User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-86.12.165.34-20200205115419

Well, OK, that title was kinda clickbait. I don’t know if it really is inconsistent of if there’s a logical rationale I just don’t get, I’m asking more out of curiosity than anything, but I’m confused with how we handled ‘real world’ stories, ie. those that discuss Doctor Who in the context of it being fictional.

There are clear cases, of course. Stories such as TV Action! and The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who are explicitly set in another universe to the ‘prime’ Whoniverse, and are clearly set in the same one as each other, so the ‘Doctor Who’ in those is this one.

Stories such as Remembrance of the Daleks and In the Forest of the Night mention Doctor Who in the context of there being an SF TV series with that name, and are clearly set in ‘our’ universe (although personally I prefer the theory that the Remembrance announcer said ‘Doctor- I’m sorry I’ll read that again, Professor X’, purely because it’s funnier, and I have a complex head canon to get around all other stories that mention the series and appear to be set in the Prime Universe, but that doesn’t really matter to this discussion because I know this wiki don’t mess with ‘canon’ - although tbh I fail to see how our ‘validity’ policy isn’t just a ‘reskinned’ canon policy, but that’s a debate for another time and I’m rambling), so the ‘Doctor Who’ in those stories is clearly this one.

But, beyond that, you’ve lost me. Deadline as set in as set in the metafiction ‘verse, even though it doesn’t explicitly state such and features no characters from the ‘prime’ Whoniverse outside of Martin’s imagination. I notice at one point it was counted as invalid, before that one Benny box set canonised (or rather, validated) the Unbounds, and at another as its own universe, before eventually being merged with the metaverse by means of a certain short trip I’ll get to in due course.

Stories such as An Adventure in Space and Time, The Sixth Doctor is on Trial AGAIN!, The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, Verity, etc. are all tagged as completely invalid, seeming to suggest that a story being set in the ‘real world’, so to speak, automatically disqualifies it, which the articles I have adumbrated above clearly disprove. In fact, the latter of these is even listed on the metafiction universe page, but the story’s article itself remains tagged as invalid. And I’m sure one of the four used to link to ‘metafiction universe’ under ‘main setting’, unless I’m thinking of something else, which is very possible, as I have a goldfish memory.

We count The Thief of Sherwood as valid and set in the ‘prime’ Whoniverse, rather than the meta verse, which would make more sense to me given that it leads directly into Planet of Giants, which is known to have ‘actually’ (I put ‘actually’ in quotation mars because SPOILERS Doctor Who ain’t real, I mean actually-in-universe) happened to the Doctor.

We count All Our Christmases as set in the metaverse, with seemingly the only rationale that it displays Who as a TV show, which could also apply to the Remembrance version.

Also, with stories that break the fourth wall, of which there are too many to list, we seem to just kinda cannily gloss over that entirely.

There are probably more examples I just can’t think of right now, but in general I’m confused as the what is the deciding factor in us counting ‘real word’ stories, that ‘break the fourth wall’, ‘outside looking in’, whatever you want to call it, as being counted as part of the metafiction universe, set in the prime Doctor Who universe, in which exists a TV show/franchise based on the Doctor’s adventures, discounted and labelled ‘invalid’, or simply ignored entirely. Again, I’m not trying to ‘expose’ anything, I’m just asking. I’m not saying there is no rationale, I’m just asking what it is because it looks rather arbitrary to my quite possibly untrained eye.

Or, perhaps, all of these references are jokes and everyone working on these articles, including me, is taking it all seriously. But, hey, we’re Doctor Who fans, it’s what we do best :).

(NOTE SO I DON’T GET BANNED: that last paragraph was NOT intended as an attack on Doctor Who fans, just a playful comment, hence my inclusion of myself in that.)

TL;DR: Some Doctor Who stories are about a show called Doctor Who. This wiki sets some of those a parallel universe where the Doctor’s life is a TV show, some of them in the main Doctor Who universe where there’s a TV show based on the Doctor’s life, and rejects some entirely. What’s up with that?