Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Vengeance on Varos

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

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• The cuffs lock around the Governor's wrists at different moments in the first two votes that we see.

It could be that there is some hidden button or pedal that allows the Governor to signal when he is "ready" for the vote. He may have signalled at different points in time during the voting process.

• The Doctor rigs up the laser beam in episode one, intending to kill the guards.

He assumed any approaching guards would see it and stop. In any case, earlier Doctors tend not to be strict pacifists, when suitably dire circumstances prevail. The Third Doctor disintegrates an Ogron in Day of the Daleks, and the First Doctor pushes an Aridian into the tentacles of a Mire Beast in The Chase to facilitate his companions' escape (to name just two incidents of Doctor-related homicide).

• How can the TARDIS so suddenly run out of something so vital as Zeiton-7?

Easily. A car can run-out of petrol can't it? It's just a question of the Doctor ignoring or not noticing the warning signs, which is hardly out of the ordinary for him.

Remember, he does actually run out of mercury in The Wheel in Space, after earlier pretending to do so in The Daleks.

• Why are the cannibals wearing nappies?

Possibly some unfortunate guard has the task of making sure they are "decent" before the cameras roll. Varos TV may tolerate any manner of marketable obscenity, but the naughty bits of drooling deranged maniacs do not necessarily inhabit that category...

• Both the desert and the water are illusions, but the desert parches whereas the water doesn't quench.

What water? The only water in the illusion is in the glass Peri is holding, and he never gets near that. Besides the 'parching' of the desert is probably aided by actually heating the corridor he's in.

• The spaces between the planks/bars in some of the doors of the punishment dome are big enough to squeeze through.

• Why would the GMC invasion force from Sil's home planet turn-back at the end of the story just because they've discovered an alternative source of Zeiton-7? Since they are already on their way to take control of the planet, why not simply go ahead and then they wouldn't have to agree to pay whatever the Varosians wanted for it? The discovery should spur them on, not draw them off!

The resolution is vague, but the announcement that new reserves of Zeiton-7 have been discovered does not specify who has discovered them. If they have been discovered by a business rival of Galatron or an enemy of the Mentors, then securing the Varosian supply as quickly as possible, without over-taxing their military forces, might be the most expedient option.