Doctor Who (1963) - 505 mistakes in entire show

Revealing: In a few UNIT stories you can see where BBC TV badges have been on the UNIT land rovers

Continuity: When Ian and Barbara enter the TARDIS for the first time, Susan operates the door switch. Later on, when the Doctor electrocutes Ian, he uses the exact same switch.

Revealing: Susan is supposed to be running through a forest. It is painfully obvious that, in fact, she is simply running on the spot against a back-projected film, and the branches that hit her are simply studio stagehands, hiding just out of shot, hitting the actress with twigs.

Revealing: During the long continuous hand held shot of Ian and Barbara exploring the junk yard in episode one, the cameraman trips, making the image jump up and down.

Plot hole: When Ian is trying to escape from the Tardis in episode 1, he says, "He closed the door from over there, I saw him." Although it is in fact Susan who closed the door.

Visible crew/equipment: The boom mic makes an quick appearance about 18 minutes into episode one. It is in the upper left corner when the camera switches from a close up of the Doctor and Susan to a medium shot of all four characters.

Visible crew/equipment: About 90 seconds into Episode Two, the shadow of the boom mic crosses Ian's face.

Visible crew/equipment: The boom mic shadow makes an apperance in Episode Two, moving across the console as the Doctor suggests abandoning Barbara.

Continuity: In episode three, Temossus claims the Thals have been travelling for four years. But in episode five, Ganatus claims it is one year.

Revealing: In episode one, when Ian notices the breeze, a wide shot of the forest shows the background dropcloth is moving.

Revealing: In the Dalek city, it is unfortunately obvious that the "tunnels" behind the actors are just photographic blow-ups, as you can see the bottom of the wall meeting with the floor.

Revealing: Toward the end Episode Two, when Susan opens the TARDIS doors, the console wobbles.

Revealing: The supposedly heavy statue Ian drops down the lift to destroy the pursuing Dalek in episode four wobbles when he first touches it.

Revealing: There are numerous scenes where the background Daleks are blown-up photographs. The most obvious is in episode five when the Daleks are discussing the radiation drugs.

Revealing: In episode six, Ian helps Barbara get a grip on the rock and piece of the polystyrene pops off in his hand.

Continuity: The Dalek the crew ambush in episode three has a magnetic block in its sucker and, after the attack, a mud-covered eyestalk. At the beginning of episode four, the eye-stalk is visibly clear of mud, yet is later seen plastered with mud once more.

Plot hole: Why does the Daleks' prison have beds? The Daleks don't need them and clearly state that they have no idea what the Thals look like, speculating that they are "horribly mutated".

Revealing: When the Thals are using sunlight to blind the Dalek cameras in Episode Six, wide shots of the Dalek city show it moving back and forth from bad matte combination.

Visible crew/equipment: Toward the end of episode one, when Ian is wondering where Barbara is, the shadow of a boom mic moves over the door behind him.

Revealing: The Dalek that Ian hides from in Episode Seven has a bad castor. The flopping of one of its wheels is audible.

Revealing: You can see the studio floor in the "white void" outside the TARDIS door in early shots during episode one of this story.

Other: William has a bit of a nightmare, completely throwing the others during one scene by saying the same line ("It's not very likely") twice, and fumbling the line "You knocked both Susan and I unconscious". He also omits the scripted explanation for the melted clocks.

Continuity: Susan's socks disappear during the opening credits.

Visible crew/equipment: When Susan runs out into the console room in a panic, the shadows of two crew can be seen on the wall.

Audio problem: During Hartnell's big speech about the creation of a solar system, a cough can be heard from off-stage.

Factual error: The story is set in 1289, when Marco Polo was anxious to leave China against Kublai Khan's wishes, so what's Polo doing on the Pamir Plateau?

Factual error: "Peking" is mentioned several times in this story, but this is an anachronism - this story is set in the year 1289 when Peking (now called Beijing) was known as "Khan-balik".

Continuity: The caption slide at the end of episode two reads: 'Next Episode: The Cave of Five Hundred Eyes'. While the title slide comes up at the start of episode 3, it simply says "Five Hundred Eyes".

Other: In episode seven, Kublai Khan refers to backgammon as a game of cards....obviously he's not an experienced backgammon player.

Revealing: In episode one, the Voord that falls down the pyramid shaft is very obviously a cardboard cutout.

Visible crew/equipment: In episode one, when the Doctor is near the pyramid, someone's leg can be seen just before the shot ends.

Plot hole: Yartek tried to disguise himself as Arbitan, by wearing Aribtan's robes, and pulling the hood over his giant rubber head. Strangely enough, no-one seems to notice that "Arbitan" is now suddenly speaking with completely different voice, and now has a two-foot-tall-head.

Continuity: In episode one, Barbara activates her travel dial only seconds before the others. But in episode two, she's been at Morphoton for quite some time - long enough to change clothes, pick fabrics and get food.

Visible crew/equipment: In episode one, when Ian is first seen inside the pyramid, someone stumbles through the background. Some have claimed this is Barbara, but it happens too fast to tell.

Visible crew/equipment: In episode one, when a Voord falls through a pyramid door, a stage hand can be briefly seen on the other side.

Revealing: In the final fight, Ixta sends Ian staggering into the altar, which slides out of position across the floor. Also, at one point the edge of the raised set they're fighting on is visible briefly.

Other: In episode one, when the crew wonders what the Sensorites will do them, the camera zooms in on the Doctor as he says, "or kill us?". It then jerks with an audible click as though hitting something.

Plot hole: The miniaturized TARDIS crew never interact with the other characters in this story, because, as the Doctor points out, the 'giants' will be unable to hear them, as their voices will be on a different wavelength. So why does the Doctor later suggest using the telephone to try to call for help?

Continuity: At the end of episode two, when the sink is emptied, the plug is placed on the bench. In the reprise for episode three, the plug is put back in the sink (thus enabling the miniaturized travellers to escape).

Audio problem: When the Doctor says that what they're seeing now is the middle period of Dalek history, you can hear a metallic thing being dropped off screen.

Revealing: In the scene where Barbra, Jenny and Dortman are running through the deserted streets of London, in the very last shot, if you look to the left of the screen, you can see some people walking down the street.

Visible crew/equipment: As the two prisoners join the Doctor and Ian, the camera follows them and you can see the heliport set through the Dalek saucer.

Visible crew/equipment: When the rebels attack the Dalek saucer, a Dalek asks what sector the prisoners were taken from,, and in the bottom left hand corner a giant boom mike comes into view.

Revealing: In episode 1, one of the windows on the Tardis is leaning in, but by the time we get to episode 6 it has managed to fix itself. Also when the bridge falls down you can see the poster through the gap, showing that there is no back to the Tardis.

Revealing: When Barbra is throwing her bombs, she grabs the window frame in front of her, which wobbles alarmingly.

Other: Ian has completely forgotten the distinctive shape of a Dalek. It's only when the Dalek starts speaking that Ian says to the Doctor, "that voice". Yet later when they are at the saucer, he talks to the Doctor about the new back of the Dalek having a disk on them now.

Continuity: The paint on the Black Dalek changes between episode 2 and 3.

Audio problem: When the Dalek says to give the Doctor and Ian the test, it cuts to the prison cell where you can hear a Dalek voice that gets cut off.

Visible crew/equipment: Just before Dortman leaves to test out his bomb, he comes towards the camera. When he's doing this, look at the right side of the screen - you can see a crewmember's shadow. It can't be Barbra or Jenny because they then enter from the left.

Factual error: The Doctor states that the Daleks invaded Earth because it is the only planet with a magnetic core. In fact, every planet in the solar system has a magnetic core.

Revealing: When a rebel throws a bomb from the second floor of the Dalek saucer, notice it explodes too early and in the wrong place.

Audio problem: In episode 2 you can hear the Black Dalek clear his throat before speaking.

Visible crew/equipment: When the Doctor and Ian are talking about the discs on the Daleks' backs, you can see a female crewmember behind the robomen, standing there and then walking off, and then another crewmember in a white shirt dart past the robomen.

Revealing: At the beginning, as the Doctor is standing in the TARDIS door, the cave wall can be seen through the TARDIS.

Factual error: Nero seems to be middle ages, but the historical Nero was 27 at the time Rome burned.

Factual error: The geographical references in this story are somewhat suspect. Assissium is the modern town of Assissi, some 70 miles north of Rome and the same distance east from the sea. The Great Fire of Rome took place in July 64AD.

Other: In the end part of this story, in the large spiders den, you can see the string supporting it.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Ian's pen vanishes, as he checks to see if he is being followed you can see a boom mic shadow on his coat.

Visible crew/equipment: At the beginning of episode two, the Doctor finds Ian unconscious with a very obvious shadow of the camera and cameraman looming over him.

Visible crew/equipment: In an early TARDIS scene, at one point the cable powering the console is seen running from the base and under the wall.

Visible crew/equipment: At the end of episode 3, a venom grub starts chasing Ian. As it enters the screen however, you can see the actor under it crouching down.

Deliberate "mistake": In episode 3 of 'The Web Planet' (titled 'Escape To Danger') watch as one of the Zarbi operators, his vision impaired by the costume, runs right into the camera. So far behind schedule was the recording of this episode, however, that this mistake was retained in the finished episode, as there was no time left for a re-take.

Continuity: In episode one, Vicki passes her hand through a museum display, making the point that the crew can not interact with their environment. A moment later, she bumps into a statue, making it wobble.

Audio problem: Before the TARDIS materialises in the haunted house you can hear the Dalek's time machine sound effect for no apparent reason.

Revealing: When the robotic Doctor first appears - and in many of the later scenes involving the jungle on Mechanus - it very obviously not William Hartnell playing him, but a vaguely similar double. In addition, his lines have been dubbed by Hartnell and do not always match the movements of his mouth.

Factual error: In episode one, Abraham Lincoln seems to have affected a southern accent and put on some weight.

Continuity: When Frankenstein's Monster begins chasing the Daleks, he's wrapped in bandages. When he catches the Daleks in the room with the TARDIS, he's suddenly wearing a suit.

Continuity: In episode four, when the Doctor and Ian return to Frankenstein's lab, the monster is lying on the table in the opposite direction from when they left.

Visible crew/equipment: In episode four, when Ian and the Doctor descend the stairs into Frankenstein's lab, you can see a boom operator and mic behind them.

Visible crew/equipment: When the Doctor and Ian encounter the Frankenstein monster in episode four, you can see a Dalek behind them, even though it's long before the Daleks arrive in this time zone.

Visible crew/equipment: Near the end of episode five as the Daleks plan their attack, a BBC camera can be seen in the background on the left.

Plot hole: When Maaga has the Doctor and his crew in her power, why doesn't she demand that they take her off the planet in the TARDIS?

Plot hole: The Daleks announce their secret plan on the city's external loudspeaker system, where Cory hears it. It can hardly be a 'secret' plan if it is broadcast for all to hear...

Deliberate "mistake": William Hartnell appears in the credits at the end of this Doctor Who story...despite the fact that he did not actually appear in this episode at any stage.

Audio problem: At one point where the trail of Visian footprints are appearing, we hear the sound effect of the foot hitting the ground, but the footprint fails to appear.

Visible crew/equipment: At the beginning of episode 2 when the Daleks are talking, a stage light is reflected on one of the Daleks.

Plot hole: The Clantons are amazingly bad shots. The Earps walk slowly down the street at the start of the climactic gunfight and don't get hit even once by the hail of gunfire.

Revealing: The "American" accents in this episode are all over the map and frequently inconsistent within the same scene.

Factual error: Billy Claiborne, the only member of the Clanton gang to survive the O.K.Corrall shoot-out, is conspicuous by his total absence in this story. Maybe that's how he survived?

Continuity: The six-shooters, in the climactic gunfight, fire off a lot more than six shots without reloading.

Factual error: The story The War Machines is (probably) set in London in July 1966. At the time, England, and more specifically, London, was hosting the FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament. Yet, you wouldn't know it from watching this Doctor Who story...Sir Charles Summers mentions July 12th (1966) which was the day after England played Uruguay at Wembley and the day before Mexico played France. The other matches involving those four were played in London during the time the events of The War Machines are supposed to take place, yet no mention is made of the fact, there are no foreign football supporters roaming the streets and no flags or posters on display. Did the story take place in an "alternate reality" London of July 1966?

Factual error: This story is set in London in 1966 - the Post Office Tower was completed in October 1965). July 12th 1966 was a Saturday, not a Monday.

Plot hole: It is highly unlikely that the discovery of a dead down-and-out's body in an empty warehouse would be reported in a national newspaper, especially as the discovery had to have been made when the newspapers were already being printed.

Continuity: The rhyme the Doctor recites in episode 3 is different from the original rhyme heard in episode 1.(Apparently, The Doctor (William Hartnell) forgot his lines in episode 3, when he came to the point of reciting the rhyme. So he just improvised what he THOUGHT they were, rather than what had been scripted.

Factual error: During every outdoor scene in Antarctica, heavy blizzards are shown raging constantly. In reality, such blizzards are extremely rare at the South Pole, thanks to the almost total absence of precipitation Antarctica is effectively a desert, as the air is very dry: with very little moisture in the air, rain or snow is almost impossible.

Continuity: The dialogue between Cutler and the technician at that beginning of episode 3 is slightly from that which closes episode 2.

Factual error: In the first close-up view of Mondas, the planet is spinning rapidly so that we can see that its continents are identical to Earth's. But this would mean that Mondas is spinning on its axis once every few seconds - tens of thousand of times faster than Earth. This would be such a fast rotation that the planet would not be able to hold together under the centrifugal force.

Revealing: The Daleks that appear in this and other Doctor Who stories were rather expensive, so some ingenuity was required to make the small number available look like they were more than they were. Tricks employed in "The Power of The Daleks" included making four Daleks look like an army by having them circle around the set a few times. (Note the delay between the fourth Dalek exiting and the "fifth" Dalek entering) and the blatant use of photographic blow-ups in place of "real" Daleks.

Continuity: In Episode 1, the TARDIS crew pass out from the change in pressure as they descend into the Earth. However, at the end of episode four, they climb out on foot and suffer no ill effects.

Audio problem: If you listen carefully to the soundtrack of part four of "The Moonbase", some 'chatter' and 'feedback' from the floor manager's headphones can be heard. (At the time this particular episode was recorded, there was just a one-week gap between recording 'Doctor Who' and transmission, so there was no time available to re-record the episode, and this mistake had to be left in).

Revealing: The doors and walls wobble badly as Jamie and Ben barricade the entrance to the medical unit.

Deliberate "mistake": The character of "Chicki" is played by a completely different actress in episode 4 to the one who played her in episode 1.

Visible crew/equipment: Near the end of episode 3 the inspector is on the plane and just before he goes to look for Captain Blade the camera zooms out and the top of the set is visible.

Visible crew/equipment: When the Doctor and Jamie enter the secret room watch the top left corner. A boom mike shadow appears and then moves out of shot.

Revealing: When Kaftan is activating the revitaliser controls you can see Patricck Troughton moving into position for when he runs and grabs her.

Revealing: The Cybermen retreat into their tombs backwards; this was achieved by simply having the film of them coming out of their tombs run in reverse.

Revealing: In this Doctor Who story, there is a fight scene between Toberman and the Cybercontroller. The Cybercontroller uses a very visible harness to lift Toberman over his head,and the wires attached to the harness Toberman is wearing are also very visible...and when Toberman, in return, lifts the Cybercontroller above HIS head, it is obvious that what Toberman is lifting is an empty costume, with no-one inside it.

Revealing: When Jamie and the Doctor try to open the doors to the tomb, watch them push it with their feet.

Factual error: When the group divide up into parties, the leaader says they need to be at the rocket at 1630, so meet here at 1625. He then goes on to say that will give them an hour to look for anyone that's missing. The other actors seem to notice his mistake because they either look puzzled or look off camera, probably seeing if anyone would shout "Cut."

Continuity: At the start of the story (the beginning of episode 1) the TARDIS materialises on its side, but at the end of the story (the end of episode 6)The TARDIS dematerialises right side up.

Plot hole: We twice see a map of how far the ice is away from the house, once in the first episode, and later in episode five. The ice has moved most of the way across the map in this time, and the distance it has moved is stated to be a 100 metres. This would place the it only 20 metres from the base. The problem with the distance is that it takes Penley quite a while to get the injured Jamie to the base, including a stretch across open ground. Also, the Ice Warriors weapon targeter suggests the base is as much as two kilometres away. So just how far away is the ice; 20 metres, 2 kilometers...or somewhere in between?

Factual error: The Doctor postulates that ammonium sulphide will poison the Ice Warriors because the Martian atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen. However, it is the EARTH's atmosphere that is mainly nitrogen (78%) whereas Mars' atmosphere is 95.3% carbon dioxide.

Audio problem: In episode 3 of this story it is noticeable that practically every sound in this episode has been re-dubbed and as a result is out of synch - sometimes quite badly. An example is when Milton Johns has his thugs break into Giles Kent's trailer - there's a three-second lag between the breaking of the plates and the sounds they make. (This may be simply due to the only surviving copies in the BBC Archives being these "badly dubbed" ones, recovered from obscure sources).

Factual error: In the story "The Wheel In Space", it is claimed that a meteor shower has been diverted towards The Wheel by a star in the M13 Hercules Cluster going nova. As M13 is a galaxy some 34,000 light years away from Earth, it would have to be one almighty nova to affect the course of a meteor shower in our galaxy - due to the countless gravitational forces between M13 and the Milky Way - and been caused at least 34,000 years before the time of the story.

Plot hole: When the airlock door is opening at the end of the final episode, the Cyberman is the only one who appears to be affected by the air rushing out. Although 'rushing out' is probably overstating the speed of the 'explosive decompression'. It's not so much an explosion as a gentle breeze...

Other: The Doctor (Patrick Troughton) makes one the funniest fluffed lines in the entire history of Doctor Who the final episode. With all sincerity he says "We'll all be dead soon, unless you switch over to the SEXUAL air supply". (The word Troughton was probably looking for was "sectional").

Continuity: At many points in this story there are problems with the costume that Zoe is wearing...the zip is often jammed part or all the way open. Not only does this leave most of her back exposed, but the position of the zip tends to change position during scenes, as while off camera Zoe tries to pull the zip back up, only for it to open up again minutes later. (It is a little unkind to say it, but possibly the costume was a little bit too tight for Zoe, causing it 'self unzip'?).

Factual error: The chart of the radiation on the island is wrong. The dialogue says it has steadily decreased over the past 172 years then suddenly disappeared. But the chart says it initially dropped rapidly for a few years, then started to fall at a slower rate for about a hundred years, then changed again and dropped to zero over fifty years. However, the way radiation disperses is anything but steady. It will continually slow down in its dispersal, forming a curve on a graph.

Plot hole: When Jamie and Cully go on the offensive, Jamie lures a quark away from a drilling site into a narrow valley, then Cully drops a boulder onto it. Yet when we see the crushed quark, it is next to a drill, on flat land.

Other: When the Doctor pulls Zoe and Jamie back into the TARDIS, look at the scanner screen. It has the words 'Producer Peter Bryant' written on it.

Other: The Master says he wrote 5,000 words a week for 25 years and Zoe says "but that's over half a million words." Yes it is, to be exact, six and a half million words. (5,000 x 52 x 25 = 6,500,000).

Continuity: This story starts off where the previous story ('The Dominators') finished, but Jamie says something completely different to alert the Doctor to the approaching lava flow.

Continuity: Near the end of episode three, Jamie starts to read the printout. At first, he is reading the printout the right way round. But when we next see him, he seems to be reading it upside down. Then the third time we see him, he is back to reading it correctly (right way up).

Continuity: When the TARDIS breaks apart and the console sent spinning off into space, Zoe is lying on it. In close-ups she lying on her left side facing towards Jamie (who is opposite), but in the distance shots done with small models, she is lying on her right side facing away from Jamie.

Audio problem: The first victim of the hypnotic signal stops walking when he hears it, but the sound of his footsteps continues for several seconds afterwards.

Revealing: The Cyberman that falls from the roof in the final episode is obviously an empty costume. (This is another example of a mistake being repeated from an earlier episode. See the earlier story "Tomb of The Cybermen" for a note about the SAME 'revealing' mistake happening).

Continuity: Patrick Troughton's sideburns keep appearing and disappearing, depending on whether what is being shown is location filming or studio.

Revealing: When Jamie is wrestling with one of the Ice Warriors in a storage room, one of them gives the wall an almighty knock and it nearly falls down.

Plot hole: Despite being asked to memorise all the locations and war zone commanders, Zoe's photographic memory lets her down: her first words to the Mexican leader are 'Who are you?'.

Plot hole: The map of the "War Zones" where the Aliens are conducting their War Games can be seen several times in this story. The map is visibly divided into 11 zones. Yet, during this story, the "War Zones" visited or referred to total THIRTEEN.

Continuity: The end of episode 7 does not match the reprise of the story at the start of episode 8. The Doctor, Security Chief and guards file into the SIDRAT in a different order.

Plot hole: In episode seven the Doctor says that he is sending Zoe and Russell back to the 1917 (World War I) zone, but instead they arrive in the American Civil War zone.

Audio problem: When the Doctor arrives at UNIT HQ in his stolen car, he speaks to a guard. We see close ups of the guard twice...but watch the brief clip of The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) between the two and you can just see that his lips aren't moving even remotely in synch with the words. (In fact, it is just a repeat of the previous shot of The Doctor, with new lines dubbed in).

Other: I know that regeneration causes the doctor to change his appearance, but I didn't know it can produce a tattoo visible on the Doctor's right arm in episode 2.

Audio problem: The music accompanying the closing credits fades down part way through (at a different point in each of the four episodes) and simultaneously fades up at a different point, the net result being a rather disjointed-sounding edit.

Audio problem: In episode 3, when the dog is barking at Sam's house and is abruptly silenced (apparently by an Auton), the sound is obviously not a dog barking. It sounds a bit like a man pretending to be a dog, and going "woof woof" not very convincingly.

Revealing: When the Doctor falls out of the TARDIS, near the beginning, he nearly manages to pull off the entire TARDIS door.

Plot hole: The Brigadier met the Doctor previously in 'The Web of Fear' and 'The Invasion', both Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) stories. In 'The Web of Fear', the TARDIS was trapped in the tunnels, not to be seen until the end of the story...and in 'The Invasion' the TARDIS was invisible. So how does the Brigdier know that the Police Box is anything but an emergency phone booth?

Continuity: There are a handful of similar continuity errors, but one that stands out in particular occurs at the end of Episode 1. The Doctor and Liz go into the lab and Taltalian steps out from behind the door wearing glasses and brandishing a gun. However, in the recap at the start of episode 2 he isn't wearing glasses and moves differently.

Continuity: Taltalian's French accent mysteriously gives way to an English one in some shots, most notably on location, e.g. when he catches an escaping Liz and says "Get in Miss Shaw".

Revealing: In episode one, a wall wobbles as Benton hammers a nail into it.

Visible crew/equipment: In episode two, the shadow of the boom mic crosses Jon Pertwee's head as he's giving the "epsilon coordinates" to Liz.

Revealing: In episode 6, during the generally poor fight sequence between the Brigade Leader and Greg Sutton, Greg's first punch to the face misses the Brigade Leader by miles.

Plot hole: Just after the Doctor meets the Brigade Leader, he looks at the countdown and says in a very loud voice, "only 3 hours and 22 minutes". Several minutes later, when he leaves the office after stunning Benton, the countdown still reads 3 hours and 22 minutes. Did the countdown clock stop?

Visible crew/equipment: When Liz and the Brigadier are arguing toward the end, a shadow moves in the background. It's in the wrong place and too soon to be the Doctor returning.

Revealing: In episode 3, when the Doctor is squaring off against the drooling madman, the madman is inside the perimeter railings. When the soldiers shoot him and he 'falls', however, he has moved outside the railings, enabling the stuntman to jump safely.

Continuity: At the beginning of the third episode, the countdown reads 49:18:32 in the close up, but when the Brigadier walks across the room it now is on 49:15:01. (In other words three minutes thirty one seconds have elapsed). Yet these two events are about ten seconds apart. Also, the timer should never read either of these times. The professor moved the countdown forward to exactly 49 hours (49:00:00).

Other: The power output in the Doctor's shed read "Megga Volts" instead of "megavolts"

Revealing: In episode 6, when the Brigade Leader shoots the Primord Stahlmann, he falls down but no bullet holes are made in his costume. Thanks to Producer Barry Letts for spotting this one on the DVD commentary.

Continuity: In episode 4, the Doctor's bow shrinks from when he talks to Liz Shaw while in prison, to when he stows aboard a jeep later. In the DVD commentary, producer Barry Letts blames himself for this mistake.

Revealing: In episode 5, when the Doctor kills the Primord with the fire extinguisher, he says 'he's dead this time' but the Primord is breathing.

Continuity: Throughout the serial, Bessie's tires are dry in studio shots (inside the Doctor's shed) and wet on location shots.

Revealing: When Stahlman is killed - the second time - the shot of his green primord face reveals the actors unpainted neck under his beard.

Continuity: In episode 1, when the Doctor opens the garage doors with his 'door handle', note the two men in the background, the position of the car behind him and the white pillar. In the next shot, the men and pillar disappear and the car moves to a different spot. In the shot after that, the tanker truck is now parked in front of a pillar. You can see near the beginning of episode 3 that there are two entirely different buildings that the tanker had been filmed in front of.

Continuity: Liz's hairstyle is different in indoor and outdoor shots.

Audio problem: In episode 3, when the Doctor is squaring off against the drooling madman, it's clear in most of the shots that the sound of the madman's panting is not reflected in his facial and body movements.

Revealing: When McDermott is being 'engulfed' by the black plastic chair, you can quite see him pulling it down on top of himself.

Other: The Doctor gets Jo to do some mathematics to distract her. At one point she says "49 x 2=88", when it actually equals 98, then she says that "adding 10 equals 108". (In other words, Jo (Katy Manning) fluffed her line, got one figure wrong, then went back to script...).

Revealing: The Filer vs. Filer fight in the lab is very amusing, not only because of the several glimpses of the stuntman doubling for Filer, but also because of the way the "metal" railings around the set wobble as they slam into them.

Revealing: In the UNIT tracking room, there is a flimsy railing behind the radar operators that Chinn knocks as Yates leads him off to the "direct" phone line, causing it to wobble badly. The Doctor then deals the railing another blow as he comes up to look at the console.

Audio problem: When Chinn tells the Brigadier of his agreement with the Axons, the movement of the actors around the set causes various loud wooden clumping sounds that are rather inappropriate for the organic interior of Axos.

Factual error: The Nuton power complex contains a cyclotron which, Winser explains, can accelerate atomic particles to the speed of light and beyond. There's even an instrument which measures the effect, with a scale marked in "x light". Unfortunately, relativity states that you can't accelerate particles to the speed of light (let alone beyond it), because at that point the particles would have infinite mass.

Continuity: As the Master escapes from Axos, he kills the UNIT soldier standing guard outside, whose beret falls off as he slumps to the ground. Cut to the Master standing over the corpse, and the missing beret instantly replaces itself on the head of the corpse.

Factual error: The calendar which shows the date to be Monday, 2nd March, 2472, is two days out. 2nd March 2472 will be a Saturday...and who made the calendar if the colonists left Earth over a year earlier?

Continuity: The hoofmarks seen by both Yeats and Benton from the helicopter appear to be huge when seen from the air. Yet, when the helicopter lands, the hoofmarks are suddenly much, much smaller.

Continuity: After completing the third summoning ritual, the Master turns towards the spot where Azal is about to appear. He has his arms lowered and Jo is stood to his left. In the next shot his arms are up, and Jo has moved to being in front of him.

Revealing: When the Brigadier crosses over to the RAF and the plane, you can see the plane is a model with a stick to control it just under the nose.

Continuity: In part one, watch for the continuity error when Miss Hawthorne turns to face the policeman: her cape appears and disappears from around her shoulders from shot to shot.

Other: When the Master is in the cavern, he lights the candles with a taper, then shakes out the taper which snaps in half.

Plot hole: It is never explained who - or what - killed the man in the churchyard during the first scene (early in part one). It cannot be Bok (the gargoyle) or Azal (the Daemon) as neither of them have awoken.

Plot hole: The delegate 'Centauri' is a 'hexapod' - a creature with six legs and feet. ('Hex' = "six", 'pod' = 'foot'.) But throughout this Doctor Who story, 'Centauri' can be seen with all six legs and feet in the air, projecting from the front of the creature...so what is it walking around on?

Continuity: In episode 2, As Jo walks along the castle ledge to escape from the Ice Warriors' room, there is, at one point, a quick shot of a piece of the ledge breaking off under Jo's shoe and falling down the cliff face. However, the shoe isn't Jo's. If you look closely, you'll see that the shoe in that brief shot is more pointed and of a darker colour than the shoes Jo is wearing, and has a strap across the ankle instead of being a slip-on.

Continuity: In episodes 2 and 3, watch the clock on the wall in the Master's quarters. When the Master pulls a gun on the Doctor and the Doctor quickly pulls the door shut, the clock shows ten minutes to three. In the next episode, after the swordfight is over and the Doctor is being led out by the guards, the clock now shows approximately eight minutes after twelve.

Plot hole: The Doctor and the Master both surface in bright orange diving suits and are the only two wearing them. But when the supposed body of the Master is dragged out it is also wearing an orange diving suit, and the Doctor and Master are still wearing theirs, so a third suit appeared from nowhere.

Continuity: The helicopter sent to rescue the Doctor and Jo changes in mid flight. It begins as a grey Sea King marked SO. In the second shot, it has an orange nose and tail stripe and is numbered 56.

Plot hole: The Brigadier says UNIT HQ is 'a Top Secret establishment'. It is, in fact so secret that it has a large sign outside informing the world not only of its function, but also the name of the commanding officer...

Plot hole: After UNIT HQ disappears, you can see a patch of grass where the UNIT HQ used to be...but just exactly how can grass grow underneath a building?

Revealing: When the Doctor and Jo see Bessie in the middle of the rocky area, there is the white chalky substance from the ground on her wheels, indicating she was driven to the spot rather than being "transported" to the black-hole.

Visible crew/equipment: You can see the reflections of the camera crew in the monitor used to display the First Doctor (William Hartnell). (This is especially noticeable in episodes 2 and 4).

Revealing: At various times (especially in episodes 3 and 4) you can see actor Stephen Thorne's lips through Omega's mask (and in one profile shot you can also see his jaw), yet when his mask is removed, we find that Omega has been dissipated and has no face...

Audio problem: When the companions are returning to Earth via the pillar of smoke, you can see and hear each person walk up the steps and then supposedly disappear. Unfortunately, you can then hear them walk down the other side of the steps..

Revealing: In episode 3, when the second Doctor, the Brigadier and Benton emerge from the TARDIS, the doors are left completely open with the camera looking straight into them for a long time, revealing not only the emptiness of the police box shell, but also that there's a pair of secret doors on the opposite side to the entrance doors. These 'secret doors' come in handy during episode 4, allowing seven people to come out of the police box in the final confrontation with Omega. (Well, it is stated time and again that the TARDIS is "bigger on the inside than the outside". Now we know how that happens...).

Audio problem: About 10 minutes into episode 1 of "Carnival of Monsters" the sound of a pencil being dropped and rolling across the studio floor can be heard.

Plot hole: The Doctor followed the Daleks to Spiridon but then is shocked to see the Dalek at the end of episode one.

Visible crew/equipment: In episode four, the Dalek chasing the heroes up the ventilator shaft is supported by strings.

Continuity: At the end of episode one, when the Doctor and Taron spray paint onto the invisible Dalek, they use two different colors. At the start of episode two, the Dalek is suddenly black and painted on all sides.

Visible crew/equipment: As the Daleks plan to release bacteria into the atmosphere, a crew member is reflected in the glass box containing the bacteria.

Continuity: In episode five, Jo's hairstyle changes. She has one hairstyle in the bulk of the episode, which was filmed in the studio. And a different one during the "Plain of Stones" scenes, which were shot on location.

Other: In the first scene with the Dalek Supreme, the lights on its dome are way out of synch with its speech.

Revealing: Jo is hit by a rather large rock. Katy Manning visibly winces before it strikes (and bounces off lightly).

Visible crew/equipment: After the Doctor recovers from his coma, he gets up and stands at the console. A reflection of a crew member can be seen in the shiny part of the central column.

Revealing: In episode 5, Codal discovers that what he thought was Taron is an invisible Spiridon. However, there is a glimpse of the actor inside the fur costume as he attacks Codal.

Visible crew/equipment: In episode five, when Taron knocks out the Spiridon, you can see a BBC camera in the foliage behind him.

Visible crew/equipment: At various points in the story, the pots for the plants of the Spiridin jungle are visible. Episode two has a couple of noticeable moments, when Codal is captured and when the Doctor is led away by the Daleks.

Continuity: When Wester - an invisible spiridon - is treating Joe's arm, his shadow can be seen.

Continuity: In the very first scene of the story, Jo is holding a gun as she opens the TARDIS doors, but when they come into the console room, she has no gun and is using both hands to support the Doctor.

Plot hole: 10,000 Daleks sounds impressive but it wouldn't be enough to invade a planet, let alone an entire galaxy.

Plot hole: Professor Jones says they tried to borrow the cutting equipment a few weeks ago, but Mr. Stevens says it was yesterday. One of them must be wrong...

Revealing: In the finale, when Stevens is beating on the computer console, it moves around quite a bit, even thought it is supposed to be a strong and stationary object.

Other: The end titles of episodes 2, 5, and 6 of "The Green Death" were run backwards and upside-down. According to some published accounts, this was due to the telecine operator forgetting to rewind the end title film sequence before playback.

Revealing: When Benton jumps over the maggots to get into the cave the Professor and Jo are hiding in, the jump causes the floor to move, giving away the fact that the floor is wood covered by a small amount of gravel.

Deliberate "mistake": When the Doctor and Benton are throwing fungus at the maggots in episode six, a shot of a chunk of fungus rolling down a hill between two maggots is repeated.

Revealing: At the end of episode five, when James collapses against the wall, it wobbles under his weight.

Other: Near the end of episode 5, Stevens is reading out previous numbers of slave units and B.O.S.S is telling him the new ones. For New York, the previous figure was 7203 and the new figure 7580. However, for Moscow the previous figure was 10003 (ten thousand and three), and the new figure is 110098 (one hundred and ten thousand and ninety-eight), which is a big difference.

Continuity: In episode five, the Doctor escapes from Global during the day. When Yates is caught it's dark, but the next scene, on the slag heap, is in daylight again.

Plot hole: Jo should know what the dematerialisation circuit looks like. She saw it in 'Terror of the Autons', 'The Three Doctors' and several other episodes.

Visible crew/equipment: In episode one, when Dai Evans is on the telephone in the mine, an arm of a crew member appears to the bottom right of the screen, giving the actor his cue to speak.

Factual error: When the inside of an Apple is exposed to the air for about fifteen minutes it oxidises and goes brown, but Jo's breakfast Apple goes brown by the end of the scene. (This is assuming she wasn't deliberately eating a brown apple.)

Audio problem: When Irongrond fires his first gun, the sound is heard before the gun actually fires.

Other: After Linx plants his flag in the ground claiming Earth, Irongrond and Bloodaxe look offscreen for no reason, as though the shot is finished.

Plot hole: How did UNIT soldiers manage to get the TARDIS through an ordinary door into the Doctor's dorm in the research centre? The Doctor's labs in the various UNIT HQs had either double doors or a removable partition wall. The research centre is supposed to be an ordinary country house with single doors and solid walls. The TARDIS is larger than the average wardrobe and, unlike most modern wardrobes, doesn't come apart so it can be got through doorways. The TARDIS is known to be a "Type 40 capsule"...but there's never been any mention of the TARDIS being an IKEA-style "flat pack self-assembly" time machine...

Revealing: The explosion of Irongrond's castle is obviously stock footage of a quarry explosion.

Factual error: How did potatoes come to appear in a 12th century kitchen? The potato was unknown in England until Sir Walter Raleigh brought them from back from the Americas on one of his voyages in the late 16th century, at least 400 years after the period in which this story is set.

Plot hole: How did Rubeish's glasses managed to improve his chronic shortsightedness when they are obviously plain lenses?

Revealing: At the beginning of episode two, the soldiers firing at the dinosaur are aiming up and well to the left of the creature.

Plot hole: The Tyrannosaurus Rex which appears in this story does not actually roar; instead it says the WORD 'roar' several times. There may be little scientific evidence as what sound a T.Rex makes, but it is unlikely that any of them spoke fluent English...

Continuity: In episode 2, when the Doctor and Brig arrive at the scene to stun the dinosaur, they leave the stun gun in the jeep. Mike Yates glances down at it and we can see that the sabotage disk is already attached - although he doesn't actually put it on until later.

Visible crew/equipment: In episode 4, when the Doctor is in the Whomobile, a dark cylindrical object passes in front of the camera in the foreground. It's not something of the Doctor's, as his hands are inside the vehicle.

Continuity: In episode 3, Sarah is hit on the head by debris knocked loose by the escaping dinosaur. It hits her on the back of her head or shoulders – but the later bruises and scratches are on her forehead.

Revealing: When Grover and Whitaker struggled over the time machine at the very end of episode six, the console wobbles and jerks as though it were very lightweight.

Revealing: In episode four, when the Doctor is being herded through the complex, the walls wobble very badly whenever the metal shutters slam down.

Revealing: In episode three, when the root attacks the Daleks in the mining area, the string holding the root up can be seen.

Revealing: During episode three, in the mining area, just before the city's root appears, the tracks on which the Daleks move can be seen.

Revealing: Eckersely - who supposedly knows the mines better than even the natives of Peladon - drags the queen through the same set twice - once each way.

Revealing: When the Doctor and Sarah arrives in episode one, they leave the doors of the TARDIS open and the empty inside of the TARDIS can be seen.

Continuity: When opening the door to the refinery, the Doctor leaves his sonic screwdriver on top of the panel. However, a few seconds later, when we next see the panel, the sonic screwdriver has disappeared.

Continuity: In episode three, Eckersley turns on the security monitor. The very first image is of the entrance to the refinery, but it does not show the Doctor and Gebek trying to break in. Eckersley then flips through the images and finds one of the refinery *with* the Doctor and Gebek breaking in.

Continuity: In episode six, the Doctor is using the Aggedor statue to fight the Ice Warriors. The door the refinery was partially destroyed by the Ice Warriors earlier. But in every shot of Aggedor appearing or re-appearing, the door can be seen intact at the edge of the shot.