COMPLETE AND UTTER SILLINESS: A FEW OF MY FAVORITE PLOTHOLES - PART ONE

Once more, I'm trying to keep things a bit light. Another COMPLETE AND UTTER SILLINESS entry should accomplish that nicely...


THOSE DARNED PLOT HOLES JUST CAN'T BE HELPED
It's inevitable that any TV show will have plot holes in certain episodes or stories. The very nature of how television is written lends itself to it. A certain amount of content has to be created in a certain amount of time. This can easily lead to mistakes that just don't get caught. Or, in some cases, the creative team does recognize the problem, but just don't have the time to properly fix it.

Naturally enough, in a long-running show like Doctor Who - there's going to be some issues of this nature. Quite a few, in fact.  Let's has some fun and examine some:


PLOT HOLE TRENDS
There are certain story problems that have now occurred multiple times in several different episodes. It's almost like it's a plot hole that the creators like to go back to every once in a while and use for Old Time's Sake.

Recurring Plot Hole #1: Travel Time Problems 
No, not time travel problems (although those happen, too), but rather the amount of time it takes for a character to get from Point A to Point B can sometimes get a bit muddled. We see this mostly when another character or characters is also trying to make a similar journey. For the sake of expediency, one set of characters gets there far faster than they should.

The best example of this happens in Idiot's Lantern. Magpie is trying to reach the top of a transmitter tower to spread the malevolent influence of The Wire. He hops in his truck and drives off. He arrives at the nearest tower a short while later to begin his perilous climb. During this time, the Doctor and Tommy rummage through Magpie's shop and construct a device to defeat the Wire then head on foot to that same tower. Somehow, they get there only as Magpie is reaching the summit.

I'm not sure how this gets accomplished in that sort of time scale. Particularly since Magpie used a vehicle to reach his destination and his opponents had to walk things out. A fifteen minute ride can easily constitute an hour's worth of walking. And building the contraption that captures the Wire must have taken, at least, a good twenty minutes on top of that. The Wire's plans should have been long-complete before the Doctor and Tommy were even halfway through their walk.  Was Magpie afraid of heights so he climbed extra slow?!  Or, was this just a bit of hastily-written plot expediency that everyone was hoping the audience wouldn't notice?

This actually seems to be a bit more of a trend in New Who than the Classic Series. This is probably because the story needs to move much faster in the New Series and, sometimes, you just have to throw travel logic out the door to get things done. A less obvious example of this happens in The Woman Who Fell to Earth.  Again, climbing seems to be involved. Tim Shaw must scale the side of a crane to reach Karl in the cab. The Doctor and her gang arrive after he's already done a good amount of ascension. And yet, they still manage to reach the top of another nearby crane and swing over to Karl before the Stenza can reach him. We could slightly explain this away. Tim Shaw is a cumbersome fellow so the climb might take him a while. Also, the neighboring crane is a bit lower down so there's less of a climb for the Doctor and friends. But still, it's a bit of a stretch. While not as glaring as Idiot's Lantern, it's still some slightly sketchy scene arrangement.

Sometimes, this problem even works a bit in reverse. Instead of someone arriving at a destination too quickly, they seem to take an inordinately long time to get there. One of my favorite cases of this happens in Part Three of Warriors of the Deep. Take a look at when Commander Vorshak leaves the bulkhead that's under attack to return to the bridge. Other characters in the story have made similar trips in considerably less time. But Vorshak just takes forever. We're amazed when he stops along the way to check on the Doctor's progress with the weapon he's creating against the Myrka.

"He still hasn't reached the bridge yet?!" I cried out the first time I saw that scene. My only guess is that Nature Called in a serious way for Vorshak as he was taking that stroll to the bridge and he had to stop to "use the facilities" for several long minutes before getting back on his trek.

Recurring Plot Hole #2: Not Bothering to Check Things
While Travel Time Problems is more of a New Series issue, this one definitely occurs more often in the Classic Series.

It's the basic idea that, for the sake of a good story twist, certain characters don't check on certain things the way a normal person would. One of the better examples of this happens in Silver Nemesis.  The Doctor steals the bow of Validium from where it was left lying in its case during the big battle at the beginning of Episode Two. With a clever flick of his brolly, he slams the case shut and runs off to the TARDIS with the bow in hand. The Nazis eventually recover the case but never bother to check inside until a most embarrassing moment in Part Three where they are attempting to gain supremacy over the Cybermen. One would think that if you had a precious artifact in your care you would check on it at some point between those two moments and realize, of course, that your case has been empty. But, apparently, De Flores and his crew are not the brightest of fellows. 

Now, you could almost excuse our hapless Nazis for their error. There was a lot going on. It could have slipped their mind to check. But the notorious Eye Patch Reveal in The Android Invasion has no sane explanation.

In this instance, a human astronaut named Guy Crawford has been working with a war-like alien race known as the Kraals to invade the Earth. Crawford was brutally injured on a space mission and presumed dead. But the Kraals recovered him and were able to re-build him. Except for one of his eyes. So Crawford wears an eye patch to conceal his supposedly empty eye socket.

Three years later, the Doctor comes along and  points out that the Kraals have been lying to Crawford. He's had an eye beneath that patch the whole time. Horrified, the astronaut finds a mirror and lifts the patch up. The Doctor is right!

Now, before we even get into the silliness of these logistics, I have to ask: Why would the Kraals even do this?! Why not just let Crawford know he has both his eyes?!

But let's say there was a slightly rational reason behind the gesture. Perhaps it was a means of making Crawford feel submissive in some way. We still have to ask: Why does someone wear an eye patch for three years and never bother to look beneath it?!  In that entire time, Crawford never thinks: "Damn it's getting itchy under this thing, let's lift it up for a second and give myself a good scratch!" Surely, at some point during those three years, the string on the patch probably even broke. Most likely, a few times. As that's a long time for a string to maintain that constant level of tension. Or wouldn't Crawford get curious, at least, once during all that time and look underneath?

None of these things seem to happen. Crawford faithfully wears that patch the whole time til that big moment with the Doctor (who's able to guess after a matter of hours while Crawford doesn't put two-and--two together for a span of years). I consider this the greatest and most ludicrous of all plot holes ever. Not just for Doctor Who. But, perhaps, in the entire History of Television!

Recurring Plot Hole #3: Providing a Means of Escape
Again, one we tend to see more frequently in the Classic Series.

Every once in a while, we see a character placed in some sort of form of imprisonment but, for some reason, they are also given a means of getting out of it. The escape method is almost, but not quite beyond their grasp. Why would anyone do this, though? This is the equivalent of catching a horrible serial killer and incarcerating them in a maximum security prison but then letting them know that, hidden somewhere in their cell, are the keys to get out and a gun to use should he run into any guards!

The best example of this occurs in Pyramids of Mars. A really great story, in many ways - don't get me wrong. This is one of those tales that gets a lot of praise and I actually agree with what most fans say about it. However, why does Sutehk have all this Osirian technology that enables him to break free of the prison he's been placed in? The guy has a missile and robot servants and everything. Why would you let one of the greatest threats to the Universe keep that sort of stuff around?!

A similar thing can be said of the Doctor's exile during his third incarnation. Why is he sent to Earth in the TARDIS and allowed to keep it? Sure, it's been disabled and the Doctor's memory to operate it has been tampered with. But wouldn't it have just been safer to time scoop him there and leave him with nothing?

This can be explained away a bit by pointing out that the Time Lords do, occasionally send the Doctor on secret missions. But it would have been smarter to just send the TARDIS to him when they needed him to do something rather than leave it in the Doctor's care the whole time. He might still find some way to fix it and escape his exile. So why let him have it?

My only guess can be that some people who imprison others are giant sadists and like to taunt their captives a bit. Or, perhaps, some writers don't quite think things through all that clearly.

Recurring Plot Hole #4: Cryptic Messages
One that we tend to see in both New and Old Who.

There's a great example of this issue in The Mutants. The Doctor is suddenly sent a special pod-like thingy from the Time Lords that will only open in the presence of who it's meant for. When it does finally open for that person, it's just a series of pictograms that the Doctor then has to try to decipher. When he works out their meaning, he realizes it has something to do with how the Solonians mutate. That mutation will create the solution to the story's main conflict.

Maybe I'm wrong, but wouldn't it have been easier for the Time Lords to just say: "Hey Doctor. We're sending you to Solos. You'll meet a guy there whose name looks like a brand of sex lubricant. Subject him to a bunch of radiation. That will cause him to mutate and he'll be able fix a problem we need solved."

The reason they don't do that, of course, is because The Mutants needs to last six episodes!

A similar thing can be said about the famous Bad Wolf arc of Series One. Rose stares into the heart of the TARDIS and briefly become a god-like being who can save the Doctor from his peril at the end of Parting of the Ways. She leaves clues for herself to work out this strategy by scattering the message "Bad Wolf" across Time and Space.

Wouldn't it have been easier for her to just leave the message: "Hey Rose. It's me from the future. When you and the Doctor are fighting the Daleks on that space station, you need to stare into the heart of the TARDIS and create a Deus Ex Machina solution to the whole problem." 

Of course, leaving the message "Bad Wolf" all over the place is far more cool and mysterious. But, when you think about it, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.



THE ONES NO ONE EVER SEEMS TO TALK ABOUT
Now, there are quite a few plot holes in the show that everyone loves to go on about. All those pics Clive has of the Doctor by himself in Rose don't make sense. The Doctor appears to have just regenerated so he couldn't have had any of those adventures prior to Rose. But Rose leaves with the Doctor at the end of the episode - so she should be in those pics, too.  We all caught that one and have had endless debates about it. But there's a slew of other slips that writers have made that no one seems to talk about much.

Seldom-Mentioned Plot Hole #1: Terror of the Autons 
Like Pyramids of Mars, Terror of the Autons does seem to be another fan-favorite. Everyone loves the Autons and it was great to see them back. And this is the first story with the Master in it. Lots of exciting stuff going on, here.

I'm not as fond of this one, though. Mainly for its ending. Having reached the control room of a transmitting tower (back in one of those, again!), the Master is creating a bridgehead for the Nestene Consciousness. The Doctor makes it up there too and confronts his nemesis. Within seconds, he persuades the Master to stop what he's doing and send the Nestene Consciousness back to where it came.

This seems pretty ridiculous on several levels. The Doctor's main argument to get his rival onto his side is that the Nestene Consciousness will immediately betray the Master as soon as it gets what it wants from the Time Lord. It's my guess that the Master has been working with the Autons for quite a bit, now. A few months, maybe? During all that time, he never clues into this? He never thinks: "Wow! My allies seem pretty ruthless. I think they might not fulfill their end of the bargain!" He needs the Doctor to point this out to him?!

When he's allied himself with other creatures of this nature, he tends to build in a double-cross somewhere. Why does he never do this with the Autons? Instead, he just realizes at the last possible moment that he's made a mistake and changes his mind.

This course of action seems highly unlikely. Particularly since the truth is being delivered to him by his greatest foe. A man he truly deplores and has tried several times within the four episodes to kill. One would almost think that, out of sheer pride, he would not listen to the Doctor's eight second speech and would just keep going on with his plans. It all seems just a bit too convenient for my liking. Thus ruining the end of the whole story.

Seldom-Mentioned Plot Hole #2: The Mind of Evil
This one seems glaringly obvious but I've only ever seen it noted in The Discontinuity Guide (still one of my favorite books about Doctor Who that has ever been published).

During Part One, the Keller Machine keeps attacking various people and killing them by showing them their greatest fear. This makes sense. The victims are so horrified by what they believe to be real that the shock becomes too much and they die of heart failure.

What doesn't make sense are the physical symptoms that accompany the attacks. One victim is horribly phobic of rats, so his body is found covered in small scratches. As if he'd been swarmed by rodents. Another victim is found with his lungs full of water. He, of course, was terrified of drowning.

These physical manifestations are there to signpost their phobias and get the Doctor to see what the method of attack is. I get that. But they still don't make any actual sense. Just because you feel like you're drowning doesn't mean your lungs will, somehow, fill with water when you're in a dry room. Nor will tiny rodent-sized scratch marks magically appear on your body because you believe you're being attacked by rats.

I absolutely love Mind of Evil. I think it's viciously under-rated. But this little bit of the story - and the incredible slipperiness of a glass of water - are a bit too silly.

Otherwise, this story rocks. 

Seldom-Mentioned Plot Hole #3: The Sea Devils
This would be another one that I only ever see mentioned in The Discontinuity Guide.

Fans love to go on about the sword fight between the Master and the Doctor in this tale. To the point where they will deride a similar sequence in The King's Demons. Claiming it is almost a mockery of the brilliance of the Great Sea Devils Duel.

I will admit, it's a pretty fun moment in the story. The fight choreography between Delgado and Pertwee is quite decent. It definitely appears like they've both had some training in the Art of the Blade at some point in their acting careers (many actors of their era, do). The way the Doctor takes the piss out of things a few times adds a nice laugh too.

But I would be bold enough to say that I actually enjoy Five and the Ainley Master's fight just that little bit better. For the plain and simple reason that it's actually somewhat feasible. Whereas the one in Sea Devils makes no actual sense.

Why, in a maximum security prison, would you leave edged weapons right beside the entrance of a master-criminal's cell?! Might as well leave him some explosives, too, so he can blow a hole in the wall and escape after he's finished killing the guard at the door. Maybe even a nearby boat tied off with a week's worth of food and water. I mean, really, if you're going do stupid things with designing a jail - you might as well do it right!

The swords are there merely to provide a fun duel at the end of an episode. Which means, of course, that they shouldn't be there at all. It's just a bad bit of writing.

Seldom-Mentioned Plot Hole #4: The Time Warrior 
I will admit, this barely qualifies as a plot hole. It's more just an issue of lack of realism. But it is something I never seem to hear fans discuss. So I decided to include it.

Like many fans, I am quite fond of The Time Warrior. There isn't quite enough plot to sustain the four episodes but it does such a great job of introducing us to the Sontarans that we're all willing to forgive the padding. We can't wait to see more of this warrior race because Robert Holmes made them just so gosh-darned fascinating in their first appearance.

But there are a few "hoaky" sequences that do make it just that little bit harder to enjoy. The first one happens near the end of Episode Two. In an attempt to evade his pursuers, the Doctor launches a conveniently-placed torch into some conveniently scattered straw on the floor. Within nano-seconds of contact with the straw, the torch creates a huge blaze that Irongron and his merry men are incapable of passing through.

Now, I actually grew up in the country. I've burnt straw. But I think, even if you don't have my range of experience with this substance, you can guess that straw does not combust anywhere near as quickly as it does in that scene. The whole moment seems just a bit silly because of this.

I wouldn't list this here if it wasn't for the fact that there was a second ludicrous sequence that compounds things and makes this all worthy of mentioning. Later on in the story, Irongron challenges his gang to shoot the Doctor. I will admit, these are pretty primitive and probably inaccurate rifles being handled by people who are unskilled at using them. Even though they're firing at point blank range, I could believe that the Doctor might still be able to dodge a handful of shots before aim improved enough.

But this scene goes on for an uproarious period of time. We actually cut to another scene with Sarah Jane in the kitchen while an endless haze of shots are heard in the background. When we cut back to the Doctor, he should have been lying on the floor with, at least, a dozen bullets in his hide. No matter how crude the weapons and poorly-trained the handlers, no one could survive as long as he did in that sort of situation.

As I said, I never hear anyone talking about these sequences. And I could let it go if there was just one moment of this nature in this story. But the fact that there are two of them and no one ever seems to point them out makes me feel as though I needed to bring this up somewhere. This seemed the best place for it.

Seldom-Mentioned Plot Hole #5: Time and the Rani 
Just for fun, I recently re-watched all of Sylvester McCoy's era (even his oh-so-sad death in Doctor Who - The Movie). I caught a few things in Season 24 that do help re-enforce the fact that it is one of the weaker seasons in the history of the show (although, I still think Season 17 is waaayyy worse).

The first big plot hole is in Time and the Rani. The Doctor questions Beyus about why he is collaborating with the Rani. The Lakyertian Leader just tells the Doctor to go to the Center of Leisure. He will find his answer there.

Conveniently enough, the Rani just happens to decide to punish the Lakyertians while the Doctor is at the Center. She triggers a few panels in this large globe suspended from the ceiling to open and release killer insects that instantly murder several people in the room. Point is made. We now see why Beyus is so compliant. He's trying to protect his people.

But the thing that truly baffles me that no one ever seems to bring up is: why do the Lakyertians spend any more time in the Center of Leisure once the killer insects were released?! If you know a place is a death trap, wouldn't you just steer clear of it? But when the Tetraps visit the Center in Part Four, the place is packed with Lakyertians again. I know the Rani claimed that they are a very lethargic race - but is anyone that lazy?!

"Every minute I spend in here could be my last." the Average Lakyertian realizes, "But, screw it! I really like it in here and can't be bothered to leave!"

Seldom-Mentioned Plot Hole #6: Dragonfire 
No, I'm not going to talk about the cliffhanger to Part One. Everyone loves to go on about that one. This is supposed to be one that's seldom-mentioned.

This is another story whose ending gets ruined by a significant plot hole. I don't mind when something like this pops up somewhere in the middle of the story. But if it happens too near to the conclusion, it can truly kill my overall enjoyment of the adventure. Good endings are so important. 

This one concerns the fact that, at the climax of the story, the Doctor reveals to the cold villain Kane that his sinister plans to return to his home planet of Proamnon have come to ruin. The planet was destroyed a few thousand years previously in a supernovae. So disheartened is Kane by this news that he commits suicide right on the spot.

It seems fairly ludicrous that this is the first time Kane is hearing of the destruction of his homeworld. Does the guy have no internet?! You would think that, if your whole life is being dedicated to wreaking vengeance on a certain planet, that you might google the place every once in a while to see how it's doing. And yet, over the course of several millennia, he never bothers.

Yes, Kane does have a bio-mechanoid guarding over him who may have been using some method of blocking Kane's newsfeed from getting any information about Proamnon. But the prison had become a busy spaceport. Wouldn't Kane, at least, ask the occasional intergalactic traveler about news concerning Proamnon? There's no way retrieving information in such a manner could be blocked.

But he never does any of this. He just lives underneath a rock for a few thousand years without ever bothering to check in on how the world he wants to attack is actually coming along.

Seems a bit too preposterous to me. Does no one else think so? 

Seldom-Mentioned Plot Hole #7: The Empty Child 
Moffat's first work is, without a doubt, outstanding. A shining jewel of Series One (and Series One has quite a few of them). But I will say it's off to a bit of a shaky start. That air raid balloon sequence only sits so well with me.

Rose climbs onto the roof of a building to help a little boy that she has seen up on it. The boy has made it up onto a higher section of the roof. A convenient rope dangles down for her to use that isn't quite as opportune as she thought it was. Turns out the rope was attached to an air raid balloon that has come loose. Slowly, it drifts off with Rose hanging on for dear life.

A highly unusual string of circumstances to begin with. And Rose being able to hang on to the rope for so long also seems a little unlikely (even if she got the Bronze in gymnastics). I'm also not sure how the balloon or even Rose doesn't get shot to shreds during that air raid before Jack saves her. 

But what really seems silly about the whole moment is the fact that the balloon must have still been sailing over the rooftop for, at least, a matter of seconds before moving out onto the cityscape. Surely, in that time, Rose could have made the deduction: "Why don't I climb back down this rope or even just let go of it while there's a roof beneath me that's only a few feet down?" Instead, she just holds on tight and ends up several hundred feet in the air a moment or two later. Essentially, this whole sequence should have never happened. Rose could have easily bailed herself out.

There is even a quick shot of her sailing over the edge of the rooftop. They try to make it look like there just wasn't enough time for her to realize her options. But, really, that balloon is moving way too slow in other shots for her to not have that opportunity to figure things out.

I know that the whole thing was a very colorful way for Rose and Captain Jack to meet each other. But I almost gave up on the story because it all seems a bit too preposterous (I'll even be bold enough to say it's nearly as silly as the Part One Cliffhanger for Dragonfire!). Fortunately, the rest of the story is amazing enough for me to forgive it.

Seldom-Mentioned Plot Hole #8: Boom Town 
While I did just mention Series One was brilliant, some of the writers are still trying to find themselves and hammer out the show's new formula. This does make for a few shaky moments in the plots.

I'm amazed no one ever seems to note the inconsistencies in Boomtown. There's a few of them that seem pretty clunky to me.

Scenes between the TARDIS crew's antics and Blon's press conference seem to be running, more or less, concurrently. At the very best, an hour or two may have passed since the press conference finished and the Doctor sees the article about it in the paper (the sun doesn't seem to have gone down much between Mickey getting a "whatever" sign from Jack and them sitting in a restaurant telling stories). Could the picture taken of Blon during the conference really make it into the papers that quickly?

Most newspapers come out every morning and show the news from yesterday. Our four intrepid adventurers have not been in Cardiff for a whole day. I suppose the paper might do a special second edition that just happened to have had the time to include the Mayor's announcement. But it seems like a bit of a stretch. That article really shouldn't have appeared til next morning.

What seems like even bigger plot holes, however, happen in the chase scene an instant later.

First off, her office seems to stay open pretty late. I suppose it's possible for the TARDIS to arrive in Cardiff first thing in the morning. A special late edition of a newspaper comes out early afternoon and they get to City Hall before it closes. But that feels like a bit of a stretch too. Perhaps RTD shouldn't have been trying so hard to squeeze everything into one day. It probably would have been better if the TARDIS had taken longer to re-fuel.

But the silliest thing that happens is the actual chase, itself. Blon has a teleport device. Why does she bother to climb out a window and run down into the streets when she could have just teleported straight from her office? Perhaps she didn't want to "fly blind" again and the teleporter needed a moment to establish proper coordinates. But, maybe, that should have been specified in some dialogue, somewhere. Otherwise, the whole sequence looks like it's there just to create a wacky, fun moment in the story rather than make any real sense. As much as I did enjoy the visual of Mickey running around with his foot stuck in a bucket of toilet paper, I do prefer things have a bit of logic to them!




Wow! I'm really having fun pointing out plot holes! I have more, but I think this particular entry has gone on long enough. Let's do another one of these soon.... 

I do hope, by the way, that this doesn't come across as me just complaining about the show and trying to point out how awful it is. As mentioned in the intro: plot holes in TV shows are inevitable. I'm just trying discuss them a bit and have a laugh over them. Hope you're amused by all this, too.