Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-24894325-20151119211902/@comment-5918438-20151227185519

(I almost lost my response after Chrome crashed, but managed to retrieve the text! Oh, and then I lost it again, by accidentally clicking on a link. :|)

Well, I'm convinced. How Big Finish is using the word "anthology" is very important to the decision being made in this thread. Big Finish is certainly defining anthology as a collection of stories which are not narratively linked, calling 1001 Nights "an anthology, but...", essentially.

So, you've said, at least... ...are anthologies, according to Big Finish.
 * Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories''
 * You Are the Doctor and Other Stories''
 * The Company of Friends''
 * 1001 Nights''
 * The Worlds of Big Finish''

Let's see what happens if we apply the same logic to stories they don't mention as such.

But! Big Finish calls Short Trips "audio short story collections" here, and don't actually use "anthology" language for that range at all. On Dark Eyes specifically and what to call those like it: an article on one of the official Doctor Who sites announces three "new series" of Dark Eyes in the title, and "three new seasons" in the text. It also calls the first Dark Eyes a "four-episode. . .boxset". Note the lack of any "anthology" talk the whole way through.

So Dark Eyes as a whole is the range (called a "mini-range", along with others, within the Doctor Who range here, and Dark Eyes, Dark Eyes 2, etc are either seasons or series (or, more likely, volumes; more on that below). I think it's important to start using "range" terminology when discussing audio ranges, so they don't get mixed up with series. The TV equivalent of the audio range is the entire television programme.

Oh, also: "However, the full Dark Eyes bundle will stay at 80 for all four series!" Although they also refer to the entirety of Dark Eyes as a series on another page: "with special offers on the Doctor Who: Dark Eyes saga, with each box-set in the series available for just 20 each on CD and Download". On the same page they call the collections to follow Doom Coalition "volumes", and call Doom Coalition as a whole a "series" here. Only the Monstrous is officially The War Doctor Volume 01. So is it volume or series? It would really help to have a single rule to go by, and BF seems a bit lax with its use of those two words. The Third Doctor Adventures, above in the table, is actually "The Third Doctor Adventures Volume 01", with a Volume 02 planned, and another upcoming release is also "Volume 01". It seems, to Big Finish, at least by their titling choices, that there is no significant difference between The Third Doctor Adventures and Only the Monstrous. Should we consider something not-an-anthology if BF calls it a "volume", or can that language go either way? In other words, does this official wording make The Third Doctor Adventures a volume/series and not an anthology? My guess is yes, it does. The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield is also Volume 01 to The Triumph of Sutekhs Volume' 02. So that's two more to move from anthologies to series/volumes, above, it seems.

This "Volume 01" thing seems to be a new trend that started around 2014. That terminology wouldn't have been used surrounding Dark Eyes, which came before the new deal with the BBC and all these new "mini-ranges" but Dark Eyes is kind of the same thing as these new ranges, so it might not be wrong to retroactively apply "volume" terminology to its series, as well. (Although it might. There is precedent for Big Finish range numbered series, but, except for Dark Eyes, not for BF series released as one box set, which is more what later "volumes" are.) On The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure specifically: it's not called a volume, but it is called a "story", which is markedly not how we're defining "anthology":
 * A very special story which at last provides a heroic exit for Colin Baker's much-loved Time Lord. Four hour-long episodes, connected by the presence of the Valeyard, the entity that exists between the Doctor's twelth[sic  and final incarnations.]
 * (I've always wanted to write [sic])

That makes it sound more like a classic Who serial than an anthology, though it should be noted that the individual "episodes" contained within do not follow each other at all, but do have the connecting link of the Sixth Doctor facing the Valeyard.

What do you think about volume, series, and the use of anthology in the case of disconnected stories collected in something not deemed a "volume"? What would the Sixth Doctor collection be called if not a volume? What do we term Extinction, called a "four-story box set"...each story about the Autons, and they all share the same cast list, even.

Do you see anything else wrong with/lacking from my above lists?

I'm curious about what you'd have to say about anthologies in other media, such as prose, because that needs to be considered as well.

And is there a more general word for anthologies that can be used in the category tree so (video) box sets can go in there, as well? Those actually fit the stricter definition better than all the others: "a collection of selected previously published stories with a common topic".