Talk:The Man from MI.5 (TV story)

The Penta Ray Factor

So I thought it was cool that the Daleks were in this story so I decided to take a look. Turns out the "appearance" is actually last page of what is now known as The Penta Ray Factor, which is seen for a fraction of a second shortly after the 3 minute mark. This is a cool reference and all, but does it really constitute an appearance? Furthermore, the appearance of a comic strip does not scream DWU to me. In the same way that The Beano comic in The Rings of Akhaten doesn't set Doctor Who in the Beano universe. The lead of this article seems to be suggesting that the comic strip is an MI5 report of the Dalek invasion seen in that story. This appears highly speculative to me (not to mention that a comic strip seems an odd way for a secret service to report on an event). Also, while some are clearly official, most items in the draw with the comic strip seem to be for entertainment purposes (e.g. magazines), so it seems more likely that this piece is similarly kept for the owner's enjoyment, if there need be an explanation for its inclusion at all. Danochy ☎ 08:29, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

I understand your confusion, but there is nothing speculative about seeing this as a "report". You are overlooking certain basic facts of the lore of the "shared Gerry Anderson universe" of the 1960s, which gave a unifying origin to everything in TV Century 21. By definition, around that period, Thunderbirds and The Daleks shared a setting; that was a basic fact of those two series, strange as it seems today. So it's altogether unlike the Beano in Akhaten.

Furthermore, the whole of every issue of TV Century 21 was formatted under the pretense that it existed in-universe as a top-secret medium for communication between secret agents; the weekly comics about the Thunderbirds, Stingray, and, yes, the Daleks, were printed without fail with a framing device of being "hyper-space visual reports" or something of the kind. It is in fact completely within the lore that a secret agent would have an issue of the in-universe TV21 among his secret files, including the reports on the Daleks. Given the future setting of Thunderbirds it would, besides, make little sense for the magazine to be intended to be the real-world 20th century comic-book, rather than its futuristic in-universe counterpart. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 10:20, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

A question

If future episodes of the show made reference to the events of this episode, would they be considered valid? I haven't yet watched through the original Thunderbirds series, but I'm curious of how policy would apply in such a case. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 14:10, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Probably not, no — we're dealing with a crossover within an existing non-DWU series, not with a spin-off. Mere acknowledgment on the other side of the aisle that the DWU crossover occurred does not grant coverage, or else we would have to cover all the Death's Head stories that causally proceed from where the Seventh Doctor left him. Remember that the Doctor was responsible for shrinking Death's Head down from Transformers size to tall-human size, so in a very real sense, any subsequent stories where Death's Head is human-sized are acknowledging the events of The Crossroads of Time.

Now, in theory, a crossover may introduce a wholly new character or element, which can then be fairly said to have debuted in the DWU. As such, any further stories featuring this character would continue to be in a direct line of descent from Doctor Who, and could be eligible for coverage. But that's a very different thing from further stories in the crossing-over series just referencing the events of the crossover.

Also — given the specifics of the Man from MI.5 crossover, even if a new character did debut in Man from MI.5 and reappear later, there would be room for argument about whether in this specific case this should be counted as a "DWU debut". Man from MI.5's crossover aspect is akin to a Marvel-style shared-universe-easter-egg, not by any means central to the plot; so where, in the cases of some other crossovers, it may be common sense that (say) "the other aliens the Space Agency were investigating at the exact same time as the Daleks" are integrally part of the DWU at their inception, this is not necessarily a slam-dunk here. "The submarine captain first briefly encountered by Jeff Tracy on the same day that he investigated a spy whose first murder victim had been a man who had a report about the Daleks in his desk"… it's a bit thin, isn't it. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:56, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough, according to the Thunderbirds Wiki, this was the first appearance of FAB 2, so that would potentially lead to a likely irrelevant story being covered. (I personally see cameos as equal to full appearances, but that may be a bit too neutral of a stance) Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 16:38, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

(note: I'm unsure if FAB 2's debut in this story would qualify as "good enough" for coverage, but for now, I'll assume it isn't) Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 16:40, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Ah, interesting. Well, as I said, it's a debatable edge-case. If you want to argue in its favour, and other people agree, its coverage wouldn't be actively against policy or anything — but I would personally deem it a low-priority area for coverage, at best. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 17:43, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Having seen Introducing Thunderbirds, I don't think the TB Wiki's identification of it in the story holds up if we were to apply the more rigid standards of Tardis. It isn't named, there are differences in its appearance from the original model, and there is never a shot where the words "FAB 2" can be seen on its side. Also, the audio story where the dialogue is sourced from predated The Man from MI.5 by some months, so it certainly wasn't FAB 2 in the original. Let us remember that Lady Penelope has many yachts, including Seabird I and its successors, which had been seen when Introducing Thunderbirds was first released. In short, I believe it would be speculation to label this boat FAB 2 and, as such, neither version of the story has a claim along these lines to a page on this site. Borisashton ☎ 18:23, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

(just a note, according to the TB Wiki, "Chronologically speaking, [Mr. Steelman] was the first outing in the Thunderbirds universe - the premier episode Trapped in the Sky would not be shown on television for another 8 months." - so that confuses things for me (I'm not advocating for covering the entirety of another franchise, though - it could well be a similar situation to Vienna)) Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 19:26, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, better to think of it in terms of franchises and individual elements than universes; again, the Gerry Anderson folks saw everything they published as making up a singular TV21 universe, so there was no intent of a particular distinct "Thunderbirds universe" debuting in either Mr. Steelman or Trapped in the Sky; it was still the same old near-future setting they'd been working in since, at the latest, Fireball XL5 debuted in 1962. You may find this essay on all of this an interesting read.

As to the substantial point: the Vienna precedent is not a bad shout, but there is actually a technicality we can appeal to without having to go there. You see, being technical about it, it's actually only Part Four of the serialised Mr. Steelman that brought in the crossovery Dunwell Atomic Research Station into play. Of course, in narrative terms it's all one storyline — but in production terms it does mean that the Lady Penelope series, and the wider Thunderbirds franchise, debuted three whole weeks before an element that debuted in the Dalek /TV 21 overarching narrative made its way back into the Penelope/Thunderbirds strand.

Sure, it's a fine point, but it does illustrate well enough the common-sense fact that Thunderbirds was not in a meaningful sense intended to come across as a Dalek spin-off to its audience; and the truth is, if we didn't decide to be sticklers about this fine point, a reducio ad absurdum could potentially see us cover the whole of the Thunderbirds franchise, which I think we can all agree would be, uhm — stark raving lunacy, I think might be the technical term. Also, it would — if nothing else — be a rather dirty trick to play on the folks of the Thunderbirds Wiki with no forewarning. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:47, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

FAB 2

According to a user on the Thunderbirds Wiki, there are 'numerous' appearances of the FAB 2 in comics. If we are to cover anything licensed using the FAB 2 due to its debut in TV: The Man from MI.5, then should these also be covered as crossover material? (the page for COMIC: The Great Silver Robbery! already states "It also marked the reappearance of Lady Penelope's yacht FAB 2 which debuted in The Man from MI.5, the only episode of the television series to feature the Daleks.") Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 19:45, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, even if FAB 2 did debut in this episode, please see the points I made in the discussion above that covering vast swathes of Thunderbirds material based on anything that debuted in Man From MI.5 would probably not be a good idea.

But more importantly, unless I'm misreading it, the message you linked to has the selfsame Thunderbirds Wiki user arguing that in his opinion, the idea that the yacht in Man From MI.5 is in fact FAB 2 is spurious. So while it may well be the case that FAB 2 appears in "numerous" comics, that is, if we take the Thundrbirds Wiki's wisdom at its word, no concern of ours, since FAB 2 apparently did not debut in Man From MI.5 after all.

EDIT: Ack, I was misreading it, because I erroneously assumed the talk page to which you'd linked me was the TB Wiki's page on Man From MI.5, not Introducing Thunderbirds! Still, other points stand. I don't think we should rush into creating FAB 2-based pages without thinking it through. Though assuming we're sure it debuted in Man from MI.5, it might be useful to have a full list of legitimate FAB 2 appearances, if only to get our heads round the scope of what covering all its post-MI.5 appearances would entail. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:54, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

First off, The Great Silver Robbery! is a direct sequel to the earlier crossovers Mr. Steelman and The Return of Mr. Steelman which is its main reason for inclusion on this site. I noted the additional appearance of FAB 2 because it technically debuted in a Dalek story which is a pertinent fact to this Wiki. However, I share the concerns of Scrooge with regards to standalone FAB 2 stories as what we essentially have here is a concept which debuted in a Thunderbirds story reappearing in further Thunderbirds stories; FAB 2 was almost-certainly not created with the Doctor Who universe in mind. That being said, as Scrooge requests, I do have a list of the FAB 2 stories from Lady Penelope: Borisashton ☎ 21:12, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

1. Story 8: #60-#65

2. Story 12: #89-#93

3. Story 14: #98-#102

4. Story 19: #122-#126

5. Lady Penelope Versus the Fox: Lady Penelope Annual 1968

6. Duel in the Jungle: Lady Penelope Annual 1969