Doctor Who nitpick
Oct. 26th, 2025 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelI'm up to s2 e3 in my rewatch.
...and ok. In e1, the TARDIS, with those inside, accidentally shrinks. The Doctor and companions are the size of an inch. They go outside, where they realize that instead of a planet with anaconda-sized earthworms, they're on normal Earth as tiny creatures. Shenanigans ensue.
At the end of the serial, they -- of course -- get back to the TARDIS and get everything back to normal. And as part of this, the (mini) Doctor grabs a (full size) seed of wheat, which he brings inside as a way of measuring progress: as the TARDIS returns to normal, the grain of wheat shrinks from apparently huge to, well, the appropriate size for a grain of wheat.
Except that /doesn't fucking make sense/.
When the TARDIS first shrank, so did everything inside. People, their clothes, everything. Presumably embiggening works the same. So why is the seed excepted? By the logic of the miniaturization, the seed should have remained the same relative size, becoming a huge-ass seed.
*blinks in confusion*
...and ok. In e1, the TARDIS, with those inside, accidentally shrinks. The Doctor and companions are the size of an inch. They go outside, where they realize that instead of a planet with anaconda-sized earthworms, they're on normal Earth as tiny creatures. Shenanigans ensue.
At the end of the serial, they -- of course -- get back to the TARDIS and get everything back to normal. And as part of this, the (mini) Doctor grabs a (full size) seed of wheat, which he brings inside as a way of measuring progress: as the TARDIS returns to normal, the grain of wheat shrinks from apparently huge to, well, the appropriate size for a grain of wheat.
Except that /doesn't fucking make sense/.
When the TARDIS first shrank, so did everything inside. People, their clothes, everything. Presumably embiggening works the same. So why is the seed excepted? By the logic of the miniaturization, the seed should have remained the same relative size, becoming a huge-ass seed.
*blinks in confusion*
no subject
Date: 2025-10-27 10:14 pm (UTC)You said the Doctor grabs the wheat seed outside, so it wasn't affected by the shrink-and-grow?
no subject
Date: 2025-10-28 12:06 am (UTC)From the transcript:
IAN: Well what do you want it for?
DOCTOR: You’d be surprised. (He chuckles mischievously to himself.)
[...]
DOCTOR: We’ve got to repeat exactly wha...the things that happened to us when we landed.
IAN: Is there anything I can do?
DOCTOR: Yes, that seed over there by the chair. Take it over to the table so that we can all see it. And wrap that round it when you do it. (He points to his cloak. Ian takes the seed [...] and places it on a table on the other side of the room. The Doctor operates the controls.)
[...]
DOCTOR: Yes yes, we’ve done it! Yes, ha-ha ha-ha, we’ve done it, yes!
IAN: Doctor, it’s incredible, that seed, it’s completely vanished!
DOCTOR: No no my dear boy, no. Hah-ha! (He moves over to the cloak and holds the seed up between his finger and thumb like a magician.)
DOCTOR: Look, can you see, it hasn’t vanished at all!
[Read more at: https://tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org/viewtopic.php?t=45 ]
The "wrap [the cloak] round it" is, most likely, because the seed is coated in a toxic substance; visually the seed isn't entirely wrapped by the cloak, but left mostly exposed. If the cloak were protective from size change, the Doctor wouldn't have /shrunk/ in the first place.
I'd be fine with it if, idk, the Doctor had put it in a glass box, saying it would be immune from the TARDIS effects that way. But as written, there's no reason for it to retain absolute size, and that bugs me.
(Also I really hope the Doctor washed his cloak after...)