10 of Doctor Who's Notorious Plot Holes!

[@TardisTalks]

What Plot Hole Annoys You Most? Don't Forget To Subscribe and Like as this really helps continue to support this channel against the YT Algorithm!:P

[@thejamsterx]

Some answers: 2. River simply doesn't remember (or care) what each doctor looks like. They're all the same person to her. 3. The doctor read the last page in the book. So he can't change that. It's not a problem of logistically travelling to New York. He physically can not see them again because that would contradict the last page. 5. Orson still exists because Danny hadn't yet died in Clara's timeline. 6. Tenth doctor gave away regen energy in the rise of the cybermen, same as the twelfth in lie of the land. Time Lords only have 13 lives in a regeneration cycle. They still have regen energy left over, just not enough for another 'new life'. Hence why the master is able to always survive etc. 9. The doctor was reborn as a 'normal' Time Lord, and had the regen limit imposed upon them.

[@TardisTalks]

Thank You for this:)

[@stevenbaxter9099]

The plot hole that annoys me the most is that earth in the whoniverse is invaded constant ly in very public ways and yet no one on earth remembers or believes that aliens exist

[@finalfantasyfan222]

They have an excuse for that. It’s the government 😂

[@AIRWOLF-l6g]

I think the Pandorica changed the timeline so pre Pandorica incidents are erased from existence

[@johnpolishimpossible2say191]

​@@AIRWOLF-l6gI thought the cracks and the reconstruction of the universe made them forget more than erased the events.

[@SadJBomb]

the sutekh one was explained in the legend of ruby sunday when they discover him kate says hes "intwined with the TARDIS's dna" and the vlinx warns people of a 'manifestation', which proves sutekh wasnt *physically* on top of the tardis, but instead embedded within it (presumably dormant until revealing himself in the season)

[@supersecret4390]

Sutekh is a god-like being, it's pretty easy to imagine he was attached to the tardis in a meta-physical state, no-ones going to walk into him that's silly

[@azizuladnan2957]

one of the interesting theories that I make is that... us viewers/audience have one advantage, knowing the sequence i.e. which incarnation is 1st, 2nd until the current present. So... for in that universe... the 11th Doctor is technically the last one... cause he "died" at Utah... so for some of the enemies, the 12th, 13th, and 15th are assume to be the faces that are the ones before 11th, cause time travel is a thing here I guess the only one who knew the sequences is only UNIT I guess..

[@nicholasfarrell5981]

I honestly assumed that, as a near-deific psychic being before he encountered the Doctor, Sutekh separated his mind from his body to cling to the TARDIS; essentially, he was a "ghost in the machine" and didn't have a physical presence until he manifested in Legend.

[@AIRWOLF-l6g]

4:24 we have when 12 attempted to heal Davros 👍 Edit: got the wrong time stamp so sorry for the confusion everyone

[@NotYouNotMe-fw1fh]

It Snows because of Sutekh....apparently. And, Sutekh clinging to the Tardis was explained by RTD that he was NEVER clinging to the Tardis. He was dormant until Donna spilt her coffee on the console.

[@CulturePhilter]

I think it’s even been said on screen that the Doctor just doesn’t remeber how old he is (and that’s even before you add in The Timeless Child stuff). I think he just says a number that he thinks sounds good in the moment.

[@TardisTalks]

I mean that could make sense. but then later contradicts the whole plot when River tells Amy to ask the doctor his age and they use this to determine that he is his future self.

[@CulturePhilter]

@@TardisTalks he probably stays relatively consistent within regens or at least when talking to same companion.

[@9jasonsmith03]

theres a theory that he started counting again when he became the war doctor, idk if the time war lasted 900 years but. could possibly explain it

[@thego-o-dstuff1036]

One thing that's always bothered me is in "day of the moon" how the hell do the silence still have an affect on people after they've been shot ? Surely people would've noticed dead silence all over the place. An adequate explanation has never been given. 🤔

[@TardisTalks]

This is something I have never even thought off.. wow.. good one.

[@thego-o-dstuff1036]

@@TardisTalks Thanks 👍🫡

[@bobdallas4860]

I love when people start discussing about "plot holes" in Doctor Who (and any other media) because most of the times they don't know what a "plot hole" is. For example, the Doctor's age does not affect the plot per se, thus it can't be a plot hole. Sure it disrupts continuity, continuity doesn't equal plot. You want a plot hole? The one when the 7th Doctor hangs on the cliff for no reason as that scene directly affects the plot, thus, a plot hole. Most of these aren't plot holes. Edit: the bracket in the first paragraph.

[@bobdallas4860]

Also, Danny Pink's death being a fixed point in time is very speculative and isn't backed up by any source. In fact, the entire existence of Orson Pink proves that time is in flux when Danny died, thus leading to me speculating that Danny's death might have been caused by someone with the ability to tamper with time (i.e Missy).

[@PrecariousPorcupine]

Great video! I'm glad plotholes don't bother me 😅

[@TardisTalks]

Thank you 😊, yeah as long as a story makes some kind of sense 😂

[@aubyyyy]

my answers for these plotholes: 1 - He forgets, he's old, he's clearly not all there and also there clearly a lot of eu stuff happening between and we see in time heist that hes not against erasing his memory smtimes, he's probably just forgotten his age 2 - I think she was probably just listing stuff to see his reaction to her clearly having a diary of stuff they have done together, that or she forgot she did the Byzantium with 11 she did a lot with him and there was a lot of time stuff, and she did just finish spending 24 years on Darillium, not a great explanation but its reasonable 3 - He probably can, the reason he doesn't go though is because of paradoxes, Amy and Rory's death created an area very unstable and the smallest thing could set off a large scale destructive paradox, That's why the TARDIS refuses to go there, There's nowt saying he cant land outside and travel in but again he probably wont because the consequences could be disastrous. As for Amy and Rory leaving to somewhere safer and getting picked up, I still think there's a certain level of danger with causing a paradox as he had such an emotional reaction to seeing the gravestone, going back to save them means we wont see that and therefore everything that happens later due to him having guilt from not being able to save them wont happen, causing another big paradox event,,, or at least invoking the reapers. 4 - they we're being creepy and having fun, like nearly every other doctor who villain. 5 - yeah cant explain this tbf 6 - He thought he was dying soon so he was using left-over regeneration energy bc he wouldnt have enough to regenerate again anyway, enough to heal smth small like that, im gonna guess most time lords can but don't use it in the middle of an incarnation because that means less regeneration energy to start the next regen process and smth could go wrong. As for not seeing it again, 12 does it in Lie of the Land to play a prank, he probably didn't care much about the consequences as at this point he was tired and wanted to die and almost refused to regenerate before the TARDIS took him to see the first doctor. 7 - can't explain this either, they just did ig 8 - theres a decent theory that it was sutekh making it snow bc he says "my empire of dust and ice" it didn't snow in 73 yards as his plan was foiled and he probably went off to try smth else, it only really snowed when she was remembering that night and he wanted to see if he could find out who her mother was and,, the snow just implied he was around and listening. Maestro did say it was the power of "The Oldest One" which was him 9 - most of the small plotholes aren't really plotholes tbf, Fugitive had a working chameleon circuit but her tardis was buried anyway so its not like it had to hide, it probably changed to a police box to help 13 understand once she landed bc the tardis is smart and could probably do that. As for the regen limit, they probably capped it when they erased her memory so she was like them and had no advantage over them, in time of the doctor they probably just removed the cap they put on as a show of good faith although rassillon did say "how many regenerations did we grant you" so its more likely they just moved the cap back to a,,, unknown number 10 - we saw sutekh was more like an invisible dust like entity before manifesting as seen in the time window and the quantum search, he was probably just in that form most of the time and he moved around them to stay hidden

[@TardisTalks]

Some really reasonable expectations here 😊 Thank You

[@supersecret4390]

Yeah the TARDIS changing for 13 to understand is my headcannon for that as well. It explains why it's specifically the thirteenth doctor's exterior too

[@chrisclay7013]

For #4, I think the angels thought that they could outsmart the security protocols. They had the key to the Tardis initially, so my theory is putting the key in the lock causes the Tardis to "observe" them, meaning they can't turn the key. While they could have taken them quickly, they opened the door while the lights were on so they couldn't get in. The paradox for me with this one is tied to The Time of Angels. If being observed by another angel locks them, how were all the angels around Amy able to turn and look at her? Or travel in such large numbers?

[@justynmatlock8873]

The biggest New-Who plot hole for me is, if Rose can wipe out the Daleks just by looking into the time vortex in the Tardis, why couldn't one of the Time Lords have done that during the Time War ? Also, same episode, why was only Capt. Jack made immortal, but none of the others on the station that the Daleks killed ? Why no immortal Lynda-with-a-Y ?

[@arch1017]

Yep, this is a pretty huge one. Is it possible that no Time Lord was ever exposed to the heart of a Tardis before? Unlikely, considering the Doctor seems aware of the implications. One regeneration for ending the Time War seems like a pretty great deal. Plothole-wise, it's up there with the Dalek Empire in S4 putting a machine that had the capability of blowing up the entire fleet in the Crucible's dungeon. That's a design flaw even worse than the Death Star's exhaust port.

[@justynmatlock8873]

@@arch1017 At least the Death Star had to have exhaust ports ! And, if the Time Lords could send the Doctor back to try to evert the Dalek's Creation, (Genesis of the Daleks), why not send someone back just after the Doctor, Sarah-Jane and Harry leave with a few gallons of Movellen Virus ?

[@finalfantasyfan222]

We don’t actually know if there was an immortal Lynda with a Y or not. We’re never actually shown. It’s presumed she’s dead, but it is confirmed by Me that there are other immortals than Jack and Me.

[@justynmatlock8873]

@@finalfantasyfan222 I'd forgotten that. It would be cool.

[@amazingdisgrace1684]

Imo, Rose only makes Captain Jack immortal because, to put it bluntly, he was the only other person there besides the Doctor that she gave a damn about. She didn't know anyone else on Satellite 5, so she just wasn't thinking about saving anyone else.

[@taker68]

On the Sutekh one, the Tardis broke into pieces during Frontios. Does that mean he was broken up too? Or when the Tardis became a woman in The Doctor's Wife, wouldn't she have sensed him & told the Doctor?

[@TardisTalks]

It just keeps falling apart

[@Paradox-es3bl]

Also, wouldn’t it have been affected when the TARDIS was “cannibalized” and turned into a Paradox Machine when 10 fought the Master again? And when it exploded in The Pandorica Opens or whatever? In 11’s run.

[@taker68]

@@Paradox-es3bl Yeah, so many times Sutekh should have been noticed.

[@TheCraa_Editz]

I don't think the TARDIS was thinking straight that day 😭

[@taker68]

@@TheCraa_Editz In The Doctor's Wife? I could go with that but so many times for so long that he was there unnoticed.

[@krissybaglin9206]

I find it so funny how much of these is moffats era Also might I say the canon reason for the aging thing is the timewar the doctor aged and de-aged alot, feeling around 900-1000 and rounding down. One factor often described is how years of your life was essentially how you resisted paradoxes and certain temporal weaponry. Which basically would cost years of your life.

[@theentity5201]

How did davros survive the destruction of the dalek crucible? I get that one saucer breaking ranks during the scene where all the ships are exploding would be the ship from victory but davros was extremely done for, trapped under rubble

[@Blazing_Ninja]

I heard a theory that says that the war doctor (mentally) reset his age to 0 because he didn’t feel like the Doctor anymore, meaning the time war would have lasted over 900 years… But i still like that theory! Another theory that I like is that the fugitive Doctor was the Doctor in between the 2nd and 3rd Doctor’s regeneration because we didn’t get to see the change. The thing that supports this theory is that the fugitive Doctor calls the TARDIS - “TARDIS”, which the initials, apparently Susan made. That brings up another plot hole that you didn’t cover though… If Susan made up the word “TARDIS”, then how did the Time Lords know about the word “TARDIS”? Great video though!

[@johndavidhaynes7139]

I think the most important plothole happened in classic Who . The Doctor always claimed to be against changing history, yet by allowing Vicki a girl from the far future to stay in the distant past shouldn't that be changing not just her family tree but Earth's timeline?

[@supersecret4390]

Nah Vicki's chill. It's not like she'd be able to advance civilisation along any further because the technology of her time is so far away from what they had at troy. The worst she could do is tell a few stories everyone else would have laughed at.

[@Irhak69]

As for the regenration energy plothole... I always assume he stimulated both of them's energy to heal her injury and neither of them had enough energy to regenerate as in change the whole body... just enough to heal them from 'minor' injuries. Also for the Sutekh, I believe the answer is in his materializasion... he's like a sand that began to coalesce into the form.

[@Jamezevans123]

The Timeless Child didn’t really rewrite over 50 years of Doctor Who history, everything seen over those 50 years was & is all still true, it’s just that there was more unknown history pre-An Unearthly Child, the only thing that it recontextualises is the Doctor’s belief that Hartnell was their very first incarnation, and their belief that they were native to Gallifrey, but that doesn’t actually ruin anything because it’s not what number incarnation Hartnell is that fundamentally defines him, it’s the actions he made after he ran from Gallifrey and appeared in the story we (audience) first met the Doctor, that’s what defines his character. And the Doctor still grew up on Gallifrey, they’re still a real Gallifreyan, because when Tecteun adopted them and they settled on Gallifrey, they adopted a Gallifreyan identity, which only grew stronger the more time passed. Plus, it’s not out of character for the Time Lords to have hidden the Doctor’s own heritage from them. With the Fugitive Doctor’s TARDIS being disguised as a Police Box, looking at it from a surface level and chronological point of view, yes it contradicts canon because An Unearthly Child is when the TARDIS first became stuck as a Police Box. But have to remember that the TARDIS is a sentient time/space machine, who can archive console rooms from the Doctor’s future as said by the TARDIS in The Doctor’s Wife, so if the TARDIS the First Doctor stole was tired Pre-Hartnell TARDIS, then there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. When the Fugitive Doctor went on the run, the TARDIS deliberately brought her to Earth to hide, so the 13th Doctor could meet her and learn more about her forgotten past, and so she’d know that the TARDIS she was digging up was her TARDIS from the past, she (TARDIS) disguised herself as the Police Box that she’d archived some time before Fugitive went on the run. I understand disliking the actual Timeless Child part of the reveal, the Doctor being the origin of regeneration, as that makes them too inherently important. But the other reveals like the Doctor being a foundling adoptee not from Gallifrey, Tecteun, being involved in the Founding of Time Lord society (building on 7th Doctor lore), Pre-Hartnell Doctors (concept goes right back to The Power of the Daleks, first post-regeneration story), and Division, all fits with the Doctor’s character and canon of the show.

[@Jamezevans123]

Oh, and the Timeless Child doesn’t ruin The Time of the Doctor either, because if you think about it, why would Tecteun allow the Doctor to keep their unlimited ability to regenerate, that would be a major red flag for the Doctor once they passed 13 regenerations, and they’d discover that they were different, so it’s logical that Tecteun limited them to 12 regenerations. But that’s if Time Lords are even born with the ability, because it could be an ability they gain while at the Academy, which if it was then Tecteun would just remove the ability to regenerate from the Doctor entirely when wiping their mind and forcing them back into a child.

[@Paradox-es3bl]

Honestly, the Angels were supposed to delete people from existence and feed on the remaining time they were supposed to have. It shouldn’t have been retconned for Amy & Rory’s exit. If anything, he (and River) should be the only ones to remember due to all the time travel and going to another universe before or whatever. F the Timeless Child. Nothing has been canon since 12 as far as I’m concerned. Orson Pink was said to be a “lateral relative” like Danny’s great uncle’s descendant rather than his. By Moffat, iirc. Of course, that doesn’t explain why he seemingly claims to be Danny’s in the episode, but maybe he just doesn’t know his own family tree that well?

[@supersecret4390]

In Blink the weeping angels sent people back to the past, not delete them from existence. That's why the Doctor and Martha were stuck in the past, and why Sally Sparrow gets the letter from her friend who got sent to the past. I'm not sure why you think that's a retcon

[@mythherd11]

You could say Sertek was out of phase. There fixed.

[@59rlmccormack]

Thar part with Sutehk? It gets more complex when you take the expanded media into account.

[@TheCraa_Editz]

If the doctor is practically immortal then how come they think there gonna die at the siege of trenzelore 😭😭

[@kylerees3491]

The Doctor had 12 regenerations from the First Doctor onwards as the chameleon arch was used to put them into a child First Doctor meaning 11 needed regenerations so it's not a plothole (also it's never stated the Timeless Child had unlimited regenerations anyway)

[@Dr.Who-is-awsome]

For the river song one maybe she met 14 whi did do those tgings

[@TardisTalks]

the timeline is that messed up who knows its not impossible.

[@TenTamten]

13th and 15th had the most plotholes

[@TardisTalks]

Yeah.. I was thinking that too whilst editing 😂

[@andrewglasson4583]

The Big Bang episode is a massive plot hole where the Doctor comes from the future to get Rory as a centurion to get him out of the Pandorica Box and replace him with Amy which is impossible.

[@TardisTalks]

This.. has always puzzled my brain but it does work haha.

[@andrewglasson4583]

@@TardisTalks How does it work? If he is still in the Pandorica Box how can he come from the future to get himself out?

[@mayotango1317]

That is so simple.

[@RotaryDialer]

So in that stupid scene at the end of The Giggle, where Gatwa duplicates the Tardis with a silly magical mallet (🤦‍♂️), he only subsequently defeated a duplicated Sutek. The original Sutek is still safely attached to the original Tardis in Donna’s back garden! 👀 Gatwa flew off in the duplicate Tardis, not the original.

[@TardisTalks]

Yeah I had mentioned that in the original draft of my script but.. I dunno, maybe thats a way for them to bring sutekh back again if they want to.

[@RotaryDialer]

@@TardisTalks agreed!

[@boxy3840]

Its easy, wibily wobily timie wimie

[@Foebane72]

I put this down to the incompetence of Steven Moffat, who may be able to create memorable villains, but is absolutely CRAP as a showrunner and a writer, much worse than RTD IMRO.

[@TardisTalks]

I have always said RTD is the better showrunner and Steven Moffat has been the better writer :)

[@TheSmalltownhick]

I don't understand why they didn't retcon the Timeless Child story out of existence. They only needed 3 words to do it. "The. Master. Lied."

[@TardisTalks]

As badly as that retcon was done, it does do the showrunners a favour in regards to regenerations so we can now kinda have extra doctor stories and practically as many new doctors they want until the show is cancelled eventually, literally leaves no limitations cause we weren't given one.

[@AIRWOLF-l6g]

You can’t use that sadly because Jo Martin’s Dr is a match by the sonic and the Judoon device. Same with the Matrix scene too.

[@Jamezevans123]

Because apart from the reveal that the Doctor was the origin of regeneration, which I understand the dislike for because it makes the Doctor too inherently important to the existence of Time Lord society, the other aspects of the Timeless Child reveal doesn’t ruin anything. The concept of Pre-Hartnell Doctors goes as far back as The Power of the Daleks, the first on screen-regeneration. The Doctor existing as far back as the creation of Time Lord society and being a Founder was lore from the 7th Doctor’s era. The Doctor being a foundling and adoptee fits with the characterisation of the Doctor because when you look at it, the Doctor has always been an adoptee-coded character. This is what Russell T Davies said about the adoption/foundling aspect of the Timeless Child in an interview with Games Radar: However, Davies sees it as a perfect fit for the character of the Doctor, who is currently portrayed by actor Ncuti Gatwa. He explained why, also emphasising his hope that the show long continues with that arc: "That is the journey and hopefully for seasons to come. It has put the Doctor in a very interesting position and what I love about this notion of him being a foundling, an orphan, is that it fits with the image of the Doctor anyways. He's always been alone, travelled on his own, needs a companion, finds new ones to take with him, then it breaks his heart when they leave. “So, that's a man always searching for a family, always creating a found family, which is wonderful, I love that. And so it fits for him to be adopted, to have been lost in the universe abandoned as a child. It's one of those great bits of lore that actually resonates with what the character always was, I'm overjoyed with it."

[@thewolfdog123]

Your video is complexing and idiocracy at its core because you go into Doctor who too much

[@thewolfdog123]

You're taking the whole damn serious too seriously dude it's just a show dude you don't have to f****** tell everybody that they have potholes and b******* like that we just want to see a story and we want to see a good story who cares about plot holes and b******* dude who gives a s***

[@TardisTalks]

Uhm, its a list of plot holes within the series overall.. It really isn't that deep, I am curious though, if this video is so complexing and idiotic.. why did you subscribe?

[@thewolfdog123]

@@TardisTalks actually I watch most of it and it was actually pretty good but although he went to doctor who too much and I just like Doctor who not the new Doctor who cuz he's a f******

[@thewolfdog123]

@@TardisTalks can I just say I like Doctor who