Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Robot

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This page is for discussing the ways in which Robot 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:

* This is point one.
::This is a counter-argument to point one.
:::This is a counter-argument to the counter-argument above
* This is point two.
::Explanation of point two.
::Further discussion and query of point two.

... and so on. 

• K1's legs keep vanishing.

Perception as the living metal changes size.

• The SRS goes to great lengths to get the disintegrater gun, and then all they use it for is to blow open a safe door. Couldn't they have found an easier way into the safe?

It is implied that high explosives would be the only other thing capable of opening the safe, and would carry the risk of destroying its contents. Presumably the disintegrater gun can be controlled well enough to only destroy the door. It also makes a nice weapon for them to have for later, should they need it.

• Miss Winters' feminist views (her comments to Sarah in episode one) don't accord with SRS views on women.

In what way? All the SRS man at the meeting hall says to Sarah-Jane is that she should not be allowed to wear trousers. This could well be a private view and may not explicitly be about women. Secondly, all Miss Winters says in episode one is that she wouldn't expect Sarah Jane to make a stereotypical assumption about who was running the think-tank, not what her own views are on feminism. Besides, Miss Winters herself is never seen wearing trousers and does not call herself 'Ms Winters'.

• Kettlewell changes from a good boffin to the villain of the piece and back again, in a most unconvincing way just as Jellicoe can't decide if he's a squeamish villain or a maniac.

Kettlewell's motivations are explained - he is initially pretending to be unaware of ThinkTank's activities so that UNIT will trust him. For all his issues with human society however, Kettlewell isn't willing to see it totally destroyed, hence why he starts helping UNIT again later in the story. Jellicoe seems to be consistent throughout.

• The robot's motives change from scene to scene and show contradictory programming regarding obeying orders and striving for self preservation.

That is part of the inner conflict that the story is about.

• The Doctor chops a brick in half, but it's clearly a block of balsa wood. Listen for the noise when it hits the ground. What is a brick doing there in the lab anyway.

There are any number of possible reasons why the brick may be there. Since this is the Doctor's lab after all, the substance it is made of could be anything. What sound it should make is indeterminate.

• The height of the robot is inconsistent after it grows to a huge size.

An effect of the living metal.

• Why does all the robot's non-metallic circuit components (e.g. plastic wire coatings, transistors, resisters, diodes, eye lenses, flashing bulbs, etc) also grow with the robot when he is hit with the disintergrator gun?

It's never indicated what they are made of, but they obviously are somehow connected with the living metal.

• The plot contradicts itself when it is revealed that the SRS's plan of using the nuclear codes to blackmail the world can be cancelled with a simple fail-safe.

The 'simple' fail-safe would never have come into play had the plan gone accordingly.

• The lynchpin of the plot makes no sense whatsoever. In an effort to defuse international tension, the superpowers would allow Britain (which was neutral in the Cold War) to publish the codes that would allow anyone in the world to launch their nuclear missiles?

The threat of which would deter them from launching in the first place. It makes about as much sense as the Cold War did itself.

• The elite UNIT soldiers not only let a slow-moving 3-metre tall silver robot escape from them, at various points during the firefight, they are shooting at each other.

Shooting at each other is just a camera angle thing, and the top speed of the robot is unknown.

• The note the Doctor leaves on the TARDIS is very short when he posts it but much longer when Sarah reads it.

Writing it in short-hand (or any number of alien languages which Sarah would understand thanks to the TARDIS) would have produced such an effect.

• It is highly unlikely that the UK would be regarded as a 'neutral' country by Russia or China.

Most of Russia and China's quarrels are with the United States and in the Whoniverse the UK may have decided to have little to no presence in the Cold War.

Further to the above, this plot point could indeed be seen as a continuation of themes in the Pertwee era: the international tensions and peace conferences that formed the background to "The Mind of Evil" and "Day of the Daleks", in which Britain (thanks in part to the Doctor's success in charming the Chinese ambassador, not to mention in saving an entire delegation from being blown up by Daleks / anti-Dalek guerillas) assumed the role of a trusted arbitrator between the superpowers.