15 Annoying Mistakes You Never Noticed In Doctor Who
6. The Eye Of Harmony
The climax of the polarising 1996 TV Movie takes place in a beautifully designed chamber somewhere inside the Tardis that contains the Eye Of Harmony (the Tardiss power source) which, if opened for too long, will destroy the Earth and can only be opened by human eyes. As well as the human eyes thing making no sense given the complete lack of connection between Time Lords and humans, the biggest part of this mistake is that the Eye is beneath the Panopticon on Gallifrey and is the power source of the entire planet. It has nothing to do with the Doctors Tardis and had been unseen for so long by the time of The Deadly Assassin (1977) that it was believed by most Time Lords to be a myth. For a full seventeen years this was quietly ignored and even subtly retconned with some New Who episodes showing the Tardis being powered by other means. But then came the Series 7 episode Journey To The Centre Of The Tardis and the continuity headache made a comeback. As with the TV Movie, a crucial scene in Journey takes place in a room containing the Eye Of Harmony which (despite matching its original description as a suspended star about to become black hole) draws from the TV Movie by establishing that its inside the Tardis and making it the power source. Just because the TV movie is canon, it doesnt mean that its mistakes have to be brought back. Which means we should ignore practically everything about it other than the Seventh and Eighth Doctors.
JG Moore is a writer and filmmaker from the south of England. He also works as an editor and VFX artist, and has a BA in Media Production from the University Of Winchester.
