User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-31010985-20180428165444/@comment-31010985-20200302230313

Woah, I think this conversation went a bit off-track some time ago. I also think some change is needed to the validity policies that govern this wiki but the place for that discussion is not a thread called "The Cushing Conundrum" where the titular aim was to figure out what to do with the Dr. Who (Dr. Who and the Daleks) page and its siblings. If the solution to the problem outlined in the OP absolutely neccesitates a change in policy then I think the best thing we can do is close this now as unresolved and then start a new thread at some point in the future with some clear proposals on changes that could be made and how that would effect sources like the Cushing movies.

However, I think I have a solution that does not need policy to change to occur: we cover the Cushing-verse as fully valid. The Dalek Movies have been discussed in the forum a lot so I will outline my proposal in more detail using some recent precedents as examples.

Compatibility with mainstream Who

An argument used lots against the Cushing stuff is that it just isn't compatible with the DWU as originally established in An Unearthly Child. There are several reasons for this. The three I most often see thrown around are the fact that Cushing's character is called "Dr. Who" and not "The Doctor", the fact that he supposedly built TARDIS himself and the fact he is a human.

Starting with point one, it really isn't that big of a deal, especially in 1965. At the time Dr. Who and the Daleks was first released the Doctor Who universe was a small place with a fraction of the amount of expanded media that is around today. The most recent television episode broadcast was the fifth episode of The Chase entitled "The Death of Doctor Who" (yes, really!) and the first five stories of TV Comic's run had been released plus the first part of Challenge of the Piper. Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks and Doctor Who and the Daleks had also both been released along with the first Dalek annual, The Dalek Book. My point? Although televised Who erred strongly to the side of addressing its titular character as "the Doctor", William Hartnell was credited as "Doctor Who". Expanded media of the time often followed suit with TV Comic's narration addressing him as "Dr Who" and the Doctor introducing himself as such from the very first story. The same was true with Doctor Who and the Daleks and The Dalek Book. Exciting Adventure stuck to addressing the First Doctor as "Doctor Who" in title only but it started a tradition that would be picked up by Target novelisations in the years to come. This way of addressing the Doctor slowly fell out of fashion, especially when the credit was changed in the Peter Davison era to the "more accurate" The Doctor. Basically, the Doctor was called "Dr Who" a lot at the time the films were made and released so no reason to disqualify there.

For the second and third points, I'd recommend that everyone go and watch Dalek 6388's video about the Doctor's history as a human and the inventor of the TARDIS. You can follow the links on this page to find the most recently uploaded video. Just to briefly repeat and expand on what was covered there, in the early days of the show it is ambiguous as to where the Doctor and Susan come from and what species they are. In "Flight Through Eternity" the Doctor says:

"That's my Time Path Detector. It's been in the ship ever since I constructed it."The Doctor

Obviously you can twist the sentence to make it mean that the Time Path Detector had been present in the TARDIS ever since he constructed the Time Path Detector, but the implication is there and it is definitely ambiguous enough that the Doctor could be interpreted as the creator of the TARDIS. This position is backed up by The Klepton Parasites in which John and Gillian know of the Doctor as an inventor with a police box shaped time machine.

The question of whether the Doctor is a human was also in question at the time with the references in An Unearthly Child to the Doctor's origins being purely technological and chronological as you'd expect with a man from the future rather than biological and geographical as you'd might expect from an alien.

"They could not have known that an Earthman would go near the machine so the death rays had no effect on humans, apart from being hot."The Doctor, explaining his actions.

The simple fact of the matter is that Tardis:Neutral point of view says we cannot say that these sources are wrong, only that they conflict with other sources such as those that say the Doctor is a Time Lord from Gallifrey. This perogative has recently been successfully implemented on the wiki in the form of The Doctor's early life article and adding the Peter Cushing Doctor to the paragraph that literally starts "According to other accounts, however, the Doctor was a human named "Dr. Who"" seems like a great idea in my opinion that is not at all in conflict with how we are currently treating the First Doctor and his life.

To quote directly from Dalek 6388:

"We look back at [Dr. Who's backstory] now as a radical departure from the TV version but that's based on what we were told later. At the time making him a human inventor was the clarification or simplification of an ambiguous issue."{{{2}}}

Moving forward

I propose that Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. be treated as adaptations of The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth. This means that pages for characters that exclusively appear in either two films such as Alydon (Dr. Who and the Daleks) or Dortmun (Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.) should be merged into their valid counterparts (in this case Alydon and Dortmun) as they are very similar and any significant differences can be covered with "account" language but characters that have appearances outside of the films should keep their pages.

This means that Dr. Who (Dr. Who and the Daleks) wouldn't be merged with First Doctor and Susan (Dr. Who and the Daleks) wouldn't be merged with Susan Foreman and so on. The reason for this is that they are two different characters and I feel it would be a disservice to the wiki to mix it all up. Although they are equally valid backstories for the Doctor, Daleks Versus the Martians is an appearance by Cushing's Doctor and his TARDIS team and I would call anybody that tried to argue it was a First Doctor and Susan Foreman story crazy. On the other hand, The Klepton Parasites is a "Dr Who" story but the intent was clearly for "Dr Who" to be William Hartnell's Doctor in that instance. I also don't see a need to throw away sections specific to the Movie portrayals. Ian Chesterton (Dr. Who and the Daleks)'s and Ian Chesterton's personality differences come to mind and they could be covered spectacularly if the pages were to remain seperate and in the case of the former, expanded upon greatly.

Obviously Movie original characters like Louise (Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.) would keep their pages.

For the two films "account" language should be sufficent as the differences are relatively minor compared to some of the things we've had to reconcile on the wiki in the past. Example from Dr. Who's page: "...the four of them were transported to Skaro, the home planet of the Daleks, where they helped the Thals battle the Daleks. According to another account, it was the First Doctor along with a teenage Susan and her teachers Ian and Barbara who landed on Skaro and helped the Thals." (My addition is in italics)

The original issue

Now, finally, back to the original issue of what to do with the in-universe references to the Cushing Movies in the novelisation of The Day of the Doctor. Fairly recent action gives us a solution to this one as well because The Doctor in popular culture and mythology exists as a kind of "hub" page that deals with the Doctor's impact in the universe. The Cushing films are currently located within the article at The Doctor in popular culture and mythology#Peter Cushing films. The jury's still out on whether to give each of these fictional depictions an article and what dab terms to give them if so but that is a discussion probably best suited for Talk:The Doctor in popular culture and mythology. Anyway, if the Cushing stuff is declared valid then the dilemma in the OP no longer exists as we'll be able to reference Day and link to the pop culture article in the main body of Dr. Who's page like what is sort of already happening.

Conclusion

Well, that's the proposal. I hope everyone agrees but that is rarely the case but in any event I hope this can reignite the discussion over what to do with Cushing as it's now been almost two years since the start of this mess.

The most recent episode of Doctor Who, The Timeless Children, thrust the Doctor's origins into so much doubt and contradiction. As Chris Chibnall did for the questions surrounding the "Morbius" Doctors, I hope the community can work together on this proposition so the wiki can provide a more accurate analysis of the Doctor's origins by including Peter Cushing's Dr Who to expand on sections that already exist because of other sources. Now seems a more appropriate time to wrap this up than ever before.

(sorry for the immensely long post btw)