User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-27280472-20160606210324/@comment-28349479-20161130040450

I don't think that's what the quotes from the author indicate at all. Specifically, look at the following:

"No regeneration scene, no continuity references, no nothing. You've got to get to know this character and his companions again."

In the last thread, this was read as "proof that he didn't intend to respect the narrative elements of DCOT", which is completely wrong, considering the Doctor didn't actually die in the story. Instead, Freedman appears to be saying that he intends to get the commission to produce Doctor Who on television, implying a continuation, but it would be with an all-new Doctor, with no direct in-your-face continuity linking it to the old series. When the author went on his rants about how the TV movie was terrible, he was referring to the way in which it began with a giant continuity link and presumption of audience knowledge, which he thinks is a bad idea and credits with its lack of success.

(This is in line with the "It's not going to be McGann" quote and, as czechout says in the earlier thread, rather similar to RTD's approach with Doctor Who series 1.)

In these ways, DCOT can be seen as setup, a (as he says) "stepping stone" for a soft reboot of the series, which would leave it ambiguous as to how much time, adventures, and regenerations have passed since DCOT. The Doctor is vanished ... until one day he reappears and the new series starts. This leaves room for the TV Movie, which (funnily enough) doesn't exactly contradict the idea that the Time Lords aren't running the show anymore. I still think it should be considered an alternate universe, not fully integrated, since there was no follow-through, but either way it seems to me that it fits pretty well under TID's precedent.