Oooh RTD You FIBBER! (Something's Coming...)

[Lonemagpie]

I think a lot of the posters in the thread are confusing continuity and canon.

Continuity is what already happened when

Canon is what's officially part of the series, regardless of what happened in it and when.

It's easier with some other franchises - the word canon was originally used for the Sherlock Holmes stories: if Conan-Doyle wrote it, it canonically happened, whether it conflicts with continuity or not. If he didn't write it, it didn't canonically happen.

In Trek, you've had GR and assorted showrunners passing judgement on canon, which has changed: Currently the Animated Series isn't canonical. The Voyager novel Mosaic was the canonical background to Voyager when Jeri Taylor was running the show, and then was struck from the canon after she left.

With Dr Who, nobody from the BBC, none of the successive showrunners, and none of the show's creators have laid down the law on what constitutes canonicity. Ergo, it's left up to the individual audience member.

End of.

 

[Tomalak]

With Dr Who, nobody from the BBC, none of the successive showrunners, and none of the show's creators have laid down the law on what constitutes canonicity. Ergo, it's left up to the individual audience member.

End of.

Exactly. It just isn't relevant to Doctor Who.

 

[captcalhoun]

well, the Peter Cushing movies don't count and i think we can definitively rule out Dimensions in Time and Curse of the Fatal Death.

I think Scream of the Shalka can also be ruled out.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I think Scream of the Shalka can also be ruled out.

On what grounds?

 

[Shazam!]

I think Scream of the Shalka can also be ruled out.

On what grounds?

.

Scream of the Shalka is one of the only such spinoffs to have been explicitly declared non-canon by the BBC and the Doctor Who production team.

 

[captcalhoun]

...and the fact that it features a completely different ninth Doctor.

 

[Starkers]

You can't say there's no such thing as canon when the producer of the show admits to it.

Doctor Who does have an established canon....

At no point did I say there wasn't some internal continuity, merely that I find the discussion of such things tiresome. You've both done the typical Trek fan thing of overreacting when "canon" is brought onto the table, a la Trek XI forum.

Doctor Who writers throughout the life of the show have played fast and lose with continuity. Sometimes they referenced previous episodes, sometimes they totally ignored them. Usually any continuity was based on what the writer could remember.

Unlike Star Trek (and Star Wars, the fans of which are perhaps even more hardcore, given that they like to include as sacrosanct things that weren't even in the six films!), Doctor Who fans generally have more of a sense of humour about the whole thing. It's just a fun TV show, leave the analysis for Shakespeare or Tennyson.

But is that the Shakespeare that 10 met, or the one that 4 met?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Do we actually know that Eccleston is the Doctor after Paul McGann? We can infer that from "The Next Doctor," but we can't rule out the possibility that the Cult of Skaro Daleks simply hadn't encountered the Richard E. Grant Doctor before they were cast into the Void.

Of course, I'm a great fan of the scene in The Gallifrey Chronicles where the Castellan Marnal sees that the eighth Doctor has three different, mutually-exclusive ninth incarnations -- the Rowan Atkinson Doctor, the Ricard E. Grant Doctor, and the Christopher Eccleston Doctor. Parkin explains the latter two in Ahistory; Grant is the eighth Doctor's future if he doesn't become Grandfather Paradox, while Eccleston is the eighth Doctor's future if he does.

 

[The]

Scream of the Shalka is one of the only such spinoffs to have been explicitly declared non-canon by the BBC and the Doctor Who production team.

 

[OmahaStar]

well, the Peter Cushing movies don't count and i think we can definitively rule out Dimensions in Time

Nope. It's the only time The Brig and Six met on-screen. It stays.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Scream of the Shalka is one of the only such spinoffs to have been explicitly declared non-canon by the BBC and the Doctor Who production team.

I'd like to see some evidence of that- it's a Wikipedia quote, which isn't, on the wiki page, backed up with any cites or references.

 

[wamdue]

Scream of the Shalka is one of the only such spinoffs to have been explicitly declared non-canon by the BBC and the Doctor Who production team.

I'd like to see some evidence of that- it's a Wikipedia quote, which isn't, on the wiki page, backed up with any cites or references.

im sure there BBC did not put out a news article, its hardly news at 10 worthy, it probaly came out in one of the Doctor Who magazines, or RTD said it to someone on the street, and since its something RTDs said we can all now assume that SP3 is a multi Doctor story featuring the Scream of Shalka Doctor, which if I recall is an alt 9th Doctor, in an animated form.

 

[Sci]

Do we actually know that Eccleston is the Doctor after Paul McGann?

Actually, we do. In "School Reunion," the Doctor specifically tells Sarah Jane that he's regenerated half a dozen times since last she saw him in his Tom Baker incarnation (which is the time both cite, numerous times in "School Reunion," as the last time they met).

Well, from Baker to Davison, from Davison to Baker, from Baker to McCoy, from McCoy to McGann, from McGann to Eccleston, from Eccleston to Tennant. Six times -- half a dozen times.

ETA:

Of course, for all we know, the Shalka Doctor might be a regeneration from some unspecific period in the Doctor's future relative to his Tennant incarnation. Maybe the Shalka incarnation is actually the Doctor's 17th regeneration?

 

[The]

Of course, for all we know, the Shalka Doctor might be a regeneration from some unspecific period in the Doctor's future relative to his Tennant incarnation. Maybe the Shalka incarnation is actually the Doctor's 17th regeneration?

That's a very positive, win-win scenario...

 

[Bacl]

Do we actually know that Eccleston is the Doctor after Paul McGann?

Actually, we do. In "School Reunion," the Doctor specifically tells Sarah Jane that he's regenerated half a dozen times since last she saw him in his Tom Baker incarnation (which is the time both cite, numerous times in "School Reunion," as the last time they met).

Well, from Baker to Davison, from Davison to Baker, from Baker to McCoy, from McCoy to McGann, from McGann to Eccleston, from Eccleston to Tennant. Six times -- half a dozen times.

Also, in "The Next Doctor" we see all Doctors on the memory-disk-thingie in order, going from 1st to 2nd, etc. Eccleston comes right after Mcgann. All the others were in order, so it is pretty positive those two were as well.

 

[Sci]

Of course, for all we know, the Shalka Doctor might be a regeneration from some unspecific period in the Doctor's future relative to his Tennant incarnation. Maybe the Shalka incarnation is actually the Doctor's 17th regeneration?

That's a very positive, win-win scenario...

Thankee muchly!

Though I should probably add that I say that without having watched Scream of the Shalka all the way through.

 

[Saul]

You can't say there's no such thing as canon when the producer of the show admits to it.

Doctor Who does have an established canon....

At no point did I say there wasn't some internal continuity, merely that I find the discussion of such things tiresome. You've both done the typical Trek fan thing of overreacting when "canon" is brought onto the table, a la Trek XI forum.

How is writing a response to a debate overreacting? If you really read through the Trek XI forum or even the Enterprise Forum you'd know we are far from such comparison. If our discussion makes you tired you are welcome to ignore it and let us get on without the labeling.

 

[captcalhoun]

so, the info-stamp rules out both SotS and CotFD, while School Reunion rules out SotS, CofTD and DiT.

it also kinda cancels The Five Doctors doesn't it? or does Sarah-Jane not meet the Doctor?

 

[TemporalFlux]

I think we should look at this one sideways. As mentioned earlier, Doctor Who hasn't exactly been a strict canonical work; certainly there are a couple of exceptions, but is RTD really going to even know enough about those to give a crap? We have to think in terms of what would be enough to pop up on RTD's radar.

What if Doctor Who crossed over with an unexpected, unrelated series? That would suddenly make that series part of the Whoverse thus messing with the canon of both shows and both fandoms. For example, RTD already talked of his previous wish to do something like this with a "Star Trek: Enterprise" crossover...

 

[Sci]

so, the info-stamp rules out both SotS and CotFD,

Isn't it a given that Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death exists in its own continuity?