I'd say no because the Vortex is shown to have powers in Boom Town and Rose knows that it can accessed from that episode

Everything went back into the void in the same way it came out of the void.

The Cybermen arrived on WhoEarth through cracks in reality all around the World so were sucked back through those same cracks.

The Daleks came through the main breach (the white wall) so were sucked back through the main breach.

The TARDIS arrived back from the Void in Jackies flat so would have had to be pulled back to there. As it was in Torchwoods basement it could not be.

I don't quite buy this bit, in the sense that there were probably some Daleks indoors somewhere too. It's a plot hole at worst though.

Re: Parting of the Ways, all that stuff about absorbing the time vortex hadn't previously been established.

Quite possibly....but my main argument is that we haven't seen it before, just like we hadn't seen the Doctor carrying around a spare battery. As for the DVD slot, Sally is able to find it quite quickly and says that it looks like a DVD player as there is a slot....so whatever the slot allows to be slotted in, to Sally it definitely looked like a DVD player.




Yes i love that scene with Yvonne too.


And that is the problem....the fact that you are categorising. I used Love and Monsters to show that things don't easily fit into categories. And the reason I chose the libraray two pater was because it is a "fan" favourite and has the same AI as Doomsday. Okay let's forget about LAM and the Library two parter, and lets just look at your categories that are demeaning to people who don't fall into either category. For example according to your first category Doomsday fits in it because is a dumb spectacticle which gets higher AIs. Your Second category, you presumably mean Blink, which is a "fan" favourite, but gets lower AI than the first category episode. And the reason that the first gets higher AI's is because the audience prefer to look at pretty pictures than watch a so called "strong" story like Blink. Now, I am a fan, whether you believe me to be or not, and out of those two, I can honestly say that I prefer Doomsday, in many ways than one. While I feel the exact same emotions with Doomsday, I find it more clever, emotional, and dark (the Yvonne scene in particular) than Blink, which gets less and less interesting for me on every repeat viewing, heck I even love Love and Monsters more than Blink. So does that throw a spanner in your theory...or are you still going to stick to it, as I don't come under whatever your "dedicated fan" definition maybe?

The truth of the matter is that Doomsday to you is a dumb spectable (and you have every right to feel that way), and not your favourite as a fan, and maybe you feel miffed that Doomsday has a higher AI than your favourite, and therefore you have come up with those categories...which, not to be rude, is only part of your imagination. I hate when people try to categories the reasons why some one likes/dislikes a particular thing. There is no one way about it. All I am asking is stop putting people and episodes into categories that don't work on a bigger scale except for you.





TPOTW- It is established in Boom Town that the Time Vortex can be absorbed by someone who looks into the heart of it, and gives them what they want...Margaret Sltheen was able to turn her body clock back and become an Egg. Later Rose rememberd this, hence why she decided that this way she may be able to control the Tardis....she looked on for longer than Margaret did...so who is to say that she wouldn't be able to become who she did, and be able to control time and space.

Journey's End- The Doctor-Donna thing was mentioned all the way in POTO, The fortune Teller got scared of what Donna will become, Rose told Donna, once in TL and then in JE that Time lines were converging on her. The Daleks were controlling everything from the crucible, using it to steal planets, made from Dalekanium, we know from Dalek that the Daleks have a self destruct feature inside of them, and in classic stories, their own power source has been used against them to blow them up, and even Davros had a destruction button for them....so who is to say that, with all the mistrust their is between the Daleks and Davros, that either wouldn't make sure that there wouldn't be a way to control or destroy each other....heck every thing seemed connected to that crucible...the reality bomb, the holding chambers...the stealing of the Planets....is it really a hard stretch to imagine that Daleks couldn't be controlled by it? And once the DoctorDonna came along, and knew what to press and do, it was no different from the Doctor in the Doctor Dances, all of a sudden knowing that sending an email upgrade would allow the nanogenes to change everyone back.

As for some of the daleks in Doomsday being indoors somewhere, well there was nothing to suggest that there were....all of them were shown to fly across the sky of London, and all of them were shown being pulled from ouside...mainly from the same direction....one of them...the first four to be pulled says "emergency...."so who knows how many of them...say the ones that may have been inside did the same. Also the Doctor says to Rose that the pull shouldn't be that bad for him and Rose compared to the Daleks....its probably why, Rose is able to cling for as long as she does, and probably why Pete, who had only been through once really, is able to stay as long as he does. And streches his arms out once he more or less is through and probably sees Rose flying towards him, I doubt he went back to save her, more likely that Jackie nagged him to death about it, so went for anothe chance to convince her, but then just took her due to the way things were.


In the end that is how I see it, and fair enough if it is still not enough to convince you. But I would like to point out again that such plot holes or as you put for one example "all that stuff about absorbing the time vortex hadn't previously been established" can be applied to so many stories including Moffat's...for example I did use the light bulb thing, but the DVD is a better example, I mean yes we know tha the Tardis can materialise and dematerialise....but up untill they get into the Tardis, we have no idea, not a single story has gone before, where a DVD could be turned into a device that could send the Tardis back to the Doctor. Again the Doctor Dances example, nothing has been established that nanogenes can be updated with the waggling of hands, nothing has been established that a fireplace could be moved and still work with a flick of a Sonic, nothing has been established that a normal human brain could somehow download the people saved into the computer memory bank, nothing has been established that the Vashta Narada who can eat everything up in a second, would get scared of the Doctor asking them to read a book about him...and to make it a bit less like I am attacking Moff stories only, Family of Blood, nothing has been established that their ship could be destroyed in a few minutes because of the pressing of a few buttons, nothing has been established that the Doctor could use the FOB watch to trick the Family into thinking he was still human.

Basically, none of those things are only RTD's trademark....they are all guilty of it, all of them bring what you may term as Magical or DEM endings/solutions. And I for one am glad that some of the things are not established earlier on. For example, I am glad that I didn't know that the Tardis had a DVD player, becauseit was fun to find out in the heat of the moment. I loved that DoctorDonna knew what to do with the crucible, if I knew that the Daleks could have been easily controlled by it right from the start, I would have just been waiting for the Doctor to do so in a minute. I loved that even I was fooled into thinking that the John Smith hadn;t changed back to the Doctor.
There is only one reason these plot holes and non-established events happen....that is to create drama.


Maybe RTD's are more obvious....and I think the reason for this is because he writes his endings first...and then the rest of the story around it. In POTW, it was always about Rose defeating the Daleks in a way that would put her life in dangwer, and then that would lead to the Doctor saving her, and sacrificing himself. Doomsday was about Splitting Rose and the Doctor in midst of a huge epic battle...and was shown in a heartbreaking way. TLOTTL..was about the Doctor raising after year of living like a dog, where everyone in the world knew of him, and the ironic ending with everyone forgetting about him, and those that don't would either choose to die, go back to their team or their family than be with him. and Journey's End was about Donna becoming that special person she always wanted to be, but that be her reason for losing everything too, and the Doctor and his family doing something as epic as towing the Earth, only to end up on his own again. So maybe because the importance is so much on the characters, rather than soving the monster of the week solution, that it seesm like a "magical ending/DEM"...but how can it be...when the "magical ending/DEM" is what RTD wanted for the sake of the characters?



Short answer they are all guilty...not just RTD.

you are almost at Whoonie status!!

whoo hooo.....


*bows down and chants*
*we are not worthy, we are Whoonies!*

IM most Humble O

I would say you are a person of EXCELLENT taste and obviously a person who is going to grow into a mature and responsible adult......

sensible AND dedicated

*high fives Mikkyh*

blumming heck Crazzmatazz!!
that was a post and a half!

you explain it all very well.....

I loves ya Crazzz

<<<WhoonieHug>>>

You've written a long reply, and I intend not to do you the disservice of ignoring any of it. I'm going to try to respond to each individual bit, please forgive me if I cut any bits for the sake of punchiness — I'm working purely on the feeling that since your whole post is above, duplicating it would be redundant.


It's difficult to respond meaningfully if you insist on switching argument semi-randomly.


I identified only category of people. Here, my original statement:

"it'd be wrong not to acknowledge that the episodes that are all dumb spectacle tend to score much higher audience appreciation than the ones that dedicated fans praise."

If you'd care to quote that and bold the identified categories of people, it might help.

So, the one category of people I identify: fans
The property I ascribe to them: they don't like episodes that are all dumb spectacle
I further suggest: there is a correlation according to which the dumb spectacle episodes tend to be more appreciated than the 'fan' (per my implicit definition) favourites

If I can summarise your primary counterargument, to ensure we're talking on the same wavelength, it's that many people who are fans according to the normal, dictionary definition of the word enjoy the episodes I seem to consider dumb spectacle. Therefore, my definition of a fan is at fault.

That argument is conceded. Had I a chance to rewrite my statement, it would be:

"it'd be wrong not to acknowledge that the episodes that are all dumb spectacle tend to score much higher audience appreciation than the ones that dedicated fans tend to praise."


I absolutely agree that Blink qualifies as a fan favourite and it is the type of episode I had in mind.

This is a fair representation of my view.

I hope I've dealt with this now.


This section addresses me personally. So, my favourite as a fan is Father's Day. I am also aware that the audience appreciation figures and the viewership figures for every episode of Who since RTD revived it have been the envy of pretty much every other television programme. If I were paying the entire nation's licence fee on my own, I would expect programmes to cater only to my interests. In practice, I don't do either. It doesn't offend me when people like things I don't like and vice versa.

As I implied above, my error was to cut the notion of correlation in the final part of my statement. If you mean to argue that there's no discernible similarity whatsoever in the tastes of disparate fans then I think you're on very unsteady ground.


This time you're misrepresenting the television show. The exact dialogue is (don't worry; I just looked this up):

Doctor: Of course, to open the rift means you'll pull this ship apart.
Margaret: So sue me
Doctor: It's not just any old power source, it's the Tardis. My Tardis. The best ship in the universe.
Margaret: It'll make wonderful scrap.
Rose: What's that light?
Doctor: The heart of the Tardis. This ship's alive. You've opened its soul.
Margaret: It's... so... bright...
Doctor: Look at it, Margaret
Margaret: Beautiful
Doctor: Look inside, Blon Felfotch. Look at the light.
...
Rose: What happened to Margaret?
Jack: I guess she got burnt up. Carried out her own death sentence.
Doctor: No. I don't think she's dead.
Rose: Then where is she?
Doctor: She looked into the heart of the Tardis. Even I don't know how strong that is. And the ship's telepathic like I told you, Rose. It gets inside your head, translates alien languages. Maybe the raw energy can translate all sorts of thoughts... here she is!
Rose: She's an egg?
Doctor: She's regressed to her childhood.
Jack: She's an egg.

No mention of a time vortex. No indication that staring into the heart of the Tardis means absorbing the time vortex. No reference to the fact that someone who absorbed the time vortex would be capable of dissolving atoms across time and space. So, no establishment of any of the major points on which the solution to Parting of the Ways depends.

In fact, I'd say the solution amounts to a previously intractable problem suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived introduction of abilities not mentioned before within the storyline. Now go check out what Wikipedia has to say about deus ex machina.

You seem to have made up your own definition according to which variously (i) something isn't a magical ending if it can be retrofitted into the established facts; and (ii) it is a magical ending if any plot hole whatsoever exists.


See my comments above. You are again trying to argue that if something can be fitted into the story, it is not a deus ex machina. Are you able to give any example of anything that would qualify?

An example from Wikipedia: The 2002 film Adaptation employs a Deus Ex Machina in the form of an alligator that kills a character as he is about to shoot the protagonist.

I assume you'd argue that isn't a deus ex machina because we all know alligators exist and they can eat people?


It's obvious you are unable to concede any point. We're on an entire thread about plot holes in Doomsday, but you are unwilling to admit any?

I've no interest in debating the specifics, as I don't see that it's relevant.


So you're arguing simultaneously that it had and hadn't been established?

Your examples are extremely weak. "nothing has been established that the Vashta Narada who can eat everything up in a second, would get scared of the Doctor asking them to read a book about him". By that standard, every single line of dialogue that occurs is a deus ex machina because it hadn't previously been established that they are how that character would respond to the preceding situation or line of dialogue.

To be clear: surprises are not in themselves deus ex machinas. Seriously, look it up.


People associate with fictional characters only while they can retain their suspension of disbelief. Deus ex machinas break suspension of disbelief and therefore cheapen character moments.

That said, your argument will probably be "there's no such thing as suspension of disbelief because we all know it's a TV show and it isn't real".

Something I'm not getting here. If you do "establish something first" aren't you just pulling it out of thin air that time instead of the next?

Why wouldn't the TARDIS have a DVD reader? A man who's spent most of the last 50 years on earth would want to watch the occasional movie, wouldn't her? And since when can't DVDs contain software that can control a computer? I don't know how to write TARDIS-control software, but I'm sure the Doctor does.

And as crazzyaz says, if you already know the solution, where's the drama?

You've fallen for crazzyaz's politician-stype redefinition of what a deus ex machina is to fit what he or she was already saying. From Wiki again, because it's easy for everyone to check I'm not making it up:


So for the DVD example you're missing the requirements that the DVD reader:[LIST][*] be contrived; and[*] in itself suddenly and abruptly solve the problem[/LIST]

Presumably the Doctor installed the DVD slot after reading the portfolio of documents that Sally gave him at the end of the episode.

For me the biggest plothole in Blink was when Sally and her boyfriend stood up in the middle of the circle of Angels, thereby blocking the Angel's line of sight of each other.

What does it matter if Doctor Who doesn't always make a great deal of sense, it's meant to be a FANTASY show isn't it? For god's sake, the Doctor travels through time and space in a phone box that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside! Are you telling me that makes sense?

Have I missed something? Why have the mods added "Spoilers" to the title?

Where would this genre of TV be without that though?

There's an game show that was popular in the United States, I don't know if there was/is a British version, called "Who wants to be a millionaire?"

Surprisingly enough, it showed people answering questions in an attempt to quickly win big piles of cash. There are very few shows that depict people working hard, investing wisely and retiring as millionaires. What I'm getting at is that the solution to the desperate problem that everyone knows about at the beginning, is not very dramatic.

Writer: Russell T Davies

HURR

Hasn't read rest of thread

HURR

No, really:

Writer: Russell T Davies

He has made a lot of swiss cheese in his time. No matter how deep in the fictional science you want to go.

No he has written a lot of fantastic television in his time. No matter how deep in the fictional science you want to go.

Yes he has. I never said he didn't. But if you wanna go the "everything he writes is flawless" route, then you would be wrong.

why does the title say "spoilers"?

....and where has anyone said that in this thread? No where! The point being made is ALL writers have plot holes yet for some reasons certain people like to pretend that RTD is the only one who ever does it.

There are several Doctor Who stories by RTD that I am not that keen on, but given he had a massive workload, especially in comparison to people who only had to turn in one script per series I rather think people should be cutting him a bit of slack.

But thats too much to ask for isn't it? Much more fun to pick on him constantly at every opportunity.

Give me a specific quote from someone saying precisely "Russell is the only writer in history to ever have plotholes in his or her script!"

Please.

RTD is a good writer, yes, but, he also has holes in his plots. Just to note, you can't complain about this paragraph because it ties with what you just said above.

if you read this thread you can see people down playing or dismissing valid plot holes in other writers scripts while exaggerating those in RTD's. And I meant in the context of the show, btw.

There is, the show originated here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wan...Millionaire%3F

"Who wants to be a millionaire?"
"Me. I do."
"Great. Probably the most reliable thing, if you have the stamina, is read maths or economics at a prestigious university then to go into the competitive world of trading. Otherwise, maybe an MBA and a reliable business you can build up? Whatever, our cameras will be with you every step of the way!"

*gets out a megaphone* WHY DOES THE TITLE SAY "SPOILERS"????!!!!