Theory:Torchwood television discontinuity and plot holes/The New World


 * After Gwen shoots down the helicopter, no one seems to think about the fact that the pliots or soldiers wouldn't have died.
 * Ah but they would be in the same category as the suicide bomber - "living" but non-functional.


 * Danes gets himself released from prison by threatening to sue the Governor personally for damages for wrongful imprisonment. That wouldn't work. If he had really good lawyers, the Governor might pause to think about it, but otherwise, they'd just laugh at him. Along with all of the obvious legal issues, and the fact that Danes didn't even know the right words for the legal ideas he invoked, consider what the precedent would be: Any time someone is falsely imprisoned by the government, the Governor must go out of his way to order him to be released, whether or not he has the authority to do so, or he's liable for civil damages?
 * Also, Danes was convicted of multiple crimes. He may have gotten the death sentence for murder, but he probably also got life, or at least 20 years, for rape and the other crimes. So, even if he's right that he's served his death sentence, he still doesn't get out of jail. (In the past, in states where governors aren't allowed to commute sentences, they've pardoned people of their capital offense while leaving them still guilty of other offenses with life sentences.)
 * Also, most states have fixed limits on torts, so the idea that "every second that passes means another million dollars" is unlikely. More likely it's something like $200K max.
 * He probably wouldn't get anywhere near that maximum anyway. Someone who was held prisoner by the State of Maryland for over a decade, because of a paperwork error, for a crime he wasn't even accused of, much less guilty of, was awarded $20K/year in restitution. So, every second that passes means another 6/100ths of a cent.
 * Danes is obviously just trying to frighten/push his case when he says his "every second..." comment. He's not a lawyer, and doesn't understand or explain well his case. However, given the bizarre circumstances, it's possible that the Governor's lawyers felt that Danes' lawyers would be able to make enough of a case that commuting the sentence to parole was the safest action. We also don't know if he was convicted of any other crimes, or if so what sentences he may have received for them. They may have all been rolled into the death sentence.
 * They described him as a convicted murderer, rapist, and child molester. You can't get the death penalty for molestation. So, unless the judge decided to waive the sentences on his other crimes because he was going to die anyway, he's still got time to serve. And that's exactly why no judge would ever do that; even though this case is obviously not typical, death sentences do get reduced to 20 years all the time, and it's only because they also have three life sentences on top of that death sentence that they don't walk in 5-7 years.
 * They described him as a convicted murderer, rapist, and child molester. You can't get the death penalty for molestation. So, unless the judge decided to waive the sentences on his other crimes because he was going to die anyway, he's still got time to serve. And that's exactly why no judge would ever do that; even though this case is obviously not typical, death sentences do get reduced to 20 years all the time, and it's only because they also have three life sentences on top of that death sentence that they don't walk in 5-7 years.


 * Esther says, "That wasn't a virus, it's gotta be some kind of malware.", and later Jack confirms this. But a virus is any malware that can copy itself. It's like saying, "No dog could have done that, it must be some kind of terrier."
 * Easy enough to pass that off as a simple mis-speak by someone who isn't a technical expert in that field. If anything, this would be a production error rather than a discontinuty/plot hole.
 * Someone who doesn't know what they're talking about wouldn't try to make that distinction in the first place. She obviously believed that the distinction was valuable information that she had to share to help crack the case. But I guess, since they haven't followed up on that by episode two, it's probably irrelevant.


 * It is claimed Gwen joined in 2006, but she actually joined in 2007.
 * That's probably just a production error; the year-out-of-sync thing confused RTD as much as it confused all of the fans…


 * It is proved that only Humans are affected because had insects been affected they would have overrun the Earth in 48 hours. But, hang on, wouldn't anyone notice the cases of deaths, or lack of, of animals like Dogs or Cats etc.?
 * Insects have a shorter lifespan and reproduce faster than cats, dogs, etc. so they would overrun the planet faster.


 * Sure, 48 hours is more than enough time for there to be widespread anecdotal evidence that dogs and cats are dying, which is at least enough to draw a line at supraprimates only (apes, monkeys, and rodents). But it's also more than enough time for a few biologists to try killing a couple lab chimps, which draws the line at humans only, so the dogs and cats wouldn't really tell them anything new. Meanwhile, insects do give additional information: the fact that the world isn't drowning in mayflies is pretty solid evidence that not only can they die, they're dying as often as usual. (They're also easy to study, because of their simplicity and their short generations, so there would probably be much more detailed evidence that their biology hasn't changed.) The only thing unrealistic here is the fact that any scientist would be willing to go public with something they'd only studied for 48 hours, no matter how obvious and critical it was....


 * Where is UNIT?
 * Since this question is entirely separate from the "why does the idea of aliens seem strange", I split them off in case anyone has an answer to this one.
 * For all we know, UNIT is working on the case, in secret. Maybe part of the reason the meetings are so disorganized and useless is that UNIT already scooped up most of the best doctors, biologists, and research administrators (as we saw them do a few times on Doctor Who new-series episodes). Of course presumably Torchwood will resolve everything before UNIT does, so we'll never hear much about how their attempts were going.


 * Why does the idea of aliens seem as strange as it does - especially to a CIA analyst, who would at least be aware of the 456 and - presumably - of a few other choice bits of knowledge. The argument based on the Big Bang Two deleting all the alien invasions only goes so far - the U.S. government circa 1969 had dwarf star alloy and an alien containment center at Area 51 (DW:Day of the Moon)
 * The government might be aware of aliens, but not necessarily every CIA analyst.
 * Given that most people at the CIA first heard about Iran-Contra on the news, with the rest of the country, I think it's a safe bet that you're right, a typical CIA analyst (at least post-Big Bang Two) would be unlikely to know anything about aliens.
 * Given that the government was prepared to hand over 10% of the country's children to the 456 it would hardly be something they publicised.


 * Why don't they want to know who was in the helicopter trying to kill them? Wouldn't they theoretically be behind this whole thing?
 * This is a good question, but please don't put new questions at the top. (I moved it for you.) You'd think that at some point, Gwen would come up with the idea of interrogating one of their attackers. Especially since she knows that no matter what's happened to them, they're all still alive and interrogatable. However, they haven't really had a chance yet; as soon as they escape one crisis, they run right into the next one.