FEATURE: EXPLAINING MOFFAT PLOT HOLES - THE TIME OF THE DOCTOR

The Time of the Doctor is a mixed bag for the fans. Some adore it. Others abhor it. And as with most of Steven Moffat’s scripts, it’s apparently ‘littered’ with inconsistencies. As often with Moffat storylines, people tend to become fixated on “plot holes” and “gaps” in the storytelling. For some, it’s just a case of not being able to fully comprehend or understand the creativeness and genius of Steven’s script. For others, it’s just an opportunity to complain. Once again, there aren’t any plot holes (at least any I’ve picked up on). 

People don’t seem to understand what a plot hole is. They think that everything that they don’t understand is a plot hole. A plot hole is 
1) a character that suddenly has knowledge and understanding of something without ever learning it. For example: Using a villain’s name before actually learning/hearing it. 
2) When characters doesn’t bother solving a problem even though the solution is obvious or easy to accomplish. 
3) When events do not follow from what previous continuity has established. In the case of a show about time travel, this one can be forgiven. 
4) Characters doing things that other events do not allow. For example: How the Doctor survived the fall in The End of Time, but not in Logopolis – that is a plot hole ladies and gentlemen.

Nonetheless, people have been singling out the supposed ‘plot holes’ in Moffat’s latest script, so for this article, here’s a little help explaining what you might not have understood the first time round:

If the Doctor can’t change his own timeline, then how is he able to undo the events of Series 7 and The Name of the Doctor?

The Time Lords are able to negate paradoxes created by other Time-Sensitive life forms. Why the Doctor can’t accomplish the same task on his own is another question, albeit the answer should be quite simple: The most logical explanation is that when the Time Lords do all their time bending trickery, they act as a collective, implying that a single Time Lord cannot accomplish this change on their own without some sort of Paradox Machine. And I really doubt the Doctor would turn his own TARDIS into such an monstrosity.

So why didn’t the Reapers appear?

The most annoying thing about Father’s Day are these things! However, the Ninth Doctor already explained that Time Lords can solve paradoxes without having these guys appear. Time Lords are present in this story, so there you go. Or even if you argue that they’re helpless in this story, the Ninth Doctor also explained that he can easily get rid of the Reapers if he has his TARDIS, which is also present in this story.

Why did the Time Lords transmit a message to the whole universe when they only needed to communicate with the Doctor? Isn’t it safer to not give away your location to everybody who might hate you?

To be honest, I don’t get this question. It was explained like thirty seconds into the episode. Nobody knew who or what was transmitting the message. Nobody had a clue it was the Time Lords who sent the message. That’s why they came to investigate; which is just another way of saying ‘they don’t know, so they’re going to try and find out.’ The other races only clicked it was the Time Lords once the Doctor had Handles decipher the message.

Then why shield an entire planet if nobody knows what’s going on?

The same reason any sort of unusual incident is cordoned off to the general public until the necessary investigation has determined that there is no danger present. We get those on Earth too I think.

Why didn’t Clara try to kill the Silent as soon as she encountered it?

Kill it with what exactly? She’s a naked female with presumably no combat experience and no weapon to use, going up against a seven-foot tall alien who has the most perfect stealth ability ever designed. What is she supposed to do? Bite it’s ankles? 

Moffat also punks those who ask this question again (this time all the way from 2011) by adding dialogue to Day of the Moon that specifically states that any information regarding the Silence must be periodically refreshed or else will fade away. So if Clara had seen the moon landing, then according to the rules, she must not have viewed it very recently.

Actually, the simplest explanation of the lot comes in the form that the command to kill the Silent may not even be in Clara’s memory as she may not have seen the moon landing footage at all.

Why doesn’t the Doctor just leave Christmas Town?

You mean why doesn’t he just take an action that will result in the deaths of everyone on Trenzalore? An action that is essentially the same as committing genocide? Excuse me! Did I fall out of the bus on the way here? We just got back from that party or didn’t you see Day of the Doctor?

Okay, but then why not just evacuate everyone along with Clara?

You do realize that although it isn’t outright stated that Christmas is the only town on the planet (doubtful that it is), but for that to happen, the Doctor would have to evacuate the entire planet’s population, not just the inhabitants of Christmas Town. It would be next to impossible to accomplish such a feat without the plan getting out to their enemies overhead, after which time the plan would be compromised. Also, for this plan to work, they’d have to transport everyone on Trenzalore at the exact same time as the Daleks would most probably be aware of the death count at their hands, as well as the general mortality rate of the people living there. If large groups of people started disappearing periodically, they’d get suspicious.

How come the regeneration energy this time was enough to take out all the bad guys in the episode?

If you’ve seen the regeneration from Nine-to-Ten and Ten-to-Eleven, then you will know that the energy discharge has significantly increased with each regeneration. The Doctor’s regeneration cycle gets reset in this episode, charging up the battery packs to full power. The general fan theory (note this one is what the majority of fans suspect [myself included]) is that the closer a Time Lord gets to his final death, the more violent the discharge of energy will be. Admittedly, this makes sense for some.

How come the Doctor can tell a lie in the Truth Field?

Well he can’t! But it’s okay as he didn’t. He was telling the truth when he said he had a plan. He said he had a plan, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good one. It just means he has one. When he told Clara he didn’t have one, as mentioned above, he probably meant he didn’t have a good one (bringer of happy endings type of plan) as he is seen going to face the Daleks certain that they would kill him. He doesn’t even put up a fight on the roof, implying that said plan may have been to just end everything by dying at their hands. As I said, it qualifies as a plan, just not a very good one (from the Doctor’s point of view)

How come the Doctor can’t decipher the message on his own? He has stated that he can speak Gallifreyian and even High Gallifreyian. And how come the TARDIS didn’t help translate the message?

Because designing a machine that translates your native language into your native language is redundant. Also, the message wasn’t in Gallifreyian, merely of Gallifreyian origin. For all we know, it could’ve come from the remotest region on Gallifrey, someplace the Doctor has never been to. The Doctor only uses Handles to break the code embedded in the message using the Seal of Rassilon. It’s like the code is a book cipher and the Doctor knows it’s a book cipher (Gallifreyian origin), but needs said book to see the message, the book being the seal.

So yeah. Once again, there is no plot hole. Now we all have to wait till August until we can bitch and complain about the next set of non-plot holes in Moffat’s script. Yippee!