Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-121.45.54.78-20130925110520/@comment-1293767-20140226205048

I completely agree that images (like the slideshows Amy and Clara see in the DVD extras of past companions) or drawings (like Rose's face in the Journal of Impossible Things) shouldn't count as appearances. The LKH holograms are just glorified images, with the exception of Amelia, because the voice interface begins talking through that one. (Although the point's moot on that anyway, as Amy gets a credit for appearing in that episode regardless.) No should archival footage, if it's only in "flashback" form, ala Ten thinking of Rose in TRB or Eleven sharing him memories with Craig in TL. Ditto for audio appearances: just because we hear archival audio clips from the TARDIS in JTTCOTT doesn't mean they made appearances.

However, when archival footage is repurposed and intentionally used as "new" footage, that is an appearance: the echo of Clara interacting with the First Doctor in The Name of the Doctor or the past Doctors saving Gallifrey in TDOTD.

What gets tricky for me is when it comes to dreams/hallucinations/shapeshifting/etc... I've always viewed a dream or hallucination to count as an appearance, like Grace appearing in Eight's dream in The Glorious Dead or Eleven hallucinating Amy in The Time of the Doctor. But then when you allow that, you get the argument: "But if a dream or hallucination counts when the character doesn't really appear, then doesn't a character taking on another character's appearance also count as an appearance as they don't actually appear in either case?" So, then what? Do you count Rose and Bad Wolf as appearing in The Day of the Doctor when it's explicitly The Moment taking on their physical appearances? Personally, I never counted Rose as appearing in TDOTD.