Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Victory of the Daleks

You are exploring the Discontinuity Index, a place where any details or rumours about unreleased stories are forbidden.
Please discuss only those whole stories which have already been released, and obey our spoiler policy.

This page is for discussing the ways in which Victory of the Daleks doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

Remember, this is a forum, so civil discussion is encouraged. However, please do not sign your posts. Also, keep all posts about the same continuity error under the same bullet point. You can add a new point by typing:

* This is point one.
::This is a counter-argument to point one.
:::This is a counter-argument to the counter-argument above
* This is point two.
::Explanation of point two.
::Further discussion and query of point two.

... and so on. 

• The barrage balloons seen in this episode look nothing like those seen in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances.

Different type/model? Different area of London?

It is conceivable that they wouldn't always look the same, as over the course of the Blitz they made improvements to the balloons that may have changed their appearance, and it is not known how close chronologically the two stories are.

• The barrage balloons seemed to be tethered at the wrong height as well - the point was to force aircraft to fly high over them rather than risk knocking a wing off on the supporting wires. Having them flying lower than the tower of Big Ben makes no sense unless they had been reeled in for some reason.

• How did the Spitfires survive in space? Surely the glass would have smashed.

The planes are seen with a bluish field around them, presumably an effect of the "gravity bubble" or some other piece of Dalek technology. It may have something to do with the glowing yellow spheres seen inside the cockpit. Such technology would also help explain how they can still fly, since their engines and propellers would normally be useless without air. At any rate, it's clear a good deal of alien tech has been applied to them, further supported by the presence of some sort of laser weapon system. And don't call me Shirley.

Perhaps more to the point, how did they have time to modify three Spitfires in what appears to be mere minutes of in-story time from "It could work in theory" to "pew-pew-pew".

They didn't modify the Spitfires in a few minutes, they did it in a month.

Is there any on-screen evidence that a month passed, or is this just as speculative as assuming that it was a few minutes just because it only took a few minutes to show it on-screen?

There is evidence, when the Doctor arrives Churchill tells him he called him one month ago

It's a month since he called the Doctor, sure, but the idea to modify the Spitfires to be sent into space came about when Amy pointed out to them that they had all that Dalek technology, and were capable of sending something into space. Perhaps the weapons were already upgraded, but the modifications to make them space-worthy had to have happened in a much shorter time frame.

From the idea of modifying the spitfires to them firing on the Dalek ship all happened while the doctor was on the Dalek ship which was not a long time at all.

• If the Daleks led Bracewell to believe he created the Daleks and they planted him in this location, then at what point was he meant to have created the Daleks? Did Bracewell apparently come to Churchill with the "ironsides" or did they appear one day and Bracewell claim he had been working on them?

The Daleks appeared and Bracewell had the memory of creating them.

Ultimately, it doesn't necessarily matter for the story what the exact chronology was.

• Why did the Daleks give Bracewell the idea for anti-gravity technology? Did it help them at all?

The Daleks were not selective in what ideas they gave him.

Or the anti-gravity technology is used for Dalek flight, so it was part-and-parcel of the how to build a Dalek idea.

Also, the Daleks wanted Churchill (and Bracewell himself) to believe that Bracewell was chock full of useful ideas that could win the war, to ensure that the UK would embrace the plan wholeheartedly.

Also, they may have actually wanted to make sure that the UK beat the Nazis early and easily. The whole point was to attract the Doctor, and a dramatic change to WWII history like that would be a great way to do it.

• The author took no pains to explain how an android's memories and emotions prevent a bomb from exploding. It was the most severe plot hole in this episode. While I'm sure any number of fans can come up with their own explanations, really, it is the job of the episode writer to make these things clear.

The Doctor said, in effect, that humans aren't bombs, so they can't explode, as if this were a matter of obvious common sense. It doesn't sound like obvious common sense to me, and probably even less so to you, but maybe in the Whoniverse it is....

I agree with both of you. However I think it was something of a large slip on the writer's part. What it makes it all the more sad is that it would've required a very small amount of dialogue to explain the incident away. Oh well.

• We are repeatedly shown a uniformed woman who has "significant moments" in the story line, such as sharing eye contact with Amy and who apparently loses a fighter pilot boyfriend. What was her "narrative" purpose in the story? It felt like the writer created this interesting character but then couldn't think of anything interesting to do with her.

She was added to show the human cost of war--even in glorious victory, there is tragedy. Still probably not an important theme for this episode, but it was probably done to counter what Gatiss felt was too much of a "Rah! Rah! Tallyho! War is great fun!" attitude in the rest of the episode he'd written. (He actually talked about that as his biggest worry about the story, in either Confidential or an interview.)

Or it could even be a hint that the Daleks' victory will also not be without cost.

• When counter-threatening the Doctor about 18.5 minutes in, why (and for that matter, how) do the Daleks go to the bother of turning all the lights in London on? As a means of destroying a city, this is ridiculously elaborate, yet given the limitations of World War II bombers, extremely unreliable. If they want to (threaten to) destroy a city from orbit, all they have to do is (threaten to) drop a decent-sized rock on it, which is surely far easier. Not as big a science fail as "Edwin"'s memories saving the day, but sufficient for a facepalm.

The "why" is a little bit tricky, but perhaps they somehow actually don't have any other means of attack, since the ship is stated to be in such disrepair (and big-rock-dropping-hatches probably aren't standard Dalek weaponry anyway). That part's a little sketchy, granted. But it might be a bit of a reach to question "how" the Dalek-lights-on-beam works as a matter of a plot hole, since we don't know how the show's alien technology works. Might as well list the sonic screwdriver's capabilities as a plot hole every time a door's unlocked. As for why the Daleks would have so specific a weapon, it's possible the dish is designed to be used to control electronics in general remotely, which would be a practical weapon to have.

The lights were off so that London was hidden. if they suddenly turned on, everyone would become scared. it may be elaborate for destroying a city, but it still scared the hell out of everyone. there is no need for a facepalm in this situation.

• Why does the progenitor device only work for pure Daleks? Even if a species that wasn't remotely related to the Daleks found it, and accidently activated it, wouldn't the Daleks still want it to work?

Presumably they were afraid that in the wrong hands (such as, say, Time Lords), the technology could be dangerously misused.

• The Dalek menace is revealed within the first ten minutes of the show.

This isn't really discontinuity or plotholes.

• There is no real exposition of the pretended subservience of the Daleks as in Power of the Daleks.

The Daleks were trying to frustrate the Doctor into giving a testimony.

• There is no build up of tension between the Doctor and the Daleks.

This isn't discontinuity or plotholes.

• The Spitfires, even with anti-gravitational globes, being prepared to attack an alien vessel within minutes is utterly implausible.

We don't know enough about this technology to know how long it would take to install.

Also, there's no indication in the show that it's only minutes. Screen time is not always real time.

• The climax, the Daleks escaping, is anything but a climax. And most of the drama seems to occur after the characters central to the plot, the Daleks, have disappeared. A great let down for Who fans.

This is criticism of the plot, not actual plot holes.

Yes, it is a criticism of the plot. Imo, however, the plot is poor and that produces plot-holes. If the story-line is exposed within the first few minutes, not allowing for plot exposition, then confusion will arise. Such as (as commented on above)

Almost every one of the following questions is answered directly in the episode, so I'm going to break them out line by line and give the answers.

why do the Daleks choose to enter back into time when they did?

They didn't. They "fell" through time, after which they presumably flew straight to Earth.

What is the purpose of posing as friends if their purpose is to flush the Doctor out into giving testimony?

They weren't just posing as friends, but as subservient robots. Which was critical to Churchill accepting them. While he might have secretly allied with sinister aliens against the Nazis (in fact, his quote about the devil himself makes it seem like he would have), counting on that sounds like a bigger risk than counting on him accepting a product of British ingenuity.

Especially as they have no means of attracting the Doctor to them or even knowing when he is in the timestream.

Yes, they do. They attracted the Doctor by getting Churchill to call him. And, even if they didn't know that Churchill and the Doctor were friends, and that phone call was just a lucky coincidence, they still had the means of attracting the Doctor. Changing 20th century British history is probably the best way in the universe to get the Doctor's attention--short of changing 20th century British history to include a glorious early victory in WWII thank to those familiar-looking Ironsides. If he hadn't gotten the call from Churchill, he would have found out how WWII had been won and been back in a flash.

It is never explicitly stated that the Daleks want to conquer Earth.

It's never stated because they don't want to conquer Earth.

And if they did, they could have done so with the firepower they already possess.

No, they didn't have enough energy left to conquer a council flat, much less a planet. The Doctor directly called them on this, and they admitted it.

Given these questions the creation of Bracewell seems to be an over-elaborate exercise for an uncertain gain.

Given that posing as subservient robots was the entire plan, the only alternative to the creation of Bracewell would be finding some gullible and/or greedy human scientist and tricking or bribing him into pretending to have created the Ironsides. Which might have worked, but that's a Cybermen plot, not a Dalek one.

Plus, by masquerading as robots, it's more of an incentive for the Doctor to explicitly state that they are the Daleks, his enemy, which was their whole goal. He probably wouldn't get in their faces and say "I'm the Doctor, you are the Daleks" if they were up-front about being evil little Daleks.

How can an entirely electronic artifice become entirely human without some kind of metaphysical miracle?

This one isn't answered in the episode--but how can an entirely bioelectronic device like the human brain become entirely human without some metaphysical miracle? Does the fact that our nerves are powered by ATP rather than by an oblivion continuum make a difference? Are there immaterial souls that can only attach to things that are squishy enough?

Also, remember Moffat's obsession with fairy tales and go read Pinocchio.

Also, I may be interpreting wrong, but the question posed seems to suggest that he became full flesh-and-blood human or something, but no such event was claimed.

Is Dorabella really expected to fall in love with an android?

Why not? If he looks, acts, and feels human in every way, it's no more or less likely than her falling in love with a human.

Plus, it really has no bearing on the plot if that relationship works out at all.

She might get a surprise in the bed!

Why? If you were designing an android replica of an alien race, would you try to guess which parts would never be checked and skimp on those, or just copy the whole thing?

Besides, how exactly would this be a letdown for fans of a series that has repeatedly had aliens in human suits with spouses? Scaroth is OK, when he has to unzip his skin and reveal the hideous fly-thingy inside just to laugh, but Bracewell, who can't be distinguished from a human unless you sonic him or shoot his hand off, is not?

• How does Churchill recognise the doctor if Matt Smith has only been the doctor for a short while?

Churchill does in fact mention that the Doctor has a new face that he hasn't seen before, but he likely recognized the Doctor anyway because he, well, showed up in a materializing blue box. That's sort of a distinguishing feature.

• How are there any Daleks their last two extinctions have been definite. In Bad Wolf, Rose obliterated every last Dalek with the power of a god, and in Journey's End the Doctor and Co. made sure every Dalek with Davros's DNA died, meaning there could be no survivors.

Rose wiped out all Daleks present, but as we've seen, not necessarily every last one. And it's never said how far of a range the method used in Journey's End had, as it was meant to destroy the ones in the Medusa Cascade, and not necessarily every Dalek throughout time and space.

From an outside-the-story perspective, the Daleks are so iconic and so intrinsic to Doctor Who that it's doubtful they'd ever truly kill them off for good - any time that they wipe out "every last one of them," you can count on a chance that some of them will survive.

As their origin wasn't entirely explained, it is possible their presence is a result of the Time Cracks and will be explained later in the series.

The Daleks have been apparently utterly wiped out several times now, and it seems that the writers have at last realized how tired this is getting. It makes the Doctor's victories over the Daleks tired and hollow not only to the Doctor but to the audience as well. And it produces these kind of continuity speculations. This time the Daleks escape outright, even though on this occasion their escape is something of an anti-climax to the story. It also begs the question, if the Daleks always survive, why can't the Time Lords?

The point of creating old-is-new Daleks and having them escape to go off and rebuild a new Dalek Empire somewhere else in time and space, while wiping out the last of the RTDaleks, is that they'll never have to do this again. We're back to the classic series, where the Doctor may wipe out some group of Daleks in some region of spacetime, but he never wipes out the entire species, so the writers will never again have to come up with "hey, wait, we found one under the cupboard behind the flour!" stories again.

As for the Time Lords--off the top of my head The Doctor, The Master, Omega, Rassilon, the War Chief, Andred, and Leela have all appeared at least once after they should have been dead, and the Moff has said that he could easily explain how Romana or the Rani survived if he wanted to use them (which he doesn't). And that's not even counting plain-old regeneration. And Gallifrey itself has already been destroyed twice and still reappeared full of Time Lords in The End of Time.

• How did the Daleks have the Progenitor? How did they even get a hold of one with 'pure' Dalek DNA if they are Daleks from Journey's End?

This is explained in the episode. Presumably there used to be lots of these things, but they were mostly lost in the LGTW.

• Now hold on... we assume they must be either the Daleks from Parting of the Ways or Journey's End, right? And we assume that if they are the ones from the latter, then the whole "corrupted DNA" thing is because they have Davros' DNA inside them... but think about it: Daleks, as far as DNA, are still just Kaleds. Mutated Kaleds, but Kaleds nonetheless. And Davros is a Kaled. That's why Davros called them "New Daleks, True Daleks", because they had Kaled DNA identical to the original Daleks that Davros made on Skaro. So... if they are part of Davros' New Dalek Empire, shouldn't the Progenitor register them as pure-DNA'd Daleks?

I wholeheartedly agree with you and really do regard the Daleks in Journey's End as pure Daleks. However, perhaps the Daleks themselves didn't regard themselves as pure. Daleks are not always rational or at times even sane. They are fanatics about their race purity so maybe they regarded Kaleds as inferior, and since they were created from a Kaled they were thus inferior. Alternatively the Daleks may have somewhat changed their DNA since the original Daleks in Genesis of the Daleks and so would not necessarily be regarded as true Daleks. Maybe they Progenitor Daleks possess different DNA and since the other Daleks believe the Progenitor to contain apparently 'pure' Dalek DNA they concluded that they must therefore be impure.

Daleks are Kaled _mutants_, explicitly biologically engineered by Davros. By contrast, Davros himself is a plain old unmodified Kaled. That's why they decided, in Genesis of the Daleks, that he was inferior and must be exterminated. If Davros himself is inferior, obviously Daleks made from his DNA are as well.

• Why does nobody seem surprised at the shortness of Amy's skirt? It's hardly acceptable for the era.

Maybe they have all been briefed about The Doctor and what he and his companions are like.

Also, do you really think soldiers, in any era, are going to complain about a woman in a short skirt?

• Why does The Doctor risk taking the time to talk Bracewell out of exploding? Surely he could have bundled Bracewell into the TARDIS and taken him away from the Earth (and possibly dumped him on the Dalek ship).

He was panicking. Also, he didn't really want Bracewell to explode as he liked him.

• If what happened in Journeys End was deleted from time due to the cracks then how can these Daleks exist they should have been deleted from history as well.

Could be from DW: The Parting of the Ways instead.

They could have escaped through a crack like the Saturnynians and then the crack consumed the Daleks from Journey's End as it did the Weeping Angels. Maybe only that one ship made it through the crack.

We don't know for sure what exactly was deleted from time.

Even if the entire Stolen Earth/Journey's End story was undone, it's not a bad guess that, however these Daleks survived Journey's End, it also allowed them to avoid being removed from history. (Keep in mind that, for example, any Weeping Angels that weren't around to fall into the crack at the end of Flesh and Stone didn't get erased from history.)

• It is made clear that all the 'old' Daleks have been exterminated - yet only three are shown, two of which are green. Are we really to believe that Bracewell invented two Ironsides? And, for that matter, why exactly does Churchill think that these two Ironsides will be more beneficial to winning the war than, say, a machine that can send Spitfires into space?

Unfortunately, you almost have to assume with this show that no matter what they say, some Daleks somehow survive, even if it doesn't make sense. I was watching Evil of the Daleks the other day and thought it was funny when the second Doctor said that this was the end of the Daleks, forever, the final end and whatnot. There may or may not be a good explanation, so you almost just have to make your peace with it that they'll always survive somehow. As far as the Churchill thing, of course the Ironsides seemed more valuable to the war effort than space-Spitfires. They're fairly indestructible and can shoot down an entire group of German planes with no effort. Meanwhile, there's not exactly a lot of Nazi forces in space to combat, leaving the space-Spitfires not entirely essential for the war.

You don't have to assume that any of the old Daleks survive in this episode. The whole point of creating the new (or retro-classic) Daleks is that the RTDaleks are no longer needed.

Churchill didn't have the space Spitfires until the middle of the episode. All he had was the two Ironsides, and hundreds of pages of notes by an inventor that seem like they'll probably turn out other useful ideas in time. Given that Bracewell's only been working for Churchill for a month, I don't think Churchill would have too much call to be disappointed with his efforts.

Maybe two was more than enough to take out the entire German Nazi army. Four were taking out what is probably hundreds of Cybermen so why couldn't two take out thousands of humans with primitive weaponry?

Good point. The Daleks probably would have believed that, even low on power as they were, they could have defeated the entire German Army. But would Churchill have believed that?

If the Doctor hadn't shown up by 1942, that could have been a problem, given that they had no way of making more Daleks. But then presumably they could have started feeding Churchill enough other cool technology to distract him from the fact that Bracewell didn't seem to be able to build any more Ironsides. Anyway, after only a month, they didn't have that problem yet.

• Making the episode