User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-6032121-20190515215720

Months ago, I created a page for the 1975 television special Disney Time 1975. The special in question was an installment of the Disney Time anthology series — which, like other similar Disney specials, mostly hosted extracts from preexisting properties and shorts, with a framing story around it featuring a guest star. You may have guessed it by now, but the guest star of this particular episode was none other than the Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker.

Soon after, a delete template was added to the page; it surfaced that the rationale was that the connection to Doctor Who was too tenuous, and that this was more “the host is Tom Baker, and he's sort of lightly pretending to be his most famous character but not really” than a story (albeit an invalid one) about the Fourth Doctor.

This is, in my opinion, very much untrue. The Doctor/Baker arrives in London in the TARDIS (it is seen materializing on-screen!), constantly acts like the Doctor without ever breaking character, and ends the special when he receives an urgent message from the Brigadier. That last bit is important — not only does it establish that this is the Doctor and not Tom Baker pretending to be the Doctor, but it appears to be a direct lead-in to Terror of the Zygons, broadcast just a few days later than Disney Time 1975, and which does indeed begin with the Doctor hurrying to the Brigadier after receiving an urgent message from him. A direct lead-in to a regular TV story is more of a narrative connection to regular Doctor Who than Search Out Space — undeniably something we cover — did, so why should Disney Time 1975 be out while Search Out Space is in?

We discussed this at some lengths on the talk page: Talk:Disney Time 1975 (TV story), but, even though User:Danniesen and myself were still arguing for the special to be covered, and the "delete" side had not answered the points I restated above in any clear fashion, the page still ended up being deleted.

Since the conversation is unlikely to be noticed by anyone who didn't already participate in it if we confine it to the talk page of a deleted page, I thought it best to bring it to the Forum. (Considering that this is a debate about whether to cover the thing or not, rather than about whether it is valid — for it is invalid either way; the Doctor breaks the fourth wall throughout, since he serves as a TV host — I think it belongs here, in the Panopticon, rather than in Inclusion Debates; someone, do correct me if I'm wrong on this.)

But to add to the earlier points… if this sort of clearly-invalid TV special thingum, where it's even slightly unclear whether the Doctor's actor is in-character or not, isn't within what Tardis covers — could somebody tell me what the justification is for keeping pages about the likes of The Lord Mayor's Show, or Tony Blair Regenerates, or the Surprise Surprise! special?