Talk:Subscriber Short Trips

One Small Step..., The Toy, and numbering

So an anonymous user has been asserting that these two stories are Subscriber Short Trips. Subscriber Short Trips are not just any Short Trip released to subscribers, they are a range of Short Trips which are released alongside the Main Range. One Small Step... was not even released to subscribers, it was read on the The Big Finish Podcast. The Toy was released to subscribers, but not of the Main Range. It was released to subscribers of The Complete History. As such, it is not part of the Subscriber Short Trip range.

Handily, Big Finish have a page detailing every Subscriber Short Trip here. Does it include The Toy or One Small Step...? It does not - and so those two stories are quite clearly not part of the range.

As to whether the stories should be numbered, I don't see why not? They were clearly released in an order which can be numbered. We equally attempt to number Doctor Who television stories despite the lack of any official numbering for them. Danochy ☎ 09:07, July 1, 2020 (UTC)

I'm asserting, am I? Baby, this is how it's been listed for months, years. I'm not the only one. Interesting you should link that page and not even fix the dates here; Big Finish lists "The Doctor's First XI" as #2 and March 2010, but it's #17 and December 2014 here? Yowzer!

As for that last bit, this is exactly why this site has the numbering for TV stories out of whack; Heaven Sent / Hell Bent are actually separate story numbers, per reliable sources, but you lot combined them into one, putting the numbering for three entire seasons out of order. 101.116.206.59^{talk to me} 22:54, July 1, 2020 (UTC)

As per wiki policy, I reverted the page to its original content; no changes are to be made until this issue is resolved thanks Shambala108 ☎ 23:01, July 1, 2020 (UTC)

No need to get so defensive, 101.116.206.59, this page is for discussion, not antagonism. Well yes, we know The Doctor's First XI (and a few other releases) were released later for past subscriptions. The linked page doesn't give any numbering, but if the community would prefer to order the stories by that page, that would be fine too; I just find release order a more sensible approach. I'd appreciate if you made some points on what you were actually trying to revert, as you seem to have forgotten to mention that here. Danochy ☎ 00:09, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

The Subscriber Short Trips page on the BF website looks to be in release order to me. As for these two stories, which indeed are not listed, is there any documentation we can look to for One Small Step...? It was never re-released in the Short Trips Rarities range.
×   SOTO contribs ×°/↯/•]   💬•| {/-//:   00:17, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

The order on that page is the release order of the Main Range story they're tied to, not of the Subscriber Short Trips themselves. As we know from this news piece, they released some SSTs later on to fill each sub with four STs per year. The exact releases which were added in post is not 100% clear from that article, but we can tell from looking at the edit histories of the eight SSTs currently listed as being released in December 2014. (those pages were all created in that December 2014, not the month of the MR release) Danochy ☎ 02:07, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

Do we have any other precedents for out-of-order releases?
×   SOTO contribs ×°/↯/•]   💬•| {/-//:   04:09, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

There are two I can think of off the top of my head. The Wormery (Main Range 51), which was released before Zagreus (Main Range 50). These are still given explicit numbering on the BF website though, so there are no issues with numbering there. A second is So Vile a Sin (VNA 56) which was released after The Dying Days (VNA 61), but this time, regardless of any official numbering, there is a definitive order of the stories.

For the Subscriber Short Trips, there is no plot-based order, and there is no official numbering. All we could go with is the release order of the stories themselves, or the order which is given on the BF website, which is also the order of the Main Range Stories they're associated with. Both would be fine, in my book. While it would be nice to go with an official source, that ordering is only really presented in that way on the website to make it easier for customers to identify which stories they'll get with a certain subscription.

I'm really not sure which one would be best, but I'm leaning towards release order, since that is also the order they were produced in for the most part. That just makes the more sense to me than if we had release #2 coming out four years after release #3. Danochy ☎ 04:58, July 2, 2020 (UTC)

Cover/Placeholder History

From what I've gathered, all the subscriber exclusive Short Trips have had a 'placeholder' cover. It seems like this started out with artwork of the heads of the first 8 Doctors around an outline of the TARDIS police box exterior in a purple-y Vortex. This was then changed to the 8th Doctor's TARDIS exterior (the model prop from the Ravenous covers I think) with the current logo as of 2018 and the text "Short Trips: Subscriber Bonus', and keeping the purple theming.

I was curious if anyone remembers when the original placeholder was first used (2009 or later) and when the change of placeholder/cover occurred? I'm getting 2017 at the earliest, even though I believe the current logo wasn't revealed until February 2018.

Probably sounds a bit crazy, but I've been documenting the covers for releases I own lol. BritShadow ☎ 10:22, 03 October 2021 (UTC)