Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-25566332-20140616221206/@comment-188432-20140619185128

I don't think you understand what I'm saying, perhaps because I haven't expressed it well. I'm not telling you what to believe for your own purposes. I'm talking about the technical requirements of adding categories, as well as providing information about the way we've handled Benny's stories for years.

To put the actors in this boxset in both Doctor Who and Bernice Summerfield categories unnecessarily complicates categorisation. We define the Bernice Summerfield audio series as that regular series of audios which feature Benny but not the Doctor. Thus the actor category that companions that series cannot logically include stories that have the Doctor in them.

This isn't really about what you think the series is or what I think the series is, but rather what is a categorical definition that's easy to administrate. And as this rather protracted conversation has proved, there is debate over whether this box set is the regular series or not — from Big Finish's point of view. Big Finish are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. On http://bigfinish.com/ranges/released/doctor-who-the-new-adventures-of-bernice-summerfield, it's portrayed as Doctor Who — with none of the language you've quoted, above — and on http://bigfinish.com/releases/v/the-new-adventures-of-bernice-summerfield-1039 there's an emphasis on primarily Benny — with "her friends the Doctor and Ace".

There is, however, no debate about its status under the guidelines already established here at Tardis. It is definitely not the Big Finish Bernice Summerfield main range. The fact that Bowerman compares the experience to previous runs is immaterial. Of course she would make such a comparison, because that's a part of her past experience. I'm sure Harry Morgan at some point gave an interview of how AfterMASH was different to MASH — but they're still different shows.

As I indicated earlier, a useful compromise might be to call it its own range, give it separate actor categories, and therefore get even more precise categorisation. It also seems to honour Big Finish's stance, since they have it hard coded into their website that this is a new range, not just a new release.