Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Genesis of the Daleks


 * The Doctor gives the date of the events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth as happening in 2000, although all other sources give it as the 22nd century.
 * The Doctor might not be telling the truth, but he is attached to a lie detector - although such detectors and mind probes do not always work reliably on the Doctor (Incidentally, the trailer for the Dalek invasion of Earth dated the story in 2000). He did not mention all Dalek defeats, this could be a separate attempt to take over earth as in 'Dalek invasion of earth'. Alternatively, he may simply have been using a different timescale, as Anno Domini dates would likely be meaningless to Davros.


 * Why does Harry say in Part 1, that it's "a war of attrition - but backwards"?
 * It is most likely just a way he would describe the events of two races who, rather then attempt to break down each other forces (as in normal attrition), both races are attempting to evolve to a higher form than each other, to eventually be able to defeat them with ease, so in terms of attrition the rocks are attempting to outsize their opponent first before attacking, at which point the larger rock would win easily over the smaller rock.
 * Despite this explanation however, "a war of attrition - but backwards" is not the best way to describe that war.
 * Damnit, Jim, Harry's a doctor, not a military historian! This mistake could be his just as easily as it could be Terry Nation's, so there's no reason to call it a discontinuity or plot hole.


 * According to The Daleks, the ancestral race of the Daleks was called "Dals." However, they are identified as Kaleds in this and all future appearances. Among the theories to explain this apparent discrepancy include that "Dal" is the name for the Kaleds in the Thal language, or that the Dals were an earlier evolutionary form of the Kaleds themselves. They may even be another race allied with the Kaleds.
 * More simply, the two terms most likely apply to the same people. There is nothing terribly inconsistent about the term "Kaleds" and term "Dals" being used interchangeably in regards to the same people.


 * The Daleks implied that the Daleks evolved gradually into their mutated form over hundreds of years.
 * This apparent discontinuity is usually explained by the Doctor's interference with their history in this story. Events set into motion by the Doctor's presence caused Davros to prematurely accelerate the development of the Daleks, creating unstable creatures which he could not control.
 * History is not always recorded perfectly, and the characters in The Daleks were talking about events from at least 500 years previous.


 * How is it possible to have a Thousand Year War between two cities only miles apart?
 * Perhaps these cities managed to keep out of the war until the final stages.
 * Also, their proximity prevents the use of more destructive weapons, such as nuclear warheads and nerve gases, which would most likely destroy both cities.
 * They may also represent the last remnants of larger nations destroyed over the course of the war, but the mutual hatred of the survivors is such that they have deliberately gathered their remaining forces into two closely-located settlements to better facilitate the continued slaughter with the poor, short-range quality of weapons left available to them.


 * If the Kaleds can get into the Thal dome so easily (right up to the door of the Thal cabinet room), then why the war of attrition?
 * They can get a couple of spies in relatively easily. Leading their whole army down that service tunnel would be a more daunting prospect.


 * At the end of Part 2, Sarah falls outside the gantry: in episode three's resolution, she falls onto a platform inside it.
 * It was not an absolutely straight fall - perfectly reasonable, given that she did not jump straight down.


 * Will it really take the Daleks 1000 years to get through a blocked tunnel?
 * The 1000 years refers to the time it will take to recreate Davros' work following the destruction of the incubators.


 * Why is everyone so scared of the completely motionless clams?
 * They were not completely motionless, as evidenced by their movement. When they grabbed Harry, their intention was to drag the victim off and attempt to devour them.


 * The Daleks shown in this story are supposed to be the earliest and most primitive of the species; however, they are shown to be more advanced than those shown in The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth. They have the solar panels on their mid-sections that were first seen in The Chase and are able to travel off of metal, an ability that was only first shown to be possible in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
 * Since this story takes place, chronologically, before these earlier episodes, maybe since then the war on Skaro had had many changes to the Daleks, and lost them many resources, so when they made more Daleks and more casing, they couldn't access the specific material or technology to create the solar panels. Being entombed, solar panels would soon become useless and would be discarded as such. Needing an alternate form of power - and not traveling outside due to being confined to the bunker, static electricity emerged as an alternative energy source.
 * Alternately, The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book reconciled this by stating that the Daleks that ran on static electricity were early prototypes created by Davros from inhabitants of the wastelands, whom he later left to their own devices within the city.


 * Also, their weaponary is more advanced. Up until this point, a piece of metal inside the gun stalk would rapidly move up and down and the image would turn negative to indicate that the gun was being fired, but between Planet Of The Daleks (bullets were used in Death to the Daleks due to the power drain) and this story the BBC have utilised the effect of overlaying a cone of blue light onto the screen, to represent a death ray. Did they lose the ability to make deathrays such as this after the explosion?
 * Just because the special effect is more advanced, does not mean that the weapon is more advanced.


 * Why is there a switch which will effectively kill Davros located on his console in the most obvious of locations? Under what circumstances would he want his life support system to be so easily terminated?
 * If he was captured by the Thals and didn't want them to interrogate him, he could use that button to commit suicide.


 * What would Davros have done if someone had actually pressed the Big Red Destruct Button (or put a box file or cup of tea down on it accidentally for that matter)? Judging by his own attempt to press it in the finale, it seems to be the real thing. In fact, why didn't someone press it when he offered it? By the same token, why doesn't the Doctor blow up the incubator room at the first opportunity? The Kaleds have even more reason than him to be conflicted at the prospect of completely destroying their only hope for the survival of their species (bearing in mind that Davros has, by this point, blown up any Kaled women on Skaro). They also lack his knowledge of the dire future consequences of that survival.


 * Surely the creation of the Daleks would be a fixed point in history, meaning that the Doctor would have drastically changed history.
 * The Doctor has the full backing of the Time Lords on this adventure. It's likely that the entire Time Lord government working together would be able to stabilize history after this. After all, the Time Lord in the beginning of the episode said that destroying them before they were ever created was acceptable.


 * Sarah-Jane loses her yellow trousers from The Sontaran Experiment and gained a dark colored skirt in the transmat beam.
 * Look again. She has on precisely the same out fit at the end of The Sontaran Experiment as she does at the beginning of Genesis of the Daleks. The only yellow piece of clothing is her coat, which she has in both stories.


 * There's no clear explanation for why Sarah-Jane changes outfit in the later episodes.
 * It's been several days at least running around in the same clothes. The change of clothes she finds is undoubtedly very welcome.


 * The Doctor suddenly starts wearing his overcoat and hat again in Part 6 despite not having worn them for at least the three previous parts.
 * He knows that they will be leaving shortly, so he clearly retrieved them from where the Kaleds had stowed them.


 * While the Doctor, Sarah and Harry are on Skaro, the TARDIS is elsewhere. How, then, are the three travelers able to understand the Kaleds and Thals without the TARDIS' translation circuits?
 * The Time Lords undoubtedly accounted for this. The time ring probably has similar translation abilities.


 * How did Sevrin know where to find the Doctor and Sarah and Harry.
 * Mutos have a highly developed sense of smell, necessary for surviving in the harsh conditions of the wasteland.


 * Just what is the difference between the Thals and the Kaleds anyway - they are both almost exactly the same. Only the hair color differs - is hair color really a big enough difference to warrant being two different species?
 * It is never specified that they are two different races, they could just be two racist cultures, much like on Earth.
 * The best definition for "species" is Ernst Mayr's "group of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups". Humans are all one species, because, e.g., a northern European and a Polynesian will normally breed if given a chance. But if Thals and Kaleds hate each other so much that they will never normally mate, even to the point of declining to rape each others' women, they're separate species. If this is a relatively recent development, they won't have diverged all that much genetically, but that's true of any speciation.


 * When Sarah first materializes at the start of episode one, she states "This isn't the beacon". Nerva station was called "The Ark" when she had been there and wasn't referred to as a beacon until the next story, so how did she know it had been a beacon?
 * Any of the Nerva sleepers or the humans from The Sontaran Experiment could have referred to it by its historical Nerva Beacon name in front of her.