Talk:Dimensions in Time (TV story)

Request move to Dimensions in Time (TV story)
Although not canon, it was still broadcast on TV. The templates for the Doctor Who Answers wiki, a spin-off of this site, default to having "(TV story)" in the links, so anyone attempting to discuss Dimensions in Time at that site is unable to properly cite the story. In addition, a disambiguation is needed given there is another TV episode with a similar title (as noted on the page). Could an admin please move this to Dimensions in Time (TV story)? Thanks. 68.146.70.124talk to me 15:52, February 9, 2014 (UTC)

This is canon
I read the archive for the talk of this page and my question is why is this non-canon. And in addition, in First Frontier, The Seventh Doctor says that Dimensions in Time was a dream so why not canon? Dragonulteo ☎  15:01, February 17, 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not canon on this wiki. You can read the discussions that took place at Forum:Is Dimensions in Time canon and Tardis talk:Canon policy. Thanks! Shambala108 ☎  15:04, February 17, 2014 (UTC)

If this isn't canon then...
Was just reading up on that archived discussion, and I have to ask: why is Assimilation² still regarded as canon when Star Trek has also been established as fictional like EastEnders? TheFatPanda ☎  20:10, June 5, 2017 (UTC)


 * The above statement is inaccurate. As the official canon policy states, this wiki has no canon. In particular, Assimilation² is not canon. Note also that some of the old discussions still operate in the times when canon existed. So reading them now may be a bit confusing in relation to the current rules. Stories are considered valid when they pass the four validity rules. Please also be aware of T:BOUND: a validity discussion should not be reopened unless you have some piece of information that has not been discussed in the original discussion. Finally, regarding fictional characters, there is a place for them in DWU: it's called the Land of Fiction. So being fictional does not automatically disqualify a character/story. What matters is whether it is properly integrated with the DWU as a whole. If there is an explanation of how they are related, the story can (but don't have to) be valid. Amorkuz ☎  00:13, June 6, 2017 (UTC)

Revisiting the validity discussion
Forgive me if this has been discussed somewhere, but the only thread I could find on the subject was the one linked in this talk page and it didn't cover this so... The validity rules: 1 & 3 are straightforward 1. It's a story, so that's covered. 3. It was officially released.

4. Well, to look at from both Roden and JNT,

To address one long-standing point often questioned, though Part Two aired within Noel's House Party - Part One was infact aired during the CiN teleathon.

Pixley's archive on Dimensions in Time in DWM 324 also states the following notable points:
 * JNT was the one who, after rejecting Destination: Holocaust as too expensive a script for the CiN story, suggested incorporating Eastenders - meaning that the cross of the two franchises was a concerted decision of his.
 * James Moir, the head of BBC Entertainment, facilitated the involvement of House Party for the second part *some time after* JNT & Roden had been brought onboard to do a story for CiN.
 * House Party's crew was collaborating with CiN in the same way that Who's crew was.
 * Agreement was made that [Tony] "McHale would approve the script to ensure that the dialogue spoken by the Eastenders cast was in character." Thus, DiT had script consultant input and oversight from the other franchise that appeared too. Though they obviously could not exactly fit the continuity of their show exactly, they were trying to keep it as continuous as they possibly could.
 * Several times it is noted that JNT infact got Roden to write amendments to the script rather than doing them himself - most notably the last minute amendment to incorporate Susan.
 * Hancock declined to allow the use of the Daleks within the story, and thus the brief appearance of them & the Dalek trooper had to be cut.

That last one is of significant note, as it indicates that contrary to another fan myth that pops up here and there, JNT did approach relevant rightsholders for clearances.

This, coupled with the revelation Richard Bignell gave (which I've recently added to this page) that the fan belief that the story could not be commercially used was wrong & there were no contractual issues in that regard, leans in favour of fulfillment of Rule 2. And it also notes that JNT arranged with CiN to have a US convention screening of Dimensions in Time on that weekend, which does rather go further against the impression that the story could only ever be shown once on that specific occasion as part of CiN. [JNT also recounts this in DWM 249] The story had all relevant rights negotiated and where they couldn't be agreed, a cut was made & the prohibition on a commercial release on a DVD or Blu-Ray is not rights or contractual but instead financial.

I would think that would just leave Rule 4 & whether the story was intended to be part of the DWU.

Let's move to DWM 249 and start with JNT... Everyone will have heard JNT's phrase: "I don't need to defend Dimensions in Time - it should be taken for what it is: a jolly romp to celebrate Doctor Who's thirtieth birthday."

Now aside that that statement's more about fielding criticism of the story, I want to draw attention to two other things within this issue... Firstly, this statement: "I genuinely don't mind if Dimensions doesn't feature in any documentation ever. I couldn't care less." That's interesting to me because it's not a statement of explicit discounting, rather just one of apathy to the matter.

Secondly, these two quotes: "I'd been impressed by an excellent non-Doctor Who script by David Roden that I'd been asked to read...I've been asked why I didn't use a more experienced Doctor Who writer. The fact is, I knew the thing would be mayhem, constantly changed, adapted, and interfered with (albeit often productively) by the various interested parties far more than is usual." and "Thus, I wanted a talented, yet relatively inexperienced co-writer who would adapt to this peculiar way of making a marathon; one which bares little resemblance to programme-making in the real world. And, with relentless enthusiasm, he did adapt." Tying these two quotes back to what is noted in DWM 324, it seems that Roden was brought on explicitly to handle the weight of the story and the bulk of the fast-paced rewriting to the script required to take the story to its completion in production & that Roden was handling the majority of those rewrites for JNT as and when they came.

So, now, we come to the other writer of this story, David Roden. DWM 324 notates the original opening of Dimensions in Time with Cyrian being chased by Cybermen across a barren planet with the twist that Cyrian was doing it so the Rani could obtain the brain print of a Cyberman. It is then, surely noteworthy, that Roden later reworked this opening to make a short story - Rescue - for the DWM 1995 Yearbook? The other stories within that yearbook as not marked as Invalid yet Rescue has been marked as such since 2013... my best gathering is that it may have been because it was a story written after DiT to link up to it... but even if one were to uphold Dimensions in Time as invalid, it surely wouldn't be correct to immediately associate that story as invalid when it's in a licensed publication with BBC approval like the other stories? (Sidenote; the page for Cyrian himself allows denotes him as invalid with the now-disproven belief that there was a thorny legal situation behind Dimensions, so I suspect this belief was perhaps what led that for Rescue?)

I find it a bit hard to believe that Roden would write a story that effectively acts as a prelude to Dimensions in Time, adapted from material originally intended for Dimensions in Time, if his intent as a writer was not that Dimensions was part of the DWU. JDPManjoume ☎  14:56, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
 * This is some very impressive research-work, but it is completely improper to hold a discussion like this on a talk page. As soon as we have Forums again, you can create a forum thread with much the same content as the above. But no discussion is to start, or any action to be taken, based on this discussion. But you do have a strong case and some very compelling new evidence to justify the creation of that thread. Rule 4 concerns were always secondary to the Rule 2 concerns in this discussion, with the received wisdom being basically that we covered Dimensions in Time as a special exception, but that for all intents and purposes it was just the TV equivalent of a charity book.


 * Also, while I'm here, let me note that we recently had a thread on "Sequels/prequels to invalid stories" which confirmed that such stories are not necessarily invalid by association, but also declined to validate Rescue from the get-go, because it was possible that if JNT didn't think DiT was in the DWU, Rodden agreed, and therefore, also being the author of Rescue, that would have meant he also set it outside the DWU. However, an option for an individual Rescue inclusion debate in the long run was left open.


 * (I'd link you to the thread, but for the time being the Forum archives are inaccessible due to the UCP move.)Scrooge MacDuck ☎  15:08, 25 November 2020 (UTC)