Talk:The Vanquishers (TV story)

Companions

Okay, let's not turn this into an edit war; User:BananaClownMan and I disagree on whether Inston-Vee Vinder should be counted as a companion. Following his removal from the field (alongside that of several other, in my own opinion more debatable characters), I said that —

Vinder was officially Invited Into The TARDIS some episodes ago; he's definitely a companion hereUser:Scrooge MacDuck

BCM has now removed him again with the rationale:

Except Vinder spends little time with the Doctor and the TARDIS in this story, his role not being dissimilar to the Children of Time in "The Stolen Earth"; they contribute to the Doctor's efforts, but in an independent fashionUser:BananaClownMan

My answer to this is that Yaz and Dan also largely contribute in a Children-of-Timeish fashion; the Doctor is having her own adventure (three of them, in fact) and Yaz and Dan spend a significant amount of time with Jericho and Williamson, rather than as the Doctor's sidekick. Heck, Dan needs reinviting into the TARDIS at the end, if that's not proof that he wasn't really in the companion role anymore up till that point, I don't know what is!

Thus: since we obviously want to list Dan and Yaz anyway, I believe we should also list Vinder.

Thoughts, BCM, anyone? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:10, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I have to say that I think Yaz and Dan are the only companions this series. Vinder is no more a companion than Jericho, Claire, Bel, and the rest. RadMatter ☎ 23:14, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd have to agree that I don't think Vinder is a companion. Yaz and Dan aren't that involved with the Doctor in this story, admittedly, but they're her regular travelling companions so I wouldn't say it's quite the same situation. Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 23:17, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Agreed with Rad and Jack. I wouldn't have called Dan a companion either if he hadn't joined the TARDIS at the end (although he was always going to). From a marketing perspective, I recall Vinder being introduced as a recurring character while Dan was introduced as a companion straight off the bat. So we know the intent as well. Danochy ☎ 01:32, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Vinder was invited into the TARDIS, but so was (for example) Abby (Oxygen), and they both probably travelled in it the same amount. I think if she's not a companion, then Vinder shouldn't be. CharlieCon ☎ 09:28, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

The COVID poster

Should this really be classed as a production error? I know the crew said the series wouldn't have any overt references to the pandemic, but I feel that a throwaway reference like this doesn't really contridict that. WaltK ☎ 00:14, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps? I haven't seen the episode so I don't know the details.

But, it is worth mentioning that background details, such as posters, have been treated as production errors even though they were probably deliberate, such as the Doctor Who Exhibition posters in TV: Everything Changes, which were far too prominent to be an error.

Epsilon📯 📂

07:52, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

So I just skimmed the episode to find the poster in question and... yeah, I'm not even sure this should count as narrative information. A banner depicting the "Hands, Face, Space" mantra can be seen in a shopping mall during the "Sontarans have taken over Liverpool" montage (at around the 3:36 mark) but I legit didn't even spot it at first; as in, I skimmed until I got to the shot, looked as hard as I could, figured "maybe they're talking about another shopping mall shot later in the episode cause I sure don't see anything in this one", skimmed the rest of the episode for another shot, came up with nothing, went back to the initial shot, and absolutely strained my eyes trying to see every fuzzy little detail until; "ooooohhhh now I see it", by which point I'm thinking "you really have to squint to see the words, and there's certainly no indication in-universe of its relation to COVID, so what even is the point?"

This just about falls into the same league of absurdity as "cateloguing and giving individual pages to every single DVD and video that can be just barely identified if you squint real hard on the shelves of the video store in Random Shoes". WaltK ☎ 19:28, 28 March 2022 (UTC)