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Did The Timeless Children completely break River Song's character? Not exactly...
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00:00The term plot hole is thrown around so often that it's become difficult to know what is actually a plot
00:05hole and what's just something that annoys you.
00:07The only certainty is that there are many things in Doctor Who that have one or two feet in either
00:14of those camps.
00:15But whether it's crossed wires, lack of narrative detail, or a straight-up contradiction,
00:20plenty of these iffy moments can be explained away with relative ease.
00:24I'm Ellie for Who Culture here with 10 Doctor Who plot holes you didn't realise were actually solved.
00:30Number 10. Why doesn't the wall reset in Heaven Sent?
00:34Steven Moffat has always had a knack for intricately constructed stories that play with time travel,
00:40with episodes like The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, and The Big Bang all garnering huge acclaim.
00:45His timey-wime-est, though, has to be Heaven Sent,
00:48where the Doctor is trapped and endlessly reliving the same experiences for billions of years.
00:53It's such an interesting and well-executed premise that it's really no surprise that it was immediately recognised as an
00:59all-time classic upon its release.
01:02And yet, for such a tightly wound script, there's one large detail fans have pondered over since broadcast.
01:08If everything in the confession dial constantly resets,
01:12how is the Doctor able to very slowly punch his way through the diamond wall?
01:16Shouldn't it reset too, along with everything else?
01:19The answer, it turns out, is a rather straightforward one.
01:22As Moffat himself points out in an interview,
01:24the diamond wall isn't inside the confession dial at all.
01:28It's the exterior wall.
01:30It doesn't reset, because it's the container inside which the resetting happens.
01:34This also gives an indication as to why the Time Lords considered a metres-thick wall of solid diamond a
01:40reasonable investment.
01:41If they want the Doctor to remain trapped inside their torture dimension,
01:44you might as well make its walls out of something he could never break through.
01:48After all, who'd be crazy enough to spend infinite lifetimes punching diamonds with their bare hands?
01:53Who indeed?
01:55Number 9. Where did 15 get the whistle?
01:58At the climax of Empire of Death, all seems lost.
02:02Sutek has won, and life has been all but eradicated from the universe.
02:07But the Doctor always has one last trick up his sleeve, and this time, it's a whistle that can control
02:13the TARDIS remotely,
02:14that he randomly picked up earlier in the episode with next to no explanation.
02:19Huh?
02:20This understandably left fans asking questions.
02:22Questions such as,
02:23What is happening?
02:24And, well, actually no, mainly it was just that question.
02:27Turns out that Ruby Sunday also asked that exact question in a slightly bafflingly deleted scene from Empire of Death.
02:35In the scene, it turns out that the Doctor himself creates something of a bootstrap paradox,
02:40passing the whistle back to his younger self through the floor of his TARDIS after using it to defeat Sutek.
02:46It might not be the most satisfying of answers, but when the stakes are so high in a series finale,
02:51it's 30 seconds or so that would probably have been worth keeping,
02:55to give the Doctor's victory a little more foundation than a whistle falling out of a ceiling panel,
02:59especially in an episode that spends five minutes on a lady and a spoon.
03:04Number 8.
03:05Why didn't the TARDIS translate the Pope?
03:08One of the TARDIS's many handy features is that it can instinctively translate any known language
03:13and telepathically transmit the results to its passengers.
03:16No matter how far you travel in either time or space,
03:20you should be able to converse with pretty much anybody you meet.
03:23In fact, its translation matrix is so advanced that when it's unable to translate text in the impossible planet,
03:28the Doctor immediately takes that as a very, very bad sign.
03:32But for some reason, it can't translate for Pope.
03:36Admittedly, the Pope, of all people inadvertently ruining Bill's date,
03:40works so much better if he's babbling incoherently in Italian.
03:43But at the end of the day, it's still a human speaking a common earth language,
03:47so you'd think the TARDIS wouldn't have much of an issue with that.
03:51This seeming plot inconsistency is once again addressed in a deleted scene,
03:55with Stephen Moffat explaining in an interview with Radio Times that,
03:59I did write in the Doctor saying he didn't really need the translation
04:02and Nardole suggesting that he play along out of courtesy,
04:05but it glitched the scene, so I lost it in the edit.
04:08In fairness, the Doctor's translation ability has wobbled before,
04:11so it's just having another off moment.
04:13That said, there is also another potential explanation in the episode as broadcast.
04:18This isn't the real Pope or the real TARDIS.
04:21Almost the entirety of Extremis takes place in a simulated universe created by the monks,
04:27a simulation that is shown multiple times to not be 100% accurate to the real world.
04:32More than likely, this was just a glitch in the Matrix,
04:35or the monks thought it would be funny if the Pope wasn't translated.
04:38Either or.
04:407. How does humanity keep forgetting all the alien invasions?
04:45One of the most regularly occurring plot holes in Doctor Who history
04:48has been the human race's general obliviousness
04:51to the constant alien invasions happening in contemporary Britain.
04:55You'd think that a world that has seen Cybermen
04:58climbing out of manhole covers at St. Paul's Cathedral,
05:01dinosaurs walking the streets of London,
05:03Daleks transporting the Earth halfway across the universe,
05:06and dummies murdering innocent shoppers to separate times
05:09would have evolved into a society quite a bit different to ours.
05:13Yet no matter what, modern-day London
05:15almost always looks pretty much as you'd expect.
05:18There have been some token efforts to clear this up over the years,
05:22usually involving implications that Unit, and later Torchwood,
05:25are covering up any traces of alien activity
05:28to keep our knowledge of extraterrestrial life a secret.
05:31But these have never been particularly robust.
05:33There's even a moment in Remembrance of the Daleks
05:36where the Doctor lampshades this,
05:37commenting on humanity's most amazing capacity for self-deception.
05:41It also doesn't help that the show can be occasionally inconsistent
05:44with who remembers what.
05:46Most modern-day companions have never heard of a Dalek,
05:49but their invasion in the stolen Earth forms an important part
05:52of Adelaide Brooke's backstory in the Waters of Mars.
05:55It wasn't until Series 5 that we finally got an explanation
05:58that stood up under any amount of scrutiny,
06:01when the Doctor attributes humanity's convenient recurring amnesia
06:04to the all-consuming cracks in time.
06:06It's an easy explanation, granted,
06:08but when you're trying to explain away the world's population
06:11for getting ghosts turning into Cybermen
06:13and a giant metal robot stomping about the place,
06:15the fabric of time and space being fundamentally fractured
06:18feels a bit more appropriate than
06:20the military hid the evidence and claimed it was a gas leak.
06:23Number 6.
06:25How doesn't the Doctor know which Osgood survived?
06:28Ever since their first appearance in 1975,
06:31the Zygons have had clearly established powers.
06:33They can shapeshift into the form of a humanoid creature
06:37with near-perfect accuracy,
06:38but they need to have a living host to copy.
06:41If the host either dies or is rescued,
06:44the Zygon cannot retain its shape
06:45and will revert back to a big red rubbery thing
06:48covered in suckers,
06:49as the Tenth Doctor so eloquently put it.
06:51This has left some fans slightly confused
06:53about the Doctor's confusion
06:55as to which version of Osgood was killed by Missy
06:58in Death in Heaven and which one survived.
07:00After all, if the human Osgood had died,
07:02the Zygon version wouldn't be able to remain
07:05looking like Osgood,
07:06so it must have been the Zygon that was killed.
07:08But as we discover in Series 9's Zygon Two-Parter,
07:12things are no longer that simple,
07:13with Osgood describing the commonly understood system
07:16as the old rules.
07:18Turns out, at some point before these episodes,
07:20the Zygons underwent a slight upgrade
07:22and are now capable of shapeshifting
07:24into the form of anybody they've already scanned.
07:27Osgood says, quote,
07:28Those were the old rules.
07:29before Zygons could pluck loved ones from your memory
07:32and wear their faces.
07:34Zygons only need to keep the original alive
07:36if they need more information from them.
07:38If the interrogation is over,
07:40then the original can die.
07:41As if the Zygons weren't terrifying enough already.
07:44Jeez.
07:46Number 5.
07:47How did Scarrow come back
07:48after Remembrance of the Daleks?
07:51Remembrance of the Daleks is notable
07:52for being one of the few times
07:54the Doctor begins an episode
07:55with a fully thought-out plan.
07:57Setting the tone for the rest of his incarnation,
08:00Remembrance shows the seventh Doctor
08:02playing two warring Dalek factions against each other,
08:05getting one to wipe out the other
08:07before manipulating the victors
08:09into unintentionally destroying Scarrow
08:11with the hand of Omega.
08:13It's a huge moment in the series' history,
08:15with the Doctor finally taking matters
08:16into his own hands
08:18and actively attempting to wipe out his greatest foe,
08:21arguably firing the first shot
08:22of the Time War in the process.
08:24It was therefore a bit of a shock
08:26to long-time fans
08:27when Scarrow was mentioned
08:28as being very much intact in the TV movie,
08:31even more so when it showed up
08:33pretty much back to its old self
08:34in Asylum of the Daleks
08:36and later The Magician's Apprentice
08:38and The Witch's Familiar.
08:39This has, however, been addressed multiple times
08:42in the Doctor Who expanded universe,
08:44and the answer is rather obvious in retrospect.
08:47It was a Time War,
08:48and the Daleks meddled with time.
08:50Wibbly-wobbly.
08:50Timey-wimey, you know?
08:52Really, this one only appears to be a plot hole
08:54because it's easy to forget
08:56the absolutely immense scale
08:57Doctor Who can sometimes operate on.
08:59A sun going supernova
09:00and wiping out a planet
09:01might seem like a big deal on the face of it,
09:04but in a series where two time-travelling species
09:06are having the war to end all wars
09:08across all of time and space,
09:09resurrecting a planet
09:10isn't really that infeasible a task.
09:12For an even simpler explanation,
09:14as Missy puts it,
09:15quote,
09:16they've brought it back.
09:17It's not a stretch to imagine
09:18the Daleks rebuilding Scarrow.
09:19After all,
09:20they must have built it in the first place.
09:23Number 4.
09:24Why are Cybermen from different universes so similar?
09:27When Doctor Who returned in 2005,
09:30its writers were faced with the unenviable task
09:33of reintroducing the series' various monsters and aliens
09:36to a new generation
09:38who were largely unfamiliar with them.
09:40This happened slowly over the course of multiple years,
09:43with each villain usually arriving
09:44with a vague, pre-existing relationship to the Doctor.
09:47The exception to this was the Cybermen.
09:49Instead of bringing back the Doctor's
09:50second most iconic alien foes
09:52as they were in the classic series,
09:54the show gave us a whole new origin story for them,
09:57sending the TARDIS team to a parallel universe
09:59where they witnessed the completely different genesis
10:02of a completely different race of Cybermen.
10:05And yet, despite having a unique origin
10:06to our universe as Cybermen,
10:08the Cybers industry's Cybermen from Pete's world
10:11are conveniently incredibly similar
10:13to their Mondasian counterparts.
10:15This issue gets further muddled as the series goes on,
10:18and the Cybers branding is phased out of the Cyberman designs,
10:22as it becomes increasingly unclear
10:23which universe's Cybermen are appearing.
10:26This was all eventually cleared up
10:27in World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls,
10:30where we get to witness a third Cyberman origin
10:32on board a Mondasian colony ship.
10:35Here, the Doctor proposes the theory of parallel evolution,
10:38positing that Cybermen are, in a sense,
10:41a form of evolutionary inevitability.
10:43Pfft, try saying that ten times faster.
10:45With multiple species across space and time
10:48all turning themselves into somewhat similar versions
10:51of the iconic man-machine hybrids.
10:54Number three, how can River regenerate
10:57after the Timeless Children?
10:58The Timeless Child had a monumental influence
11:01on the Doctor Who universe,
11:03with its revelations about the true source
11:05of the Time Lord's regenerative abilities,
11:07creating endless questions, conflicts, and confusion.
11:10As if Doctor Who needed more complications added to its lore.
11:13One of the most glaring questions it throws up
11:16is that of River Song, the best character,
11:18who grew up to have Time Lord regeneration powers
11:21despite being the child of Amy and Rory, two humans.
11:25In Series 6, it's implied that she gains these powers
11:28as a result of being conceived
11:29while the TARDIS is mid-flight in the Time Vortex.
11:32But the Timeless Child reveals that the Time Lord's abilities
11:35are not a natural phenomenon,
11:37but something genetically engineered into them.
11:39So how did River gain her powers in the first place?
11:42The answer is laid out in the very same episode
11:44that first revealed River's true identity,
11:47A Good Man Goes to War.
11:48While everybody remembers the point
11:49about River being conceived in the TARDIS,
11:51this is actually only one piece of the puzzle.
11:54As Vastra says to the Doctor,
11:56that was merely a head start,
11:57and the Silence then had to work very hard
12:00to morph River's DNA further
12:02to get the result they wanted.
12:03In other words, no,
12:05being conceived in the Time Vortex
12:06still isn't enough to suddenly cook yourself a Time Lord.
12:09There's still more work to be done.
12:11Considering this, if anything,
12:12the Timeless Children actually makes River's backstory
12:15make more sense,
12:16giving a potential explanation
12:17for how the Silence were able to genetically alter her.
12:20We literally see Tectae-yoon conducting
12:22all sorts of genetic experiments
12:24with regeneration in the Timeless Children.
12:26So who's to say the Silence didn't do something similar
12:29with their own adopted child?
12:31Number two, hasn't the Doctor been that far out before?
12:35Wild Blue Yonder makes a very big deal
12:37of sending the Doctor out farther
12:39than he's ever been before,
12:41stranding him and Donna at the very edge of the universe.
12:44It's a dark, lonely place, similar to Leeds,
12:47with the Doctor repeatedly reinforcing to Donna
12:50the implications of how far they've gone.
12:52But the thing is, this isn't really new for the Doctor.
12:55He's been to the edge of the universe,
12:56the end of the universe,
12:57different universes,
12:58and even outside the universe altogether.
13:00So what makes Wild Blue Yonder different?
13:02Why is the 14th Doctor so scared?
13:05The answer here is context.
13:07The Doctor isn't just scared because of where they are,
13:09but because of how exposed they are to it.
13:11This is made much more clear
13:13in a deleted scene from the episode's script,
13:15where the Doctor explains to Donna
13:17that he's thus far ventured so far out
13:19only inside magnificent time ships.
13:22But being there without protection
13:24is not only something he hasn't done before,
13:26but that no one ever has.
13:28It's another moment that again is so brief
13:30that you have to wonder why it was cut in the first place,
13:33because it also adds new depth to the Doctor's reaction
13:35at where he and Donna end up at the start of the episode.
13:401. How did the Daleks survive Journey's End?
13:44The Daleks being defeated by the Doctor
13:46only to return the very next series
13:48is about as guaranteed as the sun rising in the morning,
13:51or water being incredibly wet.
13:53That said, there are some Dalek defeats
13:55that are a bit more final than others,
13:58and there's arguably none more final
13:59than their highly explosive and thorough destruction
14:02by the Metacrisis Doctor
14:03at the climax of Journey's End.
14:05It may seem a little odd, then,
14:07that the Daleks almost immediately show back up
14:09in Series 5's Victory of the Daleks.
14:12And there's no use chalking it up
14:13to time travel shenanigans.
14:15These Daleks are explicitly shown
14:16to be the last of the army from Series 4's finale.
14:20So, what gives?
14:21The solution to this is actually briefly visible
14:23in Journey's End.
14:24When the Metacrisis Doctor maximizes
14:26the Dalekanian power feeds,
14:28the episode cuts to show the Dalek fleet
14:30exploding in space.
14:31But if you look very closely,
14:32you can actually see a single ship
14:34slipping off out of the shot.
14:36This ship is confirmed by Russell T. Davis
14:38to be the same one that reappears
14:40in Victory of the Daleks.
14:42With Russell T. Davis on the way out of Doctor Who,
14:44he decided to extend a Dalek-shaped hand
14:46to his successor, Stephen Moffat,
14:48to give him a built-in reason
14:50why the Pepper Potts could survive.
14:52Ah, wasn't that nice of him?
14:54And that concludes our list,
14:56but if you think there are some other plot holes
14:58that have been explained and we missed them,
15:00then do let us know in the comments down below.
15:02In the meantime, I've been Ellie for Who Culture
15:04and in the words of Riversong herself,
15:06goodbye, sweeties.
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