Forum:Roland Rat: The Series

Index → Inclusion debates → Roland Rat: The Series

Spoilers are strongly policed here.
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.

Opening Post

Introduction

On the 13 September 1986, the second episode of the first series of Roland Rat: The Series aired. In what this wiki has mistakenly identified as a continuity ident, Colin Baker appeared, in-character as the Sixth Doctor.

It wasn't a continuity ident, although it certainly looks like one. Let me explain.

The conceit of Roland Rat: The Series was that it was an actual talk show broadcast on BBC Three, and that Roland Rat, Errol the Hamster and the like all existed in-universe. To invoke this deception, they invited various personnel to introduce RR:tS in fictional continuity idents. It was one of these in which the Sixth Doctor appeared.

Why we should cover the whole thing

Someone made a reasonable mistake and presented incorrect facts. That's about it. There's a draft of what a page for the overall series would look like over at User:Epsilon the Eternal/Sandbox Four that I've contributed to rather significantly.

Validity

I'm fairly sure that there's no reason to doubt the DWUness of this. As Scrooge states at Talk:Untitled (1986 TV story):

[I]n 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. [Emphasis his]User:Scrooge MacDuck

But if people want to bring up validity, then feel free to.

Additional nuance that shouldn't affect validity but is worth mentioning

One can't really expect a new television series to introduce all of its recurring segments in the first episode, so in the second episode (which, I may remind you, is the Doctor Who crossover), several concepts were introduced that went on to appear several times in the series. And this means that the majority of RR:tS actually passes T:VS. (The concepts introduced, as far as I can make out, for those interested, are Iris and Freddy Rat and RatEnders, although there may be some that I've missed.) On the one hand, this shouldn't make anything invalid. On the other, it makes rather a lot of things valid. The following table is of the episodes that would be validated, although only going over the first series and Christmas special, as I haven't been able to get hold of the second.

Episode number	DWU concept	DWU concept debut
2	Sixth Doctor	The Caves of Androzani
3	Iris Rat, Freddy Rat	Episode 2
4	Cooking With a Moron, D'Arcy De Farcy's Secrets of the World's Greatest Chefs, Iris Rat, Freddy Rat
5
6	Iris Rat, Freddy Rat
	Fictionalised version of Margaret Thatcher	Episode 3
7	Iris Rat, Freddy Rat	Episode 2
10
11
12
13
Christmas special	RatEnders

Conclusion

So, that's about it. What do people think? Aquanafrahudy 📢 18:41, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

As fun as it might be, covering basically all of Roland Rat: The Series might be a bit much; this feels somewhat similar to Lady Penelope being introduced in Mr. Steelman, where a character obviously not meant to be seen as "DWU" first appears in a crossover. It's complicated, but I think just covering (the full!) second episode is fine. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 10:50, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

But if you were to look at individual episodes as opposed to the series overall, then each of the episodes featuring DWU elements would be a Doctor Who spin off. We could theoretically do it, but it'd be dangerous precedent to set imo, and much to similar to the old threads that ruled this or that spin off uncovered due to lack of evidence that they were intended to be set in the DWU (see Sleeze Brothers). Also, I'm no expert here, not having watched it, but didn't Lady Penelope originate in the Thunderbirds TV series? Asking purely out of interest, as it doesn't really have an awful lot to do with the thread. Aquanafrahudy 📢 12:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

If you look at release dates, Mr. Steelman beats Trapped in the Sky by several months. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 12:49, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Oh, that's interesting! So Lady Penelope is a DWU concept like Unity City! Aquanafrahudy 📢 12:51, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

More like Big Finish's Dorian Gray if anything. You could try starting an inclusion debate for all of Thunderbirds, but I don't think it would go very well. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 13:10, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I may very well do, once I've watched it, but it isn't terribly high on my list of things to watch, so that may not be for a while. Aquanafrahudy 📢 13:16, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Thunderbirds is actually available for free on Shout! TV. Cgl1999 ☎ 18:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I meant that there were other things that I meant to watch first, but never mind. Aquanafrahudy 📢 18:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I am all for this I believe that the validation of these Stories could lead to beneficial debates on this wiki. These to me seem to fulfil a solid function as I do not believe this show currently has significant documentation elsewhere. And whilst the first episode would not be validated, which is a shame but fair, I think the rest should either be validated or at the least have increased coverage, it goes without saying the 2nd episode should absolutely be valid. Anastasia Cousins ☎ 18:32, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Episodes 8 and 9 wouldn't be liable for coverage (I don't think; I need to rewatch them), as they feature no prior DWU elements, and I don't have access to the second series, so I can't say about that for sure. Aquanafrahudy 📢 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

First off, I'll express my support for covering the entirety of Roland episode 2. We've known Untitled (1986 TV story) wasn't an ident for some time now so I'm grateful this forum thread is rectifying that to allow us to properly document the complete product.

As for a potential Thunderbirds inclusion debate, I don't know. As the person responsible for the coverage of the vast majority of Anderverse material on this Wiki, I'm not convinced it's a good idea. Excluding a few adverts and the like, I fully believe everything from TV Century 21's first 104 issues (the timeframe of The Daleks comic strip) passes Rule 4 with flying colours. I believe the same is implicitly true of onscreen Thunderbirds (at least up to the first film) considering the strong connections on the production side of things and that it theoretically passes T:VS. However, isn't that what the Thunderbirds Wiki is for? Aside from the appearance of Agent 21 in 30 Minutes After Noon and perhaps the televised appearances of the Fireflash and the Junglecat, I struggle to see how Tardis really gains anything from duplicating the TB Wiki's information.

A related area from which I think the Wiki would benefit improving is the aforementioned first 104 issues of TV21. During this era of the magazine the notion of each issue's contents being an issue of an in-universe TV Century 21, a serious newspaper from the 2060s intended to be read by special agents, was incredibly strong. There are running threads throughout each issue to such an extent that I've seriously considered in the past whether the best and most faithful way to cover this material would be to consider individual issues e.g. TV Century 21 No. 1 Universe Edition as sources in their own right, made up of lots of different parts. We'd still have articles such as The Penta Ray Factor (comic story) for a place to discuss serialised stories as a whole but especially with the advent of {{cite source}} this would help stuff from falling through the cracks. The reason I think this would be beneficial for the Wiki is that under the current set-up some TV21 stories pass Rule 4 but not Rule 2, as in they utilise no pre-existing Doctor Who universe elements. This is very frustrating for in-universe coverage due to the interconnected of TV21. To take an example I attempted to wikify recently, the Stingray story The Monster Jellyfish (published in #1-#7) isn't currently covered but is freely referenced in the following concurrently-released things we do cover: all three parts of Genesis of Evil, Stingray Attacked!, Fireball Surrenders!, Power Play Part 1, Titan Declares War! and Marineville Waits!. I've tried my best on pages like Sam Shore but it's not ideal.

Sorry, Thunderbirds tangent over. I don't think I'm in support of covering the other episodes of Roland Rat. I sympathise with Anastastia's point about the lack of documentation available for the series but I don't think that should override our validity policies. A beefy expansion of Roland Rat: The Series (series) is the most we're responsible for, in my opinion. To invoke another Anderverse example, I'd say these supposed DWU elements are comparable to FAB 2's debut in The Man from MI.5. Iris Rat and Freddy Rat seem to me to be Roland Rat: The Series concepts first appearing in a Roland Rat: The Series episode and then reappearing in further Roland Rat: The Series episodes. The fact that the Sixth Doctor (or in the case of FAB 2, the Daleks) appeared briefly in their debut is incidental and does not necessarily affect the DWUness of these concepts. Borisashton ☎ 21:48, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

yep we do need greater coverage of thew TVC21 comics fundamentally it is one story of the history of the mid to late 2060’s not several narratives but one split into many Stories. There are so many gaps in regards to it, not least of all implying that Steve Zodiac of all people was executed along with his crew as a traitor. Of course this I do not think is the place to discuss this. Is it? Anastasia Cousins ☎ 07:34, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

No, I don't think this is the place to discuss it, so let's get back on topic. But I just want to say that I would definitely support covering the entirety of TV21. But then again, I'm not an admin, so it might be. Aquanafrahudy 📢 08:00, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, episode 9 does pass T:VS; I had forgotten about Eric the Eagle debuting in Episode 3. Aquanafrahudy 📢 13:29, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

So, I'm going to try and argue against some of the main arguments against covering the rest of RRtS (except for episodes 1 and 8), if that makes any sense. Bear with me, it's very hot today, and I'm not entirely sure if my brain's working properly, but there you are.

• Covering Roland Rat: The Series would be silly.

I don't really think that this argument bears up under much scrutiny, considering some of the other things we cover.

• There's no precedent for covering elements that debuted in crossovers.

Forum:Temporary forums/Inclusion debates speedround#Part 10: Death's Head and Forum:Validity: Hacker T. Dog. The precedent is quite clear: elements that debuted in crossovers with the DWU are DWU elements.

• Covering these are not the responsibility of this wiki.

Well then, what is the responsibility of this wiki. As I understood it, we cover the entire licensed descendance of An Unearthly Child. Why, after all, should we cover Time and the Rani ^[+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"] but not these?

• The other episodes don't pass T:VS.

Let's see, shall we...

1: Only works of fiction count. Well, it's not non-fiction. Some of it may border on non-fiction, especially the songs, but overall I think it's definitely fiction.

2: A work of fiction which isn't commercially licensed by all of the relevant copyright holders doesn't count. Yep, it's licensed (for more comments on this, see above).

3: A work of fiction must be officially released to be valid. I would call airing on BBC One an official release, yes.

4: If a work of fiction was intended to be set outside the DWU, then it's probably not allowed. But a community discussion will likely be needed to make a final determination. Ah, the difficult one. I would say, in the lack of evidence to the contrary, that it's probably intended to be set in the general wider DWU. But we could cover the others as invalid. I just don't think it's a very good idea.

I'll also pre-emptively answer some other possible concerns, if that would help.

• Covering these episodes would serve no useful purpose.

Considering this series' lack of documentation, I think it does.

• Covering this series would put an unnecessary strain on editors.

Nobody's obliged to edit, you know, but the option should be there should people want to.

That about wraps it up, what are people's thoughts? Aquanafrahudy 📢 13:49, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

All for it I will always be here for greater coverage. Of course the it could be argued that the it is Doctor Who that is intended to be part of the RtR Universe not the other way around. Which I would argue is simply semantics.Anastasia Cousins ☎ 15:43, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

• Forum:Temporary forums/Inclusion debates speedround#Part 10: Death's Head and Forum:Validity: Hacker T. Dog. The precedent is quite clear: elements that debuted in crossovers with the DWU are DWU elements.

Actually, the story that Keepsake's vulture debuted in wasn't a crossover, and it was agreed that BI1nk Bot 3 was a DWU element because he was literally created by the TARDIS. In fact, Scrooge even said in the Death's Head decision, "It is not obvious to me that if there's some recurring character who debuts in Synchronicity II or Bo(d)y, we should by default continue chasing down all of their appearances and treating them as valid-by-default." Cgl1999 ☎ 18:40, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, that's a good point. Looks like there isn't any precedent. Aquanafrahudy 📢 18:51, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

does not we should not set one. There may not a precedent but validating as shown does not break any of the four little rules. I can thus see no valid reason for it to not be covered beyond an attempt to get out of a creation a few pages here and there. Anastasia Cousins ☎ 21:22, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, Scrooge did also say "It's conceivable that such a character would warrant coverage, but I am hereby declaring that this would at least need a thread, and it would require a solid argument that the second-order-crossover-spin-off-thing is still very much intended to be read with the old 1980s Who crossovers in mind." Cgl1999 ☎ 05:58, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Right, look at it this way. If it were the first episode that the Doctor popped up in then we would call it a Doctor Who spin off, and cover it in its entirety. So why should we do any different for when it's the second episode? Also, let us note that rule 4 does not state "it must be intended to be set in the DWU", but it does state "if it's not intended to be in the DWU then it's not allowed". And here there's certainly no reason to suspect that it wasn't intended to be set in the DWU. (I was going to say more, but I remembered T:BOUND just in time.) Aquanafrahudy 📢 06:58, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

the question to me is wether “Doctor Who is intended to be set in the universe of Roland Rat” and “Roland Rat is intended to be sweet in the Universe of Doctor Who” are the same thing? I would say yes they are the same. Of course I could see a solid argument for them meaning different things. Anastasia Cousins ☎ 12:21, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

So far, the arguments for covering more than just episode 2 have not been particularly strong. Just responding to what I see as the main arguments and points made so far:

1. "I would say, in the lack of evidence to the contrary, that it's probably intended to be set in the general wider DWU." In the absence of evidence you can say anything is intended to be set in the DWU. This is not a strong argument and also the reason why we have policies (such as the one I mention in point 2. which needs to be defined). Frankly, I don't think the answer to the question of whether they were intended to share a universe is knowable - that's a very fan-ish way of considering media which I very much doubt anyone involve in Roland Rat considered.
2. "The precedent is quite clear: elements that debuted in crossovers with the DWU are DWU elements." As Cgl1999 pointed out, and has been conceded by Aquanafrahudy, the precedent is very much the opposite. The conclusions to both cited threads point out that this is not sufficient to allow coverage. I bring this up again, because I think this is an important point which needs to be discussed in another thread which considers this policy decision more broadly. It's a complex issue, because there are cases where crossover-debuting concepts might be considered DWU, but it would probably be dependent on narrative connections to DWU concepts or in the light of further DWU-associated content.
3. "Why, after all, should we cover Time and the Rani but not these?". Well I think you can answer that question, but on a surface level, we have two cases. Firstly, Roland Rat debuted in 1983, and a variety of Roland Rat characters debuted in an episode which happened to feature the Doctor. Conversely, there is a direct line of non-spin off episodes with the same main character which tie AUC to TatR. Seems like false equivalence to me.
4. "Considering this series' lack of documentation, I think it does [serve a useful purpose]". There is nothing stopping people from documenting this series in a place one would actually expect to find the information. Make a Roland Rat wiki and then you can cover all of his appearances all the way back to 1983, which Tardis wouldn't be able to cover. It doesn't need recognition of some tenuous DW connection for the series to finally become public record.

Those are my arguments against covering the full series. Episode 2, of course, should be covered in its entirety, but I don't think anyone is disputing that at this point. A good overview on Roland Rat: The Series (series) would also do no one any harm. Danochy ☎ 01:18, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, neither have the arguments against it, imo.

1. I think validity and coverage are two different kettles of fish, and we can sort out validity when we've finished discussing coverage. That wasn't an argument for coverage, as such, but an acknowledgement that if we cover it, it will probably be valid, as there's no evidence to the contrary, and it seems slightly silly to cover ten half-hour episodes of a television series as invalid.
2. As I have already conceded, the precedent argument is null and void (although there may be other precedent, I haven't read through an awful lot of the old forum threads).
   1. Oh hang on, I've just remembered we do do this to some extent (such as with Newbury & Hobbes and, for that matter, a lot of Paul Magrs stuff), although only where the author has explicitly stated that everything they've written takes place in the same "shared universe", so there's some precedent for you, although this is maybe a little bit different.
3. I cited Time and the Rani ^[+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"] here, but maybe that's the wrong example. A better example would perhaps be Class, where the Doctor pops up once and is then forgotten about. Alright, it deliberately ties itself back into Doctor Who, but since when has that been a concern? Okay, arguably The Sleeze Brothers precedent, but that would mean coverage-as-invalid, not no-coverage-at-all. Actually, I think Sleeze Brothers is a good example here. Elements debuted in a DWU story that later cropped up in other stories. It's as simple as that. But like I said, validity is a different kettle of fish, and maybe this should be invalid. It just seems sort of silly.
4. Just because the creation of a Roland Rat wiki is possible, it doesn't mean that, while one continues to not exist, the usefulness of our coverage of it is not nullified. And besides, I don't think this is by any means the most compelling argument, it's just another reason why our coverage of it would be a good thing, if a tertiary one.

Think of it like this: what our validity rules do, as I see it, is take every work of fiction that has been released since the 23rd November 1963 and ask "does this have a legal connection to An Unearthly Child?". And if it does, we cover it. I think that the majority of RRtS does pass this, and that is why we should cover it. Aquanafrahudy 📢 09:50, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Since Aquana asked me to comment, I'll do so. Being American, I feel slightly out of my depth on any discussion about fictional continuity indents, or the existence of BBC3 before its time, etc. But with that in mind, this is just some spillover from the current discussion Scrooge and I are having at Forum:Rule 4 by Proxy and its ramifications: considered in the light of the forum archives, no? My last response explicitly brought up Death's Head and how we treat spinoffs and linking things back to being considered "DWU". If we keep daisy chaining along concepts through spinoffs ad infinitum, this does seem like a logical conclusion. But it's not clear that we have to do this. Precedent is against it, even if some users think it's a better path forward.

But I'd like to point out that there's a further problem here than just reiterating what others have already said. Forum:Temporary forums/Inclusion debates speedround was brought up already with regards to Keepsake's Vulture. But the section on Disney Time is relevant as well.

he's hosting a TV show, not just abstractly talking to the screen; so in that sense it's an "in-universe transmission" sort of thing, not a Trip of a Lifetime affair. But there are some Rule 4 concerns on the basis of the Doctor casually hosting a TV show like this, as a celebrity. This is a good example of something which probably shouldn't be valid by default.

I think this is a case where the onus is on those wishing for validity to argue that this is intended to be set in the DWU per current precedent, rather than vice versa. (Not that I approve of this undermining of R4.) (And I note that on the talk page there is substantial disagreement as to whether it should be valid or not.) Najawin ☎ 20:18, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I mean, a lot of things have shown the Doctor to sometimes be a celebrity of sorts, such as TV Comic. Additionally, there are the likes of The Doctor Drops In and The Doctor Appears, where he arrives live on stage, to audience applause. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 20:46, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Sure. It doesn't logically entail invalidity. But it does become non trivial, and there needs to be some work done. Contra the general stance this thread has taken, where the R4 burden has been the other way 'round. Najawin ☎ 20:52, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

When you say "precedent is against it" are you talking about validity (which we hadn't quite got around to discussing yet) or coverage of further episodes? Aquanafrahudy 📢 21:03, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm rather convinced that validity was being discussed. People have then put it to the side and said we should focus on coverage specifically. But validity was certainly brought up in the first place, hence the mentions of R4. But precedent is against in two distinct ways here. The first is that under current precedent related to R4 you need to argue in the affirmative that this is DWU, rather than people arguing in the negative that it's not. The second is that under current precedent related to crossovers it's less than clear that anything past the 2nd episode in the series would even be covered on this wiki. We could. I just, generically, think this is a bad idea. For the sorts of reasons we're discussing at Forum:Rule 4 by Proxy and its ramifications: considered in the light of the forum archives. It doesn't seem like it's in line with current precedent, and it's using an overly broad notion of "DWU concept" that seems to entail some very odd things. But there's not a ton of discussion taking place on that topic, it's way down the thread, and people do seem to disagree with me, so we very well could decide against my view here. Najawin ☎ 21:48, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Re:Aqua, I'm aware that you conceded the point on precedence, but I still think the overall point on how we "daisy-chain" DWU concepts is pertinent idea here. Apologies if I didn't make that clear. Regardless of whether we have precedence for how this should be done, actual discussion is more important than someone deciding to cover something and no one challenging it (yet). Hence, I think what we really, desperately need to discuss is how we treat this daisy-chaining. I haven't been participating in the R4BP thread, not read much about it for quite some time - I have neither the time nor the will at this point - but I would presume the idea of daisy-chaining is relevant yet distinct from that thread? So I think a separate discussion would be warranted. Whether we discuss it here or in a dedicated thread, is not my decision.

While we're here, I'll point out the important difference between Roland Rat and Class that illustrates why that thread is needed. As you say, Class has explicit DWU connections, but the important thing is that, from the offset, it's very foundation is on these DWU concepts. It exists as a single contiguous entity with Doctor Who. Roland Rat, on the other hand, is a distinct entity. The franchise(?) was founded in 1983 with no Doctor Who connection even conceived (I think is fair to say). Subsequently , Episode 2 of the series in 1986 debuts Roland Rat-associated concepts. The episode just happens to feature the Doctor, but the concepts are specific to the Roland Rat franchise.

This is why further media featuring concepts debuting in spinoff stories should not be covered automatically. Now, if the same episode had featured a concept more closely associated with the Doctor, for example a rat companion, that might be a different story. But as it is, the concepts introduced are, outside of the one episode, irrelevant to Doctor Who. Danochy ☎ 00:44, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

but I would presume the idea of daisy-chaining is relevant yet distinct from that thread

So, insofar as it applies to crossovers in particular this is the case, yes, it's a subset of a more general discussion being had. But ever since Scrooge's first Object Level Reply we've been discussing, to greater or lesser extent, his proposed path forward for reforming T:VS, which places front and center the daisy-chaining of DWU concepts / narrative connections. Najawin ☎ 02:58, 11 September 2023 (UTC)