of that episode if his mind had already reached beyond it?

Though he is able control minds he cannot actually leave the confines of his body until the seal is open and the key to achieving that lies in the intonement of the words which only Toby can translate; and indeed are the means by which the Beast is able to possess him in the first place.

Perhaps the interference of the Seal limits the range and power of it's ability to possess.

• Why bother to possess the Ood and set them on the 'Aliens'-esq rampage, as this only alerts the Doctor and the other Humans to the impending danger? If the Beast's intention is merely to escape, why not simply use Toby to open the seal surreptitiously and then sneak away in the rocketship when no-one is looking and any the wiser?

Creating fear is a vital ingredient in the Beast's opening of the seal. If he is after all, just an idea, perhaps he needs other people's awe/terror to make him real.

Opening the seal was pretty loud and earthquakey. He needed somebody else to pilot the ship, and to get that, he had to scare them into abandoning the mission.

• Why didn't Rose just shoot Toby in the head?

Even if that would have worked, and even if she had thought of it, Rose could not have been sure that the Beast wouldn't have just jumped to another person. Also, Rose may have been reluctant to directly shoot Toby.

Pretty sure that if Rose were the kind to shoot somebody in the head, the Doctor wouldn't be as attached to her.

• Why did Zack claim that he, Danny and Rose would be the first Human beings to be sucked into a black hole if they already knew that Scooti Manista was sucked into the black hole and as was Toby seconds before?

Perhaps he meant "living" Humans.

He's also in kind of a tense moment... One might cut him some slack on how precise he is being with his phrasing at such a moment, especially of what is essentially just a grim joke.

• The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few. With time only for one trip, shouldn't the Doctor have saved all the Ood, not Ida?

The Doctor is clearly shown on many occasions to favor human beings, The Master even states in one episode that humans are his "Favorite". It wouldn't be completely correct to say that The Doctor does not make mistakes, or that his morals are perfect. It could also be that it was simpler, mechanistically, and therefore quicker, to save Ida as a lone body then a swarm of Ood. Ood, who are quite frankly prone to every psychic manipulation within a galaxy's breadth. The Ood may have also been tainted or driven insane by The Beast's psychic manipulations, which The Doctor may not have been able to treat or cure effectively. There is no real solution to this if that happens to be the case. As soon as the Ood came within psychic reach of the Beast they were probably doomed by his dominating presence.

The morality of that statement is debatable. The Doctor is clearly not Vulcan, and even in Trek that axiom is implied to be both logically correct and morally wrong. More importantly, how would he have been sure there was no psychic influence still in the Ood?

There clearly isn't enough space for 50 Ood. This is easy to see by how under 10 people barley fit in the Tardis (seen in Journey's End). The only way to change the design we know is through changing Doctors which requires him to die and takes time. Even if he doesn't need to change form, it would most likely not be instant, so he wont have time. And even though he has a time machine, he cant travel back in time as he is part of events.

The control room of the TARDIS isn't the entire thing. There are other rooms and corridors. We only see them with latter Doctors, but they doesn't mean they are not there. Shortly after regenerating into the Eleventh Doctor, he states that he just climbed out of the pool which was in the library. The TARDIS is still before its rebuild, so it stands to reason that the pool and library have already been there for the Tenth Doctor. It is also highly possible that some sort of facilities (bathrooms) and other rooms exist, such as the rooms where they keep clothes and other luggage. Space is really not an issue with Time Lord technology.

That said, other points in this thread still stand. Funneling 50-odd Ood into the TARDIS via one fairly narrow doorway in an impending doom scenario is not easy. And also, they could still have been possessed by the Beast.

• Why does the beast's body CATCH ON FIRE when it is falling into the black hole?

Perhaps ON FIRE is his natural state. :)

• If the planet gets sucked into the black hole by smashing the jars, then why would the beast breaking free of his chains do anything?

It's Intelligence/Mind was not present within the Beast's actual body, only it's most basic instincts. An animal would not even perceive jars to be of any value or meaning, and by extension, would not even comprehend what is happening around itself (ie; planet collapsing into black hole).

The only way out of the pit was through the seal. If the Beast tried to physically leave it would have invariably broken the vases. The question of the Beast's mind escaping warranted the need of the Disciples of the Light for a person to smash the vases, as explained by the Doctor.

• Zachary Cross Flane acts upset about the loss of the Ood when he counts them among the dead with honours. But it seems like they've got a pretty small rocket, and wouldn't be able to have carried the Ood with them even if they had more time to get ready. How did the Ood even get on the planet in the first place?

The Ood could have been carried in on a separate ship that was incorporated into the base somehow. We know they would have needed more space than their little rocket to carry all the parts for the base.

But that doesn't explain how they ever planned to get the Ood back off the planet. If they're upset the Ood got left behind they must have meant to bring them back.

Maybe the rocket is larger than it appears. We see the outside without anything for scale, and the interior might just be a cockpit. Maybe in the back there is a cargo hold for the 50 Ood.

• When Rose and others are travelling through the maintenance shafts, there is an issue with Oxygen, but as seen in the main corridors there is always Oxygen as there designed for humans. The maintenance shafts should always have Oxygen as between them is just a metal grid of wires (there's definitley holes due to Rose's fingers going through the gaps) so there is no airtight seal. And by how Scooti died from the glass breaking, an airtight seal is clearly required for the Oxygen field to exist. Before you post a counter argument saying the main corridors are not airrated, this clearly can't be true as the humans have no issue with travelling to the Rocket via the main corridors without the Captain filling them with air, and to do that, as he can only fill two corridors at a time (the one there in and the one there gonna go in) the Captain would have to sacrifice himself, which he did not do as he is seen flying the rocket later.

Technically, it might be possible that not every single part of the station had air in it. It definitely wouldn't be smart from an efficiency perspective (one of the most important things in space travel). I mean, it was shown that some parts of the station may just fall down due to quakes. It only sounds logical to keep your most precious resources, like oxygen, in the most important places, like the controll room or the direct escape path to the rocket in case something goes terribly wrong. Perhaps only the most necessary hallways and rooms had consistent air-support.

• If Danny killed all the Ood when they went red eyed, how were there still Ood in the corridors when the planet was falling into the black hole?

When the Sanctuary Base 6 team and Rose were leaving the base, some of the Ood started re-awakening. This could've continued while Krop Tor was being destroyed.

he didn’t kill them. He released a virus or something that disabled them. As they were leaving and the pod began waking up he says they are resetting. So whatever he did was only temporary.

• In the previous episode, the Doctor said it would take 500 years to reach Earth from where they are. Yet, the monitor displays and Toby says they are heading to Earth. They'd never make it without dying?

The Doctor presumably meant if travelling normally, maybe the rocket is capable of a jump through hyperspace or whatever.

• The crew of the sanctuary base works for Torchwood Archives. Torchwood was created to watch for and learn about the Doctor. Why didn't they know about the Doctor, or Rose who was there when Queen Victoria created Torchwood, or recognize the description of the blue box?