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| ==Prop delete==
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| This doesn't deserve a page of its own, because the topic does not admit itself of concise definition. I vaguely know what the page is ''trying'' for, but the examples given aren't all of the same type. For instance, what's going in in ''The War Machines'' is different from the quick pre-credit "stinger" Jackie gives before ''The Christmas Invasion'' starts. WOTAN's "Doctor Who" was in deadly earnest (and a production error, by the admission of the director). Meanwhile, Jackie's bit was, we're told by RTD in a commentary, a bit of a lighthearted Christmas pun.
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| But therein lies the rub.
| | == Restoration and clean up == |
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| How do you actually '''define''' the difference between a perfectly ordinary question and a "joke"? In ''Black Orchid'', it's completely reasonable for Madge to ask "Doctor who?" when she's being formally introduced to the Doctor. That's not a "joke" or a "gag" or anything more than the perfectly obvious thing to do in that social situation. A similar thing happens in ''The Gunfighters''. Bat misunderstands the Doctor and so asks, "Doctor who". That the Doctor then sort of agrees to that name isn't an indication that he's being called "Doctor Who", but rather that he's just attempting to speed away from the issue of being assigned a name.
| | So now that the page has been restored via community discussion, it's obvious that the page has numerous issues which should be fixed but were not relevant to the discussion of restoration. |
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| In order to register most of these instances as "jokes", you almost have to go to a behind the scenes source who tells you, "Yes, that was a deliberate play on the name of the show." Even the "eggiest" of them — probably a tie between Jackie's TCI one, the Brig's replacement in ''The Five Doctors'', and the one in "A Girl's Best Friend" — ''can'' be read as perfectly reasonable questions. It's only because we know the behind the scenes info on how those lines came to be inserted that we don't hear them as ordinary bits of conversation.
| | There's a few obvious issues to me. The first is that, for some reason, the page is written in the grammatically incorrect "past tense, out of universe." In other words, it discusses media which can still be experienced but in the past tense, like it's in-universe events in the past. So instead of "The Doctor smoked a pipe (TV: ''An Unearthly Child'')" or "In ''An Unearthly Child'', the Doctor smokes a pipe" it's "In ''An Unearthly Child'', the Doctor smoked a pipe." |
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| I also think that by including a definite article in this page's title, we're implying something that simply isn't true. There is no '''single''', running joke involving the question "Doctor Who?" To the extent that the words "Doctor" and "Who" ever occupy consecutive spaces in dialogue — which is far too infrequently to be considered "running" — they aren't ever used in quite the same way. Jackie's already well familiar with the Doctor before she says "Doctor Who"; The first Doctor's obviously musing so as to solve the "mystery" of the name "Dr. Foreman", Bat Masterson hasn't heard the name "Caligari", etc. There is therefore no single, running joke. | | So I figure the first thing is correcting this. Some might want in-universe past-tense prose, personally I think we have to go oou, current tense. This would not apply to stage plays, historical events, and lost media (''Worlds in Time'', etc). |
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| '''This page should therefore be deleted''', its observations relegated to the pages of the individual serials/episodes from which they're drawn. '''[[User:CzechOut|<span style="background:blue;color:white">Czech</span><span style="background:red;color:white">Out</span>]]''' [[User talk:CzechOut|☎]] | [[Special:Contributions/CzechOut|<font size="+1">✍</font>]] 17:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
| | Next comes the issue of content. The big issue with this page is that it's always covered two main topics: |
| ::Is this debate still open? Are waiting for more people to give their opinons? Should it be closed by an admin? '''[[User:CzechOut|<span style="background:blue;color:white">Czech</span><span style="background:red;color:white">Out</span>]]''' [[User talk:CzechOut|☎]] | [[Special:Contributions/CzechOut|<font size="+1">✍</font>]] 18:10, February 5, 2010 (UTC)
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| ===Support deletion===
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| *'''[[User:CzechOut|<span style="background:blue;color:white">Czech</span><span style="background:red;color:white">Out</span>]]''' [[User talk:CzechOut|☎]] | [[Special:Contributions/CzechOut|<font size="+1">✍</font>]] 17:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC), per above.
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| *Agree. This information is already in part discussed in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' article and anything else can be incorporated into it prior to this page's deletion. --[[User:Tangerineduel|Tangerineduel]] 06:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
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| ===Oppose deletion===
| | # Every time someone asks "Doctor who?" in the franchise's history |
| --Catkind121 19:53, 5 May 2009 (UTC) (Why it gives information ion this re ocurrence)
| | # Every humorous reference to "Who" made in the franchise's history. |
| :It deserves it's own page as it's the longest running joke in the show's history. --[[User:AKR619|AKR619]] 00:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
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| ::It's so nice to have a list of whenever this occurence happens--[[Special:Contributions/210.49.251.226|210.49.251.226]] 11:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
| | We now need to decide if we're A) going to keep everything as it is, B) going to split these into their own subsections on the page, or C) delete every example of #2 and only keep the #1 stuff. |
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| :::Several of the instances of the joke listed here really don't seem to actually be examples of this. For example, if people just say "Who is the Doctor," or "Doctor, what was it?" then it really isn't an exammpple of this. If nobody objects, I am going to remove everything where nobody actually says "Doctor who?" The title of the page may also have to be changed, as with the ending of ''The Wedding of River Song'', it doesn't seem to be a joke anymore.[[User:Icecreamdif|Icecreamdif]] <sup>[[User talk:Icecreamdif|talk to me]]</sup> 22:43, October 2, 2011 (UTC)
| | I personally think covering both of these is fun, but obviously topic #2 is harder to "prove" to be purposeful, as much as Tom Baker's "Who nose" line reading is one of my favorite easter eggs in the series. So perhaps moving these references to an "ambiguous" section or even subpage would be a better idea. |
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| ::::I don't think it should be deleted. We are an encyclopaedia about Doctor Who and the Doctor Who 'running joke' is basically the foundation of the the entire show. This page is documenting one of the biggest questions in the show's history and fundamental to the readers/viewers/fans understanding of the Doctor. Also, given that as of the events of ''[[The Wedding of River Song (TV story)|The Wedding of River Song]]'', the Doctor Who 'running joke' is actually something that is not just a joke, but is actually something part of the Doctor Who Universe, which we should be documenting. On a side note, it should not be really called "The Doctor Who running joke" since it has been established that it is not actually a 'joke' any more, but something more concrete within the Doctor Who Universe. [[User:Mini-mitch|MM]]/<small>[[User talk:Mini-mitch|Want to talk?]]</small> 17:43, February 19, 2012 (UTC)
| | I also think there are a few topics here which are so obviously not real that they could be removed. I'd also like a much more rigorously cited OOU section, and maybe even a Behind the scenes section. What does everyone think? [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 22:06, 25 April 2023 (UTC) |
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| *Whether the content deserves a page of its own is something that can be debated. But deleting it, is not the solution. If the conclusion is that it is not something that deserves its own page, the included information needs to be merged somewhere and the page title redirected (so attributions for all the content remains connected). - [[Special:Contributions/87.211.75.45|87.211.75.45]]<sup>[[User talk:87.211.75.45#top|talk to me]]</sup> 15:26, July 24, 2013 (UTC)
| | : OH! Also, we currently have seven years of media which the page missed out on documenting. If anything is a priority as per being added, I'd think it would be Missy's rant in series 10. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 22:08, 25 April 2023 (UTC) |
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| == Merge with The Question? ==
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| Given that the "Doctor Who?" question is now something with in-universe significance, shouldn't this be merged into [[The Question]]? (I would remove the ones that aren't literally "Doctor who?", though). [[Special:Contributions/94.75.90.48|94.75.90.48]]<sup>[[User talk:94.75.90.48#top|talk to me]]</sup> 00:22, February 19, 2012 (UTC)
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| :It's generally forbidden to just remove a maintenance tag without discussion, but in this case, the motion is flawed from the outset. We simply '''can't''' merge an out-of-universe and an in-universe article, on principle. The Question and the running joke are two separate things. They might be related, but they're ne'er to be joined. See [[Forum:The Question]] for more. {{user:CzechOut/Sig}}{{User:CzechOut/TimeFormat}}17:09: Sun 19 Feb 2012 </span>
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| ::This article should mention its connection to The Question - I suspect "The Girl in the Fireplace" comment belongs there not here. -- [[User:Beardouk|Beardouk]] <sup>[[User talk:Beardouk|talk to me]]</sup> 23:26, July 14, 2012 (UTC)
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| == What About Cushing? ==
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| Should this article mention the Peter Cushing movies, in which the human inventor of the ''Tardis'' is actually named "Dr. Who?"
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| == Clean-up ==
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| This article is better than it used to be, but it still needs to be cleaned up. We need to get rid of examples that really have nothing to do with the article. For example, the following quotation:
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| :In ''[[Flesh and Stone]]'', the first joke is between The Doctor and [[River Song]] as they're standing on the beach. The Doctor asks River about the identity of the man she was sent to [[Stormcage]] for killing and he asks, "Who?" It turns out she was actually sent to prison for killing The Doctor. The second joke is when [[Amy Pond|Amy]] wants to have a one night stand with The Doctor, so as they're sitting on her bed she tells him, "I was alone in the dark and I nearly died. It made me think...about what I want. About ''who'' I want."
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| Aside from the fact that it's poorly written, it seems to me that neither example is truly an example of the running joke. I have gained opposition from [[user:75.141.226.87|75.141.226.87]] who claimed that
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| {{Quote|Both times "who" is in reference to The Doctor. The first is a joke because The Doctor is answering his own question, the second is blatantly about him and funny because The Doctor doesn't realize this.|75.141.226.87}}
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| Because of this opposition, I've decided to ask the public. Anyone else have a counter-argument (or an argument '''for''' my case)? [[User:SmallerOnTheOutside|SmallerOnTheOutside]] [[User talk:SmallerOnTheOutside|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 05:02, December 29, 2012 (UTC)
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| :Please, someone comment on this. I find this article to be really inconsistent on what it includes. It needs a major clean-up, but, first, we need to discuss what should and what shouldn't be included on this page. [[User:SmallerOnTheOutside|SmallerOnTheOutside]] [[User talk:SmallerOnTheOutside|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 19:15, January 31, 2013 (UTC)
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| :: I think this article should cover not only the ideal of "the Question", but also the question itslef; "Doctor Who?" The main page should dictate the in-universe mentions of the question (Whether it was a joke or not) and the behind-the-scenes section should explain how it started, how people reacted, when it stopped and started off and on; such and such. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]] ([[User Talk:OttselSpy25|talk to me, baby.]]) 20:26, January 31, 2013 (UTC)
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| :::Yes. Agreed. But if you'll look at the example I gave above (which I deleted from the page 'bout an hour ago) in my post from a month ago, you'll see that a lot of the so-called references to this joke, especially in the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor sections, were included only because they had the word "who" in it that's in reference to the Doctor. Things like '''Character 1:''' ''"The Doctor"''; '''Character 2:''' ''"Who?"'', I'll accept but things like '''Amy:''' ''"About what I want... About ''who'' I want..."'' has nothing to do with the running joke, in my opinion. What is your opinion of things like that? [[User:SmallerOnTheOutside|SmallerOnTheOutside]] [[User talk:SmallerOnTheOutside|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 20:54, January 31, 2013 (UTC)
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| :::: Well, I could see how it's mot part of the main running gag, but it's definitely a pun on the title itself. I would put those instances in behind-the-scenes.
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| :::: Just to be clear on what I said that I'm in the opinion that this page and [[The Question]] should be merged. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]] ([[User Talk:OttselSpy25|talk to me, baby.]]) 22:24, January 31, 2013 (UTC)
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| :::::I think that it makes sense for [[the Question]] to be about the in-universe subject about which the Silence have religious beliefs, and for this page to be about the out-of-universe ways in which the TV programme ''Doctor Who'' has played in dialogue with the ambiguity of its title and the name of its protagonist. I don't think that every incidence of the question "Doctor who?" is necessarily related to this cosmological "first question" which must never be answered.
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| :::::As for things like Amy saying "...'''who''' I want", that seems to me to fall into the category of the programme (or its scriptwriters) playing with the "is his name Who?" question, which would fall under the purview of this page. In that scene, Amy is saying "I want Who", meaning the Doctor. It's not just a relative pronoun. —[[User:Josiah Rowe|Josiah Rowe]] [[User talk:Josiah Rowe|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 23:27, January 31, 2013 (UTC)
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| : What I'm saying is that "The Question" is ''Doctor Who?''. We can move out-of-universe info off into the "Behind-the-scenes" section, there's no real reason to have two pages on the exact same thing, even if one is in-universe and one isn't. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]] ([[User Talk:OttselSpy25|talk to me, baby.]]) 23:50, January 31, 2013 (UTC)
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| :: I hear that, but I disagree with the implication that every usage of "Doctor who?" is an example of "the Question". "The Question" is an idea with specific meaning in the religious beliefs of the Silence. It seems to be a bit like the name and understanding of God. An encyclopedia can have an article on [[wikipedia:God|the concept of God]] and also have articles on [[wikipedia:Special:PrefixIndex/God_in|God as understood in different religions]]. It's not necessarily the same thing. —[[User:Josiah Rowe|Josiah Rowe]] [[User talk:Josiah Rowe|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 03:14, February 1, 2013 (UTC)
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| ==Torchwood==
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| I've only seen the 3rd and 4th season of this, I recall Jack Harkness making vague references pertaining to the Doctor (I think he maybe even said 'doctor' somewhere, not sure) but I don't recall if the joke came up.
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| Does anyone know if it did? Maybe in the 1st or 2nd series? [[User talk:Tycio|+]]Y[[Special:Contributions/Tycio|c]] 00:15, April 15, 2013 (UTC)
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| ==Prop delete redux May 2013==
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| Returning again to the proposed deletion added by CzechOut on 21 May 2013.
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| I still think the page should be deleted and information incorporated into the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' article.
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| Yes, the page has improved, but it's still essentially a set of bullet points. In the [[Doctor Who#"Doctor Who?]] section of the article the information is presented in a much more encyclopaedic format than on this page.
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| I think the information on this page (such as the additional info from DVD commentaries/infotext) be added to the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' page. | |
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| Deleting this page would allow us to have better coverage of this topic within the context of ''Doctor Who'' as a whole on the main page of the subject rather than tucked away here as a series of bullet points. --[[User:Tangerineduel|Tangerineduel]] / '''[[User talk:Tangerineduel|talk]]''' 14:51, June 3, 2013 (UTC)
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| Are this very hard to understand? The joke is not the question itself, but the fact that this question is asked by almost all companions in all incarnations in the least apropriate moment. No need for deleting this page.{{Unsigned-anon|201.75.104.164}}
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| :Could you clarify your statement?
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| :From what I gather your contention is that it's asked by most companions at least once?
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| :This information can and likely will be retained but framed within the larger context of ''Doctor Who'' it could also be included on the [[companion]] page. --[[User:Tangerineduel|Tangerineduel]] / '''[[User talk:Tangerineduel|talk]]''' 16:00, June 12, 2013 (UTC)
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| ::I'm still fundamentally opposed to this article's existence. "Doctor Who" is not a "joke". There are ''times'' when it has been used as a gag, sure. But it's definitely not a joke from the end of series 6 all the way up to at least the 50th anniversary special. And it's not used in the least bit ironically in any original story up to Target's tentative steps towards original fiction. When you read a story from the 1960s, the character ''is'' called Doctor Who. Period. That's just his name. Today, thanks largely to Peter Davison, we kinda think that's silly: he's just "the Doctor", we say to ourselves. But within dozens, if not hundreds, of different narratives that this wiki counts [[T:VS|as valid]], including several televised episodes, there's no hint of irony or humour about it.
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| ::Equally, a lot of the instances on this page are very, very far reaches. Here's just a random selection:
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| ::*In ''The Keys of Marinus'', when Ian was a suspect for murder, he was told to find someone to speak for him at the tribunal. He said he knew someone in the city, and when asked, "Who is he?" he replied, "Who?", smiled, and continued, "He's a Doctor."
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| ::*In ''An Unearthly Child'', Barbara also referred to the Doctor as "Doctor Foreman", to which Ian replied, "That's not his name. Who is he? Doctor who? Perhaps if we knew his name we might have a clue to all this."
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| ::These are just perfectly ordinary questions that everyone asks. They aren't "jokes". They're just lines which show that the characters are ordinarily curious. If someone tells you, "Don't worry, I'm a doctor", an ordinary response is, "Oh yeah? Doctor who?" I mean, that's everyday speech, not a deliberate gag.
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| ::See the problem is that this article has come to be '''"A listing of every instance of the words "Doctor" and "Who" in close proximity of each other in a ''Doctor Who'' script"'''. That's not the same thing as "The Doctor Who? running joke".
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| ::It's also a bit of a stretch to call it ''running'' in any sense, since there is only two legitimate televised gags from ''[[The Underwater Menace (TV story)|The Underwater Menace]]'' to ''[[Survival (TV story)|Survival]]: Bessie's license plate and the gag Terrance Dicks hates in ''The Five Doctors'' with Colonel Chrichton. The article barely has any for the period anyway, since the overwhelming majority are completely ordinary interrogatives that naturally would have occurred given the conversational situation.
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| ::At the end of the day, the reason this article needs to go is that it just doesn't have a clear title. It's not a legitimate topic. Listing every instance of "doctor" (or synonyms) appearing close to "who" (or synonyms), is a very bad idea. See, jokes are ''deliberate''. We would have to know for certain that the writer actually ''was'' making a pun. And we just don't know that, normally. Certainly we don't know it for the majority of items on this list. Any deliberate puns we can adequately note, with appropriate sourcing, on story pages. Otherwise most of this information should just be filed away under "wishful fan thinking". {{user:CzechOut/Sig}}{{User:CzechOut/TimeFormat}} 20:07: Sun 22 Sep 2013</span>
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| :::I've read a couple books about the history of Doctor Who that refer to it as the "''Doctor Who'' Running Joke." I don't actually have the books on me, as I'm at work right now, but I can look them up when I get home and cite them. That being said, if the opinion of the individual matters, when I first discovered this site I liked the fact that there was a page that referenced all the instances that "Doctor Who?" was used in-universe. If it's not a running joke, what would you call it? The "Doctor Who?" Usage List? The "Doctor Who?" Metaphysical Reference Guide? Those all read rather cumbersome, don't you think?
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| :::As for knowing whether the writers were ''deliberately'' making a reference, I'm not sure that matters either. There are plenty enough references in the Classic series to make the argument that they're more than incidental; do you want to say it's a coincidence that the "wizardly" name the Third Doctor chooses in The Daemons, Quiquaequod, is made up of three different forms of the word "Who" in Latin? The revived series is a little more heavy-handed in making sure the audience gets the reference, that's all.
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| :::Sorry, just offering an opinion from a different angle. I'll post later with the citations from those books I mentioned. [[User:TARDIStraveler|TARDIStraveler]] [[User talk:TARDIStraveler|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 11:37, October 3, 2013 (UTC)
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| :::Okay, one of my Who books is out on loan, but I do still have ''Doctor Who, A History: Celebrating Fifty Years'' by Alan Kistler (which is a '''phenomenal''' read by the way, highly recommend it if you can find it). I'm quoting from page 22, chapter entitled "The Hero with No Name":
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| :::: In ''[[An Unearthly Child (TV story)|An Unearthly Child]]'', Susan attends [[Coal Hill School]] under the alias [[Susan Foreman]], apparently taking the surname from the fact that [[The Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]] is parked in [[I.M. Foreman]]'s scrap yard (some tie-in novels proposed that I.M. Foreman was a fellow [[Time Lord]] and friend of the Doctor). Naturally, [[Ian Chesterton|Ian]] later addresses the girl's grandfather as "Dr. Foreman." [[First Doctor|The Doctor]] responds in confusion, "Eh? Doctor ''who?''" '''This became a running joke in several episodes across the decades.''' While "Doctor Who" was originally meant to be the character's alias, it instead became a question for the audience.
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| :::I hope this helps to convince that the page should be left as is. [[User:TARDIStraveler|TARDIStraveler]] [[User talk:TARDIStraveler|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 11:06, October 4, 2013 (UTC)
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