Talk:The Curse of Fatal Death (TV story)

The 17th Master

I don't really understand why this is said to be an "error" by the article. At the time, and not considering the still-to-be-made "Utopia", it's pefectly logical to call him the 17th

• 13th - Delgado + Deadly Assassin/Keeper of Traken Master
• 14th - Ainley
• 15th - the guy "killed" by the Daleks in the pre-titles of the 1996 movie (Tipple is too tall to be mistaken for Ainley, even in his brief shot)
• 16th - Roberts
• 17th - Pryce

Moreover, the "explanation" given by the article doesn't make logical sense. It's got the "14th" ("the one who battled the Fourth") as distinct from the Delgado Master, when the Deadly Assassin dialogue all but states that its Master is the Delgado Master in a mutilated form. I've therefore removed the bit and archived it below:

• Why is The Master said to be the 17th master? If the one who came up against the Third Doctor was 13th and the one who stole the body of Tremas was 14th, then the one who battled the Eighth Doctor was 15th, then surly the one in this is the 16th and not 17th? This program is not considered to be canonical, and therefore the mention of the Master's regeneration number may simply be tongue-in-cheek. Still, The 13th Master is The one that fought the Third Doctor, however the 14th One is the one that fought The Fourth, the 15th one is the one that fought th 4th, 5th 6th and 7th Doctors, the 16th one is the one that fought the 8th. Therefore, this is technically the 17th Master.

At the time of production of "Curse" there was no continuity error, as far as I can work out. Now, if someone wants to build a case that, retroactively, a continuity crisis has set in, I suppose you could, since the Doctor's regeneration number is sorta the explicit point of the piece. But is there really a point?

CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 23:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Pratt/Beevers, Ainley and Tipple must all the same version - The Eighth Doctor says in the TVM that the master's 13th body has just been destroyed by the Daleks. Thus Roberts is the 14th, making this one only the 15th. Jack's the man - 14:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Weighing in on an absolutely ancient debate here, but just for the record:

• We now have a number of valid sources which accept the existence of a non-crispy pre-Deadly Assassin Pratt/Beevers Master as distinct from the Delgado Master, although we also have valid sources which conflate them. However, the consensus in such sources is that Pratt/Beevers was Thirteen, while the Delgado Master was the Twelfth.
• There is not actually anything within Curse of Fatal Death that names Pryce as the 17th Master, just production material. That stuff ain't valid, so the whole thing is a nonissue anyway.
• User:Jack's the man's reasoning is fatally flawed even if we accept his premise: the kind of nomenclature were stolen bodies puppeteered by Beevers, like Ainley, are still "the Thirteenth Master," would have no room for Roberts (who is just as much of a stolen body as Ainley) to count as #14. Either Ainley is #14 and you have Roberts as something like #16; or you count both Ainley and Roberts as still being #13. But Roberts as #14 is a non-starter.

Again, the Wiki's already resolved most issues in its treatment of all these conflicting accounts by now, I just thought I'd highlight the factual errors here for posterity's sake before the page is archived. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 21:07, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Webcast

Much is being made in the article of the fact that this special was supposedly webcast, but I really don't think it was. Someone simply posted a home recording of the special to the Internet in the small video files we had back then and they circulated amongst fandom, but it was not an official webcast at all. (Being a digital packrat I still have the files, four .mov clips sized 160x120 dated 1999.) I'm not sure whether the BBC was even doing webcasts yet in 1999. Rob T Firefly 20:26, April 13, 2010 (UTC)

Part of the DWU

Surely this is part of the DW universe. If the Eighth Doctor saw parts of this event in the Tomorrow Window as a possible future of his, doesn't that mean that it is canon on some level? I mean, when the eighth Doctor's face first appeared, we took it to mean that the 1996 movie was canon, even though there was still debate amongst some other fans. So why wouldn't this be any different? The Thirteenth Doctor 13:09, September 27, 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the story is just part of an alternate timeline, the gallifrey chronicles gives a similar view of this Doctor too. Revanvolatrelundar 13:12, September 27, 2010 (UTC)

I disagree, this story was never canon. It was a parody special plain and simple, and was never meant to be anything more than that so far as the DWU is concerned. The references in those novels were nice little nods to the spoof, but nothing sufficient to canonise it as part of the DWU.

Even putting the spoof element aside for the moment, compare Scream of the Shalka. That Ninth Doctor was subsumed in canon by the TV Ninth Doctor, rendering the whole story non-canonical and outside the DWU. The fact that since this special Doctor Who has had other Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors similarly subsumes this. Rob T Firefly 17:33, September 27, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with The Thirteenth Doctor.

I also agree with Rob T Firefly, it wasn't originally intended to be canon.

But that doesn't stop it from being brought into canon by novels that came after it.

If we use The Tomorrow Windows/The Gallifrey Chronicles as our info to prove this is canon then Scream of the Shalka also becomes just as canon.

I'm not against both Fatal Death and Shalka being re-included back into canon. Notes should be placed on both stories stories' pages stating that there's some contention about their canon-ness, but whichever novels that followed do suggest these events occurred in an alternate timeline (or something to that effect). --Tangerineduel 17:52, September 27, 2010 (UTC)

I will explain why this is non-canonical later. Boblipton ^{talk to me} 01:30, October 29, 2011 (UTC)

Ratings

Does anyone know how this rated at the time? --Silent Hunter UK ^{talk to me} 11:57, June 25, 2012 (UTC)

When did this become valid?

I seem to remember this story being invalid and, while I'd love it to be valid, I can't see why it would be as it surely fails under rule 4 of T:VS for being a parody. I have found evidence that this story was, at one point, invalid, but I can't find when it was made valid. Could anyone direct me to where this was decided, or give me a summary if it was decided on the forums, or tell me if I'm wrong? Thanks. Bongo50 (aka Bongolium500) ☎ 20:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

There was an inclusion debate on the subject, during which quotes were brought forward by User:Borisashton from Steven Moffat where he claimed that his authorial intent was that "this was a Doctor Who comedy, not a parody of Doctor Who", and that it be written to fit into the DWU as it existed in 1999, even at the expense of potential gags — notably overruling Jonathan Pryce's attempted ad-lib referring to Atkinson and Emma as "Doctor and Mrs Who". Other quotes show that the possibility of BBC Books novels tying Curse into the ongoing story arcs of the era were considered; Lawrence Miles notably wanted to do a story with the Lumley Doctor in the War in Heaven.

This was one of the last threads created before the Forums blew up, and due to a technical glitch, the closing post has actually been lost wholesale — even when the Forum archives come back online, it won't be visible.

Precisely to anticipate this type of question, I have since gone through the trouble of retyping the original closing post at User:Scrooge MacDuck/The Lost Closing Post. This is not the exact wording of the original post, but it does state the current policy on this issue and answer, I think, most potential queries.

Note however that User:CzechOut has submitted a wish to see the debate reopened once we have Forums again because he apparently has additional evidence to present, or possibly just another perspective. Out of respect for CzechOut's venerable status within the Wiki, it's I think been generally agreed that we will heed this request when the time comes. In the meantime, though, T:BOUND applies. 20:35, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I am all for making as many stories as possible valid (I'd argue for making the Peter Cushings films valid if I could) so I'm not planning to go against T:BOUND. Bongo50 (aka Bongolium500) ☎ 21:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Rename

"The Curse of Fatal Death was originally broadcast in four parts on BBC One on 12 March 1999 under the title Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death. Later home video releases are formatted as two parts and drop the "and" in the title." As such, for the sake of accuracy, I would posit that this page should be renamed to "Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death (TV Story)". — Fractal Doctor @ 23:08, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

A: This borders on a T:POINT violation.

B: This is more complicated than you think. There are, uh, 3(?) contemporary titles used. Moffat himself uses "The Curse of Fatal Death". The official VHS release uses, I believe, "Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death" as well (note that this is a contemporary release and is thus unlike Doctor Who (TV story)'s DVDs, but is analogous to its VHS tapes, which were released near the same time and were considered during the 2008 discussion, since this is what this is really about). But the actual name on VHS tape is "Doctor Who: The Curse of the Fatal Death". (See here.) So there are actually three different contemporary names used, unlike the other discussion, where one was used and people then, years later, started calling it something else. And so we just have to use other standards here. Najawin ☎ 23:50, 25 August 2023 (UTC)