Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Eaters of Light


 * Does the gateway slow time or speed it up? The gateway greatly slows time for the Doctor when he enters it mid-program (seconds for the Doctor are days for those outside the gateway), however at the end of the program the Doctor claims he needs to be the one to re-enter the gateway because only he can live long enough to guard the gate, which would suggest exactly the opposite time relationship (that a lifetime inside would be minutes outside). This apparent contradiction is never explained in the program.
 * I think the Doctor didn't want another temporary (one generation) solution, but a permanent one. His lifetime of fighting the monsters inside the field would translate to millions of years on the outside, effectively solving the problem for all eternity, or at least for long enough to allow the humans of the future to solve it with their advanced technology.


 * Why would Bill wonder off on her own to find a Roman soldier, that could easily kill her?
 * Well, the Doctor thought they were all dead and Bill has reckless bravery?
 * Aberdeen wasn't deserted. She could still have been in danger!
 * No Roman wanted to kill them. They were clearly not barbarians. And it doesn't seem the Doctor foresaw the Picts wanting to attack them, so he didn't see any reason to worry.
 * We didn't know at the time the Romans didn't want to kill. Only in hindsight!


 * Why has it taken so long for Bill to realise that the TARDIS can translate language?
 * Because her adventures never needed this information clarifying?
 * She just had an adventure with aliens from Mars? Wouldn't that raise a question?
 * She's clearly a bit thick. Or it simply didn't occur to her at the time. The scene was meant to be humorous. She even says, "Oh, that's why everyone in space speaks English," or something like that when she figures it out.
 * Although I can't understand your sentence, much fuss has been made that the TARDIS didn't translate in Extremis!
 * The simulated world the Monks created wasn't totally perfect. Some aspects of history were slightly off - some due to the very fact that the world was simulated itself, leading to some people figuring it out and thus the writing of the Veritas and thus the establishment of the forbidden library of heresies in the Vatican and, probably due to some kind of butterfly effect, its founder, a woman, becoming a pope - including the US president being wrong (the next episode, in the real world, indicates it is, in fact, Trump, but Extremis' actor looks nothing like him - wrong hair color and everything) and, evidently, their not knowing how the TARDIS works exactly, leading to their missing the telepathic translation property.
 * She hadn't noticed the translation caused by the Tardis because there weren't that much occasions to notice them. 'The Pilot' was set mostly on Earth and all events in space were without speaking aliens. She may have missed the Dalek saying 'Exterminate' because she was clearly stressed at the time. 'Smile' was set on a different planet, but there were only human beings, apart from the robots, so she might assumed, English prevailed as the dominant language.  'Thin Ice' was set in 19th century London, so I don't see a problem with the language there.  'Knock Knock' was set in todays London. Also no problem here.  'Oxygen' was set on a Spacestation inhabitatet by humans. So I assume the same as in 'Smile'.  'Extremis' was, except for the end, completely a simulation and the real Bill didn't remember the events.   'The Pyramid at the End of the World' was set in todays world and it is most likely, the leaders of the three armies around the pyramid spoke English, as were the monks.  'The Lie of the Land' was also set in todays world.  'Empress of Mars' was set on Mars. But the fact, that the victorian soldiers were able to communicate with the Ice Warrior and the Empress herself implies, that somehow they had the ability to understand each other even without the Tardis.  'The Eaters of Light' was in fact the first real opportunity for Bill to clearly realize that the Tardis translates for her.


 * Who built the gate? How did it get there? Isn't the gate still there?
 * How is this a continuity error?
 * Plot hole!
 * How? Just because it didn't tell us doesn't make it a plot hole, not like it's a paradox or anything
 * Of course, its a plothole. Its because the viewer isn't told makes it a plothole!
 * No, we are actually told. The portal itself was a time rift. The cairn built around it and used as the gate was constructed by ancestors of the Pictish natives from the episode.


 * If the stones blocked the entrance of the gate, wouldn't removing the stones open it up again?
 * The stone from the building started to crumble!
 * That's because too many people travelled through the portal at once
 * Well, thats not what I asked. Obviously, the portal is now blocked. But, removing the stones would re-open it, surely? It is still there! In Aberdeen!
 * Unless it got buried under the hill, too, which actually seems to be the case based on some comments made by the Doctor and Missy, and the view of what remains from the modern day portions.
 * Unless it got buried under the hill, too, which actually seems to be the case based on some comments made by the Doctor and Missy, and the view of what remains from the modern day portions.


 * I couldn't understand how or why the light was damaging the monster before it was pushed back into the gate!
 * It's the reflectors they used, it destroys the light in a way that harms the creator rather than empower it
 * I think it might have actually been acting like a lure for it, baiting the beast into the rift, and the boy - who was both primitive and young - simply did not fully understand how it worked when he explained what the glass substance did to the Doctor. Because it seemed to me that glass substance MAGNIFIED the light, which would be attractive to the beast, I would imagine, not damaging.


 * Why is there an engraving of the TARDIS on one of the rocks, when none of the survivors saw the Police box?
 * Maybe they did, the Doctor was in the gate for two days at one point so that was ample time for them to find the TARDIS and probably for Nardole to class it as off limits.
 * It might have even been visible to them as the Doctor and his companions left and went into it far off in that field - that field might have been a relatively straight shot from wherever they left the Picts.


 * If the creature eats light, why is it killing humans?
 * Probably because it felt threatened by them or it might absorb the light inside us or something.


 * The Doctor says he will guard the portal because although he will die he will keep regenerating (which seems to confirm the suggestion in Kill the Moon thar he now has an infinite number of regenerations). Besides this not making sense (the creatures would simply escape during the regeneration transition) how could a group of mortal children then guard the portal? And why would they remain alive there forever anyway, putting the lie to the doctor's claim that only he could do it? And how exactly do they hold back the creatures back?
 * You presumably fight it off only when the portal synchronises with Earth, plus, one only has to fight off the creatures for a few minutes with lasts the course of two days so a human lifetime in there is probably thousands of years for us so the Doctors expanded lifespan means he can fight it off forever. Lastly, he may not have been thinking straight, thus was over confident, the others did stop him after all.
 * It is very strange that the Doctor says he's the only one to defend against the portal, when several picts/Romans enter to do exactly that! It also seems odd that the portal can't have been dismantled by the Doctor, but is somehow destroyed when the building collapses.


 * How was the male Doctor part of a female-only organisation, like the Vestal Virgins.
 * Allegedly, all Earth crows learned the world "Kar"/"Caw" on 2 AD and started saying nothing but it from that point onwards as opposed to having some semi-sentient conversations with humans up to that point. I'm pretty sure there were (and probably will be) other Doctor stories set on Earth earlier than this episode which have crows say nothing by "Kar". Which would introduce lore discontinuity. Crow article lists some possible such episodes.