10 Times Doctor Who Has Broken Its Own Rules

2005's The End of the World established that the TARDIS gets inside the minds of travelling companions, translating weird and wonderful alien languages and even foreign tongue. A crucial part of adventures through time and space, the Translation Circuit has been shown not to work when the Doctor is absent or unconscious - but this doesn't account for all the times it hasn't worked.

Aside from episodes such as The Impossible Planet, where the TARDIS couldn't translate due to reasons explained within the narrative, the translation of alien and foreign languages, and text, has been largely inconsistent.

Alien species such as the Judoon in 2008's The Stolen Earth spoke their own language, even with the TARDIS present, and had to use their own translation device. This was also the case in 2020's Fugitive of the Judoon, despite the Doctor and the TARDIS being on the sidelines.

The Translation Circuit also hasn't worked for several other aliens, including the Hath, the Boneless, and various creatures in 2013's The Rings of Akhaten - including 'Do'reen'.

Human language has also been hit or miss with the TARDIS, with 2017's Extremis failing to translate the Pope's Italian dialogue. 2013's Cold War and 2015's Before the Flood strangely saw the TARDIS omit the translation of Russian text, and 2010's Vincent and the Doctor featured an abundance of French text throughout.

Many of these rule breaks can be attributed to production design forgetting about the TARDIS' powers, but Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat have both claimed that some of these translation blunders are due to 'plot convenience'. Mystery solved.