Talk:Planet (An Unearthly Child)

A suggested rework

I think this is an excellent article, and it particularly serves as a great place to put the wealth of BTS material related to the topic. There's one issue I have with it though; I don't think there's enough in-universe evidence to suggest that the majority of sources on this pages are referencing the 49th century planet.

The only source on this page that unambiguously references the planet is Unnatural History. I'll note that while the quote does say "Maybe you originally came from some planet in the forty-ninth century", it is clear from the context that the boy is referencing the potential origin as if it were true, although I haven't read the novel so I can't confirm if the boy can be trusted on the matter. Regardless, this is an obvious reference to The Pilot Episode.

Now, with that in mind, we have a single valid source that suggest this planet even exists. There's no reason we should connect all the references throughout the First Doctor's era to this one vague reference. All we have is a bunch of references to some planet of origin which, I might add, was finally seen in The War Games and eventually given a name in The Time Warrior. The point is, the 49th century reference in the unaired pilot was removed for a reason, and there's a reason too for the existence of T:NO RW. We don't know whether those early references to some other planet were referencing the same origin as the one from the unaired pilot (although we do know they were kept intentionally vague), but we do know that when they finally removed the ambiguity which clouded this planet, it was given the name Gallifrey.

One might also mention that 49th century planet reference goes hand-in-hand with being human, however as CzechOut points out, the Doctor was never unambiguously human, and references tended to veer either side of the argument depending on the writer. Even the unaired pilot had the Doctor say he was of another "race" from humans...

So my suggestion now is not that this page be deleted, but instead just covers the references from Unnatural History, Escape Velocity and Deadline. The possible links to the First Doctor's era should be covered exclusively in the BTS section. Alternatively, or perhaps in addition to this, we could also create a new page which covers all of the planets the Doctor might have come from at The Doctor's home planet, in a similar vein to The Doctor's species. That way we can cover all the vague references to "some planet", as well as Earth, the origin seen in The Timeless Children, Planet (Unnatural History), and finally Gallifrey. The Unnatural History reference can also be viewed as one possible explanation for the discrepancies without being speculatively linked to several other references. Danochy ☎ 11:43, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Eloquently put. I think, inadvertently, the section of references I compiled has essentially became somewhat close to your proposal of the Doctor's home planet. I would agree that the creation of that page should definitely be considered, but we would have to make sure it has enough standalone content from the Doctor's early life to avoid overlap. There is the issue of making sure each page is routinely updated, as one page might cover information that isn't present on another page when it really should.

I think, as well, I wanted to group the references to the Doctor and Susan's home planet here instead of on Gallifrey, because, despite the references eventually evolving into what we know as Gallifrey, the references at the time did not form Gallifrey, not that it even existed yet.

What I'm trying to say is that, while the early Who stories make up part of the history of Gallifrey as established later, the history of Gallifrey aren't synomymous with the original references, if that makes sense.

One of my main irritations with the Wiki as of late is how the retcons (or evolution of the story, etc) are being treated as if they were always the case, where references to Gallifrey are being cited with stories that existed prior to Gallifrey; while we can logically see that these references can be interpreted as a reference to Gallifrey, we shouldn't write articles with interpretations being treated as facts.

As for your point about these references being not necessarily to the same origin as the planet from the 49h century, that is a valid point I hadn't considered. I treated these references as "a reference to a planet pre-Gallifrey", grouping them, without considering even if they're referencing the same planet anyway. Thus, while these early references should be grouped somewhere, I think it may be best if they are not grouped on Gallifrey or Planet (An Unearthly Child).

Epsilon📯 📂

12:08, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Just popping in to note that Czech's historical overview is interesting in establishing the intent of the TV production office, but that is quite different from saying that "the Doctor was never unambiguously human" — because he certainly was in several valid sources, both televised and not, as documented here. This is all material well-covered at The Doctor's species — but what is most relevant to the present discussion is that one of the most unambiguous references to the First Doctor and Susan as "humans", humans on a specifically biological level, occurs in none other than The Sensorites.

Thus, despite the temptation to go along with the later continuity of the planet with the orange sky being Gallifrey (and certainly it is that "by most accounts"), I do think there is a strong argument rooted in the story itself, side-stepping any issues of T:NO RW, for awarding some coverage to the idea that the "planet with the orange sky" as described in The Sensorites might in some accounts/time-tracks be a human colony, rather than Gallifrey.

As to whether the "planet in the 49th century" and the "human colony with orange skies" ought to be conflated on a single page I agree the current setup is perhaps not optimal. The Doctor's home planet sounds like a good addition to the The Doctor's early life and The Doctor's species "family", and better-able to document the inherent plurality of the pre-The War Games origins.

In truth this is what the title Planet (An Unearthly Child) ought to reflect: a page similar to Time Lord messenger (Genesis of the Daleks), giving an overview of the different proposed identities for the planet first mentioned in An Unearthly Child — rather than a page about a specific planet distinct from Gallifrey. The name is thus viable, but I think a rename to The Doctor's home planet will be more in keeping with the "species" and "early life" page, and avoid confusion.

This leaves the question of a page specifically about the specific 49th-century planet described in the Pilot Episode and introduced to the valid DWU in Unnatural History. Such a page has a right to exist separate from the "overview of differing accounts", and should probably be placed at Planet (Unnatural History) for lack of a better name.

(Note that all of the above is not quite an admin ruling; this talk page is quite new, and if any have further insight they want to contribute which would affect the suggested rename/split setup I outlined, I want to give them time to volunteer it. However, note that there will be ample time to further discuss e.g. how to deal with specific 1960s information on "the Doctor's planet" at Talk:The Doctor's home planet once the split is implemented, so there's no obligation to sort everything out right now. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 01:24, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Although I haven't enacted any page moves, I have spent time balancing the article to be more neutrally about the different references to the Doctor's planet; this page is probably ready to be moved, however there is the matter of the Doctor's home to contend with.

Thoughts on my rewrite and on the aforementioned similar page?

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

02:36, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

One potential drawback to the merge however would be the coverage of characters like the Monk. As this page currently is formatted, it is open to any early accounts of fellow whatever-the-species-the-Doctor-is-people (however incredibly few there are) so the origins of the Monk can also be discussed here. However, if this is moved to The Doctor's home planet or something, then, AFAIK, the Monk cannot be included, as editors in the past have refrained from linking to pages like the Doctor's species on other early Time Lord character pages.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

12:25, 16 April 2024 (UTC)