Board Thread:Inclusion debates/@comment-5843134-20200327024142/@comment-6032121-20200430120428

DWM 551 has some new information about the production of both Message from the Doctor and United we stand, 2m apart in the "Production Notes" by Chris Chibnall. It makes it clear what a word of difference there was between the two production-wise (Message was written and thought up by Chibnall and Whittaker entirely on their own accord, whereas Untied we stand was written at the BBC's request and to a lengthy list of government specifications), and also, I think, contains a pretty strong Rule 4 statement regarding Message from the Doctor: Chris Chibnall wanted a video featuring the Doctor, not a "weakly-in-character Jodie".

"(…) And the Doctor had started talking to me, little sentences cropping up in my brain. Question is: would Jodie be up for doing something? Before I could ask her, on the 18th of March at 10.17am, a voice message pinged into my phone. Jodie’s voice. “I’ve just had a really random thought, and I don’t know how you feel. But I’ve got my costume with me. And I just thought maybe I could do a video to post...” (…) By Friday at 13.30 (this is all time-stamped), I’d tapped and re-tapped a speech into my phone. I WhatsApp Jodie the text. She responds an hour later (14.30 exactly), with a note about the first paragraph (she’s right!). I rewrite it and send it back at 15.01. Jodie texts: “I’ll get learning!” at 15.09. We talk about logistics, how she’s going to do it. She’ll film it over the weekend. I read it all again and send an amended second paragraph at 15.26. Two thumbs up from Jodie at 15.28. (…) Ping. 09.39 Monday morning, 23 March. A video lands on my phone via WhatsApp. There’s the Doctor, in the dark, bright light beyond her. I watch the take Jodie has sent. She leaves me a voice message: “Happy to do it again.” I watch it. It makes me feel pretty emotional, despite knowing the content. Because there’s the Doctor, and I really need to hear from the Doctor. Because I’m still eight years old inside."

- Chris Chibnall, DWM 551

Interestingly, another article further along in the same DWM issue also has a bizarrely nonequivocal Rule 4 statement about Strax Saves the Day, and this in spite of its apparent fourth-wall-breaking. (But then, let me remind you that Doctor Who (The Thief of Sherwood) exists.) "My dad found it odd that his great aunt's punchbowl, is now canonically in the Doctor Who universe!"

- Dan Starkey

That's main star Dan Starkey emphatically acknowledging the webcast as being "canonically in the Doctor Who universe". Not only does he use the term "canon" (and while we don't deal in "canon", I think it's fair to say that anything its authors say to be canon presumably passes Rule 4…), but it also the actual phrase "in the DWU".

I'm unsure if a separate inclusion debate is warranted or if this thread should generally be about all disputed Doctor Who: Lockdown webcasts in general. Would appreciate second opinions.