From: steven.k.manfred@UWRF.EDU
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Continuity catalog part two
Date: 13 Sep 92 03:42:25 GMT


 



The continuity catalog continued....



Forgot what number I left off on so I'll just start again at 1.


1.  "The Time Monster"
	Problem:  different version of the destruction of Atlantis from
	what is given in "The Daemons."
	solution:  either Azal was exaggerating or name-dropping to
	the Master, or this story constitutes temporal interference and
	thus Atlantis is destroyed by Kronos instead of the Daemons.

2.  "The Ark in Space"
	Lots of problems:  This is the story that can really throw a
	wrench in any coherent Earth time-line.
	From numerous stories in the Pertwee era, we know Earth strikes
	out into space and builds an Empire that reaches its height
	sometime in the mid 2000s, then declines and begins to fall
	in the 30th century.  
	According to this story, solar flares wreak havoc on the Earth
	and render it uninhabitable (or most of it anyway).
	The problem is in the dating.  The Doctor dates the Ark by
	some equipment as either from the 29th or 30th centuries, and
	also remarks on how Vira's compartmental behavior is typical of
	that period.
	Trouble is previous and later stories clearly show Earth to
	still be viable and raring to go in time periods during this
	ten-thousand year rest we get in Ark in Space.
	Earlier stories include Dalek's Masterplan, later ones
	include The Invisible Enemy.  The Galactic Federation seen in
	the Peladon stories also seems at variance with the Empire
	of Earth and seems more in line with the alliance set-ups we
	see in the Masterplan stories.
	Solution:  Nerva Beacon was not from the 30th century after all,
	but a period much later.  We have only the Doctor's word that
	this station was from the 30th century.  Even if his dating is
	correct, Nerva was originally a beacon rather than an Ark,
	and the equipment he dated may not have been the latest technology
	but rather leftovers from the station's first function as a beacon.
	In fact, later stories by Robert Holmes seem to suggest that the
	solar flares happen two million years in Earth's future, i.e.
	the solar fireball we see in The Mysterious Planet.  He ties
	it back to the Ark with mention of Andromedans, also mentioned
	back in The Ark in Space.  In the Trial we later learn it was
	the Time Lords' use of the Magnetron to shift Earth's course
	that caused the solar fireball in the first place.

3.	"Genesis of the Daleks"  
	see "The Daleks"

4.	"Terror of the Zygons"
	Problem: this story is at variance with "Timelash" over an
	explanation of the Loch Ness Monster.  
	Solution: there's nothing that says there can't be two Loch
	Ness Monsters is there?  In fact the varying descriptions over
	the years would seem to suggest there are two different creatures
	at least.

5.      "The Brain of Morbius"
	Problem: in the mind-bending contest, it looks as though the
	Doctor has had incarnations earlier than the Hartnell one.
	Solution: these could have been faces of Morbius, hallucinations
	by either side, or perhaps a malfunction in the bending apparatus.
	We already knew from "The Three Doctors" that the Hartnell
	incarnation was the first, so this is the story that's "got it
	wrong" rather than later ones.

6.	"The Deadly Assassin"
	problems will be discussed when we get to The Invasion of Time

7.  	"The Invisible Enemy"
	Problem: dateis 5000 AD which the Doctor calls the year of the
	great breakout, implying it wasn't until now that humankind
	started leapfrogging across the stars.
	Solution: he was merely trying to sound impressive to Leela.
	
8.	"The Sun Makers"
	Problem:  Earth has become completely evacuated to first Mars
	and then Pluto.  Lord alone knows what happened to the Ice
	Warriors after that.
	Solution:  Date is completely unknown in this one. Could 
	literally be any time in the future between 10000 and 2 million
	AD.

9.	"The Invasion of Time"
	Problem:  Several Time Lord artefacts and the structure of Time
	Lord society and the interior of the TARDIS were changed for
	this story:
	In "The Deadly Assassin," the Doctor must be told what the Matrix
	is, and it is clear it isn't nearly the all-knowing universe-
	spanning knowledge bank it becomes in Invasion of Time and later
	stories.  
	The Great Key fromThe Deadly Assassin is here renamed the Rod of
	Rassilon and we get a new Great Key that every Time Lord
	President is supposed to search for.  The Great Key is entrustd
	to the Chancellor, creating another problem when the Doctor
	says in the same story that no President has ever known the
	whereabouts of the Great Key (after he's been in th Matrix and
	asked them all, he says he's done this), yet if it is in the
	care of the Chancellor, then surely at some time a Chancellor
	must have become President and he would know that the new 
	Chancellor has got the Key!  (Goth would have known this for
	example in Deadly Assassin had his plan to become President
	succeeded.  It must have happened this way before since Chancellor
	is such a senior position.)
	Also suggestions are made in The Deadly Assassin that there are
	other Cities on Gallifrey than just the Capitol, yet in
	The Invasion of Time we are told everyone lives in the Citadel/Capitol,
	and that everyone lives indoors, which is at variance with things
	the Third Doctor told us about his visits to the old hermit behind
	his house when he was a boy, and would later tell us about theem
	again as being in the mountains of South Gallifrey in State of
	Decay.  
	Then we have the TARDIS interior being roundel-less except for
	the console room.  
	Solutions:  To many of these there are none, and I consider muh
	of the things we hear in Invasion of Time to be invalid since
	they are not only at variance with established facts, but also
	very limiting to future writers of Gallifrey stories if they
	all have to be set within the Capitol and nowhere else on the 
	planet.  
	The TARDIS got explained away in Logopolis thanks to the Architectural
	Configuration System, but even that doesn't excuse the sheer
	tackiness of the interior in the Invasion of Time.
	For all these reasons, Invasion of Time is near the bottom of
	 my "favorites" list.

10.	"Destiny of the Daleks"
	Problem: story says the Daleks were "originally organic creatures."
	This is at variance with any other Dalek story, since they
	still are at least partly organic.  
	Solution: perhaps the Doctor meant to distinguish organic from
	cyberorganic.

11.	"Black Orchid"
	Problem: Police Constable should not recognize the TARDIS-type
	of police box since it hadn't been invented yet.
	Solution: a definite error, but forgiveable

12.  	"Mawdryn Undead"
	Problem:  Dates are out-of-sync with all previous and subsequent
	UNIT stories, and they cannot be reconciled or passed off as
	mistakes since the dates themselves were plot points of the
	story.  UNIT stories were all set four to five years in the
	future, and this story ignored that.
	Solution:  None obvious.  I consider this one irreconcilable,
	one of few such.

13.  	"Terminus"
	Problem:  Exploding spaceship creates the Universe, but in
	Castrovalva it is described as a hydrogen inrush.
	Solution: In Castrovalva the TARDIS was approaching the inrush
	from the direction opposite the explosion, and thus never saw
	the ship.  

14.	"The Five Doctors"
	Problem: Second Doctor should not be able to remember that
	Jamie and Zoe shouldn't remember them, since their memories
	were not erased until his trial, and he could not have voyaged
	to UNIT HQ at the start of the story between his trial and
	his regeneration.
	Solution: When in "The Three doctors" he makes telepathic
	contact with his future self, he also trades information on
	the ultimate fate of his companions Jamie and Zoe.
	We know that since he mentions the Omega incident at UNIT HQ
	to the Brigadier that he does indeed have memories of "The
	Three Doctors."

15.	"The Two Doctors"
	Problem:  Jamie should not know about the Time Lords, and
	the Second Doctor should not have been caught yet and should 
	not be acting as a time lord agent.