User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-1272640-20161223201024/@comment-27280472-20161223213922

Pluto2 wrote: We've never had a discussion focusing on Scream of the Shalka and its sequel short story, The Feast of the Stone.

There's only two times the Doctor hints at which incarnation he's in:

1. He says a cat had used up all of his nine lives, "like me". This suggests he's in a ninth incarnation, but it doesn't change much. He could be in his second regeneration cycle, or his third. Or his fourth...you get the point. Besides, Time Lords don't have a nine-incarnation cycle, they have thirteen incarnations. So I honestly don't know what he was trying to say here - it could be he's just being poetic or something.

2. He mentions Andy Warhol once painted "all nine of him", but that could mean that back in the Eccleston or Hurt incarnation, he had Warhol paint himself and his predecessors.

At the time, authorial intent was that it was set in the DWU. Even if it was later disavowed, it's still a fact that the intent when making this webcast was to set it in the DWU.

In addition, there is evidence that Shalka is valid, coming from the new series:

1. The Twelfth Doctor mentions "stealing the President's daughter", something that is part of the established backstory for the "Shalka Doctor".

2. The Eleventh Doctor mentions having an android boyfriend, and the creators of the webcast have stated that, yes, the "Shalka Doctor" and the Master were a couple.

So, here's my proposal:

1. "Ninth Doctor (Scream of the Shalka)" will be renamed "The Doctor (Scream of the Shalka)".

2. Said incarnation will be treated similarly to other "unnumbered Doctors" -

Essentially, Scream of the Shalka is vague on whether the "Ninth" Doctor is actually the ninth (as in following from the Eighth Doctor played by McGann), and other works have acknowledged parts of Shalka being in the Doctor's past. Thus, I propose we treat it like we do the incarnations from The Dalek Factor, The Cabinet of Light, Party Animals, etc. - refer to him merely as "an incarnation of the Doctor". It's obvious that he's meant to be the ninth incarnation of the Doctor. Sure, you can do mental gymnastics to try to justify the idea that he's not. But if you care about authorial intent at the time it was written, you've got to admit that he was meant to be the Ninth Doctor.

But I do actually agree that it should be a valid source. The only reason anybody really argues against it is that it doesn't fit their idea of what Doctor Who should be. Yeah, it's not the same Ninth Doctor as Eccleston. I don't know why anyone cares. Contradictions are supposedly not a reason to disqualify something, but people ignore that if they think that a story shouldn't be canon. Following the precedent of Death Comes to Time, if either Ninth Doctor is NOTVALID it should be Eccleston, not Grant.