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


 * The Doctor seems to have forgotten that he was following the Daleks to their base of operations in episode one.
 * Given that in the previous story he was grazed in the head by a gunshot it is entirely possible he could have lost some of his recent memories. This is why he can't remember giving instructions to Jo. Or it could be the fact that he knew about them but wasn't sure exactly as to the circumstances in which he would meet them.


 * Furthermore, he couldn't be certain that the pursuit had landed him successfully at the intended location.


 * Or it could be the fact he's shocked to discover they have the new power of invisibility.


 * With the exception of the climax to episode one, none of the Daleks are ever seen using their newly acquired powers of invisibility, even when hunting for the Doctor and the Thals through the jungle.
 * The power is still experimental for them.


 * Trapped in the TARDIS with a dwindling air supply, the Doctor takes time to change clothes.
 * As seen on The Web Planet the TARDIS can change people's clothes.


 * The Doctor has walked away when the oxygen cylinder runs out. He doesn't actually know the oxygen has run out till we next see him checking the circuits in the console base.


 * When the Thals take cover on the plain of stones in episode four a huge, dark shape appears behind the sky.
 * The Planet is mysterious, figures might pop up in the sky, a creature perhaps.


 * In dialogue, there was specific mention of a variety of beasts and dangers.


 * The second Dalek, pursuing Jo and Latep in episode five, knocks into a polystyrene 'rock' and moves it out of position.
 * The Daleks have been seen to be very powerful, enough to knock a rock aside.


 * The Dalek he exterminated couldn't be the section leader as the leader was trapped in the laboratory, so who was the Dalek the Dalek Supreme killed?
 * The new section leader. Bad timing on his promotion, though.


 * In part one Jo rattles a person thus revealing a dead person. If she did not know he was dead would she not just say hello?
 * Most people would touch a person before saying anything, especially since, if he's not dead, he's more than likely unconscious.


 * 10,000 seems a ridiculously small figure for an army that intends to conquer the galaxy
 * Even in small numbers the Daleks are still a force to be reckoned with.
 * In Doomsday we see that four daleks are more than capable of wiping out all the Cybermen and presumably the human race...
 * There may be some other daleks stationed on planets close by to assist.


 * They're invisible Daleks. A huge factor in their ability for conquest.


 * Why is Jo so surprised to see a Dalek that she doesn't recognize?
 * She's only met them once and there were only three in that story.
 * Jo has met the Daleks twice before in Day of the Daleks and part 6 of Frontier in Space. Plus in Day of the Daleks there weren't three Daleks, there would be a lot of Daleks. Watch the attack part, there was the gold Dalek then four more!
 * Hence, having seen a number of Daleks before, she realises this one is different.


 * The Doctor warns against removing the top because of the automated distress signal it will cause, but when the two Daleks are pushed into the lake, there's no problem with removing the tops and the mutants within.
 * Actually the Daleks do mention detecting a very weak automated distress signal from the area where the two Daleks were.


 * How does the Dalek search Marat's body for the concealed map?
 * Sensors, of course.


 * The Daleks seal themselves in to prevent the virus escaping. So what happens when the base blows up?
 * It's possible the virus was destroyed in the explosion.


 * The Doctor has his sonic screwdriver, but he told Jo in the previous story (Frontier In Space) that the warden of the lunar prison took it away from him when he arrived there. In the ensuing adventure, he had no opportunity to go back to the prison to retrieve it, nor did he have time to build a new one.
 * Like any scientist under the employ of a military taskforce with an unusually frequent rate of alien bombardment, the Doctor has learned the benefit of redundancy and built a spare sonic around the same time he perfected his now-confiscated device. Luckily the TARDIS was nice enough to put it in his pocket for him while he was unconscious.
 * This is actually perfect timing, since if I remember correctly this is when the Sonic with the yellow shaft gets replaced by the almost completely silver one. So having lost the previous one would be an excuse for the prop change.


 * A space vehicle that has been shown to contain various large cathedral structures, multiple swimming pools, a cliff, a vast section of space with a black hole, and its own tree-filled gardens is not going to suddenly not have enough oxygen to even support one Time Lord, and shouldn’t even need oxygen tanks. Some sections of the TARDIS are big enough to have their own weather systems.


 * When the Doctor and Codal escape, on several occasions when encountering daleks the Doctor shouts 'Get back' when they weren't looking. Surely if he had quietly gestured/whispered get back the daleks wouldn't have realised they had escaped for much longer


 * When Jo escapes from the cart which she hid in to get to the Dalek city, a Dalek is looking right at her but doesn't move


 * The two Daleks in the Plain of Stones are killed when they are partly submerged in the Ice lake, yet it is stated/implied by both Rebec and the Dalek Supreme that the 10,000 daleks completely submerged by the ice will survive
 * The "sudden shock" of the temperature drop is what kills the two Daleks. The Army, on the other hand, is kept in hibernation at "a constant controllable low temperature"; when the ice submerges them again, the drop in temperature isn't as drastic since it was only just beginning to rise (from sub-zero) at the time of the eruption.


 * When they were planning to release the bacteria, was there any plan to immunise the 10,000 strong Dalek army and the Dalek Supreme? It appears they only planned to immunise the small Dalek task force and Spiridon slaves
 * There's off-screen time for the Supreme to be immunised after he arrives (Supreme Command ordered the bacteria to be created in the first place at any rate). The Army may have been judged safetly isolated since the caves are so low beneath the base.