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


 * The barrage balloons seen in this episode look nothing like those seen in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances.
 * Different type/model? Different area of London?
 * It is conceivable that they wouldn't always look the same, as over the course of the Blitz they made improvements to the balloons that may have changed their appearance, and it is not known how close chronologically the two stories are.
 * Actually, we know that both stories take place in 1941, and judging by seasonal references this seems to be maybe a few months later at most.


 * The barrage balloons seemed to be tethered at the wrong height as well - the point was to force aircraft to fly high over them rather than risk knocking a wing off on the supporting wires. Having them flying lower than the tower of Big Ben makes no sense unless they had been reeled in for some reason.
 * They are probably being reeled up or down.


 * How did the Spitfires survive in space? Surely the glass would have smashed.
 * The planes are seen with a bluish field around them, presumably an effect of the "gravity bubble" or some other piece of Dalek technology. It may have something to do with the glowing yellow spheres seen inside the cockpit. Such technology would also help explain how they can still fly, since their engines and propellers would normally be useless without air. At any rate, it's clear a good deal of alien tech has been applied to them, further supported by the presence of some sort of laser weapon system. And don't call me Shirley.
 * Perhaps more to the point, how did they have time to modify three Spitfires in what appears to be mere minutes of in-story time from "It could work in theory" to "pew-pew-pew".
 * They didn't modify the Spitfires in a few minutes, they did it in a month.
 * Is there any on-screen evidence that a month passed, or is this just as speculative as assuming that it was a few minutes just because it only took a few minutes to show it on-screen?
 * There is evidence, when the Doctor arrives Churchill tells him he called him one month ago
 * It's a month since he called the Doctor, sure, but the idea to modify the Spitfires to be sent into space came about when Amy pointed out to them that they had all that Dalek technology, and were capable of sending something into space. Perhaps the weapons were already upgraded, but the modifications to make them space-worthy had to have happened in a much shorter time frame.
 * From the idea of modifying the spitfires to them firing on the Dalek ship all happened while the doctor was on the Dalek ship which was not a long time at all.


 * If the Daleks led Bracewell to believe he created the Daleks and they planted him in this location, then at what point was he meant to have created the Daleks? Did Bracewell apparently come to Churchill with the "ironsides" or did they appear one day and Bracewell claim he had been working on them?
 * The Daleks appeared and Bracewell had the memory of creating them.
 * Ultimately, it doesn't necessarily matter for the story what the exact chronology was.


 * Why did the Daleks give Bracewell the idea for anti-gravity technology? Did it help them at all?
 * The Daleks were not selective in what ideas they gave him.
 * Or the anti-gravity technology is used for Dalek flight, so it was part-and-parcel of the how to build a Dalek idea.
 * Also, the Daleks wanted Churchill (and Bracewell himself) to believe that Bracewell was chock full of useful ideas that could win the war, to ensure that the UK would embrace the plan wholeheartedly.
 * Also, they may have actually wanted to make sure that the UK beat the Nazis early and easily. The whole point was to attract the Doctor, and a dramatic change to WWII history like that would be a great way to do it.


 * The author took no pains to explain how an android's memories and emotions prevent a bomb from exploding. It was the most severe plot hole in this episode. While I'm sure any number of fans can come up with their own explanations, really, it is the job of the episode writer to make these things clear.
 * The Doctor said, in effect, that humans aren't bombs, so they can't explode, as if this were a matter of obvious common sense. It doesn't sound like obvious common sense to me, and probably even less so to you, but maybe in the Whoniverse it is....
 * I agree with both of you. However I think it was something of a large slip on the writer's part. What it makes it all the more sad is that it would've required a very small amount of dialogue to explain the incident away. Oh well.
 * The bomb is part of Bracewell's body, and Bracewell has been shown to otherwise be in the normal sort of control of his body. The implication seems to be that if Bracewell is sufficiently convinced that he is a human, he will act with a human's survival instinct, and it's that survival instinct that overrides the detonation sequence -- in essence, he "ordered himself" to live.


 * We are repeatedly shown a uniformed woman who has "significant moments" in the story line, such as sharing eye contact with Amy and who apparently loses a fighter pilot boyfriend. What was her "narrative" purpose in the story? It felt like the writer created this interesting character but then couldn't think of anything interesting to do with her.
 * She was added to show the human cost of war--even in glorious victory, there is tragedy. Still probably not an important theme for this episode, but it was probably done to counter what Gatiss felt was too much of a "Rah! Rah! Tallyho! War is great fun!" attitude in the rest of the episode he'd written. (He actually talked about that as his biggest worry about the story, in either Confidential or an interview.)
 * Or it could even be a hint that the Daleks' victory will also not be without cost.


 * When counter-threatening the Doctor about 18.5 minutes in, why (and for that matter, how) do the Daleks go to the bother of turning all the lights in London on? As a means of destroying a city, this is ridiculously elaborate, yet given the limitations of World War II bombers, extremely unreliable. If they want to (threaten to) destroy a city from orbit, all they have to do is (threaten to) drop a decent-sized rock on it, which is surely far easier. Not as big a science fail as "Edwin"'s memories saving the day, but sufficient for a facepalm.
 * The "why" is a little bit tricky, but perhaps they somehow actually don't have any other means of attack, since the ship is stated to be in such disrepair (and big-rock-dropping-hatches probably aren't standard Dalek weaponry anyway). That part's a little sketchy, granted. But it might be a bit of a reach to question "how" the Dalek-lights-on-beam works as a matter of a plot hole, since we don't know how the show's alien technology works. Might as well list the sonic screwdriver's capabilities as a plot hole every time a door's unlocked. As for why the Daleks would have so specific a weapon, it's possible the dish is designed to be used to control electronics in general remotely, which would be a practical weapon to have.
 * The lights were off so that London was hidden. if they suddenly turned on, everyone would become scared. it may be elaborate for destroying a city, but it still scared the hell out of everyone. there is no need for a facepalm in this situation.
 * Remember that the goal, for the Daleks, is not actually to destroy London; all they want is to get the Doctor off their back. In that case, a needlessly convoluted plan that will take a lot of effort to resolve is really what they want. Whether it actually kills any humans is largely secondary.


 * Why does the progenitor device only work for pure Daleks? Even if a species that wasn't remotely related to the Daleks found it, and accidently activated it, wouldn't the Daleks still want it to work?
 * Presumably they were afraid that in the wrong hands (such as, say, Time Lords), the technology could be dangerously misused.
 * If they are afraid that it could be dangerously misused in the hands of a timelord, than why does it wok for a timelord who is considered one of the Dalek's greatest enemies?
 * You missed the point of how the Doctor's testimony figured into it. The progentitor device didn't work for the Doctor himself - it worked for the Daleks once the Doctor verified that they were truly Daleks. The reason for the "Daleks-only" safeguard was presumably along the lines of what was stated above.
 * It might just be because the Daleks see other races as inferior, and don't want inferior beings using their technology. Just like with 'Whites only' water fountains.


 * There is no real exposition of the pretended subservience of the Daleks as in Power of the Daleks.
 * The Daleks were trying to frustrate the Doctor into giving a testimony. It's pretty clearly shown.


 * The Spitfires, even with anti-gravitational globes, being prepared to attack an alien vessel within minutes is utterly implausible.
 * We don't know enough about this technology to know how long it would take to install.
 * Also, there's no indication in the show that it's only minutes. Screen time is not always real time.
 * (This is also covered at length above.)


 * The climax, the Daleks escaping, is anything but a climax. And most of the drama seems to occur after the characters central to the plot, the Daleks, have disappeared. A great let down for Who fans.
 * This is criticism of the plot, not actual plot holes.
 * Yes, it is a criticism of the plot. Imo, however, the plot is poor and that produces plot-holes. If the story-line is exposed within the first few minutes, not allowing for plot exposition, then confusion will arise. Such as (as commented on above)
 * Almost every one of the following questions is answered directly in the episode, so I'm going to break them out line by line and give the answers.
 * why do the Daleks choose to enter back into time when they did?
 * They didn't. They "fell" through time, after which they presumably flew straight to Earth.
 * What is the purpose of posing as friends if their purpose is to flush the Doctor out into giving testimony?
 * They weren't just posing as friends, but as subservient robots. Which was critical to Churchill accepting them. While he might have secretly allied with sinister aliens against the Nazis (in fact, his quote about the devil himself makes it seem like he would have), counting on that sounds like a bigger risk than counting on him accepting a product of British ingenuity.
 * Especially as they have no means of attracting the Doctor to them or even knowing when he is in the timestream.
 * Yes, they do. They attracted the Doctor by getting Churchill to call him. And, even if they didn't know that Churchill and the Doctor were friends, and that phone call was just a lucky coincidence, they still had the means of attracting the Doctor. Changing 20th century British history is probably the best way in the universe to get the Doctor's attention--short of changing 20th century British history to include a glorious early victory in WWII thank to those familiar-looking Ironsides. If he hadn't gotten the call from Churchill, he would have found out how WWII had been won and been back in a flash.
 * It is never explicitly stated that the Daleks want to conquer Earth.
 * It's never stated because they don't want to conquer Earth.
 * And if they did, they could have done so with the firepower they already possess.
 * No, they didn't have enough energy left to conquer a council flat, much less a planet. The Doctor directly called them on this, and they admitted it.
 * But they can destroy German bombers with startling precision??
 * Sure, why not? They are low on power, but their individual weapons do still work. Destroying the planes is easy, "conquering the Earth" would require getting their ship fully functioning again (plus, it was not what they were trying to do).
 * Given these questions the creation of Bracewell seems to be an over-elaborate exercise for an uncertain gain.
 * Given that posing as subservient robots was the entire plan, the only alternative to the creation of Bracewell would be finding some gullible and/or greedy human scientist and tricking or bribing him into pretending to have created the Ironsides. Which might have worked, but that's a Cybermen plot, not a Dalek one.
 * Plus, by masquerading as robots, it's more of an incentive for the Doctor to explicitly state that they are the Daleks, his enemy, which was their whole goal. He probably wouldn't get in their faces and say "I'm the Doctor, you are the Daleks" if they were up-front about being evil little Daleks.
 * How can an entirely electronic artifice become entirely human without some kind of metaphysical miracle?
 * This one isn't answered in the episode--but how can an entirely bioelectronic device like the human brain become entirely human without some metaphysical miracle? Does the fact that our nerves are powered by ATP rather than by an oblivion continuum make a difference? Are there immaterial souls that can only attach to things that are squishy enough?
 * Also, remember Moffat's obsession with fairy tales and go read Pinocchio.
 * Also, I may be interpreting wrong, but the question posed seems to suggest that he became full flesh-and-blood human or something, but no such event was claimed.
 * Is Dorabella really expected to fall in love with an android?
 * Why not? If he looks, acts, and feels human in every way, it's no more or less likely than her falling in love with a human.
 * Plus, it really has no bearing on the plot if that relationship works out at all.
 * She might get a surprise in the bed!
 * Why? If you were designing an android replica of an alien race, would you try to guess which parts would never be checked and skimp on those, or just copy the whole thing?
 * Besides, how exactly would this be a letdown for fans of a series that has repeatedly had aliens in human suits with spouses? Scaroth is OK, when he has to unzip his skin and reveal the hideous fly-thingy inside just to laugh, but Bracewell, who can't be distinguished from a human unless you sonic him or shoot his hand off, is not?


 * How does Churchill recognise the doctor if Matt Smith has only been the doctor for a short while?
 * Churchill does in fact mention that the Doctor has a new face that he hasn't seen before, but he likely recognized the Doctor anyway because he, well, showed up in a materializing blue box. That's sort of a distinguishing feature.


 * How are there any Daleks their last two extinctions have been definite. In Bad Wolf, Rose obliterated every last Dalek with the power of a god, and in Journey's End the Doctor and Co. made sure every Dalek with Davros's DNA died, meaning there could be no survivors.
 * Rose wiped out all Daleks present, but as we've seen, not necessarily every last one. And it's never said how far of a range the method used in Journey's End had, as it was meant to destroy the ones in the Medusa Cascade, and not necessarily every Dalek throughout time and space.
 * From an outside-the-story perspective, the Daleks are so iconic and so intrinsic to Doctor Who that it's doubtful they'd ever truly kill them off for good - any time that they wipe out "every last one of them," you can count on a chance that some of them will survive.
 * As their origin wasn't entirely explained, it is possible their presence is a result of the Time Cracks and will be explained later in the series.
 * The Daleks have been apparently utterly wiped out several times now, and it seems that the writers have at last realized how tired this is getting. It makes the Doctor's victories over the Daleks tired and hollow not only to the Doctor but to the audience as well. And it produces these kind of continuity speculations. This time the Daleks escape outright, even though on this occasion their escape is something of an anti-climax to the story. It also begs the question, if the Daleks always survive, why can't the Time Lords?
 * The point of creating old-is-new Daleks and having them escape to go off and rebuild a new Dalek Empire somewhere else in time and space, while wiping out the last of the RTDaleks, is that they'll never have to do this again. We're back to the classic series, where the Doctor may wipe out some group of Daleks in some region of spacetime, but he never wipes out the entire species, so the writers will never again have to come up with "hey, wait, we found one under the cupboard behind the flour!" stories again.
 * As for the Time Lords--off the top of my head The Doctor, The Master, Omega, Rassilon, the War Chief, Andred, and Leela have all appeared at least once after they should have been dead, and the Moff has said that he could easily explain how Romana or the Rani survived if he wanted to use them (which he doesn't). And that's not even counting plain-old regeneration. And Gallifrey itself has already been destroyed twice and still reappeared full of Time Lords in The End of Time.


 * How did the Daleks have the Progenitor? How did they even get a hold of one with 'pure' Dalek DNA if they are Daleks from Journey's End?
 * This is explained in the episode. Presumably there used to be lots of these things, but they were mostly lost in the LGTW.


 * Now hold on... we assume they must be either the Daleks from Parting of the Ways or Journey's End, right? And we assume that if they are the ones from the latter, then the whole "corrupted DNA" thing is because they have Davros' DNA inside them... but think about it: Daleks, as far as DNA, are still just Kaleds. Mutated Kaleds, but Kaleds nonetheless. And Davros is a Kaled. That's why Davros called them "New Daleks, True Daleks", because they had Kaled DNA identical to the original Daleks that Davros made on Skaro. So... if they are part of Davros' New Dalek Empire, shouldn't the Progenitor register them as pure-DNA'd Daleks?
 * I wholeheartedly agree with you and really do regard the Daleks in Journey's End as pure Daleks. However, perhaps the Daleks themselves didn't regard themselves as pure. Daleks are not always rational or at times even sane. They are fanatics about their race purity so maybe they regarded Kaleds as inferior, and since they were created from a Kaled they were thus inferior. Alternatively the Daleks may have somewhat changed their DNA since the original Daleks in Genesis of the Daleks and so would not necessarily be regarded as true Daleks. Maybe they Progenitor Daleks possess different DNA and since the other Daleks believe the Progenitor to contain apparently 'pure' Dalek DNA they concluded that they must therefore be impure.
 * Daleks are Kaled _mutants_, explicitly biologically engineered by Davros. By contrast, Davros himself is a plain old unmodified Kaled. That's why they decided, in Genesis of the Daleks, that he was inferior and must be exterminated. If Davros himself is inferior, obviously Daleks made from his DNA are as well.
 * Davros explicitly claims that the New Dalek Empire is a new race of Daleks. Daleks do not consider themselves Kaleds, so the fact that they are made from Davros's genetic material is, well, immaterial. They were genetically engineered in a different way than the original Dalek race. Given that the entire notion of racial purity is someone specious to begin with, there's no reason any two groups of Daleks from any two points in history would per se consider each other "pure". An almost identical situation occurs in Remembrance of the Daleks, wherein the "traditional" Daleks have turned renegade because they consider a newer version (as in this episode, created by Davros directly) to be insufficiently "pure" (in their "blobbiness").


 * Why does nobody seem surprised at the shortness of Amy's skirt? It's hardly acceptable for the era.
 * Maybe they have all been briefed about The Doctor and what he and his companions are like.
 * Also, do you really think soldiers, in any era, are going to complain about a woman in a short skirt?
 * There's a war on. Maybe they thought she mislaid the rest.


 * Why does The Doctor risk taking the time to talk Bracewell out of exploding? Surely he could have bundled Bracewell into the TARDIS and taken him away from the Earth (and possibly dumped him on the Dalek ship).
 * He was panicking. Also, he didn't really want Bracewell to explode as he liked him.


 * If what happened in Journeys End was deleted from time due to the cracks then how can these Daleks exist they should have been deleted from history as well.
 * Could be from DW: The Parting of the Ways instead.
 * They could have escaped through a crack like the Saturnynians and then the crack consumed the Daleks from Journey's End as it did the Weeping Angels. Maybe only that one ship made it through the crack.
 * We don't know for sure what exactly was deleted from time.
 * Even if the entire Stolen Earth/Journey's End story was undone, it's not a bad guess that, however these Daleks survived Journey's End, it also allowed them to avoid being removed from history. (Keep in mind that, for example, any Weeping Angels that weren't around to fall into the crack at the end of Flesh and Stone didn't get erased from history.)
 * Also its possible the events of Stolen Earth/Journey's end were not actually erased from time. Maybe the entire population of Earth (except perhaps UNIT and the children of time) simply forgot about the events. The cracks must have wiped their memories of the events. This makes things much simpler and removes the countless paradoxes caused by the events being erased from time completely.


 * It is made clear that all the 'old' Daleks have been exterminated - yet only three are shown, two of which are green. Are we really to believe that Bracewell invented two Ironsides? And, for that matter, why exactly does Churchill think that these two Ironsides will be more beneficial to winning the war than, say, a machine that can send Spitfires into space?
 * Unfortunately, you almost have to assume with this show that no matter what they say, some Daleks somehow survive, even if it doesn't make sense. I was watching Evil of the Daleks the other day and thought it was funny when the second Doctor said that this was the end of the Daleks, forever, the final end and whatnot. There may or may not be a good explanation, so you almost just have to make your peace with it that they'll always survive somehow. As far as the Churchill thing, of course the Ironsides seemed more valuable to the war effort than space-Spitfires. They're fairly indestructible and can shoot down an entire group of German planes with no effort. Meanwhile, there's not exactly a lot of Nazi forces in space to combat, leaving the space-Spitfires not entirely essential for the war.
 * You don't have to assume that any of the old Daleks survive in this episode. The whole point of creating the new (or retro-classic) Daleks is that the RTDaleks are no longer needed.
 * Churchill didn't have the space Spitfires until the middle of the episode. All he had was the two Ironsides, and hundreds of pages of notes by an inventor that seem like they'll probably turn out other useful ideas in time. Given that Bracewell's only been working for Churchill for a month, I don't think Churchill would have too much call to be disappointed with his efforts.
 * Maybe two was more than enough to take out the entire German Nazi army. Four were taking out what is probably hundreds of Cybermen so why couldn't two take out thousands of humans with primitive weaponry?
 * Good point. The Daleks probably would have believed that, even low on power as they were, they could have defeated the entire German Army. But would Churchill have believed that?
 * If two Daleks can annihlate the entire German airforce, and if Bracewell can give Churchill the technology to take out a Dalek battlecruiser, surely the Daleks can reestablish their empire on Earth themselves. They could have exterminated Churchill, creating disorder in the British government, and taken over the UK. In Dalek the Doctor says only one Dalek is enough to wipe out an entire city, prehaps the whole planet.
 * If the Doctor hadn't shown up by 1942, that could have been a problem, given that they had no way of making more Daleks. But then presumably they could have started feeding Churchill enough other cool technology to distract him from the fact that Bracewell didn't seem to be able to build any more Ironsides. Anyway, after only a month, they didn't have that problem yet.
 * If you read the 2011 Annual, you can see exactly what would have happened had the Doctor not arrived. Three Ironsides aren't enough to win the war on their own--but they are enough to end the Blitz, make a surprise landing at Normandy in early 1942 to provide a beachhead for the British army, counter-blitzkrieg through France to allow the British to liberate the country (with all the logistics and morale benefits that implies), and defend Pearl Harbor (bringing a thankful US into the war). The final result is an Allied victory by summer 1942. After that, Churchill, Truman, and Stalin decide to share the Ironsides, but the Ironsides refuse (because they know the Doctor is much more likely to show up in the UK than the US or USSR), so the Allies decide the only choice is to nuke the Ironsides for the benefit of world peace and balance of power.


 * Turning the lights on: The Daleks turning all the lights on in London is another silly premise in the plot. Does no-one in London know how to turn the switches to the 'off' position? Can they not smash the bulbs? Or, I dunno, rip the wiring out? Stephen Moffatt, please!
 * No one knows how dalek tech works, maybe you can't manually turn the lights of while the machines on, and for your second and third options, your saying that they organise a mob and smash every light, rip every piece of wiring out and blow every fuse in ten minutes? Do you know how many lights there in london?
 * further more, everyone would be in shelters so they would all have to get out to do, this and most of them would probelly be to surpriesed and scared to think rationly and do any of those things.
 * So something that straightforward is impractical, but sending spitfires into outerspace in a matter of minutes is practical? Come on! No, as a piece of fiction this story has some bad plot devices. It is not the best of stories but as they were trying to launch a new doctor with what they thought was an audience grabber I guess they could be forgiven - just..
 * Did no-one actually watch the entire episode? One of the soldiers in the war rooms is clearly shown to attempt to turn the lights off and says something to the effect of "They won't turn off." Now, I'm sorry, but doesn't that kind of put an end to the whole "why don't they just put them to the off position" thing?


 * The Dalek saucer shoots green lasers, but in previous appearances, providing that it is a saucer from The Stolen Earth, the saucers shoot blue lasers.
 * Starships can have a vast array of weapons as a Dalek saucer has been seen to shoot missiles in Parting of the Ways. Also different weapons may have different purposes as the Blue lasers were used to attack New York while the green lasers were used to destroy the spitfires. Not to mention there ship is on very low power, its likely is most powerful weapons have stopped working


 * Before the Daleks stop the blackout, the Doctor says that the Dalek ship cannot destroy London but he said in Dalek that the lone Dalek would be able to destroy every living thing on Earth. So the ship could throw everything it has at Earth while the three daleks go down there and exterminate humanity.
 * The point is that they are incredibly low on power, there ship doesn't have anything that can destroy london, only there most basic lasers are working as shown in the dog fight towards the end. The doctor turned up at the right momment or rather the wrong one, if the daleks went on much longer then they would have run out of power and been made usless, besides Three daleks agains the british army? Bullets may bounce of them, but what about shells, missiles, bombs, ect, they would be reduced to scrap metal in a hour, the dalek in Dalek was at full power and ready to fight to the death, these daleks as the doctor puts it "Don't have enough power to conqure a concil flat".
 * As pointed out above, in the 2011 Annual, we see that three weakened Ironsides are enough to dramatically influence the course of a war, but not enough to win one, and that humanity is capable of annihilating them.
 * And again (because it's already been covered previously on this very page), the Daleks' goal is NOT to destroy London, nor to conquer Earth! They are on Earth simply to get the Doctor's attention (and testimony), and they are blacking out London only to threaten the Doctor/get him to back off.


 * Daleks used to require energy-transmission dishes (see The Dalek Invasion of Earth although more clearly stated on The Power of the Daleks). I guess this is what they're using to illuminate London. And IIRC there was some allusion to the ship having actually been thrown out of the time-war, so possibly their evolution to extrapolate energy from time-travellers is what caused the progenitor to fail to work for them .. but that's probably too much a reference to RTD than Moffat would've allowed Gatiss to use - or maybe they just never discussed it ;-P