Talk:Doctor Who? running joke: Difference between revisions

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==Prop delete==
{{ArchiveList}}
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. 


But therein lies the rub. 
== Restoration and clean up ==


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.


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."


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).


'''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:


===Support deletion===
# Every time someone asks "Doctor who?" in the franchise's history
*'''[[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.
# Every humorous reference to "Who" made in the franchise's history.
*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)


===Oppose deletion===
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.
--Catkind121 19:53, 5 May 2009 (UTC) (Why it gives information ion this re ocurrence)


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.


== Oppose deletion ==
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)
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)
 
: 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)

Latest revision as of 22:08, 25 April 2023

Archive.png
 Archives: #1

Restoration and clean up[[edit source]]

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.

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."

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).

Next comes the issue of content. The big issue with this page is that it's always covered two main topics:

  1. Every time someone asks "Doctor who?" in the franchise's history
  2. Every humorous reference to "Who" made in the franchise's history.

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.

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.

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? OS25🤙☎️ 22:06, 25 April 2023 (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. OS25🤙☎️ 22:08, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
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