User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-5843134-20200327024142/@comment-6032121-20200523163935

Leaving aside the issue of Strax Saves the Day for now, I want to add that the latest Doctor Who: Lockdown! webcast, Doctors Assemble!, which doesn't have anyone speaking to the camera or such and is thus, I think, pretty unambiguously Rule-4-compliant, has a direct continuity reference to Message from the Doctor. Each of the Doctor has a "user icon" on the group chat on the TARDIS scanner, and the Thirteenth Doctor's is a picture of her hiding in a closet from a Sontaran, i.e. exactly where she was during Message from the Doctor.

Continuity references do not a Rule-4-passing story make, but I daresay, when the referencing story comes out so quickly after the referenced one, and both are ultimately overseen by the same person (Chris Chibnall), then they can certainly help "seal the deal".