Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Underworld

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Underworld doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

Remember, this is a forum, so civil discussion is encouraged. However, please do not sign your posts. Also, keep all posts about the same continuity error under the same bullet point. You can add a new point by typing:

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• The climax to episode one relies on some very odd ideas about the laws of gravity. Particles of rock would not typically be attracted so rapidly to the hull of such a small spaceship, unless some additional force(s) were at work.

Like the electromagnetic force? Maybe the ship uses some kind of ion drive or other mechanism which leaves its hull strongly positively charged (with the charge proportionate to its mass). And maybe whatever a 'spiral nebula' is supposed to be might negatively charge the rocks. In which case, the whole thing would just barely make sense.

We also really do not know what other forces are in play within the spiral nebula, nor the relative density and mass of the ship and the rocks.

• How does firing the ships laser canons (presumably in a fixed direction) shift the rock from the whole of the hull?

They never say that they're firing in a fixed direction—and the fact that they're beginning to burn through the hull implies that it's not a fixed direction, they're pointing them inward to target them at the ship.

On the other hand, if the problem is electromagnetic in the first place, a laser might be a good way to solve it. Blast a bunch of rocks and dust into plasma and they'll attract the other rocks more strongly than the ship does.

• Herrick is shot several times by laser beams, yet not only survives but after he is rescued from the Oracle's lair, appears to be in perfect health, as opposed to all of the guards who appear to die instantly from single shots from similar weapons.

Being recently-regenerated gives Time Lords extra strength and endurance, it certainly could do the same for Minyans.

Since the Minyan weapons are most likely derived from Time Lord technology (the Doctor even identifies the make) they may, like the Chancellery staser weapons, have the ability to stun their targets, should interrogation be in order.

• What exactly is a 'spiral nebula' supposed to be? In the real world, it's an obsolete term for 'galaxy', before we figured out that they were galaxies in the early 1920s. Flying into a galaxy isn't going to cause much of a problem, considering that the edge of a galaxy is far less dense than the space within our solar system.

This is obviously intended to be something different. Whatever it is they are caling a spiral nebula, it's presumably some kind of phenomena in space that we have never encountered.

• At the end of the story, the Doctor just leaves the Minyans with a whole ship full of people, rather than transporting them to their new planet in the TARDIS.

The Doctor's not a universal taxi service. The Minyan ship is fully functioning and they already have a new home chosen (Jackson at one point orders them to set a course for Minyos II), so its likely they would prefer to travel their with their own ship (which is filled with all the materials they need to set up the colony) even if it would take longer.