Theory:SJA television discontinuity and plot holes/The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith


 * Why does Sarah Jane say "Why is Mr. Smith still out?" since when she left Mr. Smith was not 'out'?


 * She possibly meant, 'Why is he still out at this time of night?'.


 * Why do Luke and K9 say "Have a good evening" when it is clear daylight and obviously in the middle of the afternoon?


 * The actual time is unclear. During the summer period in the United Kingdom, it can still be bright sunlight up till 9pm at night. Additionally she clearly intends to be out for the evening - so they are both referring to that.


 * Why was the clip of the horse race on the television in the Doctor's second the same clip as in Sarah Jane's second?


 * It could be a replay or a different part that looks the same, also the clip in Sarah Jane's second looks like it's about one second ahead of the clip shown in the Doctor's second. They were meant to be two different seconds next to each other.


 * It's also a bit convenient that the time shown on the two clocks, when the Doctor and the others find out that they're trapped in the one second, all say that its exactly 23 minutes and 23 seconds past 3.
 * Even if the digital clock was timed to the second the the other clock isn't likely to be. However this is intentionally done to show what second they are trapped in.


 * Mr. Smith was permanently deactivated near the end of part 1, so why is he fully working at the end of part 2?
 * Sarah Jane just reactivated him.
 * The deactivation seems to be what Sarah Jane did in SJA: The Mark of the Berserker.
 * Sarah Jane never said "permanent decativation" to Mr. Smith but just "total decativation", which doesn't necessarily mean permanent.


 * The TARDIS locked in on the Doctor's time and position while he was trapped away from the TARDIS itself. The Doctor described it as a program to protect the pilot, however the TARDIS did not perform a similar function in several Doctor Who episodes, including DW: The Impossible Planet, 42, Blink and Voyage of the Damned.
 * This is a very different circumstance than the others, in that the Doctor has been trapped in a time loop from which the TARDIS is trying to rescue him.
 * Also, like the HADS, the system that made the TARDIS try to reach the Doctor might need to be set manually and he always forgets except on this occasion.


 * How does the Doctor know who Raniand Clyde are?
 * The Doctor indicates that he has been looking at Sarah Jane's future.


 * How did the Doctor know about the wedding in the first place?
 * The Doctor knows of Sarah Jane's future and may have found out about her wedding, or he may not have known until he got there. The TARDIS is programmed to tell the Doctor when there is an irregular alien presence and it landed, then the Doctor was alerted to the occasion, or the Doctor may have been coming to Earth for a different event and landed in the wrong time, as is regularly the case, or one of the Trickster's agents in another time and place may have let slip something about the wedding.


 * Sarah Jane tells the kids that they were grounded on Earth, even though they only wanted to see the dinosaurs which were on Earth.
 * Sarah didn't want them to go because their parents wouldn't forgive her. The kids' chatter also indicated they were interested in seeing more things than just the dinosaurs.


 * Surely, if Sarah Jane was getting married she would have invited Natalie Redfern, Josh Townsend and the other members of U.N.I.T, the Brigadier is excluded as he has work issues and Maria and Alan could not make it, but surely Sarah would have invited the others.
 * Josh Townsend is dead as of the last Big Finish audio story, and the eventual fate or departure from Sarah's life of Natalie Redfern has never been elaborated on. Regardless, whomever someone stays close to can change in life. Not everyone you meet is invited to your wedding (particularly a hastily-put-together one).


 * Why does the trickster mention the gate (foreshadowing the end of time) when surely if he had succeeded in his plan he would probably either had invaded Earth in his own way, or prevented the events of the end of time from happening (as none of the events were blind chance, they were all for some motive or another).
 * Due to the prophecy told to him by Ood Sigma and Carmen that "His Song is Ending", The Trickster may be foreshadowing important events as a ploy to compromise the Doctor's personal morale and lead to his victory.


 * Surely a fall down a small flight of stairs wouldn't be enough to kill Peter?
 * He could have been injured previously, and the stairs were just a final "nail in the coffin", so to speak
 * He is not a young man. A simple fall can do a lot of damage to older men.