Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Bells of Saint John


 * How does the Doctor know where Clara lives?
 * The 'Spoonheads' rotate their heads around very slowly to capture their victims. And yet, during this time, not one person decides to take the opportunity to run. Any explanation?
 * They're too freaked out to move. Besides the rotating head is super creepy but not obviously threatening. And the spoonheads are taking the shape of human beings. A strange girl descends the stairs in Clara's house and her first instinct is too find out why. There the heads start spinning (the spoonhead's and Clara's). The reactions that people are having are likely a combination of fear, concern and the inability to comprehend what's happening.
 * And it might be moot anyway, as if the person runs they could still be within range of the "transmission".


 * The way the monks react at the beginning, implies the Doctor has instructed them to watch out for the bells to start ringing. But when they do start to ring the Doctor is clearly surprised and didn't expect it to occur.
 * He probably thought some other bell might ring. Maybe the internal telephone or, if he was gloomy enough, the cloister bell...
 * There's no indication that he gave them any instructions regarding ringing bells. They know the TARDIS is connected to him, so when it starts ringing, the Abbott concludes they should let him know.
 * You can tell people to watch out for something and still be surprised that it happens. Parents give babysitters instructions on what to do in an emergency (doctor's numbers, other emergency numbers) but they're probably still surprised if something happens. Besides, I can easily see the Doctor telling the Monks a long list of things to be aware of when he leaves it in their care, even if it's not intentional, "Right, so I'll be leaving her with you, oh, don't worry about, she's fine, she's a tough old girl (adjusts the doors and the phone TARDIS makes a sound of some kind, he pats the handle again, catches the eye of a Monk, continues talking) oh, don't worry about that, she's just tempermental, she might pipe up from time to time but it's nothing to worry about, although if she starts (acts out a sound) you should probably give her room and it she starts (acts of sound), no, she won't do that, will you girl?" - this could easily continue on for quite a while


 * How did the spoonhead get upstairs into Clara's room?
 * My first thought was that they worked through teleport, but that doesn't seem to be the case judging by the rest of their technology. Since the link with Clara wasn't properly active yet it maybe homed in on the laptop first?
 * That still involves a server entering her house, going up the stars and not being noticed. It's not like it's pretending to be a sign post on a street or something mildly plausible. Doctor Who loves to say that there are things like this all the time and our noticing is a trait intrinsic to humanity. The TARDIS lands in ancient Egypt and it doesn't need to pretend to be a statue, not one will notice either way. But this case stains the credibility. Either there was a spoonhead in her bedroom for an extended period of time (meaning it was already there when she first tried to get online) and it managed to get up unseen and stay hidden, or a spoonhead entered her locked house and walked up the stairs and snuck past her. Now maybe once they are stationary they can look as though like anything, but still it would have had to enter her house and get upstairs without being noticed. Besides, why would it have bothered to sneak into her house and hide? There isn't any clear motive for tying up a server for that long, their portability is supposed to be a big benefit. Besides, they're being fairly blatant about all of this; stealing consciousnesses, servers everywhere, turning people off and on. Why would they bother to find a way to get a server to sneak in somewhere and hide. Anyone who finds them is just taken and controlled. So that a spoonhead managed to get into her room (and maybe hide there) without any notice just makes no sense.
 * Couldn't the server have come through the computer? Using the webcam?


 * How did the doctor get his motorcycle up the stairs out of the Tardis doors?
 * Would that be the anti-grav motorcycle that he later drives vertically up the side of a building...? It presumably can handle a few stairs.


 * Miss Kizlet "hacks" Alexei, increasing his IQ exponentially in order for him to come up with a "creative" solution to the problem of Clara escaping. Why then didn't she jack up his IQ when he was in the process of being out-hacked by the Doctor earlier?
 * A better point, why not keep the levels always up?
 * So they don't threaten her position?
 * Maybe the person has to be mentally "at rest". Sort of like how driving a stick-shift you might be in 1st gear and speeding up, but jumping directly to 5th gear might cause problems or damage.


 * Clara was not open to a random guy dressed as a monk showing up at her door. She gave him a minute, but he just freaked her out beyond belief, knowing her name and everything. She then wakes up in her bed with no memory of how she got there, water, flowers and jammie dodgers on her nightstand and the Doctor parked outside, guarding her. Why doesn't she freak out, accuse him of doing something to her, call the cops etc? Why isn't she more suspicious of him? Instead, she opens up to him. What?
 * TV: The Name of the Doctor explains why.
 * TV: The Name of the Doctor doesn't explain it. The Clara fragments did see the doctor, but if they were streaming information back to Clara why would they stream back to a past version? It's her future that knows the Doctor not her past.


 * At the end of the episode the Doctor rides his anti-grav bike to the Shard and saves the day before revealing that he was a spoonhead the whole time, that he never left the cafe and is still sitting with Clara. Why does he look fully 3-D then? Front of head, back of head, everything in it's proper place.
 * Wasn't he wearing a motorcycle helmet that hid his lack of back of head?
 * He was. We never see the back of his head until he takes the helmet off inside.
 * Wouldn't the helmet fall off if it was only held on by one side of it's head?


 * Why exactly does Miss Kizlet bother giving Clara encyclopedic knowledge of Computer systems and the Internet?
 * She doesn't, Clara's sudden knowledge is a freak accident, of the Doctor downloading her off the server, something which is supposed to be impossible.


 * Clara doesn't recognize the Doctor, despite having met him as a child in the prequel.
 * We can't(and don't) remember everyone we met. Clara just forgot him.


 * The Doctor says that Timelords have 27 brains. Even though it was exaggeration, it implies that Timelords have many brains. But in "The Brain of Morbius", Morbius has only one brain.
 * Maybe before he was exiled the time lords destroyed some of hes brains to make him less dangerous.
 * He likely just meant he had one, and exaggerated to 27.


 * How could the Spoonhead work the tablet? You need a human finger to operate a capacitive touchscreen.
 * Well it's not a normal tablet, it probably has technology way more advanced than modern day iPads.