Talk:Christmas Special (DW:TND short story)

validity check

Sorry for being a stickler for the rules. But with so many heated inclusion debates, it's better to be thorough.

Is it clear that this is a valid story? Given the T:VS, this translates to the question: is this story officially licensed? The reason for my hesitation is this. It's posted on a website that belongs to BBC Worldwide. Perhaps, it is sufficient for ascertaining that the story is licensed by BBC. However, the intro to the story states: "As an exclusive Christmas treat, our friends at Titan Comics have produced a very special present - a Doctor Who short story." The illustrations and some characters indeed originate from Titan stories, and the writer wrote for them before. What is missing on this page is a confirmation of Titan that they licensed it, approved it, or did anything of the sort. I checked that the website of Titan Comics does not have any mentions of "Christmas Special" in the past month. So it would seem that one relevant party, Titan Comics has not licensed this story. Amorkuz ☎ 16:46, December 28, 2016 (UTC)

An interview with the writer of the story

"Below, you read what Cavan has to say about his Ninth Doctor ‘Christmas Special’ short story, and why he wanted to give Nine his very own festive outing.

"Ever since I received the call to write the Ninth Doctor comic, I’ve wanted to give Nine the Christmas special he missed out on TV. Doctor Who’s Christmas specials started with the Tenth Doctor’s debut, The Christmas Invasion, so he never really had one. Of course, we had The Unquiet Dead, which is full of festive fear, but the idea nagged away at me so I asked Titan Comics about the possibility of writing something a little Christmassy this year as a thank you to everyone who’s supported the Ninth Doctor comic. ‘Christmas Special’ is the result." OncomingStorm12th ☎ 17:00, December 28, 2016 (UTC)

You might want to temporarily remove the link as the interview contains details on an unreleased story. But yes, I see your argument. A gentleman would not lie about another gentleman while that other gentleman is watching. Works for me. Amorkuz ☎ 17:04, December 28, 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I take it back. The story is released. I just live in the past (because I'm cheap). Amorkuz ☎ 17:09, December 28, 2016 (UTC)

Is this part of Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor?

Obviously, as it was released exclusively online, Christmas Special was not (as of this post) published by Titan in an issue of 9D. But, at the very least, it has deep connections with that series. Is it part of the same run? Is it not to be considered part of the comic story run, but still belonging to the Ninth Doctor Titan series? It is currently listed at Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor, but that series has been taken out of the infobox here.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 23:34, January 1, 2017 (UTC)

Yes, in fact, I do not see a proof that it was published by Titan. Seems to be a publication at the website. From the interview it feels like the writer wanted to do it and was permitted by Titan, which is not the same as a Titan publication.

So, given that it is not even a comic and not obviously published by Titan, I removed the navbox even though the story has a very definite placement in the continuity of the 9D series.

The point of comparison for me were Class novels, which can be placed within the continuity of the TV series, which share all the main characters, but are a separate thing. I always thought that the navbox does not jump the media. Granted, we may go from a n episode to a minisode to a Children in Need special, but at least they're all TV. Here we go from COMIC to PROSE, and I'm not sure that's allowed.

Here's another boundary case: short stories published by BF. They switched from PROSE to AUDIO. Wait a minute, navbox there goes from one to another. It seems that I was wrong about the media homogeneity.

But at least one needs the publisher to be the same. Do you really see this story as published by Titan? Amorkuz ☎ 23:47, January 1, 2017 (UTC)

It was written under and for Titan, however not published by them, who knows, they may do in the future. Denchen ☎ 23:51, January 1, 2017 (UTC)

Mm, I see your point about the interview. Nevertheless, this web exclusive is stated to come from "Titan Comics", rather than simply Cavan Scott:

"As an exclusive Christmas treat, our friends at Titan Comics have produced a very special present - a Doctor Who short story."

Additionally:

"We'll have some more exclusive material from Titan Comics over the festive period, so do pop back each day of the holidays."

However, from this interview, it does not seem that Scott himself sees this as part of the regular run:

"We kick off [Tara's] first story as a companion next month with part one of '<story not yet released>'." (ie. This short story does not constitute her debut as a companion.)

Thoughts?
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 00:16, January 2, 2017 (UTC)

Maybe this would be a reasonable compromise: this story is very definitively wedged between the last released and the first unreleased stories of 9D. So the infobox of this story puts her in between as it was before I erased it. However, the proper comic stories do not point to this one. I know this is not what we do with television stories, but minisodes can reasonably be called television stories and they are broadcast in the same way. This one is not a comic story and is not published in an issue of Titan. So I would feel very uneasy giving it a full-scale Titan comic story status. Actually, upon a closer observation, a similar duality is presented in the Big Finish Short Trips range: the last book, Short Trips: Re:Collections points to the first CD, Short Trips: Volume 1, which does not point back. Moreover, when we go down to the story level, then no succession links exist between the book stories and the audio stories: Blessed Are the Peacemakers is the last book story that has "none" as the next one. Rise and Fall is the first audio story and has "none" as the previous one.

So how about making links from the prose story to the comic ones but not back? And of course, this story has no place in the 9D template for obvious reasons. Amorkuz ☎ 00:15, January 3, 2017 (UTC)

That does seem like a reasonable compromise. I think I do agree that this shouldn't be on the 9D template, but it could potentially be in its own subsection in the template for "online fiction".
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 00:41, January 3, 2017 (UTC)

Related to the above, I tweaked the introduction to clarify that this story was published on BBC Worldwide's official website Doctorwho.tv (not the main one run by the BBC). Using the rules set out by Wikipedia that makes it the publisher, not Titan, though obviously the inclusion of Tara makes it a conjunctive effort. I believe this is the first time an authorized piece of literature has featured a Titan-exclusive character but I haven't confirmed that yet. 23skidoo ☎ 06:05, January 4, 2017 (UTC)