Category talk:Lists of appearances

divide up some entries?
today I had a thought. a few companions, like Bernice Summerfield, Sarah Jane Smith, and Captain Jack, have effectively two careers, one as sidekicks of the Doctor, the others pretty much solo. I wondered what you all thought about dividing their lists into Companion and Solo sections. episodes like "School Reunion" would still go under Solo.

I can only think of one problem here... at least one Bernice Summerfield release, Genius Loci, takes place before she ever met the Doctor. in the case of the other characters, it seems pretty clear cut. what do you all think? --***Stardizzy*** 00:23, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't really see the need. There's nothing wrong with the lists as they are, and if you suggest splitting them up you may as well split the TV series from the novels. As for companion/solo, as far as I'm aware the only episode in which a previous companion doesn't class as one (although there're probably more in the novels, but I don't read them) is SJS in School Reunion (however there were several episodes with Mickey Smith before he became a companion, that probably counts). In other, non-DW series, they're not going to be any current companions, as they don't feature the Doctor anyway. In my opinion, you should just have little notes against the serials/episodes in DW/MA/NA/BFA/etc in which any companions (at any point) were not companions of the Doctor.


 * If you get what I mean. 07:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

What is an appearance?
It seems fundamentally perverse to me to treat episodes where a character appears in a photograph, or only using archival footage, as equivalent to when a character actually appears. And yet there's basically every character ever with an "appearance" in The Day of the Doctor (based on a bunch of photographs you can barely see in one scene) that is treated exactly the same as stories in which they actually appeared. Shouldn't these purely archival "appearances" be distinguished from actual ones? I'd also suggest that pure cameos, like Rose's teaser appearances early in Season 4, or Amy's in The Time of the Doctor, should be treated differently from full-scale appearances, as well. Jlk7e ☎  06:40, January 7, 2014 (UTC)
 * I did a bit of research and found that, while there are plenty of discussions about more specific features of appearances, there is only one discussion that applies to your question. I suggest you read Thread:141930, and then you can decide if you want to add to that discussion (it hasn't been replied to for about three months, but if you add to it the discussion will be brought to the current list) or you can start a new discussion at Board:The Panopticon and reference the one I mentioned. Making your point here, not many people will see it. Hope this helps! Shambala108 ☎  15:45, January 7, 2014 (UTC)
 * One thing I forgot, is that we already decided to not include any parenthetical information next to an appearance, so the idea of putting "cameo", "photograph", "archive footage", or other such things, will not be done. If you start a new thread, you would mostly be dealing with whether to put these things in appearances at all. Shambala108 ☎  15:48, January 7, 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmm...I suppose I can see the argument for including all cameos, but counting archival footage or whatever the same as new footage seems like a bad idea to me. Certainly the current rule, where it's treated no differently from appearances where the actor got paid, are a particularly bad idea. Jlk7e ☎  02:36, January 20, 2014 (UTC)