Talk:Gallifrey/Appearances

This page, amongst some others, still lists Heaven Sent/Hell Bent as a two-parter, contrary to this wiki's current numbering. Which is correct? 81.141.205.13^{talk to me} 21:28, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I made this post, BTW. Forgot to log in. NightmareofEden ☎ 21:30, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

This is one thing where I dearly wish we had the forum archives to check, but I'm fairly sure the ruling of the last time we had a mammoth-sized thread about multi-parters and story numbering was that the Wiki should cease trying to number stories altogether (at least in infobox). Hence: what do you mean when you speak of "this Wiki's current numbering"?

In any event, I'm not sure it's worth the headache induced by this question at all. Why do we list NuWho "multi-parters" the way we do, rather than just list them out normally? Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 22:42, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but I don't think that forum was ever closed. There were still quite a lot of people who insisted that we should number episodes. Shambala108 ☎ 23:27, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Agh. Drat the Forums' unavailability. But for what it's worth, what I seemed to recall was that a thread about multi-parters got so long that it was closed not with a full ruling but with "this thread is too messy, let's draw what conclusions we can on some things, and leave the remaining contentious questions to be discussed anew in different threads". And I remembered the "no story numbers in infoboxes" as having been one of the only things actually ruled upon. Again though… Just my recollection. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 23:33, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Our inboxes do appear to still be numbering them. The numbering in the inboxes is consistent with our page List of Doctor Who television stories, which itself uses the numbering from Wikipedia's "Lists of Doctor Who episodes", which in turn claims to be following "an internal practice" and cites Doctor Who Magazine.

I guess DWM IS the closest we have to an "official BBC numbering" but really that's only made to make those polls where vote for your favourite story easier by splitting up stylistically different stories like, well, Face the Raven, Heaven Sent, and Hell Bent. I know plenty of people who love Heaven Sent and can't stand Hell Bent, although I love all three and personally do consider it one story, and tbh probably the best story of NuWho. And, of course, there was a bit of crowbarring to make Planet of the Dead the 200th story for marketing reasons. But, despite its controversial nature and much I myself would disagree with, it is still as close as we have got to any story of "official" count, and is used by the majority of episode guides. I can understand not using one at all though as it is fairly controversial a topic and DWM's numbering is as I say mainly one of simple convenience.

So, basically, what I'm getting at is we should either use that numbering or not number them at all but we should probably pick one of the two. It pains me to say that given that I strongly disagree with the numbering in many places (I bring up Raven, Sent, and Bent specifically b/c they're the most relevant to the discussion but there are other cases as well), but, in the absence of anything else reasonably non-controversial I think those might be our only two options.

Oh, and just one final note, considering something I can't go into detail about for fear of violating our spoiler policy because it regards Series 13, and using our current count, try to work out what the 300th story will fall on. I can't say what it is because that would DEFINITELY violate our spoiler policy, but it's something significant that the BBC might well take the opportunity to promote as such. Just throwing that out there, really. You can take that as you will. NightmareofEden ☎ 10:41, 23 August 2021 (UTC)