Validity debate: Scream of the Shalka

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Opening post

Well, this is the first inclusion debate this wiki has had since the old forums fell (which I wasn't around for). I think the fact that this proposal managed to climb to the top of Tardis:Temporary forums#Proposed threads anyway demonstrates that, bounded as it is, it reflects an issue where the community feels we need to act, and sooner rather than later.

Scream of the Shalka's continued treatment as an {{invalid}} source is damaging to the Wiki. I think that point hardly needs belabouring: the issue of Ninth Doctor 4 (The Tomorrow Windows)'s coexistence with Ninth Doctor (Scream of the Shalka) was cited throughout Tardis:Temporary_forums/Archive/An_update_to_T:VS as a prime example of the sort of issue the proposal sought to fix.

Although the conclusion of that thread set it aside because the provided would-be-Rule-4-by-Proxy source cited in User:Scrooge MacDuck's OP was called into question, I believe that Scream of the Shalka can and should be deemed valid under "Rule 4 by proxy". I also believe that there is a persuasive agreement that it passes the classic form of Rule 4 anyway. I will now go over both of these lines of argument. If my understanding of policy is correct, either of these arguments being deemed correct will be sufficient to validate this story (and its tie-ins such as The Fast of the Stone.

Rule 4 by Proxy argument

As per T:VS:

One exception to this, named "Rule 4 by proxy", occurs if a later story makes an effort to bring an otherwise invalid story back into the DWU. In these scenarios, the otherwise Rule 4-failing story may be decided to pass Rule 4 in a forum debate. In general, in-story evidence may be used for this purpose simply because finding authorial quotes affirming the "DWU-ness" of the stories that an author happened to reference is impractical. While nice to have, such quotes are not necessary. However, out-of-story evidence can still be considered when it exists.T:VS

Even if we discount Jonathan Morris's The Tomorrow Windows as unreliable in this matter, multiple much more solid acknowledgements remain:

  • Also in The Gallifrey Chronicles, Marnal remarks on the Doctor having "three ninth incarnations". This is a reference to the Curse of Fatal Death Ninth Doctor, the Shalka Doctor, and of course the mainstream Eccleston Ninth Doctor. (Unlike the similar, but more contentious reference in The Tomorow Windows, there is nothing to contradict the idea that Lance Parkin intentionally means to depict three intertwined futures here.)
  • As recently as 2017, a mainline BBC Books release, A Breif History of Time Lords, alluded to the idea of the Master being built an android body by the Doctor after the TV Movie as one of the "rumours" floating around on Gallifrey about what happened to him after the TV Movie.
  • In 2020's Shadow of a Doubt, written by Paul Cornell - the "Shalka" Doctor's original creator! - the "Shalka" Doctor is mentioned alongside two other "non-mainline" Doctor (the wheelchair-using child from the Rose novelisation and the red-haired "Merlin"/"Battlefield" Doctor) and mainline NuWho Doctors up to the Twelfth (extended to the Thirteenth in the sequel webcast, The Shadow in the Mirror). This reference, though minor, is particularly interesting because we have an authorial quote from Cornell: in 2009, he casually referenced Scream of the Shalka as "my Unbound", referencing Doctor Who Unbound, stories which are famously intended to be set in parallel universes, not "completely outside the DWU in any shape or form". This quote was previously irrelevant to validity because it postdated the original story, and therefore, could not be said to represent Cornell's intent at the time of release. But it does comfortably predate The Shadow in the Mirror and demonstrate that whatever his feelings in 2003, the modern Cornell thinks of the story as connected to the NuWho timeline in some sense.

Classic Rule 4 argument

Separately from the above line of argument, I think the classic line of argument that "by the time Scream of the Shalka came out, the BBC had already decreed it wouldn't be the Official Continuation, and therefore Cornell knowingly put it out as something which 'wouldn't count'" is just wrong.

It might seem strange to believe in hindsight, but no one was sure that Russell T Davies' Series 1 would really work out, even after it entered production. We're talking about late 2003 here. For reference, Rose only started shooting in 20 July 2004. Even the casting of Christopher Eccleston hadn't been announced yet — just "Russell T Davies will headline a Doctor Who revival on BBC Wales". Anything could have gone wrong yet, and so it's obvious, without hindsight-bias, why the BBC would avoid putting all its eggs in one basket. It downplayed Shalka, yes, because why would you jinx the BBC Wales show before it even started by confusing the branding? But it didn't cast it out entirely, nor immediately cancel the planned sequels.

As reported by User:JDPManjoume, who's done a lot of research on this subject: at Talk:Scream of the Shalka (webcast)#Note for possible future validity discussion:

Episode 1 of the unmade Blood of the Robots was first-drafted in December 2003. Simon Clark and Paul Scoones can both personally attest to this. As can Jon Arnold who covered the topic in The Black Archive No. 10.User:JDPManjoume

For context, December 2003 is two months after the RTD announcement, and just as the final parts of Scream of the Shalka itself were released on the BBC website. As JDP points out, "Why would the team on this still be actively working on a further story's script as Shalka went out, if they weren't of the belief that they would be continuing on & that they 'counted'?".

And then there's The Feast of the Stone, a story starring the Shalka Doctor which was released on 3 April 2004 (2004!) on the BBC website. And fascinatingly, it comes with plentiful authorial comments from writers Cavan Scott and Mark Wright. Things start getting good right from the first line:

So here we are in the company of the undead once more. Just how did we come to write for vampires in the Doctor Who universe yet again?Scott & Wright

That's right — The Feast of the Stone is a frankly extremely rare case of a story which so explicitly passes Rule 4 that it came pre-packaged with an authorial quote explicitly saying it's "in the Doctor Who universe"! Honestly, whatever Shalka's status, and counterintuitive as it would seem, I think an argument can be mounted that The Feast of the Stone ought to pass Rule 4 on its own merits, like all the "Sequels to Invalid Stories" discussed in the thread of that name. (It could then, weirdly enough, be used as an example of Rule 4 By Proxy to validate the original Shalka, hilariously!)

But that's not all: Scott and Wright speak effusively about how lucky they are to contribute to the growing "mythos" of the "new Doctor", Richard E Grant. No Ecclestons here; no question of this being a side-step into an alternative or non-canonical universe, an already-cancelled might-have-been.

More than this, the major pull for writing The Feast of the Stone was to be able to contribute towards the mythos of a brand new incarnation of Doctor Who. The Scream of the Shalka introduced Richard E Grant as the Doctor, a totally different Time Lord to any we had experienced before. (…) This new Doctor is a traveller, much as he always had been, but this Doctor is haunted, running from a new demon eating at his soul.Scott & Wright

I think it's clear that the BBC were keeping the options open of shifting gears back to the Richard E Grant animated series if Eccleston fell through. As of Scream of the Shalka, REG's Doctor was on thin ice, but he wasn't out of the game yet. Scream of the Shalka was released as something which would contribute to the ongoing Doctor Who universe. Sure, they knew that it might get contradicted by the TV show later, but that's true of 90% of non-TV works.

So! I hope we can all come to an agreement and iron out any wrinkles. Cousin Ettolrhc ☎ 14:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

This is a very well-put together argument and I support it fully. Bongo50 ☎ 15:09, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I also fully support these stories to be validated. To me, their invalidity reeks of canon and arguments built directly to support that instead of being unbiased. But that' irrelevant, as the record can finally be set straight. 15:16, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I support the validity of Scream of the Shalka and its related works. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 15:45, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
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