Tardis talk:Out-of-universe perspective

Update examples

Jodie Whittaker very much isn't the current Doctor and hasn't been since last October. David Tennant is, and any eventual changes from that present should be changed from date XXX too. -- Tybort (talk page) 14:39, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I think it'd be better to future proof it by linking to Ncuti Gatwa instead.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

16:50, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

If Fifteen isn't a current Doctor then why is he the most prominent Doctor in the recent Doctor Who Day promotional picture?

Also, to refute the idea that Ncuti Gatwa being the current Doctor is a spoiler, the Fifteenth Doctor officially appeared in First Day of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["First Day of the Doctor (short story)"], Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse ^[+]Loading...["Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse (reference book)"], and Rose ^[+]Loading...{"ed":"2023 Illustrated Edition","1":"Rose (novelisation)"}, appeared (sorta) in An Adventure in Space and Time ^[+]Loading...["An Adventure in Space and Time (TV story)"], not Fourteen, appeared on the cover of Doctor Who The Official Annual 2024, and has been extensively promoted in marketing as the current Doctor alongside Fourteen; they're both current Doctors, frankly.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

18:07, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Capaldi outright appeared in The Day of the Doctor but was not current until the last scene of The Time of the Doctor; until then, he was a future Doctor. Pages can treat the small teases of the Fifteenth Doctor as released stories, sure, but that wasn't my point. Who even says that Chris portrays him in Meet the Doctor or that David did in The Hero Factor? I am talking about production terms here, not in-narrative. -- Tybort (talk page) 11:17, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

And no, I don't think Meet the Thirteenth Doctor made Jodie current before Twice Upon a Time either. -- Tybort (talk page) 11:21, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

My point is that there are two current Doctors. Ncuti's Doctor has appeared all over marketing, tie-in releases, merchandise, in stories, and so on. It is, in my opinion, completely incorrect to assert otherwise. Especially as in a week's time... he will be the only current Doctor.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

11:32, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

At this point this is more of questioning the precedent for the next time something like this rolls around. However. On this topic. Name one story out now that has the "and introducing actor as the Doctor" billing. All I can tell from the last 14 months is that Tennant had it in The Power of the Doctor. Also, several actors were announced and promoted months in advance. Matt was not co-current Doctor post-January 2009, and Peter Capaldi was not co-current Doctor post-August 2013. -- Tybort (talk page) 11:54, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Except those Doctors werent being heavily used in marketing and racking up a good handful of spin-off appearances. They're not directly comparable as the BBC are treating Fifteen differently. I don't recall tons of in-character promo pics being used heavily in social media marketing, alongside those of Tennant and Tate.

But I hardly think that "and introducing [actor] as the Doctor" should be our only metric here. Else — hypothetically if the Wiki existed in 1996 — McGann couldn't be the latest Doctor. And who knows if that credit will always stick around? It's one hell of an assumption.

To me, the fact that both Tennant and Gatwa appeared on the cover of the latest annual together, as well as Gatwa's recent appearance in AAiTaS and all of the other EU appearances, clinches the fact that they're concurrent Doctors.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

12:04, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Gatwa, and I hate that by my own arguments breaking policy to say the name, is on the cover as a future incarnation. The docudrama AAISAT is not Hartnell looking at the Time Lord from(ish) Gallifrey the Doctor, whether Eleven or Fifteen. The annual's overall contents, including the Letter from the Doctor focus on 14. And 2023 version or otherwise, Rose should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, it is set six incarnations and seven regenerations before Gatwa.

Also the TV movie is a clear transition to McGann as the current because it starts with Seven and his incarnation dies. -- Tybort (talk page) 13:10, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

And yes I know Atkinson through Lumley, both Richard E Grants, and Eccleston are even weirder outliers, but the "introducing" has been consistent for the changeover of eras since June 2005. -- Tybort (talk page) 13:16, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you'd only be breaking your own arguments by mentioning Gatwa; it certainly is not against policy to do so. Hence why I do so freely without marking this page with {{spoiler}}.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

16:45, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Spoiler or no to mention him, the current Doctor as of 1 December 2023 remains David Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor. Being promoted the same year an episode airs does not make a most current. Also, "good handful" makes zero sense for what I just laid out about a reissued docudrama that isn't even a DWU narrative, an illustrated Eccleston novelisation, the DWAN argument being contradicted by its own table of contents and who wrote the Letter from the Doctor, which is to say, seven appearances of Fourteen and one appearance of the other one. -- Tybort (talk page) 17:01, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't do so freely. I'm marking it and probably should have a while back. And clarifying XXX means the actual first appearance with Fifteen as the present Doctor in what seems to be 9 December's The Giggle. -- Tybort (talk page) 17:12, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, you are wrong, as evidenced by Fifteenth Doctor/Appearances which lists all of his appearances. It is very clear he is being treated as a concurrent Doctor to Fourteen, even if he hasn't properly appeared on television yet. And, even though AAiSaT isn't a bona fide appearance of Fifteen, it is very telling that Fourteen isn't in it.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

17:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Counterpoint 1: This picture is used on the official bbc.co.uk page for Doctor Who as of 1 December 2023. [1]

Counterpoint 2: A crop of this picture is used as the header image on the official BBC Doctor Who Twitter (aka X) and Facebook accounts as of 1 December 2023. [2] [3]

You're wrong, as evidenced by the longer Fourteenth Doctor/Appearances. If Fifteen (And I repeat, Fifteen. Notably AAiSAT isn't on that list, and shouldn't be on Eleven's either.) hasn't appeared on television despite his appearance being based on an actor's casting and costuming for one or more upcoming seasons of television AND has only had cameos in non-TV media as glimpses of the future, then he isn't the incumbent. Just as Jodie wasn't the incumbent in the Wimbledon finals short movie. -- Tybort (talk page) 18:07, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Fifteen is also in the Whoniverse ident. Fourteen is not. They're both Doctors, else Fourteen would be in the ident and AAiSaT. And it is not a competition which Doctor has the most appearances; I'm indicating that, given Fifteenth is appearing a good amount, he is a current Doctor. Also, the YouTube upload of the clip of Fifteen in AAiSaT has the title "William Hartnell Sees the Fifteenth Doctor", not "William Hartnell Sees Ncuti Gatwa". If someone was bold enough, it could be argued that this is an appearance of the Doctor, albeit in an invalid source. But I ain't opening the can of worms that is covering AAiSaT as an invalid source as that'd lead to pages like Waris Hussein (in-universe)...

It is abundantly clear the BBC are treating these two Doctors as concurrent, and to say otherwise is ignoring how they're marketing the series.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

03:39, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

What the actual. Yes, both the Matt and Ncuti AAiSATs are invalid sources. -- Tybort (talk page) 17:29, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

If it's so clear of Ncuti being an incumbent, then the supporting argument shouldn't be such a focus on a franchise ident and a cover page. Which are also invalid sources (no debate on First Day of the Doctor, but I've already said what I've said, again and again, about future peeks and cameos similar in intent to Capaldi in The Day of the Doctor).

It is not out of the ordinary for a new lead character/actor in an ongoing series, whose first major unambiguous non-cameo appearance is on Christmas Day, to be promoted in some degree the same month. Fourteen is still the incumbent for just over seven days. -- Tybort (talk page) 17:37, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Out of curiosity I scrolled through the Doctor Who Twitter feed. Ncuti does appear here and there (which, again, is understandable because The Church on Ruby Road isn't that long after The Star Beast and the other specials), but Fourteen and the Meep absolutely overwhelm him in terms of recent appearances on that account's tweets. -- Tybort (talk page) 18:28, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Updating the examples table according to Forum:Temporary forums/Relaxing the past-tense requirement

I think it could be useful to have an example demonstrating what the conclusions of that thread mean for policy. It's true that active editors might have already seen the thread, or even have participated in it, but that won't be true forever.

Something like this:

(in the "Incorrect" column, perhaps using rowspan=2 for the corresponding correct example)

Adam Smith was a British television director who directed the Doctor Who story The Eleventh Hour.

(If you're writing about a living person who is still directing, or in any other cases where the sentence is describing a person and still true in the present, this could wrongly imply that they have already died. The end-of-universe perspective applies only to in-universe pages!)

Or something like that. The phrasing is workshoppable, and anyway, T:WRITE POLICY…

---

There's also several odd formatting issues that should probably be fixed regardless:

• that first Adam Smith example is the only one to have the explanation of incorrectness italicised (and with an extra apostrophe at the end to boot…);
• it's the only one that doesn't have a period at the end;
• the Smith and Jones example doesn't have parentheses around the incorrectness explanation, while all others do; and
• the link to director (crew) goes to director (disambiguation) instead — that's because the (crew) page used to be undabbed, when this was written.

And the preceding discussion under #Update examples is also moot, since Ncuti Gatwa is definitely already the Doctor at this point…

jsmith5504^{talk to me} 09:27, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, I've incorporated all of them. Bongo50 ☎ 13:48, 23 July 2024 (UTC)