Board Thread:The Time Lord Academy/@comment-5808838-20181012154736/@comment-188432-20181012160900

Unfortunately, there's not a completely universal answer to this question. In a sense, it's a case-by-case thing. So this is going to be a long answer, but it won't even cover every case. As a general rule, if you're in doubt, please ask an admin directly.

I'll start with the example you asked about. Do we need someone to say it's a blender if it is obviously a blender? Nah. We don't need the script to specify that a clock on the wall is a "clock", or a dog is a "dog" or a car is a "car".

A good example from "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" is the iPhone that Yaz' superior officer is using when speaking with her. It's clearly an iPhone. We see the Apple logo. We don't need to be told that it's an iPhone, particularly as the name "iPhone" was previously established by another source. However, if we didn't see the logo, it would be more problematic to say it's an iPhone, even if we were familiar enough with iPhone design to establish that it was an iPhone based on, say, camera position/design. But even with the logo concealed, it would at least be a "phone" or a "mobile phone".

In other cases — like, say, a song that's playing on the radio in a scene — it's not a bad idea to add a "behind the scenes" section at the bottom of the article where you say something like, "This song is not explicitly named in the episode, but it was featured prominently enough to establish that it was, in fact, 'Paperback Writer'."

Where we run into the most difficulty is if it's something geographical in nature, largely because the whole point of location filming is often to make a real place double for something fictional.

For instance, the interior of the Welsh Parliament building is pretty obviously seen in "The Lazarus Experiment". But we shouldn't call it that, because — within the narrative — it's plot-vital that the location be in Southwark, London.

In other cases, the real location is meant to be the fictional location as well. For instance, we unproblematically started an article on the London Eye in 2007 based solely upon what was seen in "Rose". That's because the story took firmly took place in Central London, and the Eye was an important part of the story.

But there are other instances where a story might be identified as having taken place in, say, London, yet the buildings used for exteriors aren't what they really are in real life. "The Seeds of Doom" for instance uses BBC Television Centre itself as the fictional "World Ecology Bureau"!

That's why we've discouraged editors from looking at establishing shots and creating articles for every location they recognise from real life.

So a good rule of thumb with real locations that aren't explicitly named is to only create articles for things that are plot-vital.