Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Power of Three


 * If the Doctor, Rory and Amy were able to jump through the portal as it exploded, surely parts of the explosion itself would also travel through?
 * Not necessarily, it depends how the portal works (for example, may be keyed only to work on living beings).


 * If the cubes could scan all information on people, then what was the point of kidnapping the humans?
 * Remove key witnesses? But doesn't stack with old man's removal.
 * Learning more about people for the eventual purpouse of destroying them.


 * Who were the aliens with large mouths and what happened to them?
 * Servo-droids to keep the little girl safe? They were on patrol back on earth probably when Doctor and Amy T-ed.


 * In this story electricity effects the doctor like a human, but in several other stories (Terror of the Zygons, World War Three, A Christmas Invasion, The Pandoric Opens etc) he's shown an incredible resilence to electricity.
 * That's never been very consistent. For example, we've seen him be afraid of, or at least wary of, electric bolts from Rutans (Fang Rock, Gunpowder Plot) and the Master (The End of Time).
 * There are a great many different types of energy; some of them affect him very little, some of them affect him a lot. For example, the Master in EoT was using the raw energy of his life force. That's got to be more potent to a Time Lord than a lot of other energy!
 * I dont' remember if it was ever said on screen, but in Confidential they called the Master's energy "electric bolts" over and over again. And Rutans are definitely electric. And there aren't different types of electricity.
 * Tell that to Terry Nation, Kit Pedler, and various other early writers, who clearly seemed to think static electricity was some kind of magic… :)


 * When removing the cubes from the hospital, no one seems to notice the little girl still has one.
 * Presumably people are cooperating with the staff, and they're in a big hurry, so they may not have noticed if she did anything at all to hide it.


 * Surely someone would have noticed the fact that the same girl was in the hospital for a year.
 * Most likely she hides and/or comes &goes.


 * Why does no one notice the disappearing patients?
 * They very well may have noticed some of the disappearances. They still wouldn't have found them.


 * In this story having only one heart is impossible for a timelord to manage, but in the past he's survived with only one heart.
 * He survives this time too. It's not impossible to manage, it just leaves him weaker than usual. The last time he was down to one heart, in The Shakespeare Code, he was weakened, and couldn't chase after the Carrionites until Martha helped him restart the other one. And, unless you believe that the First Doctor had only one heart, this has been consistent throughout the series (and the novels—see the whole Sabbath storyline). Even non-Gallifreyans with two hearts explain that people with one heart are much weaker (e.g., The Dominators).


 * How does the visual aid recognise the doctor?
 * Why wouldn't it?


 * After the spaceship exploded, only Amy, Rory and the Doctor escaped. What happened to the people inside?
 * They may have gotten some or all of the people out before the confrontation with the hologram. Anyone they didn't get out died. That's not a discontinuity; people die in Doctor Who.