Discussion Series / DoctorWho

The Staff Note says it's so the compilation doesn't have to be constantly edited for new Doctors. This way when there's a new Doctor we just switch to a poster of that person.

All things considered, it seems kinda weak and lazy. The compilation shows the whole legacy of the Doctor and really gets across that this is a very long-running show.

Plus, given the poor rep 13 has garnered in some circles, it can come across as an ego trip or trying to promote her over other incarnations.

Its not an ego trip really, they have always replaced the Doctor with the current incarnation for consistency. They will replace her when she regenerates as well as a matter of course. It's more practical then anything. Also every version of the Doctor has received poor rep in certain "circles" one way or another. Does not affect the image itself, as it's function is to show the current Doctor.

Someone dig up that old picture and put it in the characters page. Sounds like a good compromise.

There's already a compilation image on the Doctor Who – Doctors page.

Sounds good to me. :)

I think it's worthwhile, but I'd put it through TLP and put it at Main.Doctor Who Creators as an index.

I threw it up on TLP, see what people think. I think it's a pretty sensible index. I managed about twenty names on the page, and I'm sure there's some I'm not thinking of, and there's some people who could be given Creator pages, like Ben Aaronovitch, Paul Magrs or Gary Russell (to name three very different examples), to bulk it out even further.

(I just realised I forgot Nicholas Briggs! And Colin Baker, as the only Who actor to get a writing credit too. There's probably some British comics creators too - Alan Moore comes to mind.)

Right, I've had no action in two weeks, either here or on Ykttw, so I'm going to make it a page. I'll model it on Comicbook Creators, and it's just an index, so surely nobody will have a problem with that. And if they do, it's nothing we can't fix.

Yes! Thank you, I'm not the only one. It's really annoying seeing entries debate whether something is "canonical" or not (or worse, "made uncanonical" by whatever other story) in a series where the writers themselves say ideas of canon are a load of bollocks. This isn't DC, where they like to have a firm idea of what "counts" and what doesn't. (And then contradict themselves every two years, but that's a whole other problem.)

This is my 2nd attempt at posting something. I'm sorry if i'm still doing something incorrect

A lot appear in both eras, so we can't really split it.

Also, some would consider it one show.

Perhaps the list could be split somehow differently:

Tropes from all of DW Tropes unique to classic tropes unique to new

or something like that?

I wouldn't want to see it split up, it is canonically the same show.

How about just put it in Alphabetical folders?

Hmm, maybe. I don't think the page itself needs splitting.

I agree. We should do this.

I've been having the same problem! Is there a page administrator we can talk to you?

It's far over the size limit. 664154 characters. I've locked it to prevent further explosions; I'll split it in a minute so that you can still edit the examples.

Why is the page still locked? Can you add a mention of the new spin-off, Class, please?

Please use the edit requests thread linked from the Locked Pages page, please.

In fact, here's an exact quote from RTD I found on the Big Finish podcast Who's Round 59 (at about 16 minutes):

"Well, exactly, and the fact that there is no great big controller dictating what this character [the Doctor] is. There's no bible sort of saying 'this character will be this'. Makes it much, it's, he's more interesting than Captain Kirk. All these other- more interesting than Buffy, frankly. It's, like, a lot of these characters do have bibles and it hasn't done them any good. This man's been a different actor, he's been all over the place, he can do anything. It's marvellous."

I don't think that would fall under any of these tropes. Maybe Pride?

That is prolly a question for Headscratchers.Doctor Who

Whatever they are made of is probably stronger than actually stone. One episode of the new series showed characters trying to destroy them with firearms to no avail. At-least when they are at the peak of their strength. The same episode also showed that angels that had not feed in a long time would grow weaker which made their "stone"-form deteriorate easier.

Hello, MHM. You might find more information in the forum thread - wiki discussion pages are more for discussing the page than the work.

Cool, thanks.

Actually, I confirm BBC Asia has never aired any of the specials. I was disappointed with them skipping the Easter Special, but since it was filler I let it past. But then they did skip The Time of The Doctor. I can confirm that there was a huge backlash in the contact us page for BBC Asia ( see http://www.bbc-asia.com/contact/?page=3 , halfway down, continued into page 4, 5 and probably further back).

The message given by BBC Asia (on Page 5) reads as follows:

Thank you for your enquiries asking whether Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor Christmas Special 2013 will be shown on BBC Entertainment. This special is not due to be shown on the channel in the near future but we have certainly noted fans’ interest in seeing this Christmas Special.

Notice that nothing has been said about them airing it in the future. I assume it something is "No Export For You" until it is confirmed that they bring it in?

I guess I misinterpreted "we have certainly noted fans’ interest in seeing this Christmas Special." as that they will be airing it in the distant future, but have come to realize I was too optimistic.

I will go ahead and put it back into the page with some tweaks.

PS: I assumed that it aired in Japan and Korea somehow because there were many Japanese and Korean replies to BBC's posts about the special on Facebook, that seems to implies that the special has somehow aired in both countries and not the rest of Asia.

No. No. And no. John Hurt is an anomaly hidden from the Doctor's history and time stream even if he legitimately is a proper regeneration that follows McGann and precedes Eccleston. The three revival doctors have been widely known as Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh or Nine, Ten and Eleven for years. Also, as John Hurt's "Doctor" abandoned the name "the Doctor" upon becoming a warrior, Eccleston is still the ninth incarnation to go by the Doctor, meaning that although the count involving twelve regenerations may be complicated and require footnotes, that does not excuse site-wide renames for the 21st century Doctors.

The BBC site and the 50th anniversary site keep those names and will likely not change them.

So what he's called is the War Doctor even if I'd have preferred Warlock myself. What we need to do is edit the cover picture with his face I think.

Unless we can get permission for a bit of digital trickery, where a mouse-over reveals the new picture with the War Doctor inside.

You do realize that we we have no inclination to keep the old numbering system, due to new information. We now know that all Revival Series doctors are up a number, this cannot be disputed. The reason this is also important is due to his lifespan; this makes Capaldi his final life, period.

Whilst now incorrect, the old numbering system is well-established and changing it would lead to a lot of confusion across the site (because even if we bumped the doctors up a number here, other pages with Doctor Who examples might not get that done) and be out of step with official materials. The numbers should be left as they are with a special note about the War Doctor.

I believe it's been asserted that the original, official count refers to the Doctor who calls himself the Doctor. The War Doctor abandoned that name (save for that touching moment in the end, but of course he'd forget about it soon after), so he doesn't count.

Also, be warned, since Moffat also amended his prior statement about the numbering, how there's Twelve Doctors (that's counting Capaldi) and thirteen regenerations (that's counting Hurt). NOW he's saying that the Metacrisis Doctor also used up a regeneration (cue some people crying I Knew It!!), so now Matt Smith's Doctor is the thirteenth incarnation instead of the twelfth, meaning his regenerating into Capaldi's Doctor should be impossible. I'm pretty sure there are those who disagree, so I foresee an Edit War about this coming in the future.

"The Time of the Doctor" maintains that Matt Smith still "the Eleventh Doctor".

River flying the TARDIS resulted in the universe being destroyed yesterday.

Giving the gag some canonocity after all.

To be fair, it's not just the sound... The Doctor is very, very bad at getting the TARDIS to where he wants it.

The TARDIS goes where there is trouble, not just where the Doctor wants to go.

I see where you are coming from, but casting doesn't really fall under "spoiler", especially when the BBC itself wants everyone to know.

The casting of Peter Capaldi is all over the news. You have to live under a rock to avoid any spoilers until Christmas...

So 12 isn't "12", he's "12+X" where X is one or more regenerations.

The way I took it is that they've never said just how long the Time War took, and even if you just go by Hartnell, then Time Lords do age; the rest just haven't stuck around long enough to do so visibly. Or they could just say something timey-wimey happened to make him look older.

No, they aren't. They are both a sort of Elseworld episodes, same with Scream Of the Shalka, the one with Stephen Fry in it, that Jimll Fix It skit, and those appearances at the Albert Hall for the Proms. Just Curse of Fatal Death is a very crack-y one.

Personally I'd love to know the canon status of the radio plays and the Tom Baker audio adventure "The Pescatons".

Doctor Who media has never been given "canon status" by an official body, unlike Star Trek and Star Wars. At least one of the writers (who did Shalka and the TV series) straight-up says that it doesn't HAVE a canon.

It doesn't really matter. What with all the time travel that goes on, any of the adventures could be canon and not canon at the same time because "time can be rewritten."

He was referring to "life" at its most basic. Just because one has "life" does not mean one has consciousness. That's the distinction he was making. Sure, the nanogenes were able to bring the boy back to "life," but they weren't able to make him himself again.

I reckon it can be.

Fandom tends to prefer folks who are unknown, or at least have more history with theater than film or television.

Henpecked Husband is probably the trope you are thinking of, but I don't think Rory is an example. He's just a laid back kinda guy who is happy to be with the woman he loves.

I think he's more of an example of Tropes Are Not Bad. He's dominated and she wears the pants, but she treats him fine now and he's happy to let her take charge.

In that particular case, Rory Pond over Rory Williams might be a space issue — the names look better if they're close to the same length making the four of them roughly a square, but the full Rory Williams would break it. I do like how the Doctor often uses Rory Pond, though.

Didn't the Dalek in Dalek kill itself? Sooo...no.

Yes, but it hardly just woke up one morning and said "I've had enough of this world".

Well, the Dalek only killed itself because it had absorbed some of Rose's DNA and because it thought it was the last Dalek left. The Daleks in the season one finale had absorbed human DNA as well, but didn't kill themselves.

To be honest I've got to agree. Although we don't see the deaths more people die in the series 1,2 & 4 finals than do in the episode Dalek its just our characters are closer to the dalek hence we see the characters die contrast with parting of the ways where we just see continents change

I'm relatively sure it's from a "Doctor Who Night" the BBC had in 1999. Not positive.

Mentally, I call them "Doctor Speeches" at the moment; though I have the suspicion that they must turn up elsewhere.

The Doctor seems to be especially talented at the Crowning Moment of Awesome, which he conveys via speechifying. Generally, they seem to include to following elements as well as the ones you mentioned:

Bavarian Fire Drill; Xanatos Gambit; Last-Second Chance; Dare to Be Badass

None of those really capture his specific talent, though. The battle's already won, he's just letting you know. If anything, it needs a new category: Check and Mate.

"Companion" is used as far back as the first serial, IIRC, although not exactly in the usual context.

Really? I thought running through corridors was a staple of the old show too. Not the Hartnell era, though, obviously.

And even THAT I'm not sure about, as one of One (not actually played by Hartnell) and Susan's first scenes in The Five Doctors are exactly that.

the very first appearance of the Daleks was at the end of a scene which involved running down a corridor. The running along (cardboard) corridors is mentioned almost as often as the phrase "behind the sofa" when it comes to Who.

Mad man in a box is typical of The Doctor himself, but I think the current quote works for the show.

Classic Who: companions join and leave.

RTD Who: companions join and leave or die.

MOF Who: Doctor recruits Amelia at age 8 and abandons her until she is 20 and abandons and comes back and abandons and comes back.

Here is my reasoning why it should be Luke, You Are My Father: This isn't a situation where someone is revealing their maternity/paternity to someone but is the *other* way around. Yes, River has been known to Rory and Amy for two series but they don't actually know who she really is; they don't know her *real* identity. Therefore this should be considered a Subverted Trope of Luke, You Are My Father because, further on in "A Good Man Goes to War," Melody had just been taken. While she isn't a "long-lost" child she is still "lost;" Rory and Amy have no idea where she is or if they will ever see her again. In light of this fact it is a big shock when River reveals herself as their daughter from the future.

What's the consensus on this issue, then? Does anyone else agree/disagree with either of us?

I'll add that she's been seen four times before said kidnapping. Three by Amy, and two by Rory. She's not an unknown. That's my main point of contention. They know at least as much as we do about an archaeologist called River Song before Melody's kidnapping.

Luke, I Am Your Father, both on the page, the Laconic page and on the Canonical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions, simply says characters once thought to not be parental-child related before, are. It doesn't say who reveals what to who, though for obvious reasons it's usually the parent to the child.

Though I'm not sure what you mean by subverted. But, yes, I'd like some more discussion on this point.

I agree with Torfindra on this.

While Amy and Rory know River, they still had no idea that River is their daughter's future self, therefore she tells them this and reassures them that the Doctor would find her and that she would be okay. Therefore, Rory You Are My Father does still fit the situation.

They don't, but isn't that the entire definition of Luke, I Am Your Father that I just mentioned in my above post?

Those two links you gave me are just general distinctions between the tropes. The trope pages themselves should be considered the real sources; the real point of distinction is who is doing the revealing, as I mentioned in my previous post. According to the actual Luke, I Am Your Father page it is always parent to child and always vice-versa in the Luke, You Are My Father page - the latter trope being what happened in the first place since it is the child to the parents.

Also, in the latter trope the child has to be either unheard of OR long-lost; these requirements can be mutually exclusive as the trope explains. As I wrote above, Rory You Are My Father is subverted since she isn't a "long" lost child; Amy and Rory lost Melody just now. River, on the other hand, was aware of the fact that she is long lost.

River says "Rory, you are my father.", this fits Luke, You Are My Father which is the Anti Trope to Luke, I Am Your Father.

Except it ain't. There is a Grandfather Clause such that LIAYF is the Super-Trope for all {insert name}, I am your {insert relation} and LYAMF is the sub-trope.

Both the super trope and the sub trope apply, leave them both in tlc.

Double post please delete

Both the super trope and the sub trope apply, leave them both in tlc.

Someone's added them to that page; I'll say that I first thought they were Greys when I saw early previews, but those were all very brief and distant views. They do seem to have something of it about them, though. And it seems fitting since they're most active in America and Greys are part of American popular culture.

"Most active in America"? Huh? They've colonised Earth since prehistoric days, and have tunnels reaching out across the entire planet.

I read the description on The Greys page, and the appearance doesn't really work at all for me. The main discrepancy is that they're too tall, and the eyes (even with the weird shadow the sockets make) are too tiny.

It was stated in the show that most of the Silence are in America, though they didn't say why. Also, Greys can be tall. It's a common enough variant.

Silence are Munch's Scream? I was thinking the Gentlemen from BTVS, but both could derive from Scream.

Between 1963 and 2011, all of five companions have died without returning later on (Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Adric, Astrid and Adelaide)*

You seem to be using Reset Button in a way I don't recognise. Does it just mean "killing/trapping the enemy" now?

Army of Ghosts - The destruction of Torchwood London is an important and mandatory part of the spinoffs, but also that of The Runaway Bride, the series 3 and 4 finale, and The End of Time.

Utopia - A lot IS reset, but that still doesn't change the fact that he's been manipulating Martha's family from behind the scenes, as well as the fact that the Doctor couldn't (and can't) sense any surviving Time Lords in the universe. Another person hiding with a fobwatch? Seems pretty Whammy to me.

I don't consider plot threads "Emergency Temporal Shift", the Cybermen being pulled into the Void with the Daleks and the Master and that ring being picked up on again in a long string of Dalek episodes, The Next Doctor, and The End of Time, respectively.

Granted, I don't have too much issue with removing the End of Time example. I don't even recall stuff about "the Void" and "time bubbles". The Doctor BURNED Gallifrey, right?

The alterations between cast members IS a change to the status quo, isn't it.

I also don't see how they fit HSQ instead. In fact, the HSQ page STATES "Wham Episodes tend to have a high HSQ".

I just have to point out, Peri's fate is ambiguous. Katarina, although not there for long, was intended to be a Wham moment to the sixties audience.

The companion-changing moment does alter the status quo, but the changing itself is part of the premise of the show, which is a stronger (at least more immovable) notion.

The mention of past companions have mostly always been "they come and go and it's always sad". the Adric example, though more valid as Wham Episode than, say, the departure of Dodo, made for a tear-jerking episode conclusion, but didn't have more repercussion than, the departure of any other companion. *because the cast alteration have become part of the premise*

The problem is the examples only list the HSQ part of a given episode, not the status quo altering part of the episode. So yes Torchwood'd destruction was a handy plot device for a handful of later stories, though it is a "Emergency Temporal Shift" kind of plot device - except as a background element rather than a central plot point.

Thing is we should list those particular ETS instances (precisely, an enemy that shouldn't exist, does because they got lucky, but at the end of the episode, it is the final end of that enemy...ever! — which I unaccurately refered to as reset button though, technically it's not, but given the very episodic nature of the show, for all intents and purposes, it is the same thing)

- The Dalek ones (obviously)

- The Cybermen

- The Master/Time Lords have one (actualy Utopia/Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords isn't any more Whammy than Dalek) and YES, the Doctor burned Gallifrey, which we have known since series 1. not an End of Time revelation.

- The numerous tech scavenged from the supposedly destroyed TW 1 who all get destroyed by the end of the serial in which they're introduced.

- The time war had at least three FINAL BATTLE EVER-s! (Dalek, Parting of the ways and End of Time - though every other Dalek story might count too...)

Redirect is now broken; the Series.Doctor Who Namespace title is now accessible for the series pages to be moved to them.

Yes, it is canonical. It takes place after "journey's End" and before "The Next Doctor."

...Webb?

The cursive word in question was a surname. I think they just mean "web" as in the homepage or the internet.

Done a little research now.

For your viewing pleasure. Make of it what you like.

I'm not going to just tell you where to watch it illegally. You'll have to find it on your own (it's not hard).

Alternatively, netflix has the first five years of the revival online, whcih you'll get better quality for.

Actually it is very hard to find a decent site to watch it on, otherwise I wouldn't asking where to find it. I never said anything about watching it illegally, I was only asking if there was a site (like an official website or something) that had back episodes on it. But I'll probably just order a box-set of it.

Believe me, there is at least one site that streams every episode plus every episode of the spinoffs and is not at all hard to find.

If you can afford a box set, do yourself a favor and get a netflix account instead.

The BBC itself hosts the episodes sometimes, but for stupid reasons that I don't understand, the content is blocked outside the UK. So you're probably down to streaming/downloading them illegally, or renting them in some way, or buying them, whichever you prefer. I'm not aware of any site that streams them legally for free at the moment, probably for aforementioned UK copy protection.

Yeah the BBC doesn't show in my country either so I'll go with the netflix plan. Thanks!

The reason the BBC website is blocked outside the UK, by the way, is probably because of how the BBC works. The programming is paid for not by advertising (which is actively forbidden on the BBC), but by me, and millions of other Britons, paying a fee for a "license" to watch television. It's compulsory if you own a TV set, not a subscription model like cable or satellite.

So, a decision was made that British license-fee payers pay for the programme, they get to watch it free and everyone else can buy the box-set or wait for their own TV network to buy the show. And I have to say, as one of said license-fee payers, good on them.

The reason the BBC website is blocked outside the UK, by the way, is probably because of how the BBC works. The programming is paid for not by advertising (which is actively forbidden on the BBC), but by me, and millions of other Britons, paying a fee for a "license" to watch television. It's compulsory if you own a TV set, not a subscription model like cable or satellite.

So, a decision was made that British license-fee payers pay for the programme, they get to watch it free and everyone else can buy the box-set or wait for their own TV network to buy the show. And I have to say, as one of said license-fee payers, good on them.

Yes, but why not try to market the licenses outside the UK, and just have some sort of Log-on for the site? I would buy it.

You would? piracy is so easy that not many people would. The BBC may need to address this someday, because it's not like we all have to wait for the tapes to be shipped overseas anymore.

I believe the BBC are looking into implementing an international iPlayer, which I imagine will either be on a subscription model or a $1 an episode style model...

His early look was pretty bad. It's very good that they went with something a lot more stylish.

i guess so :)

Given what he seems to wear in real life, and that he basically picked his own costume, we're lucky we didn't wind up with something as hideous as Six's technicoloured nightmare coat...

They're both consistent with David Tennant's sometimes unusual way of phrasing things. I can't recal any other examples in particular, but I can tell you that both those episodes were written by the same writer.

In any case, if we listed everything odd David Tennant did or said more than once during his run we'd be here all week.

He does it well in "The Unicorn and the Wasp" with regard to Agatha Christie: "You fool me every time. WELL, most of the time, WELL, once or twice, WELL, once. But it was a good once." Ten has a habit of Verbal Backspacing, especially in situations where he needs to talk fast. More a Verbal Tic than a real catch phrase (and he has TONS of those).

Yeah, no more a catchphrase than Mc Gann's Doctor's tendency of repeating small words multiple times when in a hurry and/or panicing. "Nononononono!" from the television movie stands out, but the books and comics both picked up on that, and he continued it in the audios.

Not really. They take the basic concept in another direction, contradicting most prior established facts - not just later ones. Non Serial Movies aren't canon, but could be (until the next episode airs, at least). The Cushing movies aren't even that.

There probably is a trope they fit into, though.

They're possibly Pragmatic Adaptations of the first two Dalek serials (rather than the series as a whole)

The slang in "Paradise Towers".

Hmm, Talk pages never appear on my watchlist anymore so I forget to use them.....anyway, I still vote for the new quote, but I get your points.

Try dropping and readding watches.

...which I actually forgot to do for this page myself. D'oh.

The problem is, there doesn't seem to be any one line that epitomizes the show itself (unless, of course, it's "Run!") The Doctor's incarnations all have different catchphrases. But then, my knowledge of Classic Who is extremely sketchy and the only series I know in-depth is Christopher Eccleston's.

What we need is that one sentence or phrase that just says "Doctor Who." And we can't use "Vworp Vworp Vworp!" as a caption (if only!)

How 'bout just no caption then? Or is that too boring?

Having no caption both lacks context where context is needed and also encourages tropers to fill the space with something stupid that they think is clever (or at least revert the deleted one, which has happened already). We should put something there that's hard to mess with.

Don't Ask, Just Run?

For that matter, is there a better picture of David Tennant? The current one really doesn't do him justice.

True. I recall that's one of the early photos. No idea who actually makes these images though.

Trouble is the show has been running for the fat end of 50 years, the lead character has changed actor - and characteristics - eleven times to date and the companions (effectively second lead and as important to the canon as the lead) many times more. The story has ranged over all of space and time (literally from the beginning to the end of the universe), introduced two major British cultural icons as well as several lesser ones - and encompassed almost any form of televisual story telling you can think of.

It is a show a huge and labyrinthine history - and the namer for 22 tropes - and although I'm quite certain a good copy edit would shorten it a fair bit, in terms of key details it really hasn't gone too far.

I think the mistake was perhaps not including the premise in the intro until yesterday, when I added it. Because the premise is really very simple. But the rest just isn't.

I know - not that helpful, but I've looked at it a few times and there really isn't a section that could be removed and the page still be considered complete by those of us who saw the very first episode and have been fans ever since.

Oh, don't be so apologetic- that's much more helpful than what I've gotten from Trope Repair Shop on this.

If I look at this more closely, the first five paragraphs as of this writing are fine, and could probably stand slight rewrites, but nothing major. It's what comes after that's confusing. We've got a couple of paragraphs about how the show has puzzling numbering, and about a dozen special paragraphs that so far as I can tell are trope example essays.

To get anywhere, it might behoove us if the Doctor Who fans could explain why so much of this information needs to be in the description. Why do we need to know right off the bat that series 4 uses weird numbering? What's with the "significant characters and concepts" section? Most of those are just tropes. No other page that I'm aware of uses special formatting to call attention to "important" examples.

I'll grant I don't speak for everyone, but a lot of this is off-putting. It makes the page look longer than it actually is and consequently makes me not want to read the page. In my opinion a lot of this stuff needs to be reorganized for the aesthetics to be any good here.

Well, everything will always benefit from a good copy edit, but good copy edit is hard and takes time (which is why there is so much over-written drivel on Wikipedia).

The challenge is to find a way that is respectful of other's work (including their sense of humour), while trimming the cruft.

The ep number paras can go, but they are a fanboy-ish bone to chew so it would be a shame to lose them completely (a meta entry on Just Bugs Me strikes me as harmless enough).

But it does get tricky. Missing Episodes are very important to Who's history - but I doubt we need listings of other shows affected (they are dealt with elsewhere): that William Harnell's last episode is lost and you can win a damned Dalek if you ever find it: that matters.

In the interest of humour I'd almost be minded to remove the entire trope list and replace it "All of 'Em", but that might be a tad controversial.

I still think the page is very very long and confusing for new readers, and I'm wondering if there's some there that can be cut out and readers redirected to the pages on the Other Wiki for more detail.

I'm willing to have a crack at a copyedit, but is there any sort of Sandbox feature around the site where I can throw something out and get feedback without actually changing the page as is?

On Wikipedia, I can do it in my User Space and direct people to look there...

I still think the page is very very long and confusing for new readers, and I'm wondering if there's some there that can be cut out and readers redirected to the pages on the Other Wiki for more detail.

I'm willing to have a crack at a copyedit, but is there any sort of Sandbox feature around the site where I can throw something out and get feedback without actually changing the page as is?

On Wikipedia, I can do it in my User Space and direct people to look there...

Sort of. Most people would probably just go Sandbox.Doctor Who, I think.

I wouldn't start from the very first episode. The show's been going far too long.

My advice is to start with the first 2005 revival episode, with the ninth doctor, Christopher Eccleston. It's called "Rose". Things will still makes sense. They'd have to for it to work, since it was the first episode after a long hiatus.

Enjoy! I'm sure you'll love the show!

There's a graphic to help with this:

i.imgur.com/mZYW5

I also recommend Rose. By the time you catch up to the current series, you'll be a fan. You'll also be better able to appreciate the pre-modern series, which are very unlike a modern TV Show and harder to break into.

I recommand to start at season 31.

Far too long to start from An Unearthly Child and the production values make it hard to step in for a 00's viewer starting during the "classic" era.

The episode that really got me started is The Eleventh Hour. Then I watched the RTD era. During 9 and 10's run it is a truly mediocre series with (at most) 3 great episodes per season and the rest ranges from So Bad Its Horrible (Fear Her, Aliens Of London/World War Three, the one with Simon Pegg, Voyage of the damned, Season 30 Finale two parter) to So Okay, It's Average.

Had I started with Rose, I'd have stopped 2 minutes in.

Okay, thank you. I'll start at series 1.

So Bad It's Horrible has fallen into So Bad It's Horrible Trope Decay.

Bung 'em into Just Bug Me.

I don't think production titling belongs in It Just Bugs Me!.

I see what you mean. Outside of the sections, the only really part that summarises what the show is about is

"Since its debut on 23 November 1963 on BBC television, the British scifi series Doctor Who (...) takes place in and established the Whoniverse, which has a very loose and lax continuity, even discounting the Doctor Who Expanded Universe."

Not sure how to approach it myself though.

Hope the addition does it for you.

...and Rowan Atkinson in "The Curse Of Fatal Death", the 1999 Comic Relief special, written by one Steven Moffat. Two BBC-licensed, non-canon appearances and Chris.

American bootleg? I've never heard of this, got any more info on that?

I don't know about any specific American bootleg (as far as I can tell there were dozens of fanfilms made during the wilderness years), but there was an addition ninth Doctor in the form of Rowan Atkinson in Stephen Moffat's 1999 Children of Need sketch, Curse of the Fatal Death. In this same story there were also a tenth Doctor played by Richard E. Grant (before Scream of the Shalka), an eleventh by Jim Broadbent, a twelfth by Hugh Grant, and a thirteenth by Joanna Lumley. Yes, a woman.

And of course, Eccleston IS official. Or was that just a slip of the tongue?

No, unofficially there were three (or four or whatever) Ninth Doctors. Officially, there's one. All depends on your point of view. Lots of things work that way.

I asked that question when the episode first aired. It was suggested that that particular Cyberman was a rushjob, churned out because there wasn't time for a complete Cyberfication for whatever reason.

RTD wasnt as obnoxious about reset buttons as later season of Star Trek could be, but it was used in every season finale except the first.

...however I don't really see how 'Turn Left' and 'The Last of the Time Lords' don't fit the format of the show. Perhaps the entry should be rewritten completely?

Dei ex machinae, fyi.

No, it wasn't. That's my point. Only Last of the Time Lords (and in a very localised extent Journey's End If the cracks in time have undone it, it took eight episodes (Victory of the Daleks) for that to be apparent. And of course that's been reversed as of "The Big Bang" so...) counts. Doomsday, Journey's End (though the hand has existed since The Christmas Invasion and has been in the Doctor's possession since Utopia, and the Doctor Donna was loosely hinted at in Planet of the Ood, not to mention Rose's enigmatic statements of calling Donna "special") and The End of Time could arguably be called Dei ex machinae though.

Doomsday is not a reset button especially because the Doctor is alone (and still pining for Rose well into series 3), Torchwood, a then-128-year-old organisation is in tatters, and now only has Torchwood Three (at the time being Jack, Owen, Toshiko and Susie) left and hundreds, if not thousands of people on the ground are dead.

Okay, well, part of the problem is that Reset Button is defined more narrowly than it is in common usage - thus the disappointment of fans when Davies would write a finale with huge consequences that get undone by the end of the episode.

Must a Reset Button erase all changes to the status quo? For instance the Daleks killed a lot of people on Earth in the Stolen Earth, but this is treated mostly as irrelevant by the series after this, and the planets are returned to their proper places. Is that, by itself, still not a Reset Button?

Also, in the End of Time, Rassilon pressed the Reset Button on the Master's "become everyone on Earth" plan as soon as he showed up. So it definitely occurs in that episode, Rassilon isn't really a Deus ex Machina himself.

However, I'm not disagreeing with you, but I definitely am saying that I dont like either version of the entry. I think it needs more clarity.

Well, inevitable spoilers for the finale.

Shooting the Pandorica into the exploding TARDIS re-creating the universe sure seems like a reset button to me.

Yeah, about that. This was written before "The Big Bang" aired. So currently I count series 3 and 5 (and probably The End of Time) as Reset Buttons, series 4 as very borderline, and series 1 and 2 not at all.

I do think it's a little simple but it's also pretty effective. It is important that this page maintains a focus on the show as a whole rather than just the current series. The image adds to that.

Alright. 11th Doc has a better picture now.

The contrivances weren't all the fault of the characters being stupid , but you could argue that.

Well...

I agree with Hardi, but what ____ did was pretty stupid. ;)

I don't get it. Are you guys speaking English?

All I can very vaguely gather from that is that Ambrose was holding the Idiot Ball, maybe? I don't know, but that's still not justification for Idiot Plot (which applies to the whole cast).

Edited for spoilers.

No spoilers for us Americans who haven't seen these episodes yet (The American airing is about three weeks behind).

I AM American! I live in California!!!!

And none of the entries for it are spoiler-cut! Give away the plot if you must, but some of us in other parts of the world will not be seeing it for a while.

Clips of it have been released via publicity shows and naturally the internet shortly after.

Yeah, "Vampires of Venice" hasn't even aired in the UK at the time of this writing and won't for a few weeks. Unless the folks troping on it are BBC insiders, or it's being released sooner in countries outside of the UK than it is in its own home nation (which I strongly doubt), then the tropes on it are semi-educated guesses made based on teasers and trailers.

A 1:30 minute excerpt of the episode was released online.

in america, the episodes air 1 episode after the one airing in britan.

So, since I'm in America, I've already seen "Cold Blood."

I... feel like there should be, but I don't think there is?

Fanservice?

Fair Cop

Nah, that's for actual cops. This is for someone who isn't...