Talk:Untitled (1986 TV story)

Invalidity

Just found out about this short story on Twitter, and upon watching it, I'm unsure as to the rationale behind its invalidity. Looking back though the edit history, it was given an {{invalid}} tag by User:DENCH-and-PALMER, but I could find no discernable reason why the user gave it that tag. If its becuase the Sixth Doctor mentions Doctor Who, then how is that an issue? Is it because the Wiki is only covering this certain segment of what could potentially be part of a larger story? (Though I think this acts as more of a seperate prologue/epilogue to Roland Rat.) Either way, if there's a rationale somewhere, anywhere, please let me know. If not, can the validation of this story be discussed?

Epsilon 📯 📂

03:14, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Honestly, before we even start digging into its validity I'd like to look deeper into that business of us "only covering the bits with the Doctor in it".

This seems like an archaic way of doing things, one which runs contrary to the spirit of our not-so-recent forum decisions concerning The Worlds of Big Finish and The Incomplete Death's Head. To wit: an case of a single crossover release which is all meant to be one narrative, involving the DWU elements as some of its major players, then we cover the whole thing (including the bits without the DWU characters), we don't slice up the individual episodes.

Consequently, valid or otherwise, I think we ought to be covering this TV story in full, instead of doing this weird slice-and-dice thing. Unless, of course, the Sixth Doctor skit(s) are completely unconnected from the broader narrative of this sp-called special, but I'd honestly be slightly surprised. And why do we call this a "special", anyway? Was it a special in any reasonable sense of the word, within the wider Roland Rat series, beyond happening to be a crossover with Doctor Who?

It's possible that the weirdly truncated thing the page currently tries to be about fails Rule 1, but even if it did, the episode in its entirety wouldn't. So, absent licensing concerns, it all falls to Rule 4, otherwise known as "the tricky one". Things being more loosey-goosey and cartoonish than they were on the Doctor Who television series isn't in itself grounds for invalidity (see our decisions about Titan backup comics and about the Dr. Men books). However, I think it would be disingenuous to not give some weight to the claim that the writers may not have meant for this story to "count," for all that it does nothing that other valid stories have not.

However, in such matters, when the evidence isn't black-and-white, the onus is on the people trying to prove that the story was meant to be outside the DWU, not the other way around. So what I want you (and by you, I mean you the community, not you Epsilon) to do is:

First, whip this page into shape and, unless the skit truly is completely unrelated to the rest of the episode narratively speaking, make it cover the entire episode.

Second, make a good-faith effort to find reliable reference material about this story, to see if its makers (or the BBC itself) ever made any comments about whether it "counted" or whether it was "set in the DWU". Note that, for notorious reasons, quotes about it "not being canon" would not qualify.

However, while the invalidity tag, if it was added by DENCH without discussion, is indeed spurious, I shan't remove it until the first of these two instructions is either carried out, or shown to be unnecessary. Again, as it stands, something in such a state as what the lead currently describes wouldn't pass Rule 1. A standalone skit packaged into an anthology show would; a larger narrative which features the Sixth Doctor in some scenes would; but "the scenes with the Sixth Doctor in them, covered as if they constituted a single serialised skit" probably doesn't. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 03:41, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, it's been a while, and nobody has brought to light any statements from the BBC or otherwise if it's set in the DWU or not. I did my own research, and to be honest, this appears to have been barely documented on the internet, barring the Colin Baker credits section on Wikipedia. So on good faith, in a guilty until proven otherwise sense, I think it is safe to assume this is set in the DWU. That is the current practice of how we do things on this Wiki anyway, isn't it?

As for what the story actually is. From what I can tell, this is essentially the continuity announcement for Roland Rat and Doctor Who, starring the Sixth Doctor. I think this should be treated as a sort of "standalone overture" to the episode that followed, which additionally does not require the context of the aforementioned episode.

Epsilon📯 📂

21:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The page has been rewritten satisfactorily. I have removed the spurious tag and renamed it to a dabbed "Untitled", rather than this speculative talk of 'specials'. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 00:35, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Is the Doctor actually the protagonist of this story in its entirety? I will say that mentioning Doctor Who does not immediately discount a story from being valid, but it is a strong suggestion that the creators did not intent to write within the Doctor Who universe.

I would disagree with user:Scrooge MacDuck in this case: when Doctor Who (as a fictional franchise) is mentioned, the onus is on proving that the story was intended to be DWU. Most of the time, in-character advertisements in which the Doctor promotes the series were never intended to be. On one end of the spectrum, we have small references within something that otherwise makes a good effort to tell an in-universe story (like The Zygon Isolation). On the other end, Graham Norton regenerating into Tennant then Smith before doing an interview was clearly nothing more than a gimmick. Where does this one fall?
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 09:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I suppose the question is: if we can't find out-of-universe statements, is there a genuine effort to tell a story involving the Sixth Doctor here?
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 09:13, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I would say this is quite clearly meant as a spoof. The Doctor trying to murder a sentient being simply because it insulted a TV show he likes is a good indication of that. Not that the Doctor acting uncharacteristically violent automatically makes something invalid, I mean the famous "die, hideous creature die!" comic is perfectly valid, but I think in this case, while not in and of itself making the story invalid, is a good indication of the lack of any serious attempt to tell a story set in the DWU here, which IS what makes it invalid. That's not the only thing that suggests a lack of intent for this to be in the DWU, and this invalidity, to me, but it is one example of many things in this thoroughly silly that make me think this is case where we'd probably need extraordinary evidence that this WAS intended as a "proper" DWU story to consider it valid. NightmareofEden ☎ 21:47, 4 January 2022 (UTC)