Doctor Who 10: 7 Big Questions About The Pyramid At The End Of The World
3. Could Lab Technicians Really Be That Unprofessional?
God help us if in the real world scientific labs are staffed
by such incompetent people as Douglas and Erica. They might as well have put
Homer Simpson in there with a box of doughnuts. This isn’t a criticism of two
very fine actors, but their characters’ unprofessionalism coupled with the
bizarre use of vents to extract the air from a contained environment seems
highly implausible.
Safeguarding and back-up procedures would have been drilled into the scientists and whilst the point is that they are not automatons, but fallible human beings (perhaps setting things up nicely for the Cybermen in the finale) even the building and systems seem to contribute to the shoddiness of the whole set-up. Is it believable that there are only two of them in the laboratory, or that they would eat and drink on the premises, or that one of them would remove their helmet?
Mistakes happen, but Erica is given plenty of warning about Douglas’ physical and mental state and ought to have found a way to compensate for losing her glasses.
There have been plenty of examples of laxity or complacency leading to tragic consequences even in the most health and safety conscious environments but fortunately these are few and far between. Some people have speculated that the Monks have influenced events, but that would go against their non-interventionist strategy of taking advantage of a self-made apocalypse.