Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Girl in the Fireplace


 * At the beginning of the episode after Reinette calls to the Doctor, the subtitles say "3000 YEARS LATER". Assuming that the previous scene was set in 1760, the future part of this should be set in 4760. Yet later, the Doctor says that they are in the 51st century. How is this possible?


 * The behaviour of the fireplace window is quite strange. When the Doctor is talking to Reinette through the fireplace, the time in France and on the spaceship is synchronized, as it is when he is on the French side of it. However, when he's on the ship side and not talking to Reinette, time flows much faster, and at a variable rate, on the French side. Interestingly, we never see any hint of this effect with the other time windows - Reinette doesn't seem to go missing when she walks through to the spaceship.
 * The Doctor states that there is a "loose connection" and so it's not like so many seconds to so many minutes. This would explain why Rose shouts that the Doctor would be furious if Reinette went through to the spaceship as the group don't know exactly how much time would have passed. As for the other windows not time jumping, perhaps it's only the fireplace that doesn't work properly. When people are communicating through the windows, like when the Doctor and Reinette are at the start of the episode, maybe the window recognises this and lets time flow correctly.


 * Why doesn't the TARDIS translate Reinette saying "Monsieur"?
 * This is standard French and very nearly all English people know what Monsieur and Mademoiselle means so maybe the TARDIS recognized that Mickey and Rose didn't need this translated. It is somewhat recognised in the English language in the same way that deja vu is.
 * As later established in The Fires of Pompeii, she may have used an English word, such as "Sir" at this point, for some reason. It could have also been a decision to reinforce what is said about her being French. Just because we hear Monsieur doesn't mean she said it.
 * The TARDIS may only translate what the hearer doesn't know. For Rose and Mickey, they may know what the word means so would not need it translated.
 * Also, "Monsieur" is also an English word, specifically meaning a French gentleman - since the Doctor is speaking French from her point of view, she probably thinks of him as French, so the TARDIS makes this clear by using the word "Monsieur" in the translated speech.


 * What is the horse doing on the spaceship?
 * The Robots kept entering at different points in her life and didn't close all of them off.
 * In deleted scenes, it was explained that the horse had run from its abusive owner, who asked the Doctor if he'd seen it. The Doctor then found it and, not wanting it to die, took it into the ship himself.


 * How did the horse avoid being used for parts of the ship?
 * It is never made clear exactly when the horse walked through.
 * It is stated that the robots now only needed Reinette's brain for their ship. They could have just dismissed the horse if it wondered through.
 * Then why were the droids going to cut up Rose and Mickey
 * Simple, Human and horse biology are very different, so they likely had no need for horse bits


 * Why doesn't the service robots' programming prevent them from using the crew for parts?
 * It is entirely possible that it never occurred to the crew that the robots would try to use them for parts, so they never thought to rule it out in the programming.
 * It is possible that in addition to the damage to the ship, the robots themselves were damaged and acted a bit outside of their normal programming.
 * The crew were quite possibly killed in the damage to the ship, the robots could have been utilising their assets.
 * Tardisode 4 shows that at least one crewmember was still alive when the robots came for repair parts.


 * If, as the Doctor says, the fireplace window is offline when the robots attack the party then how does the audio link clearly pick up Reinette's words shouted through the fireplace, which is nowhere near the window? Especially as there is no background noise of party goers screaming in this scene.
 * It is possible he turned off the ability to go through them but not the sound.
 * It was faulty. Perhaps it was on when she called for him, but went offline after she left.
 * It was offline because the fireplace was being moved


 * What happened to the robots after the Doctor left, since space age clockwork in France in the 18th century would change history?
 * It is likely that the robots would be burned or otherwise destroyed, as the people of 18th century French would have been terrified of the robots coming back to life.
 * Space-age clockwork would just look like clockwork to them, which wasn't anything new in the 18th century.
 * From the shot of the one on the floor, it looks like the internal clockwork actually fell apart. It's also probable that the reason why the droids WERE clockwork was because the name of the ship invoked a theme.


 * Why build the robots with blades, knifes, knock out syringes or short range teleports?
 * They are repair robots so the blades and knives would have been understandable for cutting ropes and wires. The knock out syringe could have been used in the event of coming across a 'stow-away' or hi-jacker. Unbeknown to the programmers that they could uses the little imagination that they had to take over the ship themselves. The short range teleport would have been useful if they were in a place of danger such as a pipe leak, if there was something that was in urgent need of attention or simply if the crew needed the robots to do something for them and get it to them in as little time as possible. It's possible, and in fact likely due to the fact they knew how to keep a heart, eye, and presumably brain alive, that they were also medics, explaining the anaesthetic, and the teleport.


 * Rose and the Doctor's emotions seem very odd near the end of this episode when the time windows are broken and they are separated. In Doomsday when Rose is sadly but safely trapped in Pete's World away from the Doctor they both express depression for a long time, but in this episode Rose is trapped on a ship with only the company of Mickey and is likely to starve or die of thirst ,yet the Doctor seems fairly okay and Rose only slightly worse. Why is this?
 * Mickey and Rose were in no danger. At any time they could enter the TARDIS, lock the door and live there, where they could have food and drink for an eternity. As for emotions, in this story Rose kept hope that somehow the Doctor would eventually make his way back to them through his own means. Also, by the end of the series it is heavily implied the Doctor and Rose were in love, but a considerably amount of time and critical moments of dependence occured during the few episodes after this one. Particularly, The Idiot's Lantern, when the Doctor had to seriously consider Rose's departure, and The Impossible Planet, when he was happy with the idea of living with her for the rest of his life.
 * In an unchronicled adventure, the Doctor may have told Rose that he could live forever as long as no harm came to him. It is possible that, had this thing happened, they had planned for the Doctor to make his way there.
 * Rose may have known how to use the TARDIS to send out a distress signal so she and Mickey could have been picked up by another ship, easing the Doctor's mind that she would be safe.
 * Also, at this point, both Rose and the Doctor had alternate paramours available. It's even possible that he thought she'd be able to trigger Emergency Program One for herself, if it was even necessary.


 * The Doctor knew that time on the other side of the windows flowed faster than on the ship. When he left with the promise to return, why didn't he use the TARDIS to come back to the point shortly after his departure, instead of risking to be late?
 * He probably just didn't think of it in the heat of the moment. The Doctor has been shown to make mistakes many times, even though he is a Time Lord.
 * why cant the The Doctor go back to before reinette dies?
 * Because he is already a part of events, the TARDIS works as a ship, not a do-over machine, and any attempt to return would likely result in paradox like in Father's Day
 * As we see in The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story), once the Doctor has perceived that she died without ever seeing him again, it's too late for him to go back for her.
 * He also knows that sometimes he has difficulty piloting the TARDIS with that kind of precision. If he uses it, he risks being put even farther out.


 * When the tunnels are closed after the Doctor jumped through the window with Arthur, the link with the Tardis was closed. How come that they could speak together with no mind translation from french to whatever language the doctor natively speaks ? (with a northern accent I suppose ;o) ?
 * The Doctor could easily have been actually speaking french, and it was translated just for us. I mean, why depend on the TARDIS when you're 900 years old? Certainly you learned a few earth languages by now! (Plus, the TARDIS translates long distance - Angels Take Manhattan has proof of this with his "Yowzah". River hadn't been in the TARDIS for who knows how long.)