Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Robot of Sherwood

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Robot of Sherwood 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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• why does Robin Hood have a locket containing a photo of Marion if they didn’t exist in 1190AD and neither did photographs?
• What keeps Claras head gear attached to her forehead? It defies gravity!
• How does Clara know what type of life the Doctor was born into? According to her, she has been there since he started running, which means either since he took the TARDIS or (according to the 10th Doctor) since he looked into the Time Vortex.

It is highly likely that the Doctor simply told her at some point, although in a Doylist sense, that line could have just been a soft metaphor for the Doctor being born a Time Lord who later saw and sympathized with the plight of lesser races. It doesn't have to be strictly literal, but if it is then it isn't much to assume that the Doctor just told her.

Don't forget that she saw, and was inside, the doctor's timestream so it's likely she saw the whole of his life, including what sort of upbringing he had, while in his timestream.

• How does firing the golden arrow at the side of the robot's ship mean the the engine then has enough gold leave the atmosphere?

It's possible that even the proximity of gold would give some power to the engines, albeit not as much as if it had been applied like most of the gold.

• Why would robots need slaves? Aren't they essentially an expendable workforce?

They don't necessarily view themselves as such. They are also on a quest to fulfill their mission of reaching "the promised land".

• I see noone else has asked, so I feel as though I may have missed something, but how does the doctor use his screwdriver to blow up the archery target? First, the screwdriver does not "do wood." While the target is not entirely wood, I should say wood makes up a goodly part of it, combined with paper and straw. And unless I haven't been paying enough attention, the screwdriver has never been effective against those materials either. Second, even assuming that the screwdriver could be used as a heat source or spark in some fashion to cause a fire, it certainly wouldn't make it explode.

The Doctor used special arrows with homing device. He exploded homing device, not archery target itself.

• How and when did the Doctor fit the homing device onto the target? The arrows had to home in on something!
• Where does the peasant get the key to unlock the Doctors chains?
• Why did the Robot/Sheriff blow open the door to the ship? - it wasn't locked.
• Where did all the prisoners get the large plates?

• Really? I'm all for flights of fancy and suspension of disbelief, but to declare with utter certainty that the gallons and gallons of molten gold is "not enough gold" and it will "never going to make it"to orbit," and then turn around and believe the 10 ounces or so in the shape of an arrow could be enough to push it over the edge just defies all logic and sense. All all this is setting aside the arrow-dynamics (ha!) of such a weighty projectile, and the fact that even assuming it reached the ship, it would be able to land in such a way, and provide any actual benefit in its unprocessed form, is akin to throwing a bucket of raw crude at a moving car from 50 feet away, somehow getting it inside the gas tank, and then hoping that it somehow converts or gets processed into usable gasoline.

While I admit it is a stretch, it's also unreasonable to think that folks from the 12th (or 21st) century would understand operation of technology from the 29th century enough to really comment on it. The panel they aimed for and hit may well have been able to rapidly assimilate the gold into the panel.

• Was the Doctor, Robin Hood at some point in his past?