Talk:Music of the Spheres (TV story)

Special or Cutaway?

RTD seems to be moving towards calling it Proms Cutaway - he indicates this in DWM and Outpost Gallifrey's news page is also using this title. Should this article also be retitled accordingly? 23skidoo 01:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think Move it to Cutaway Dark Lord Xander 02:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I selected this title baed on Children in Need Special, but I don't mind either way Jack's the man - 14:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok If no one minds I'll Move It (I can always be moved back if theres a problem) Dark Lord Xander 00:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

TV Broadcast

According to the Proms site, the Doctor Who Prom is being recorded for BBC one. As such, I would expect it to air on BBC one, not BBC four. Taras

Yes, I think someone just assummed that the BBC4 programme (which is showing the proms) would also show the doctor who scene. Jack's the man - 11:10, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Rationale removal

I know it's bad form to remove rationales from the Discontinuity section, but the one that was there regarding the canonicity of the story didn't make sense and was incorrect. The fact the Graske appeared in an SJA episode has no relevance over whether this mini-episode is canonical. And yes of course Daleks Master Plan is canon even though the Doctor wished the viewers a Merry Christmas halfway through. However just as Attack of the Graske is not considered canon because it involved interaction with viewers, so too does Music of the Spheres fall into the same category. Ask yourself this: does it stand on its own without the audience interaction? It does not because if you watch the YouTube version you don't hear the audience replying to him. 23skidoo 18:25, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know where you're getting that Attack of the Graske isn't canon just because it involved interaction with viewers. You can say that there are several canonical versions, depending on the choices the audience makes, but there's no real reason to suppose it's entirely out of canon. The Doctor's in character, the Graske is in character, the universe behaves as it's supposed to. Dimensions in Time is clearly not canonical. Attack of the Graske is merely a choose-your-own-adventure.

As for whether Music stands on its on without hearing the other side, I think it does. Before listening to the audio version, I completely "got" it. It uses conventions of the British pantomime so well-established you don't really need the other side of the conversation. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 23:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm also inclined to agree that Spheres stands on its own. Watching it with a critical eye, yes it is made to have the other side with the audience answering back and all. But it does follow the conventions of panto and when viewed in that way it does make sense. For a 'for example' there's always Oh No It Isn't! (and especially the audio version Oh No It Isn't! (audio drama)) which also follow panto conventions (admittedly to the extreme and deliberately). --Tangerineduel 13:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The other nifty thing about it is that these panto conventions is that they occur for a scripted reason. The Doctor's forcing the audience to repeat back to him because he actually can't hear them through the portal at first. Tennant/Davies very cleverly make the audience participation plausible. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 00:04, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

"Breaking the fourth wall"

This brings up the whole question of the following statement, pulled not from the Discontinuity but the Continuity section:

The Doctor breaks the fourth wall and directly addresses the audience, and also interacts with them as well. This renders it unlikely that the episode takes place within established continuity. "

Really, this isn't actually true. As with Attack of the Graske, I don't particularly accept that a character's direct address of the audience necessarily renders something completely moot to canon. But more than that, I don't think this is an actual example of breaking the fourth wall, because it is given a narrative rationale. In DMP, the Doctor's Christmas salutation is completely fourth wall. There's no rationale for it; he just turns to the camera and tears down the fourth wall with complete abandon. Here, though, we have this portal-thingie. We have profile shots of him approaching it. Then the camera simply changes direction so that it's filming through the back of the portal. The audience knows that the Doctor is talking through a portal the whole time. That we don't hear what the Doctor is hearing is irrelevant to the question of breaking the Fourth Wall. A character doesn't break the fourth wall by having a phone conversation if we are only privy to his half. In the same way that you can kinda tell by his reactions whom he's talking to, Music of the Spheres gives those of us not in the Proms a one-sided phone conversation. Sure, the episode played differently to that tiny fraction of the entire, worldwide audience of Spheres that was in attendance at the Royal Albert, but you can totally watch this episode without knowing what the hell the intended audience was and not think, "Well, that's not canon." For instance, I think it's completely acceptable to believe that a) the "music of the spheres" itself is a valid concept, b) the Doctor tends to think of Graske more as pests than a full-on threat to humanity, and c) the Tenth Doctor has fairly profound musical abilities. Moreover, the audio version of the episode does indeed include the Royal Albert audience reaction. When listened to in its full context, the fourth wall isn't even touched. The Royal Albert audience merely forms a part of the story to the listeners at home. For the vast majority of the audience of this work, It's a metafictional story, not one in which the fourth wall is broken. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 22:36, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with CzechOut. There isn't any real fourth wall breakage (leave that to The Feast of Steven), here in Sphere's there reason and the story works around it. Attack of the Graske is much more in the fourth wall category than this episode, we're still observing this, just as when we're looking through a Dalek's eye piece or through a camera within the story, the Doctor still looks to 'camera' and speaks is he talking to 'us' the audience or the character within the story, that for all intents and purposes is the hole in the TARDIS. --Tangerineduel 13:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Well I disagree. The Feast of Steven issue is problematic, I grant you. I suggest a compromise, which I have added, that the canoncity is uncertain. Just as Time Crash's canonicity was equally uncertain until Moffat said it was canon. Let's wait and see if RTD or Moffat say anything to this effect. 23skidoo 20:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of this compromise. There's nothing uncertain about the canonicity. It's canon, if somewhat inconsequential. That said, I think it does afford greater definition of the Graske — this is the most a Graske has ever spoken — and does give us a nice through-line on his musical ambitions. Why does he recognize that it's the Albert Hall? Cause this Doctor's a big fan of popular music, as evidenced by Tooth and Claw, Attack of the Graske and now this. He throughly enjoys music because he is himself something of a composer. This ties into several stories in other media as well, perhaps most clearly Jonathan Morris': "Opera of Doom" from the 2007 Storybook. It's just as valid to say that the reason he often drops references to a wide range of musicians and musical "events" is because he's something of a musical theorist, as it is to say that the Second Doctor played a recorder or that the Third Doctor liked to sing traditional Earth ballads. This Doctor's appreciation of music is more wide-ranging than his predecessors cause he is, by now, older and wiser.

And Time Crash wasn't of uncertain canonicity, ever. It's directly tied into LoTL and VoD. You don't need the word of Moffat to tell you it's canon, surely. It's the whole reason the Tenth Doctor runs into the Titanic. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 00:04, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

"The Blue Suit"

Article also previously contended:

• If these events take place after Journey's End then how would the Doctor have his blue suit if he gave it to the Clone Doctor? Judging by the surreal nature of the mini episode, including conducting the orchestra during the Proms, it seems that this segment doesn't take place in any continuity.

That's assuming rather a lot about the blue suit. We have absolutely no idea, at this point, whether there's only one. We won't know until later in 2009, at the very earliest, whether that was the only blue suit. However, reason would suggest, given that this was filmed not just after Journey's End, but also the upcoming 2008 Christmas Special, that we could potentially discover he has more than one blue suit. We really can't call this a discontinuity until Tennant regenerates. Even then, I think you'd have a hard time making a convincing case that he definitively had no other blue suit but the one that the meta-crisis Doctor took to Pete's World. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 23:10, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

• My original rationale was better. I simply stated that there's nothing in the mini-episode to suggest when it occurs in the Doctor's timeline. It could occur 5 minutes after Attack of the Graske, or between Runaway Bride/Smith and Jones or between Voyage of the Damned/Partners in Crime. What I didn't note (but have since found out) is that this was filmed a month after the 2008 Christmas Special; for all we know he could be wearing a blue suit in that one, too. 23skidoo 20:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)