Eighth Doctor Continuinty

[NightJim]

Yeah, sorry Andrew. Big Finish was always something I'd had interest in, dating back to before New Who when I only had a passing interest in Who, but I never knew where to start. Your site basically solved that. Not sure where I'd have started otherwise.

The way I look at it is that the Doctor is a complex space-time event, and his timeline intersects with multiple realities at once. So at different times, different parts of his past and future are visible from the observers' point of view. Sometimes the Doctor remembers things, and other times he doesn't, for that very reason. I really do think that all those events have happened to the Doctor, but at any one point in his timeline, only some of them might be relevant and remembered.

Ahhh, see my take is that the events we see/hear are what happened to the Doctor, but that might not necessarily have happened in time any more. The reason why things appear different (such as the 21st century we see today versus the one they suggested with Troughton) is that he's rewriting history. So that would have been the 21st Century with no outside interference, but thanks to various meddling time got shifted. Previous stories don't have to match with current stories, but for the Doctor they all happened.

The DWM comics in the 90s, for instance, made an effort to tie in with the Virgin novels - then there was a change of editor and they didn't. As has been stated, Zagreus tries to split everything into separate realities - but other audios reference novels and comic strips, and later novels reference the audios. It all depends on the moment. (In the real world, it depends on the prejudices/preferences of the author or producer - within the fiction, it depends on the way the universe has unfolded around the Doctor at that moment.)

So Zagreus tries to cock it up, while others try and repair it. Got it. Yay for expanded universes and the real world politics of them

 

[Ithekro]

So Zagreus tries to cock it up, while others try and repair it. Got it. Yay for expanded universes and the real world politics of them

Welcome to the Time War. Please enjoy your...Welcome to the Time War....

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Really?

Becuase that felt like a bridge more than propping up walls.

Yeah, but its more like a fan-pleaser than an actual effort to build a genuine continuity between them. Like said, it really requires a genuine effort on yourself, and if you're not invested in the other media, you just might not want to be concerned with them.

And personally, I'm only concerned with BF, and was before Night of the Doctor made the "canonization" explicit, mainly because these stories work so well within themselves and also sit well with the TV canon, that I don't feel deprived to go further.

Unlike, say, the Ninth Doctor.

 

[Tom]

Well 'Night of the Doctor' is canon and the companions he mentions in it are now also official.

 

[DrFrankhamstien]

Well 'Night of the Doctor' is canon and the companions he mentions in it are now also official.

But that doesn't necessarily mean the adventures released are, just that he travelled with these characters on undisclosed (on TV) adventures.

 

[OmahaStar]

Well 'Night of the Doctor' is canon and the companions he mentions in it are now also official.

There is no such thing as "canon" Doctor Who. Continuity, sure. Canon? Nope.

 

[DrFrankhamstien]

Well 'Night of the Doctor' is canon and the companions he mentions in it are now also official.

There is no such thing as "canon" Doctor Who. Continuity, sure. Canon? Nope.

Canon and continuity are not the same things. Canon is the official body of fiction - the television series. Continuity is that which links the stories together. (Of course there is also personal canon, too, which is whatever you consider the official body of fiction.)

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

There is no "personal canon". Canon is not decided by the fans.

Fan continuity, or fanon, is another matter. Everyone has their own fanon, obviously.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Canon and continuity are not the same things. Canon is the official body of fiction - the television series.

As far as I know, the BBC has never defined the Doctor Who canon in that way.

 

[Iamnotspock]

(Of course there is also personal canon, too,

Which is an oxymoron.

which is whatever you consider the official body of fiction.)

Which is a contradiction.

Personal Continuity, on the other hand...

 

[OmahaStar]

Well 'Night of the Doctor' is canon and the companions he mentions in it are now also official.

There is no such thing as "canon" Doctor Who. Continuity, sure. Canon? Nope.

Canon and continuity are not the same things. Canon is the official body of fiction - the television series. Continuity is that which links the stories together. (Of course there is also personal canon, too, which is whatever you consider the official body of fiction.)

I think you might be confusing Doctor Who with Star Trek. Paramount made a big deal about what is and what is not canon in Star Trek. Lucas followed suit with Star Wars. The BBC and Doctor Who's producers have never done this.

In a series about someone who changes timelines on a whim, there wouldn't really be much point in "canon" anyway.

 

[Lance]

Canon and continuity are not the same things. Canon is the official body of fiction - the television series. Continuity is that which links the stories together. (Of course there is also personal canon, too, which is whatever you consider the official body of fiction.)

I think you might be confusing Doctor Who with Star Trek. Paramount made a big deal about what is and what is not canon in Star Trek. Lucas followed suit with Star Wars. The BBC and Doctor Who's producers have never done this.

In a series about someone who changes timelines on a whim, there wouldn't really be much point in "canon" anyway.

Absolutely right. In 50 years, there has never been a definitive list of 'canon' adventures for Doctor Who handed down by anyone in a position of authority. All those reference books and such were determined (and usually written) by the fanbase, but not a single BBC source has ever tried to stamp their authority on Doctor Who with this list of things which "are" and "are not" canon. And thank God for that.

 

[DrFrankhamstien]

All those reference books and such were determined (and usually written) by the fanbase

Such a claim can made in relation to all of Who since 2005. It too is made by the 'fanbase'.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Here's Steven Moffat on the subject:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-dr-who-moffat-20141224-column.html

Does canonicity matter to you?
Well, yes, provided you're prepared to embrace that some of these adventures happen twice and there are massive contradictions. But why shouldn't there be? As I once said, you can't really have continuity errors in a show that embraces the idea of changing history and parallel histories; you can enjoy all of "Doctor Who" if you want. And I kind of think you should. I think everything's canonical. Why not just say it all happened? Some of it happened twice. Sometimes he was human, sometimes he was a Time Lord. Who cares? You're allowed. Everything is equally fictional; it's a kind of nonsense to say otherwise.

 

[DrFrankhamstien]

Does canonicity matter to you?
Well, yes, provided you're prepared to embrace that some of these adventures happen twice and there are massive contradictions. But why shouldn't there be? As I once said, you can't really have continuity errors in a show that embraces the idea of changing history and parallel histories; you can enjoy all of "Doctor Who" if you want. And I kind of think you should. I think everything's canonical. Why not just say it all happened? Some of it happened twice. Sometimes he was human, sometimes he was a Time Lord. Who cares? You're allowed. Everything is equally fictional; it's a kind of nonsense to say otherwise.

That's certainly one fan opinion, yes.

 

[Lance]

Yeah, that's my point. Even the show-runners are just fans, and they ain't bothered by 'canon'.

This whole idea of there being a sacrosanct "parent text" is a purview of many fandoms. But Doctor Who fans aren't one of them.

Doctor Who's one-time script editor back in the seventies, Terrance Dicks, once commented that his definition of continuity was "Whatever the public could be reasonably expected to remember without the help of repeats". As early as 1974's "Genesis of the Daleks" certain facts about established television adventures were absorbing events that only happened in spin-off productions not even made by the BBC themselves. There *is* no Doctor Who canon, it's all fluid.

 

[DrFrankhamstien]

Personally I agree. I'm just playing devil's advocate.

In my books the TV is the primary source of 'canon', and everything is a spin off from that, which may or may not be in the timeline. Mostly not.

 

[Lance]

Personally I agree. I'm just playing devil's advocate.

I *can* understand why people look for a 'primary source'. It's that whole thing about human beings needing to try and make sense out of chaos.

It's just that, unlike other franchises such as Star Trek or Star Wars, Doctor Who has never really established such a thing from any official level.

(I suppose Buffy is kind of the same as well. Joss Weedon never really tried to impose a 'canon' on his works, although most of the fandom has got their own very clear ideas of what is and is not official. But yeah, technically I guess everything in the Buffy-verse is up for grabs too. Certainly Weedon himself seems to endorse the after-show comic books as genuine continuations of the franchise. )

Where Doctor Who really differed is, like I said above, sometimes elements of spin-off media began to leak into the main programme through a sort of collective audience osmosis. The in-universe version of the events seen in "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth" (1964) had, by the retelling of those events by the Doctor in 1974's "Genesis of the Daleks", come to incoporate plot elements only ever seen in the spin-off movie "Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD" (which wasn't even made by the BBC). So yeah.

As fans, we might look at the above as a bit of a mess, and try to come up with an accepted 'common ground' from which we can all agree what does and does not constitute the official chronology of the show. But I think it's counter-productive, in a show like Doctor Who. A bit like investigating the science behind the TARDIS. Looking at the technology of Star Trek is neat, but trying to do the same with theoretical concepts like the Eye Of Harmony is IMHO missing the point: the TARDIS is a magic door, the Doctor is a wizard, and anything you think you know about 'canon' is fluid. And that's exactly how it should be.

 

[Ithekro]

If it came up the Doctor would probably say something like, "canon isn't the boss of me". He sometimes remembers, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he's lying about both. He is the Doctor. He travels around in a blue box through all time and space. He's been from the beginning to the ending. He has rules...when he remembers them.

 

[NightJim]

Resurrecting an old thread. Not sure if it's the done thing, but it's a pretty easy question that I figured was better to resurrect then start a new one that would be dead within three or four posts.

Anyway. Recently read the 6th Doctor book Players, and intend to read the 2nd Doctor 'sequel' World Game, but then I noticed there's also Endgame with the 8th Doctor, right in the middle of the BBC Books, a series that right now I have no real intention of going towards. Anyone know how standalone Endgame is? Can I read it without the rest of the run and enjoy it and not get massively confused by hearts and missing Gallifreys?