Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Shakespeare Code


 * The Doctor acts like he has never met Shakespeare before yet he has met him several times before (see The Shakespeare Code).


 * Love Labour's Won in the real world was finished before 1599 when in this story it is finished in 1599. The Whoniverse timeline does not always coincide exactly with that of the real world.
 * There is debate on whether the play even existed in the real world, let alone when it was finished.


 * EDA: The Gallifrey Chronicles suggests that (in the Whoniverse) there were 11 Harry Potter novels, not seven. (At no point does the episode actually identify the seventh book as the final novel (nor is its title mentioned); in the real world, JK Rowling has not dismissed the possibility of writing more novels in the future.)


 * This episode calls into question the long held fan belief that Time Lords only grow a second heart during their first regeneration, as when Lilith stops one of his hearts the Doctor wonders how humans are able to function with just one. Assuming that the roumor is true, it would have been a long time (about 400 "years") since the Doctor last had only one heart. Also, William Hartnell's serials went a lot slower than those of today, never really speeding up the heartbeat, whereas the tenth Doctor's remark was spoken in rather more critical circumstances.


 * When Lynley drowns, the Doctor claims he has never seen a death like it. However, he saw an almost identical death in The Mind of Evil.In that story Keller died in the deluded belief he was drowning. Whereas Lilith dies of actual internal drowning.