History Headscratchers / DoctorWhoSeries9

[[folder: The Magician's Apprentice]]

[[folder:Under the Lake]]

[[folder: Before the Flood]]

[[folder:The Girl Who Died]]

-->''"People like us, we go on too long. We forget what matters. The last thing we need is each other. We need the mayflies. See, the mayflies, they know more than we do. They know how beautiful and precious life is because it's fleeting. Look how Sam Swift made every last moment count, right to the gallows. Look how glad he is to be alive. I looked into your eyes and I saw my worst fears. Weariness. Emptiness. "''

[[folder:The Woman Who Lived]]

[[folder:The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion]]

[[folder:Sleep No More]]

* Clara says the Doctor never sleeps. In ''Tomb of the Cybermen'', Victoria lets the Doctor sleep in because he's over 400 years old and she thinks he needs his rest. I can't recall which one it is, but there's a Hartnell episode in which the Doctor is seen napping.

--->'''Doctor:''' Sleep is important.\\

'''Doctor:''' It just is. I still ''sleep'', everyone sleeps. This machine removes that.

** Probably because, in the wake of her epiphany that she ''does'' care about mortal human beings after all, the ''worst'' possible thing for Ashildr's psyche would be to permanently take her away from the very people she's finally remembered to value. Drop her off in a spaceport full of strangers with whom she doesn't even share the same basic biology, let alone personal history or cultural ties, and she'll be back to heartlessly robbing and conning others for a living within a decade.

* Ashildr seems to make ''two'' different requests to the Doctor: 1) she asks to travel with him, and 2) she wants to travel the stars. She explicitly mentions that's she's tired of what Earth has to offer, and her deal with Leandro all about her being able to leave the planet. Now, the Doctor provides Ashildr with fairly compelling reasons why they can't travel together, but he never really explains why he can't fulfill the other request. Even if he doesn't want Ashildr as a companion, why can't he just drop her at the nearest space port and let her travel on her own? There are several extremely long-lived sapient species in the Whoniverse, surely Ashildr might be happier living among them than with humans who die after only a few decades?

** Agreed, the explanation is a little plot convenient, especially considering this previous canon. You can, however, talk yourself into suspending your disbelief. The explanation seems to be that the reason the Mire technology is working so bizarrely on Ashildir is not because it's Mire technology, but because it's Mire technology ''combined with a human''. Accepting that the Mire die out before humans start exploring space and that the Mire don't normally come anywhere near the solar system, it's a little easier to accept that this technology-granted immortality can occur. Ironically, there is actually precedence for ''this'' form of immortality: in an episode of "Sarah Jane Adventures," Sarah Jane hints that Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, the Doctor's first companions, were made immortal (or at least ageless) due to contact with some alien technology during their travels. So if you think in terms of 'which plot point is better supported by previously established canon,' the bigger headscratcher is "Why does Jack Harkness eventually die?" Here's one suggestion (though I can in no way back it up with evidence): perhaps Jack Harkness, after years of working with Torchwood and fighting more hostile aliens than Ashildir, came in contact with some alien technology that damaged him enough to cause him to eventually, slowly age. 'Cause this alien technology can do some weird stuff!

** Electromagnetic energy is known to interfere with or disrupt the workings of electronic devices (this is what [=EMP=] weapons are based on), so it seems higly unlikely it would be used in scanning such devices.

** For what it's worth, WordOfGod has it that the Corsair kept ''pets'' instead of companions. Which have a human-like lifespan in the case of the parrots and a far shorter one for the cats, hence presumably kept him/her grounded, just as well.

[[folder: The Witch's Familiar]]
* The Doctor decides to go back and save kidDavros hoping to instill him with the quality of mercy so he can in turn pass it onto the Daleks which in turn means that Clara is able to get the Doctor to realise that it's her in the travel machine, not a Dalek (as non-sensical as that is as the machine and the controlling mutant are separate entities unless the Doctor meant that passing it onto the Daleks would result in them adding it to the programming of the travel machine's interface), but previously it has been shown that they don't understand the concept (Genesis of the Daleks). It can't be a case of the Doctor altering the past as he does it to create a stable time loop, not to purposely alter things or by accident. Or was it something Davros forgot about but later came to subconsciously remember and implement (accounting for why the Dalek in 'The Big Bang' begged River for mercy rather than her being scary/badass enough to make it beg even when it's not capable)?
** In Genesis of the Daleks, it was said that the Daleks did not know the meaning of pity, not mercy.
* Davros insists that the Doctor tell him the "true" reason he left Gallifrey. But the reason was so that the First Doctor could [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks hide the Hand of Omega]] in "primitive" 20th century Earth. Thanks to the clips in the previous episode, we know that for Davros, TWF is after Remembrance. Question: Why doesn't Davros remember the Hand?
** It may not have been the only, or most important, reason he left, whatever he may have claimed at the time.
** If he just needed to hide it, he could have done it and then come back. Instead, he left for real, and never turned back for long.
* So, the Daleks stole quite a lot of the Doctor's regeneration energy, enough to rejuvenate the whole race... Does this mean the Doctor can't regenerate anymore? Or that he now has less regenerations than the normal twelve?
** He now has [Insert Plot Convenient Number Here] regenerations left.
** It is revealed that the Doctor OutGambitted Davros, meaning he EXPECTED Davros to try to steal his regeneration energy. Maybe he visited the Sisterhood of Karn so they could give him some "Energy Lite" for Davros to steal. As if, Davros thought he was stealing "vodka" but all he actually got was "water."
* So how much regeneration energy did Davros take? Sure, the Doctor saw it coming and OutGambitted Davros, but he certainly didn't look like he was in control of the energy when it was being taken. This then raises another question people have been asking for a while: How many regenerations was the Doctor given on Trenzalore by the Time Lords through the crack? If it was only one cycle, it's likely gone now, which seems pretty pointless considering Creator/StevenMoffat set up the plot of "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor Day of the Doctor]]" to ensure the show could work around the regeneration limit. Was the Doctor given more or less infinite regenerations then?
** [[MathematiciansAnswer Enough to rejuvenate every Dalek on Skaro.]] I imagine the Time Lords gave him a whole new set of regenerations. They did it for the Master, I don't know why they wouldn't for the Doctor. The Doctor has as many regenerations as the writers want him to have. Maybe three. Maybe 8. Maybe all 12. Maybe infinite.
** One thing I thought of a while after posting the first bullet was that the Doctor's regenerations seem to be becoming more...volatile. If the last regeneration was enough to effectively nuke a Dalek fleet, it's entirely possible that only a fraction of a regeneration could power the Dalek race a little.
** Bear in mind, Eleven had no regenerations left, and yet still had enough residual energy to heal River's broken wrist. And in "Kill the Moon", Twelve made an offhand remark that he didn't think he'd ever stop regenerating, which means a good deal to the audience, but nothing to the astronauts he was actually addressing in that scene.
** Remember that the Doctor is the other Time Lords' ''only hope'' of ever returning to the universe. If it's within their power to give him an unlimited number of regenerations, they'd surely have done so, if only to ensure the silly sod doesn't get himself killed before he can retrieve them from their Cup-O-Soup.
** I doubt the Time Lords would be capable of giving unlimited regenerations somehow. It may be a plot point later how much was taken, or it may not be.
** As of "Hell Bent" Rassilon suggests that even he doesn't know exactly how many regenerations he gave The Doctor in "Time of the Doctor", but implied that it was a goodly many, because he says he can spend "all night" killing The Doctor to force him to give up information on The Hybrid. Given how quickly we saw the General Regenerate, and recover, on Gallifrey, and bearing in mind that Regeneration is supposed to be far less traumatic on Gallifrey, that means that Rassilon would have had a lot of Regenerations to go through.
** The Time Lords can NOT grant infinite regenerations. That was explicitly stated in the ''Five Doctors''.
** Actually no, the entire point of ''The Five Doctors'' was that Rassilon ''had'' figured out immortality, but that it was not something he felt anybody else (besides him) should have. It would appear that the Time Lord hard stop at 12 regenerations is a ''cultural'' thing, not an absolute limitation. Of course, this only makes sense. A species that can control time itself ''and'' has the proven ability to recharge the regeneration battery could absolutely achieve unlimited regenerations. But they seem to have a psychological problem with the idea. That or maybe their society really is so dull that they get bored enough to ''want'' an end eventually?
* Missy used her brooch to puncture holes in the Dalek enough for the Sludge!Daleks to enter and neutralize the mutant inside. Then the armor exploded. Next scene, the armor's perfectly fine and whole. What happened?
** Self-repair systems? We've seen hints of that in at least two episodes: "Dalek" (where the Dalek completely restores its trashed casing) and "Into the Dalek" (which have antibody/nanobots which might, when they're not exterminating foreign microorganisms, be reasonably pressed into service making repairs to the Dalek shell, whether or not the Dalek is still alive within).
** Explosions don't always do that much damage to inorganic matter. It could just have been the armor purging the intrusion from its system. Although, it did sure look like quite a damaging explosion...
** We've seen the Doctor's sonic screwdriver do things like re-fuse barbed wire perfectly. Possibly Missy had a similar tool on her person, and patched up the travel machine off-camera.
* We know that "humanoid female" and "impossible" are both within a Dalek's vocabulary banks, because the one that found Clara in the sewers identified her as the former, and countless Daleks throughout the series have claimed that some brilliant move by the Doctor wasn't possible. So why couldn't Clara, upon realizing the travel-machine wouldn't relay her actual name, simply have fallen back on her Doctor-bestowed nickname and proclaimed "I am the Impossible Girl"?
** Because it wouldn't work; the travel machine isn't translating all names into "I am a Dalek", it's taking the thought of self and expressing it as "I am a Dalek." Clara could have spent years exhausting every possible combination of words to express herself but as long as she was thinking about identifying herself the travel machine would translate those thoughts into "I am a Dalek."
** Except even if that's the case, she still ought to have been able to say "Impossible" and "Girl", one after the other, like they were separate one-word sentences. Heck, even something that's not directly self-identifying, like "Clara is here", should've slipped past the travel machine's vocabulary-editor.
** Come to think of it, this would also have prevented Clara to express anything relevant, such as a common memory. "I travel with you" would most likely become "I fight you" for instance. She might have succeeded if she had managed to convince herself that she only wanted to coldly convey information (such as thinking of her name as just a word with no emotional baggage and say something like "Clara Oswald is alive, Clara Oswald is a prisoner, Clara Oswald is a Dalek"), but she probably was not in the right frame of mind to do so.
** Clara was rather in a tight situation and seemed extremely distressed. Sure, it's easy for the viewer, sitting on the sofa at home to, to come up with some phrase that probably would make it past the Dalek's filters, but Clara had no such luxury. She was in the path of the Oncoming Storm, about to be blown up. Plus, she's trapped in Dalek armor. You'll have to forgive her if she's a little flustered.
* In the Series 1 episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek "Dalek"]] we see that the Daleks are relatively [[http://basementrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/doctor-who-season-1-6-dalek.jpg tiny]] compared to humans, and there definitely isn't enough room inside a Dalek shell for a grown human to fit there... So how come Clara is able to do that in this episode?
** Fully grown humans have been shown to fit inside Daleks travel machines all the way back in their the first story 'The Daleks'. And it can't be because that was a different model of travel machine because we saw a Dalek and human fit inside a modern one in Daleks in Manhatten. Also, if you look at the interface Missy wires her up to, it's similar to what we saw in the flashbacks in 'Asylum of the Daleks' that Oswin was hooked up to (Fridge Horror for that ep in hind sight - Oswin may still have been human!).
** For that matter, there's no reason to assume Missy didn't remove some of the travel machine's parts to make room for Clara, who wouldn't need the complete life-support functions of the device. Indeed, she'd probably ''have'' to take out whatever component houses and directs those antibodies from "Into The Dalek", else they'd most likely have attacked Clara on a microscopic level because she's obviously not a Kaled mutant.
* I get why Clara fell 20 feet onto a stone floor and never even got bruised: BeautyIsNeverTarnished. But how did MISSY get down there?
** She probably [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E12DeathInHeaven glided down on her parasol again]].
** Except Colony Sarff didn't bring her parasol along, he/they not being stupid.
** Or she jumped, but made sure she'd land ''on Clara''.
** Time Lords are stronger and faster than humans, a 20 foot drop is probably not a big deal for her.
** Time Lords are powered by plot armour. The fourth doctor falls a great height? Dies. The tenth doctor falls a great height from a spaceship? Mildly bruised.
[[/folder]]

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* [[Headscratchers/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven "Face the Raven"]]

* [[Headscratchers/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent "Heaven Sent"]]

* [[Headscratchers/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent "Hell Bent"]]

* [[Headscratchers/DoctorWho2015CSTheHusbandsOfRiverSong "The Husbands of River Song"]]

* Here's a problem with the immortality thing - Jack Harkness was made immortal on a deep ontological level (Doctor said he was made a "fact" whatever this means), but Ashildr is made immortal by ''technology''. And yet Jack's immortality is implied to fizzle out somehow, even though it's part of the nature of reality, while hers remains in effect to the end of the universe. Has anyone ever seen a piece of technology that works (against enthropy!) to the end of the universe? ''Who'' science has always been dodgy, but that's stretching the suspension of disbelief a bit too far, especially that the other med kit is so easily depowered (okay, so maybe they take the energy from the owner, but then Ashildr could starve to death like all of us).

[[folder:Face the Raven]]
[[Headscratchers/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven Has its own page]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Heaven Sent]]
[[Headscratchers/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent Has its own page]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Hell Bent]]
[[Headscratchers/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Has its own page.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Husbands of River Song]]
[[Headscratchers/DoctorWho2015CSTheHusbandsOfRiverSong Has its own page.]]
[[/folder]]

** We don't know how far back into Earth's past Missy was downloading human souls into the Nethersphere, so can't assume that Ashildr would have been downloaded had the Doctor not revived her with the Mire medkit. It's unlikely that even bone-dust would remain of her body by the time the cyber-pollen falls over Earth's graveyards, even assuming she wouldn't have been cremated as per Norse tradition for battle-casualties. And even if she ''would'' have become one of Missy's Cybermen, reminding of her about that would hardly put her into a better mood: after all, it'd mean that ''her own family'' would have met the same fate.

* If the Doctor is so concerned about his "duty of care" to Clara, why does he give her one of the Mire medkits? No more worrying about her getting exterminated/upgraded/brainsucked by a love sprite etc.?

** The Zygons want to reveal the ''truth'' of what they are, and force what they see as their human oppressors to feel the ''consequences'' of their oppression. The Doctor wants both parties to understand the ''truth'' behind their motives beyond self-righteousness and ideological rigidity, and to understand the ''consequences'' of their actions and the forces they intend to unleash. It's simply a parallel (and no doubt a partially intentional one, given how it's revealed that both sides have been there several times before).

** The Zygons want to reveal the ''truth'' of what they are, and force what they see as their human oppressors to feel the ''consequences'' of their oppression. The Doctor wants both parties to understand the ''truth'' of their actions beyond self-righteousness and ideological rigidity, and to understand the ''consequences'' of the forces they intend to unleash. It's simply a parallel (and no doubt a partially intentional one, given how it's revealed that both sides have been there several times before).