Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Doctor's Wife


 * Why was this episode titled, "The Doctor's Wife"?
 * It was pretty clearly established that the TARDIS has had unrequited feelings for the Doctor for centuries. The Doctor wasn't fully aware of those feelings even though he returned some affection, in the way that someone has affection for an old trusty possession. Once the Doctor was made aware of the TARDIS' feelings for him, he began to understand and reciprocate those feelings. The term "Doctor's Wife" refers to the fact that the TARDIS and the Doctor have always been together, developing a deep bond, linking them as partners throughout time and space.


 * Since the interface to the TARDIS is telepathic the security code "Crimson, Eleven, Delight, Petrichor" naturally has to be thought to be used .. but .. wouldn't this "interface" actually be a form of communication with the living entity that is the TARDIS?! Which would mean Amy was thinking it at House at the time, so why didn't it just block access? Yeah, probably because he was curious about this room it couldn't see before by itself. Still, I found it one of the (recently very frequent) occasions where I was pulled out of my (ever decreasing) willing-suspension-of-disbelief. What do you think?


 * I think you seem to be one of those people who need every single little thing explained to them...
 * I would call it a valid question, but one that doesn't take too much to answer. There are probably many automated components in terms of how the TARDIS functions however, and something like opening a locked door would likely be one of them. House may not have conscious control over those automated functions, or may only have control if them when specifically thinking about it. Kind of like how swallowing is a mostly automated function of the human body, but you can exert conscious control over it if you try to.
 * I would call it a valid question, but one that doesn't take too much to answer. There are probably many automated components in terms of how the TARDIS functions however, and something like opening a locked door would likely be one of them. House may not have conscious control over those automated functions, or may only have control if them when specifically thinking about it. Kind of like how swallowing is a mostly automated function of the human body, but you can exert conscious control over it if you try to.


 * This is very similar to an answer Neil Gaiman gave to a similar question. A reader asked, "If the TARDIS's consciousness had been removed, why was the TARDIS still translating? Did House translate for them?" Gaiman answered, "For the same reason the doors opened and closed, and the whole of the inside of the TARDIS hadn't become the same size as it was on the outside. The TARDIS matrix was out of the TARDIS, but translation is an automatic process. (It's like a person in a coma continuing to breathe. Lots of stuff still works, there's just nobody running it.)"


 * House didn't become "the living entity that is the TARDIS". He had no interest in being the TARDIS; he just wanted to eat it. The TARDIS was still alive, but without its consciousness, and since lots of things in the Whoniverse are "telepathic" or "psychic" without being conscious (e.g., the psychic paper), there's no reason an "unconscious TARDIS" couldn't have a working telepathic security system.


 * House's original plan was to eat the TARDIS, but once the Doctor told him that there were no TARDISes left, he decided to, at least temporarily, become the "living entity that is the TARDIS" in order to go to N-space to look for more food.
 * No, he decided to steal the TARDIS. That's not the same thing as becoming the TARDIS. If I hijack an airplane, I can work all the controls from the cockpit, and talk to passenger compartment, but that doesn't mean all of the passengers' controls suddenly go through the cockpit. The only difference here is that the TARDIS doors are opened by a telepathic control rather than a lever.


 * How come all of the other Timelords have their time/space machines referred to as TARDISes when it was Susan who named the Doctor's machine as TARDIS, and the timelords who named them TT Capsules?
 * This has been a plot-hole for a very long time, but I guess we could explain it away by saying that the Tardis translation circuits chooses that word to refer to all of her sisters. She obviously doesn't regard it as her name.
 * I wouldn't call it a plot hole exactly, but something of a long-standing question about the Doctor's origins and relation to Time Lord society. It has certainly been hypothesized that Susan coined the term and it somehow caught on. Regardless of how it happened, we know from previous stories that the term "TARDIS" is fairly commonly used by both Time Lords and others who know of them. TT Capsule is another more technical term for them. The TARDIS does herself recognise the word as an acronym for Time and Relative Dimension in Space.
 * In any case, TARDIS is an English translation acronym. So is TT. Maybe the TARDIS can't properly convey a word that can adequately express what it is. And so it uses a variety of words on different occasions. The Doctor also refers to the TARDIS as a 'ship' and a 'time machine'. Other Timelords have called them 'time capsules'.
 * In any case, TARDIS is an English translation acronym. So is TT. Maybe the TARDIS can't properly convey a word that can adequately express what it is. And so it uses a variety of words on different occasions. The Doctor also refers to the TARDIS as a 'ship' and a 'time machine'. Other Timelords have called them 'time capsules'.