Talk:Anna's Doctor Who Surprise

Re: T:OFF REL

Wouldn't the fact it's long since been uploaded to the official Youtube channel make it fair game? TheFatPanda ☎ 21:57, November 16, 2018 (UTC)

Documentary

Let us try not to invent stories. There is nothing in-universe in this special. Amorkuz ☎ 19:14, November 19, 2018 (UTC)

So Jodie Whittaker playing the Doctor, and coming to collect Anna through the TARDIS materializing outside her house isn't in-universe enough for you? I mean, this is definitely breaking the fourth wall to bits to tell an idealized version of the real Anna's "Doctor Who Surprise", but that doesn't mean it's not a story in the same loose way as the VHS Shada frame story is.

Or, you know, A Fix with Sontarans. That seems to be precisely in the same category. Begins in-universe (but fourth-wall-breaking since it's about a kid getting into the TARDIS, the whole thing being meant to fulfill the IRL kid's dream), then by the end the fourth wall's completely shattered and the Doctor actor is referring to themselves as such.--Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 19:45, November 19, 2018 (UTC)

This post of mine was removed by Scrooge MacDuck and replaced by their post

The special is quite clear on this. The insert into the first episode has Jodie Whittaker say, "Hi Anna, It's me, Jodie. I'm the new Doctor." She then invites Anna and her brother to the "set" (where Doctor Who is filmed). Amorkuz ☎ 19:38, November 19, 2018 (UTC)

But secondly, though IMHO more importantly, casting this as a story, whether valid or not, trivialises the matter and all but negates the point of the special. Anna Mark is a real girl, who loves the show, is very brave, and gets an outing any of us would remember forever, an outing that makes her very happy and, in her own words, feel "supported." This is Doctor Who at its best, making a difference for real people, with real problems. Fictionalising Anna into a mere character in a short story is just wrong. She is not an actor hired by BBC to play a girl helped by the Doctor. She is a real person, of flesh and blood, like you and me. And this is to be respected. Amorkuz ☎ 19:56, November 19, 2018 (UTC)

(Sorry for the accidental post-deleting — a case of conflicting edits, I think.)

I see your point, putting it this way. But aside from the emotional angle, I don't see how this is much different at all from Gareth Jenkins, for whom the article also struggles to tell the difference between the "real" one and the "character", but acknowledges that he is, to an extent, both.

Again, from a human perspective, I understand how you see Anna's Doctor Who Surprise — and how one's bound see it extremely differently from how one sees A Fix with Sontarans’s unintentional creepiness — but from a neutral outsider's point of view, I don't think there's fair grounds to differentiate the two.

If anything, perhaps we should rewrite A Fix with Sontarans with clear "it opens with Colin Baker in-character as the Sixth Doctor" language akin to what we have here. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 20:04, November 19, 2018 (UTC)

The difference is very simple. As stated at Gareth Jenkins,

In the 1980s, Gareth Jenkins was a child who wrote into the BBC One audience wish-fulfilment programme, Jim'll Fix It, to ask if they could let him star in his own episode of Doctor Who.

Gareth Jenkins wanted to star in an episode and was given such an opportunity. Anna had a surprise visit to the set of Doctor Who. She is a real girl and nobody should be allowed to play with her life without her and her parents' consent. You did not seem to understand my point earlier. Anna Mark is a person who has as many rights as anyone else. Her rights are especially protected because she is a minor. In particular, you do not have the right to make stories about her without her consent. I hope I am making myself clear this time. Amorkuz ☎ 20:20, November 19, 2018 (UTC)

Ahh… I think I understand your point better this way. You're arguing that unlike Jenkins, Anna did not mean for it to be a story… hm. You may be right.

Mind you, didn't the BBC drop that ball earlier, then? I mean… TARDIS…! …dematerialized!… right in front of house!… The short is edited in a way that were this any other film tells us plainly a/the TARDIS materialised outside the Wards' house, and they got aboard it to be taken to the Doctor Who set. Which didn't actually happen (I presume). So in a limited sense it is a fictionalized version of events that was presented to us.

…but I agree the situation's hairy enough to keep it classified as a documentary. Still, I'd like to make a Story Note of that brief "reverse fourth-wall-breaking" scene with the TARDIS, if nothing else. Because I'm really not comfortable calling a webcast where some people travel in the TARDIS as a wholesale "documentary" without at least bringing it up. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 20:27, November 19, 2018 (UTC)

Glad you see my point of view. You can, of course, mention that some elements were shot in a way compatible with a normal DW story and list them. Any objective information goes. It would be even better to dig out some interview with the director/operator to see what they were trying to achieve. I changed the statement about Jodie Whittaker being in-character because it is contradicted by her saying "It's me, Jodie." (By the way, "I'm the new Doctor" is also an out-of-universe description.) Amorkuz ☎ 21:59, November 19, 2018 (UTC)

Over a year later, and I'm not trying to revive this actual discussion (I now agree with you on the wider point), but I somehow never got round to posting this back then: what I would dispute is the idea that "I'm the new Doctor" is an out-of-universe description. Very hard. The Second Doctor says the exact same thing in The Power of the Daleks. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 18:02, December 11, 2019 (UTC)