History Headscratchers / DoctorWhoSeries3

[[folder:The Runaway Bride]]
* The Doctor offers to take the Racnoss queen, and her kin, to a new planet. The queen refuses and continues with the kill-everyone plan. The Doctor responds by killing the queen...and also killing all the other Racnoss at the center of the Earth. Wait just a minute: have ''they'' refused the Doctor's offer? Have they even heard it? Is he just assuming that they'll refuse the offer because that's what the queen did?

*** And that assumes that they were even intelligent enough to understand. IIRC, they were hatchlings who were "born starving." They may have been mindless bundles of devouring instincts. And if they weren't, they were still going to eat everything living, and it's unlikely that they'd be more moral than their mother.

*** Because it ''has'' survived the weight of the world for 4.6billion years on top of everything else; it's perhaps not unreasonable to suggest that even though it had survived this long then it's still probably a bit battered and weakened by now. Plus, Torchwood probably has some nifty gear in its arsenal.

[[folder:The Shakespeare Code]]

** He married her, as shown in ''The End of Time''.
*** And apparently, had a ''great'' honeymoon...which ended all too quickly. In any case, the Doctor says the marriage was "a mistake".
*** That was almost certainly the reason. The last thing you will ever do is make a ''mistake'' with a Tudor-era King or Queen. Funnily enough it is actually theorized that a failed relationship with an yet unknown member of her court was possibly the reason why the real life Elizabeth was famous for refusing to marry. An example of the writers doing a little research perhaps?
*** And ''Day of the Doctor'' finally gave us the ''whole'' story.

* 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.

[[folder:Gridlock]]

** But sentient beings have been shown not to reproduce "conservatively" in tightly packed urban spaces. In fact, poor people in cities in the Industrial Revolution often had a crap-ton of kids because very few lived to adulthood, due to the squalor. In light of this, the world of Gridlock seems a lot worse. Plus, a species can't "evolve" over the course of what was it, a few decades, unless the trait that's being bred out has become near 100%, immediately fatal. And even then, that's not really evolution, that's just a trait falling out of the gene pool--in this case, the trait of multiple-ova ovulation. Still, your "she's part cat!" theory is the best way to explain the litter, I think.

*** Remember that back in "The End of the World" Cassandra's whole deal is the fact that she's the last 'pure' human and, by her standards, everyone else calling themselves human are in fact essentially mixed-race with a whole load of alien and non-human DNA swimming around the gene-pool. It's entirely possible that Mrs. Brannigan is herself part-cat to some degree (or at the very least her DNA is sufficiently non-human to enable her to mate with a cat-human), but it just doesn't look as obvious with her as it does with Mr. Brannigan.

*** It could have been a reference to Creator/CordwainerSmith's Underpeople, where a CatGirl like C'Mell would give birth to literal kittens.

** Well remember that the Macra, who feed off of smog, were living at the bottom of the motorway. It's possible that the Macra had manipulated technology in that direction before they "devolved," or (more likely) that the ones who built the cars put in that technology in a misguided belief that giving the Macra a steady supply of food would placate them. Another possibility is presented by the ventilation at the bottom of the motorway, which were apparently intended to siphon off the smog (until they jammed). It may be that the vents took the smog to somewhere where it was recycled into something useful, making dirty engines an advantage (It should be noted that the smog is apparently heavier than air, and thus would always make its way into the vents).

* Is there a particular reason why the old couple in the beginning is dressed like the couple from the famous painting American Gothic, by Grant Wood?

[[folder:Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks]]

*** Nope, Skaro is still around and the Doctor and Amy visit it in the online adventure City of the Daleks, which the showrunner has confirmed is in continuity.
*** Okay, I've played that game. Did you miss the part where the Daleks completely rewrote time with the Eye of Time where Amy starts disappearing Back to the Future-style? Or how the Daleks suddenly take on the series 5 forms? Somehow I doubt Caan would have been able to reach that on his own.

** Even if they got stuck in 1930, why don't they just wait until they have the technology to properly rebuild their race? Yeah, Daleks are not known for their patience, but these Daleks are designed to think about the box(which explains why they even contemplated the Human-Dalek project). Also Daleks appear to not age or just live really long(Metaltron managed to survive for 50 years, and the Emperor of the Daleks was in the darkness for at least 200-smoething years), and I imagine that the Cult of Skaro was given immortality. Given how many times the Daleks invaded the Earth, they could probably just wait until the events of "Remembrance of the Daleks" (only 33 years from 1930) and silently steal an Imperial ship/reverse-engineer it if they want to avoid altering their own history.
*** What are they supposed to do in the meantime -- play Scrabble? Leaving aside the fact that the Cult of Skaro waiting around uselessly for a more technologically advanced period or some more Daleks to show up wouldn't make a particularly good story at all, they clearly ''are'' thinking outside of the box by attempting to solve their current problem with the technologies that are available to them rather than just waiting for some more Daleks to show up and solve it for them.

** In slight response to the above, that's also something that's a headscratcher. While admittedly it's been a while since I've seen the episode, if I remember correctly, Dalek Sec began to show compassion and other very human emotions upon merging his DNA with human DNA. How could the Daleks, who just ''witnessed it happen'' think it a good idea to turn humans, brimming with, obviously, human DNA, into Daleks?

** "Into The Dalek" establishes that even ordinary Daleks ''could'' be capable of acquiring a rudimentary sense of right and wrong, if not for their travel machines' integrated computer-links' tampering with their memories. Sec didn't just incorporate human DNA into his own, he ''stood up and left his travel machine'', so its brainwashing functions couldn't inhibit his emotional development anymore.

* Apparently Dalek Caan is capable of pinpointing where and when he wants to go, aka The Time War. However the Cult of Skaro ended up in 1930. Shouldn't they transport to a more scientifically advanced period of history, or even another planet? After everything, they probably know the Earth inside-out! "Yeah, let's flee into Depression-era Manhattan instead of a more advanced era and place. [[SarcasmMode I'm sure it won't screw us over!]]"
** Why would they need to go to a more scientifically advanced period in history or planet? They seemed to have all the technology they needed and only ended up failing because of the Doctor who might have showed up wherever they went. Also, a more advanced location might have produced people who more readily noticed them and could try to fight them (and even if the Daleks themselves wouldn't have been easily destroyed, their project could have been) while the Depression allowed all those people to go missing without anyone really caring. Even though I'm sure they chose it by random, the time and place they were in suited their purposes just fine.

* Way back in The Parting of the Ways, the Daleks detect Lynda behind the asteroid-proof door. In this episode, a Dalek glides right past the Doctor and Tallulah, but it doesn't detect them. Why not?

** Sec didn't incorporate Diagoras's ''mind'', he incorporated his DNA. Just because Diagoras was enough of a ruthless S.O.B. for the Cult to find him suitable doesn't necessarily mean he was genetically ''predisposed'' to be that way: his ruthlessness could be learned behavior, not inborn. For all we know, he could have an identical twin with the exact same DNA who volunteers in a soup kitchen and finds homes for orphaned kittens in his spare time.

** This kind of depends on your interpretation -- it could be clearly argued that the Last Dalek killed itself not out of remorse and conscience, but because it was so disgusted at being tainted with humanity and being made 'impure' that it would rather die than continue on as an impure Dalek. Presumably the Doctor took this interpretation of events.

[[folder:The Lazarus Experiment]]
* So a man creates technology that allows a human to cheat death by renewing their entire body near the point of death so they can live longer. Predictably it doesn't work properly. The doctor berates the inventor, saying that mortals shouldn't be doing this sort of thing. He even specifically says it's against the laws of nature. But here's the thing. Time Lords use this technology! He's used it himself 9 times at this point. Hypocritical much?

** Regeneration being down to technology is a plot point in two old school stories (Mawdryn Undead and Underworld).
** Except the new series has contradicted the old series in a number of places including this. It is implied that the ability to regenerate is a result of prolonged exposure to the time vortex. In A Good Man Goes to War this is indicated as an evolutionary process.

** You have to remember, the Time Lords (and therefore the Doctor) are the Olympian gods of the Whoniverse. They don't take too kindly to ''anyone'' else horning in on their territory (which explains why they were so against Dr. Crozier's experiments in "Mindwarp"--successes on that front would give his patients lifespans comparable to the Time Lords). It's also because the Doctor is only too aware of humanity's effort to screw things up ''royally''. As he tells the Sisterhood in "Brain of Morbius," "Death is the price we pay for progress."
** Note that the Time Lords are pretty familiar with regeneration energy and all its implications, while Lazarus clearly has very little idea what he's dealing with. So The Doctor could be saying, in essence, "You can't expect to just instantly jump from mortal to poof - immortal, you've got to learn in reasonable steps". It also could be that if anyone understands WhoWantsToLiveForever, it's The Doctor.

** She disliked the Doctor immediately (apparently just because she thought he was dating Martha, which is something that happens with parents), which caused her to blame him for Martha running back into the danger zone, rather than think about how he was risking his life. Unreasonable, of course, but that is a perfectly legitimate character flaw. In addition, as shown in ''The Sound of Drums'', Harold Saxon wasn't just some random guy, and there was a sort of mind control going on. It all just worked together to make her act the way she did.

** They probably flashed an official-looking badge at her. People follow [[JustFollowingOrders authority figures.]] Especially when they don't like the person the authority figures are targeting in the first place.

** It didn't just de-age their cells, it re-activated dormant genes that represent evolutionary holdovers / paths not taken. In essence, a grain of truth (they seem to be referencing interons) meets the same kind of ArtisticLicenseBiology and HollywoodEvolution that affected the episode ''Genesis'' of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''.
** Harold Saxon funded the experiment that produced the youth device, because it's what let him turn his usual laser screwdriver into an instant-aging weapon. It's possible that the Master secretly arranged for the youth machine to mess with Dr. Lazarus's genome in horrific ways in order to tie up loose ends, and/or just for kicks.

[[folder:42]]
* Why does the Doctor give the crew such a hard time in ''42'' for not properly scanning the sun? He himself was surprised when he found out it was a living being and considering that he's supposed to be the most advanced being in the universe how could he possibly expect a few humans to have any reason to scan it (or even the technology to try)?
** Because ''the Doctor'' wasn't illegally using the sun for fuel. It didn't matter if he knew it was alive or not as he wasn't doing anything that could hurt it. The crew was scooping up fuel which would damage a living sun so he thought that they should have at least checked. When he calls them on it, they don't say anything about not having the technology to scan it even though that would have been a great excuse for them not doing so. They just say something about how it's illegal so they just grabbed it and tried to leave.

*** That also implies that humans have scanned stars pretty regularly yet they don't consider the star a possible reason for the problems. Besides that it seems a bit ridiculous to think that humans would know that the star could be alive when the Doctor (the individual you can expect to know more than anyone else) didn't consider it until near the end.
*** Maybe they couldn't have been expected to know but the Doctor seemed to think that if they ''had'' scanned they would have discovered it. Had they done basic safety measures then they would have learned that the star was alive. Of course, given that no one was around them, it really makes no sense that they claimed they "didn't have time" to scan it. Who cares if it's illegal, if no one is going to be there to catch them in the act then they had time to scan it.

*** Unless I'm thinking of the wrong bit, he's possessed at that point isn't he? I always figured it was more the sun's anger than his own, although it was blended with his own. So he's annoyed but the sun is really furious

* So, the whole "get through 29 doors" thing - they could have already tried doing this but they needed The Doctor just to say to try it?

[[folder:Human Nature/The Family of Blood]]

* A very minor point, but Martha is trapped for at least a month in 1913 in the episodes Human Nature/The Family of Blood, yet her hair remains clearly straightened. How come it stayed like that? Was she keeping straighteners in the TARDIS and going back just to use them? Had she had her hair chemically relaxed, and, if so, how come no-one asks her about it? As far as I'm aware, there weren't really any ways of straightening hair back then that were ''that'' effective.
** Best I can come up with: Women in the 1970's would use basic clothing irons to straighten their hair (to get that super straight, flat hair like Cher), and irons go back to ancient times (originally they were flat pieces of metal you could heat in a fire.) Even if Martha wasn't alive in the 70's she would eventually realize that one could straighten their hair this way, especially if she doesn't like the look of her hair not straightened (which she probably doesn't, since it's been straightened in the first place), or if the people she works for feel that it looks improper. So it's not hard to believe that she would find some way to straighten it. As far as anybody asking about it, should could simply say that she straightens it frequently because it's easier to manage.
** I assumed she was going back to the TARDIS for all that kind of thing -- no reason to live like an Edwardian if you don't have to. And what would the residents of that school/village know about caring for black hair?

*** One theory I've heard is that John Smith had enough residual awareness that he knew that the watch was his and not Martha's so even if he just sort of left it in his room, he wouldn't let Martha keep it. And depending on how nice the watch was, it might have been too good for someone to believe a maid like Martha owned it.

*** The Doctor told Martha that he should have just enough residual awareness to 'let Martha in' and have her be someone that John Smith knows and has no problem accompanying him. If he saw it before Martha could hide it someplace or caught her having it at some point in the two months Martha had been working there (and given how important it was, Martha was probably going to keep it with her) then his residual awareness of the watch could make him identify it as his and reclaim it. Martha couldn't really fight this or risk John abandoning her. I think the residual awareness of the watch is established later with Yana as there is little reason he'd always keep a watch he thinks doesn't even work with him at all times without some sort of prompting. That the watch ''might'' have been too nice for Martha (but you say it isn't) was really only secondary. It could be a complete piece of trash but if John identified it as ''his'' piece of trash then he'd confiscate it from Martha.
*** Regardless of how nice or un-nice the watch was, Martha couldn't have kept it. Women didn't have pocket watches at that time, and Martha, being a servant, and a black servant at that, definitely wouldn't have one. She would have no safe place to keep it, and if she were found with it she would be accused of stealing it.

*** We don't see what the Family where doing before the episode starts. Just a WMG but it's possible they had already crossed the line when they started pursuing the Doctor (They are sadists after all, and we see one of their ray-gun blasts, so they must have killed and possessed somebody at that point in order to fire it.) The Doctor knew they would need a severe punishment, but was too afraid of himself and what he'd do to mete it out their and then.

* The Doctor wraps up Father Of Mine in chains forged from the heart of a dying star. How does that make him immortal?

*** Same way that Time Lords can give themselves regenerative powers, manipulate black holes to create time travel, can move planets across the universe, and various other hyper-powerful things like that -- vague Time Lordy super-science. We don't learn how he did it because we don't need to know the precise details of how he did it, and if they did tell us it would just be some nonsensical technobabble anyway.
*** So if the Doctor can make anyone immortal, why does he angst in School Reunion about how he has to leave companions behind all the time before they outlive him?
*** Because of the aforementioned "in ''Doctor Who'' immortality is a curse, not a blessing" thing. He doesn't ''want'' to force immortality on people he loves, especially not for purely self-serving motives like alleviating his own loneliness, because he knows full well how much it sucks. He's making the Family of Blood immortal as part of a ''punishment'', after all.
*** If the Doctor can make people immortal, truly who wants to live forever immortality is a curse immortal, then what the hell was Borosa worried about in The Five Doctors?

** The Doctor wasn't being intentionally cruel but the episode rather ruthlessly deconstructs the nostalgic view of the Edwardian gentry as well as the Doctor's relationship with his companions and with humanity generally. John Smith's insultingly paternalistic and often callous attitude towards Martha somewhat mirrors the Doctor's attitudes towards his human companions at its least sympathetic and he never really acknowledges what he puts her through.
* Why did the Family just sit there and let The Doctor place a FateWorseThanDeath on them? They didn't seem noticeably injured from the explosion, and The Doctor didn't appear to have any means of restraining them when he walked up to him in his TranquilFury state. What stopped them from just getting back up and beating him senseless while he was too busy [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall glaring at the camera]]?

[[folder:Blink]]
* Given in the Series 6 premiere ''The Impossible Astronaut'' and ''Day of the Moon'' that the Eleventh Doctor and company brought up the Silent's "You should kill us all on sight" broadcast in July 1969, how early were the Tenth Doctor, Martha, and Billy dropped by the Angels before that?

* After watching ''Blink'', one can't help but wonder how the Weeping Angels, a race who cannot look at or touch each other, do... er... what's necessary to make more Weeping Angels.

** Explained in "Time of Angels". Whatever takes the image of an angel becomes an angel. So statue carving, photographs, and recordings can all become angels. This makes them the only family in the universe to reproduce via photo album.

*** Just because the Angels ''can'' use an image of them to come to life doesn't mean that they ''have'' to. For instance, when there was an Angel in Amy's mind it didn't ''have'' to convince her her hand was stone or to count down but it chose to to mess with her. The video feed coming to life and even the one in Amy doing so had a purpose: the Angel whose image it was was trying to kill them all so that it and its fellows could feed on the energy the ship gave off in peace. The pictures Sally gave may have been the ones to steal the TARDIS or, in a stable time loop, become the Angels in the episode. If they didn't then that's because the Angels had already sent the Doctor and Martha to the past and fed on their lost days so there was no need to come alive and do anything.

* How does the basement in ''Blink'' go from pitch black with a flickering bulb to filled with eternal MagicCaveLighting? [[AWizardDidIt The Doctor?]] But then why is ''Nightingale'' so confident they're trapped forever?

** I don't even think they turn to stone. They are likely in a complete state of inertia-literally nothing can affect them. For all we know, Weeping Angels are a strange type of sentient particle. [[EldritchAbomination It would fit with their weirdness.]]

** That's the point - the audience is watching, therefore the Angels are statues as long as we can see them. It's kind of an interactive episode in that way.
*** Agree. This is revealed in the closing monologue, when the Doctor gives us the same speech while images flash of several famous statues in real life. Steven Moffat enjoys Main/ParanoiaFuel as well as NightmareFuel.

* If the angels can kill someone by touching them ''and'' absorb their potential energy -- Why did they try to hit Sally with a ''friggin' stone?!''

*** It's also been established since -- mostly in "The Time of Angels" -- that the angels are seriously a bunch of assholes. As far as I can tell, they threw a rock at her because it would freak her out, and that's ''fun''.

** Even though this works it's not an easy fix. Try it now--open one eye, then the other and keep alternating over and over without reflexively blinking ''once.'' Now imagine you're doing this while your life is in danger and you're terrified--and just for sadism's sake, maybe there's a slight breeze or a tiny bit of dust in the air. (Most of the action took place in a very old house, after all.) It's hard to keep up for long.

* Okay...so the Weeping Angels send the Doctor and Martha Jones back to 1969. ''Why only 1969?'' If the Weeping Angels feed off a person's potential life energy, then based on the Doctor's incredibly long lifespan, they should have been able to send them back a ''lot'' further!

*** More or less confirmed in "The Angels Take Manhatten" when [[spoiler: Rory gets sent back in time by an angel, and Amy lets the angel send her back as well, and they arrive at the same point.]]

*** They do a similar thing in [[spoiler:The Time of Angels]] where [[spoiler:River left a message for the Doctor knowing he'd see it in a museum in the future and save her]]

* In "The Time of Angels", it's said that anything that carries the image of the angel will become an angel. So what happened to all those pictures Sally Sparrow took of the Angels during "Blink?"

** I just figured that there are multiple subspecies of angels. So the angels we meet in Time of the Angels just like to kill people, but the angels in Blink like to send people back in time. Similarly, the angels in Time of the Angels have the special power of "that which takes the image of an angel itself becomes an angel", but the angels in Blink don't have that power.
** My personal favorite mindcanon on that is that Sally's pictures are the beginning of the fall of the Aplans. The Doctor mentions in Time of Angels that he had met their architect, that they were nice, etc. So, when he was there, some of them - most of them - leave to conquer the planet (why didn't they take the Tardis? Surely something/someone stopped them doing so. Even a mice would be enough), and latter TADÁ! - A whole maze of angels.

* At the end of blink when the angels all view each other Sally and Larry are in the way blocking the sight of some of the angels so couldn't that mean they could move? At first I thought they saw a part and maybe as long as one part was being viewed the whole body was quantum locked but in Angels in Manhattan when Amy sees the angel behind rory the angel moves the arm behind Rory that Amy cant see.

** Yes, Sally and Larry had crouched down under the Tardis console's overhang before the time machine vanished from around them.

*** It seems unlikely that anyone from modern times would want to give up the internet and everything else - also, I doubt he'd relish being African-American in the 1960s.
** Billy's not African-American, he's a Briton of African descent. The actor playing older Billy has a Gambian accent, so it's likely that's where Billy or his family is originally from.
** Cathy'd already ''tried'' the "Back to the Future" approach with her grandson's photos and letter, and Sally didn't believe it. She'd needed to actually ''meet'' the aged Billy to accept what he had to say.

** Remember that the Angels aren't just looking to nom people in this episode: they've been trying to get access to the interior of the TARDIS. They were following Sally around, not hunting her, because they deduced she was getting messages from the past and were hoping those messages would guide her to wherever the police had moved the TARDIS. Plus, they couldn't afford to send her to the past once she had the key - something they probably couldn't use themselves, given how Sexy is presumably on guard against such creatures' intrusion - on her person: if they ''had'' touched her, she'd have had decades in which to hide or lose the thing. It was everyone ''around'' her that was in danger up until the final confrontation, not Sally herself.

[[folder:Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords]]
* Staying with that time period for a second, can any fellow tropers give me a good explanation for this tossing of the IdiotBall: In "The Sound of Drums", the Doctor states directly that they can't destroy the Paradox Machine before it activates due to the fact that the Doctor's not sure of what the paradox will actually be, and that the cure may be worse than the disease. At that point, they saunter off to the bridge of the Valiant to try to stop the Master. Uh, excuse me? Don't you have a guy who, like, knows what the Paradox Machine is ("Is that what I think it is?"), and who, like, knows how to use weapons, and, like, can't die? Plan A: the Doctor and Martha head up to the bridge to try to stop the Master. If Plan A fails and the paradox activates, go to Plan B: Jack blasts the living hell out of the Paradox Machine after it goes critical. If Plan B fails, Jack is still free to try to do what he can. If Plan B succeeds, the paradox is broken, and the cost is one severely-damaged TARDIS and a dead US President-Elect. Yes, Jack wasn't armed at the time. No problem. They had enough time for Jack to mug a guard, grab his weapon, and get back to the TARDIS. The Doctor's not this stupid. Martha's not this stupid. Jack's not this stupid. And yet none of them could think of doing this?
** If Plan B fails, the Doctor could be dead. ''Turn Left'' tells us what happens next. This is generally regarded as a bad thing.
*** Hell, given that at this point we don't have a damn clue what the paradox is, destroying the paradox machine could blow up the planet. You know what happens in Bad Wolf if there's no Earth? NOTHING. So much for Jack as a failsafe.
*** I'm not convinced. We know that paradoxes in general are dangerous and unnatural (see "Father's Day"), and this one in particular is being engineered by the Master so it probably doesn't have a benign purpose. It should be safe to assume that it would be better to stop the paradox from happening. What really scratched my head further was that the Doctor said he couldn't dismantle the Paradox Machine without knowing what it did (which I actually took to mean that he needed to know the precise nature of the paradox in order to safely deactivate the machine) - and yet when time came, it turned out the way to dismantle a Paradox Machine is to fire haphazardly at it until it blows up. Either way, it's a big gaping flaw in the plot.

** Ah, that adds another layer to a theory [[PrimeEvil I]] have. Namely, that the whole thing is the Master's colossal practical joke on the Doctor. It's a sick joke, too...the Doctor saves a whole bunch of people at the end of the universe, and the Master uses those people for his own ends. The phrase, "You're your own worst enemy" comes to mind here--humanity, which the Doctor loves, becomes the enemy. My way of thinking is, the Doctor already knew what the paradox was--hell, what the Master's ''whole plan'' was--and had come up with a way of turning the whole joke back on the Master. It's what the Doctor does best: he allows his foes to have a moment of victory only to pull the rug from under their feet at the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) possible moment.

* Fairly minor, but why didn't Martha take anyone with her when she teleported to escape from the Master at the end of The Sound of Drums?

* Here's one. If Cassandra was the last of the "Pure blood" humans as of the death of the earth 5 billion years in the future in "The End of the World," then who the hell are all of those humans on the "Utopia" planet 100 trillion years in the future?

** Not being 'pureblood' doesn't mean that the humans of the future don't look humanoid, share 'human' characteristics or aren't almost entirely 'human' as we understand it, except with a bit of alien / non-human DNA swimming around the gene pool; they just aren't 'pure' by her standards. Cassandra is a pretty fanatical bigot, after all.

** I always assumed that there were still others out there at least as pure as Cassandra (and probably a good deal more "natural" in appearance), they just didn't have the opportunity, or, hell, the motivation, to challenge her. Assuming there's anything to the Jack => FoB thing (which I accept some people will reject wholly), he's got a better claim - he was born long before she was, in a time that probably had seen much less interbreeding and genetic engineering than the year 5 million. On the other hand, is that really a fight that any rational person would want to pick?

** Everybody else in the story - the Doctor, the Master, UNIT, and newsreaders on both sides of the Atlantic - calls him the President. The only person who says 'President Elect' is the guy himself, and it seems plausible that in the excitement of making first contact he flubbed the line scripted as 'elected President'.

* So...at the end of "Last of the Time Lords," the Doctor explains that those aboard the Valiant can still remember the events of the Year That Never Was, because they were "in the eye of the storm." Does this mean that the year still ''literally'' happened for them? (It sure ''looks'' that way: everyone on the bridge of the Valiant is still wearing the same clothing as before, Jack is still battered and filthy, and Lucy still has the black eye the Master gave her.)

** That just proves that her family ''remembers'' the events of that time period, despite its having been erased from history. What I'm asking is, are all the people standing on the bridge of the Valiant a year older now? It's not such a big deal for the Doctor or for Jack (both of whom are practically immortal), but it means that Martha's parents--who are nearing old age--lost an entire year of their lives, just because they were still on the ship when time reversed.
*** They didn't ''lose'' an entire year of their lives, they spent it working for the Master. It was a horrible way to spend a year but they did live through it.

* Remember at the end of "The Sound of Drums", when The Master switches on the Paradox Machine, the bridge was quite full of people. Regardless of how they died in the Year that Never Was, when the Doctor hits the ResetButton, the only people on the bridge are the people who were there when the paradox was broken, in the "Eye of the Storm". What happened to the rest of the people? Did they just stop existing?

** Presumably the "eye of the storm" refers to the entire Valiant, not just the bridge; the year resets itself round the Valiant, so everyone who was ''on'' the Valiant regardless of who remembers it. Likewise, everyone who died on the Valiant remains dead when the year resets itself.

* Back in ''Last of the Time Lords'', why weren't the people in The Eye of the Storm suddenly the duplicates of a them who lived a different year?

*** People will know it is The Master that is now in charge of the world. When this guy shows up and starts giving orders, they will know they must obey him because he is the one that is controlling these strange spheres.

* During ''The Empty Child'' after becoming separated from the Doctor, Jack informs Rose that he can locate him by scanning for alien tech - cue to ten minutes later and Jack's wrist device has accurately and efficiently led them straight to the hospital. So why the hell didn't Jack (using his now fully working wrist device) scan for Time Lord technology, lock onto the Master's laser screwdriver or the stolen TARDIS and ''teleport'' himself, Martha and the Doctor straight to his position?

* So there's a satellite-based telepathic field used to subtly control people. But apparently, if billions of people all think the same word at the same time, they can use that telepathic field to...give the Doctor superpowers. Specifically, he gets the superpowers of (1) undoing his rapid aging, (2) hovering, (3) telekinesis (he knocks the Master's screwdriver away), and (4) immunity to weapons. Was any of this at all pre-established? Has their ever been a time at which people simply thought about the Doctor, and he gained any sort of special ability as a result?

*** Well, no, the telepathic field thing never came up in the old series, but the Doctor has always been superintelligent. He somehow figured all along that he could tap into this telepathic field and upend the Master's, ''ahem'', master plan. It was all a matter of getting himself and his comrades in the right place. HOWEVER, "Curse of Fenric" has an indirect answer to this problem: it's not the WORD "Doctor," but the ideas and emotions associated with the word that Martha gave to the few remaining people on the planet. In "CoF", the Seventh Doctor says "it's not the cross [that can defeat vampires] but the faith behind it." In that case it's a psionic ''barrier'', but the Doctor has rejigged the effect slightly.
*** Also, it does have a bit of foreshadowing, if not in the form of a telepathic field. The power of words in The Shakespeare Code, anyone?

* I know that most viewers think President Winters was a major JerkAss [[note]](and that he was deliberately written that way such as a stab at American politicians--especially since he's the only victim of the Toclafane who ''remains'' dead after time reverses)[[/note]], but was he really ''that'' bad? Aside from being rude and standoffish to the Master and trying to take control of the situation (which other characters have been ''praised'' for doing), we don't see him do anything especially obnoxious; his behavior is ''unwise'', perhaps, but it doesn't exactly scream "Jerk Ass". And he can't really be blamed for the Toclafane invasion, which would have happened ''regardless'' of how he reacted to the situation.

** A better question might be this: if President Winters had been any other nationality (but otherwise remained the same in terms of his behavior), would the character have been perceived any differently?
** Small point; he's not the ''only'' victim of the Toclafene to stay dead; I seem to recall a bunch of people disappeared from the Valiant between ''The Sound of the Drums'' and ''The Last of the Time Lords''. Since those inside the ship were not affected by the time reversal, they'd still be dead (I can't see what else could have happened to them). Even if I'm wrong on that, there's still the journalist who was killed earlier. Just because it's noted that he's not come back, it doesn't mean there aren't others who are still dead.

** Keep in mind, though, that the Master is aging the Doctor while ''also'' inhibiting his regenerative abilities at the same time -- it's possible that the Doctor remaining youthful-looking despite living (from a human perspective) a phenomenal amount of time is connected to the fact that his cells are able to regenerate?

** I believe that the First Doctor was meant to be around 400-450 before he died of old age and yet William Hartnell was only in his late fifties. That would imply that Time Lords age roughly 15-20 years for every 100 that a human does assuming that the Doctor's physical age was the same as Bill. This seems to be backed up in ''Time of the Doctor'' when Eleven is an old man by the end of the adventure. Of course, it is compounded by the fact that the Doctor's lifestyle is far more hectic and dangerous than the standard ''dusty old Senator'' that was your average Time Lord so his body is probably under a considerable amount of strain.

** Considering who the Face of Boe is, he probably did do it deliberately, knowing he couldn't give any more of a hint because the Doctor didn't know about Yana until he learnt about the watch. Maybe the Doctor even told him what to say, to keep the timeline together. It was awfully convenient that the letters could be used in that way - there can't be many names which you could make an appropriate statement out of - but it's just about believable. There wasn't really a need for it though, we'd have got the point.

** Actually, this part makes a lot of sense, especially when you consider the Master of the Classic Era. First of all, The Master has always been obsessed with extending his own life; if you think the Doctor goes through a lot of regenerations, stop and consider that the Master was on his ''thirteenth'' body (i.e. last,) when the Doctor was on his ''third''. Over the course of the Classic Era, the Master [[GrandTheftMe possessed two people,]] assassinated the President of Gallifrey in order to steal himself a new set of regenerations, tried to get himself a set of regenerations from the tomb of Rassilon by assisting/sabotaging the Doctor in the Death Zone of Gallifrey, and about a dozen other crazy schemes spanning across galaxies. Some genius fellow on Earth has found a way to extend life? Sure, fund him! Why not? It seems that the Master funded Lazarus for this purpose, and the weaponization of the technology was just a handy secondary use.
*** I understand ''why'' he wanted the technology, what I don't understand is why he needed a human to provide it for him. Something like that is surely child's play to a time lord?
*** The ability to expand one's lifespan is one of those abilities that was hidden and shrouded in secrecy after it was discovered- and with good reason! If the expanded universe is to be believed, the Time Lords created their own ability to regenerate, but cut themselves off at 12 regenerations (13 lives) on purpose. Even if this is not true and regeneration is a simple biological quirk, the ability to escape death completely is one of those things that ''just doesn't exist in the whoniverse.'' There are plenty of things that are within easy reach for a Time Lord that seem fantastic to us- Time travel and space travel, in particular. But keep in mind that all races in the whoniverse who have any sort of expanded lifespan are almost considered equals to the Time Lords- the Sisterhood of Karn, the Great Vampires, just as examples. Think of it this way: humans have created a vaccine for polio, chicken pox, and measles, thereby saving millions of lives. But now we're concerned about cancer and AIDS. To a physician from the 18th century, it would seem amazing that we can cure such diseases so easily, and it would seem surprising to him that we suffer any health problems at all.

%%%

** Or one or both organizations ''did'' notice the Easter Egg, and perhaps even track down its source and question Billy about it. But the Doctor hadn't told Billy much about what was going on, the Doctor's recording was too cryptic for them to puzzle out, and they didn't want to mess up the StableTimeLoop which might be in effect anyway.

** It's not just the descendants of those murdered humans who are wiped out; also wiped out are humanity's peaceful interactions with other alien races, new technology and cultural movements that led to people meeting, falling in love, and starting families- In other words, they haven't just killed Hitler; they've prevented his parents from ever meeting, and killed his wife's grandfather. Now, if the perpetrators were an alien race from a planet so far off that they never had any sort of contact with Earth, they could probably get away with it. But there's at least a good portion of the Toclafane who can trace their ancestry to 10% killed; thus, paradox.

* Also, how did the police find the TARDIS in the first place? perception filter, remember?

*** What he was being kind with was that the Doctor was giving the Family of Blood a chance to give up and die on their own. Because they kept pursuing him, taking over bodies and refusing to back down, once it was time for the Doctor to return to normal, the Doctor had full right to punish them as he wished. Thus, him being kind was a way for them to avoid the inevitable punishment.

* Why did the Family just sit there and let The Doctor visit a FateWorseThanDeath on them? They didn't seem noticeably injured from the explosion, and The Doctor didn't appear to have any means of restraining them when he walked up to him in his TranquilFury state. What stopped them from just getting back up and beating him senseless while he was too busy [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall glaring at the camera]]?

* If, as we see at the end of the story, the Doctor can simply use his wits to outsmart the Family of Blood and defeat them, why did he need to turn human and hide from them to begin with?
** He doesn't ''want'' to use his wits to defeat them in this case, since using his wits to defeat them in this case means doing some incredibly horrible things to them. It's only after they've well and truly ticked him off that he goes all-out on them.
** No, it doesn't go quite like that... First he uses his wits to defeat them, and only ''after'' that does he subject them to a FateWorseThanDeath. If he'd not been pissed of, he could've simply defeated them and then handed them over to the Shadow Proclamation (or some comparable authority) to be imprisoned.
*** We don't see what the Family where doing before the episode starts. Just a WMG but it's possible they had already crossed the line when they started pursuing the Doctor (They are sadists after all, and we see one of their ray-gun blasts, so they must have killed and possessed somebody at that point in order to fire it.) The Doctor knew they would need a severe punishment, but was too afraid of himself and what he'd do to mete it out their and then.

* When does the Doctor record the instructional video for Martha? It seems like he uses the Chameleon Arch immediately after they return to the TARDIS and he realizes that he has to go into hiding.

*** It could have been a reference to CordwainerSmith's Underpeople, where a CatGirl like C'Mell would give birth to literal kittens.

** Remember that the Angels aren't just looking to nosh people in this episode: they've been trying to get access to the interior of the TARDIS. They were following Sally around, not hunting her, because they deduced she was getting messages from the past and were hoping those messages would guide her to wherever the police had moved the TARDIS. Plus, they couldn't afford to send her to the past once she had the key - something they probably couldn't use themselves, given how Sexy is presumably on guard against such creatures' intrusion - on her person.

** Plus, having the word "Police" displayed so prominently at the top of the TARDIS may have worked ''against'' the perception filter in this case. It presumably isn't as easy for the filter to convince someone that whatever object it's concealing is none of their business if that object is visually screaming that it '''is''' the business of the profession that's looking for it.

[[folder:Smith and Jones]]
* Why oh why does ''nobody'' bring up the fact that the moon is ''supposed'' to have one sixth of the Earth's gravity, instead talking about the lack of airtightedness of windows to point out the weirdness of the situation?
** The Judoon installed artificial gravity to make their search easier. It's hard to look intimidating when you are bouncing around like big Rhino shaped balloon.
** Because one is a lot more apparent than the other. If you were stranded on the moon with nothing, but plain clothes, your first concern wouldn't be adjusting to gravity, but desperately gasping for oxygen.
* Okay, so we know that [[CPRCleanPrettyReliable CPR is clean, pretty, and reliable]], but ''how'' does it bring someone back to life after they've had all the blood sucked out of them? The Doctor's not human, but he's gotta need his blood for something!
** I think that was the point of the kiss he gave to Martha. It doesn't quite make sense, but I think it only worked because of that.
** I got the impression that Martha and the Judoon arrived before the Plasmavore could suck ''all'' the Doctor's blood. He probably lost enough that his hearts stopped, but CPR could start them again and he could function.
[[/folder]]

** I understand ''why'' he wanted the technology, what I don't understand is why he needed a human to provide it for him. Something like that is surely child's play to a time lord?