Forum:Validity: An Adventure in Space and Time
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.
Introduction
An Adventure in Space and Time, Mark Gatiss' love letter to the people responsible for bringing our favourite show into the world, a dramatised account of those crucial early days of the show's production, which was decided long ago to not be a part of the overall fictional DWU. Twas all fine and good, and was one less headache to have to deal with…
And then Jonathan Morris decided that would be too easy~!
How we got here
Yesterday's new issue of Doctor Who Magazine included, among a variety of neat and interesting things, the fifth instalment of Morris' Loose Ends, a series of short stories-come-fact files that shed some light on the left over plot threads and lingering questions from classic stories. Each single-page instalment is split into three sections; Scenes Unseen (a short narrative that covers an unseen event set adjacent to a particular story), Where Are They Now? (a brief account from a different guest or minor character of an unseen part of their life), and The Unexplained (on non-narrative bit in which Morris gives his own answers for general unexplained questions). I wasn't the one who began the wiki's coverage of these sections, but the general consensus appears to be that the narrative parts are all considered valid.
Yesterday's instalment, titled Ian Memoriam, was made as a tribute to William Russell. The Scenes Unseen portion confirms Ian's in-universe death at some point after The Power of the Doctor, while The Unexplained answers the question of how Ian and Barbara explained their two year absence to their colleagues (short answer: they didn't need to, because Remembrance of the Daleks).
As for Where Are They Now?…
The suffering begins
In keeping the with the instalment being a tribute to Mr. Russell, Where Are They Now? focuses on a difference character he played; Harry, the BBC Studios security guard from the very docudrama we're all here to debate. The section outright identifies his story of origin.
It would seem very much that this little vignette just went and promoted An Adventure in Space in Time to Rule 4 by Proxy validity. But does it really?
Now, in my view, I feel it would be a lot simpler to just ignore the story citation and treat this little section as a valid story in its own right. A judgement that would basically involve renaming Harry's page to Harry (Loose Ends 5: Ian Memoriam) and rearranging the information accordingly.
Another idea I've seen involves splitting each section into separate pages just so we can isolate this particular WATN? from the rest of the instalment and slap an invalid tag on it, which I am strongly against.
And that's the long and short of it. Welcome to hell~! WaltK ☎ 16:02, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
