User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-121.45.54.78-20130925110520/@comment-1293767-20140226213644

I got the e-mail reply to this thread, but for some reason my last post and OS25's post are not showing up in the thread. (Maybe they take a while to show?) The last one is CzechOut's from two hours ago. :-/ So I guess I'll quote from the e-mail:

"The 'audio is not an appearance' argument gets very tricky when it comes to audio stories."

If I didn't make it clear, I didn't mean an audio appearance is not an appearance, I meant an archival audio appearance is not an appearance unless it's repurposed as "new" footage. So when you hear the audio clips in JTTCOTT, those are basically just audio flashbacks, the audio equivalent of an archival video or still image.

For example, if they had used Nine's "and now for my next trick!" dialogue in TDOTD, without showing it with his image (in the same context), it still would've counted as an appearance because although it was archival, it wouldn't have been being utilized as a flashback, it would still have been being used to say that Nine is present and helping to save Gallifrey along with all the other incarnations.

"While I could see separating these brief images and flashbacks from the direct appearances it should defiantly be kept on the same page."

That's why I felt the "(dream)" or "(flashback)" or "(archival image)" tactics were useful, because it helped me weed out episodes if what I wanted was a full fledged appearance or what have you. If we weed out archival flashbacks/images, that would eliminate part of the confusion, but things like dream, hallucination, or shapeshifty "appearances" are still a little misleading.