Doctor Who: 10 Things That Make NO Sense In The Modern Series

7. The Doctor Can't Be Bothered Disrupting The Dalek Shields

Doctor Who the Master Sacha Dhawan Gallifrey
BBC

The divisive Victory Of The Daleks includes a silly yet highly entertaining sequence in which a group of Spitfires are sent into space to shoot up a Dalek ship. Just go with it.

Right after we see the planes in space for the first time, the Doctor heads back to the TARDIS, while instructing the pilots to blow up the huge dish on the side of the ship. The planes then attempt to pump this dish full of lead, but to no avail: there are shields in the way, and it cannot take any damage. Then, to make matters even more dire, the Daleks use lasers to destroy two of the planes.

At this point, the last remaining Spitfire pilot asks the Doctor for help, and the Doctor says that he can temporarily disrupt the Dalek shields so that the dish can be destroyed. Great stuff! Yay Doctor! Victory is in sight!

But wait a second: why didn't the Doctor do this as soon as he got back to the TARDIS - y'know, before the first two planes were blown up?

Seriously, straight after the final pilot asks for the Doctor's aid, the episode cuts back to the TARDIS and the Doctor is just stood at the main console, looking all sad.

Doctor Who Victory Of The Daleks Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith
BBC

So why didn't he disrupt the shields a lot earlier? He might've saved the lives of those first two pilots, and also allowed the dish to be destroyed much sooner.

Instead, he just moped around for a bit while two brave soldiers were blown to bits.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.