History Headscratchers / DoctorWhoSeries3

* Martha asks how it's possible the the Carrionites could have taken over the world in 1599, when in the future she and the Doctor came from this quite obviously hasn't happened. The Doctor compares they're situation to what happened to Marty [=McFly=] in ''Film/BackToTheFuture1''... But in that movie, Marty traveled to the past, and accidentally interfered with the lives of his parents, thus changing his own future. The Carrionites' plan, on the other hand, had nothing to do with the Doctor and Martha; if they hadn't traveled back to 1599, the plan would've still carried out the same way, and the Carrionites would've actually ''succeeded''. So Martha's question is still valid. The only way all this would make sense was if time travel in the Whoniverse worked on the principle of YouAlreadyChangedThePast: the Doctor and Martha were always meant to go to 1599 and stop the Carrionites. But based on The Doctor's ''Back to the Future'' speech, he doesn't seem to believe this is how time travel works.

* Martha asks how it's possible the the Carrionites could have taken over the world in 1599, when in the future she and the Doctor came from this quite obviously hasn't happened. The Doctor compares they're situation to what happened to Marty [=McFly=] in ''Film/BackToTheFuture''... But in that movie, Marty traveled to the past, and accidentally interfered with the lives of his parents, thus changing his own future. The Carrionites' plan, on the other hand, had nothing to do with the Doctor and Martha; if they hadn't traveled back to 1599, the plan would've still carried out the same way, and the Carrionites would've actually ''succeeded''. So Martha's question is still valid. The only way all this would make sense was if time travel in the Whoniverse worked on the principle of YouAlreadyChangedThePast: the Doctor and Martha were always meant to go to 1599 and stop the Carrionites. But based on The Doctor's ''Back to the Future'' speech, he doesn't seem to believe this is how time travel works.

** Doesn't seem like that. Seems like his human memories only started breaking down when he received external stimuli, the same way John Smith's did. Otherwise, yeah, he would've died of old age. The Master's always been a bit of a DeathSeeker, so it's unsurprising.

** Maybe she had a weave? They last for considerably more than a month with the right care.

** At the time he was written (and to an extent today, although from what I can tell not quite as much since UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush handed over to UsefulNotes/BarackObama), American politicians weren't very popular in Britain thanks to the overwhelming perception (which, however true it may be, [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement is probably something we don't need to go into too much]]) that the 'Special Relationship' between America and the UK consisted primarily of America bullying the UK into doing what it wanted and following its lead. It's probably something to do with that.

** Humans know how to create automobiles. So why do you buy a car instead of just building one yourself? Simple: you don't know how. You might know how an internal combustion engine works in theory, you might have the skills to repair one if it's broken, but you almost certainly don't know how to build one from scratch. And even if you did, you don't have the materials, the equipment, the machining skills, ect. Just because a particular species has developed a technology doesn't mean every member of that species is intimately familiar with that technology. And even if the Master did happen to be an expert on this kind of technology, he doesn't have access to the materials and equipment to produce what he needed, at least prior to his takeover of Britan. He could feasibly use his position as minister of defense to obtain or create them, but then people might start wondering why the minister of defense is buying advanced metamaterials for a personal garage project, or why he's contracting a lab to develop and manufacture some strange alien device - so he would have needed to setup a shell company or fake identity of some sort anyway, to avoid unwanted suspicion. This in mind, using Lazarus was probably just the most convenient option.

** This is likely just PlayingGertrude. The actor was in his early twenties, but the character was presumably supposed to be a bit older. In Britain, you have to be 18 to join the police, and then you have a two year probationary period, during which you will certainly not be able to be promoted to a detective like Billy was; a 21-year-old detective is practically unheard of, even if he's a junior detective constable. Billy is likely supposed to be somewhere between his mid twenties/early thirties, which would place him in his early-to-mid sixties when he finally caught up with the time period.

* Seems pretty convenient that the Master had the Doctor's severed hand to age him up. What sort of tortures would he have subjected the Doctor to if he didn't have the severed hand? What would he have done if Rose hadn't been stuck in Pete's World and was still by the Doctor's side?

* When Martha told "every single person on Earth" about the Doctor and to think of his name, does that include uncontacted tribes? Did she successfully contact the Sentinelese and tell them about the Doctor?

*** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint And if she had agreed, how would she have gotten through the TARDIS doors?]] Mind you, the image of the Queen of the Racnoss trying to enter the TARDIS only to get stuck half-way and have her legs flailing helplessly about would have been hilarious.

** The perception filter is clearly not all-powerful or overwhelming; otherwise, no one would ever notice the TARDIS ever. The Doctor himself acknowledges that it works more by distracting people from thinking about the TARDIS rather than making it completely invisible to them, and that some people are capable of seeing past it. It's probably something which works better in particular situations; someone who is minding their own business on a busy city street where people are bustling around is probably more likely to succumb to the perception filter around the TARDIS than someone investigating a creepy basement in an old house which is part of an active crime scene, where it would stick out more as unusual.

** Also... Old Billy is clearly suffering from a terminal illness when we meet him. Terminal illnesses, sadly, do not always have the kindness or courtesy to wait until the patient has reached a grand old age before developing. There are plenty of cancers and other conditions which could have cut his life short even before reaching his sixties.

** The perception filter is clearly not all-powerful or overwhelming; otherwise, no one would ever notice the TARDIS ever. The Doctor himself acknowledges that it works more by distracting people from thinking about the TARDIS rather than making it completely invisible to them, and that some people are capable of seeing past it. It's probably something which works better in particular situations; someone who is minding their own business on a busy city street where people are bustling around is probably more likely to succumb to the perception filter than someone investigating a creepy basement in an old house which is part of an active crime scene, where it would stick out more as unusual.