Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-5791028-20150117172224/@comment-5791028-20150604194310

CzechOut wrote: Are you really sure about that? The Sherlock Holmes of All-Consuming Fire (referred to hereafter as the ACF Holmes) can't be the Sherlock Holmes that Briggs is playing in Big Finish's Sherlock Holmes range (referred to hereafter as "the BF Holmes"). I mean, the ACF Holmes well predates the existence of the BF Holmes. And the Mycroft Holmes of Diogenes is the brother of the ACF Holmes — as established in dialogue — not the BF Holmes.

So is it your contention that Worlds is using the ACF Sherlock Holmes and his brother Mycroft? That frankly doesn't make much sense, given that the volume is called The Worlds of Big Finish. I would have thought they were using the Sherlock Holmes created by Briggs for Big Finish. — a version of the character that has never previously existed in the DWU. Just because you use the same actor doesn't mean that you intend the same character.

As for Vienna she specifically fails Rule 4 because it is the official line of Big Finish that she exists outside the DWU.

The Dorian case has already been specifically decided at Thread:118228. The wider Dorian series is something that it's writer doesn't feel is a spinoff of DW, so we don't either. Instead, we grant that he exists only as a character within Shades of Gray.

That was a decision arbitrarily taken just to get that multi-year thread finished. At the time, I in no way considered that an additional out-of-copyright character would ever be hurled at the DWU.

I think we're really splitting hairs if we're arguing over which version of Sherlock Briggs is playing. This will no doubt come up again when the audio version of ACF is released. As far as Big Finish is concerned, they're the same character and that's good enough for me.

If Vienna exists outside the DWU, should we also exclude The Shadow Heart? That's the first story in which she appears. And if she ever appears alongside the Doctor again, would we have to exclude that story as well?

And why can't Dorian exist in other stories? Where did this policy of certain characters only being allowed to exist in one story come from?