User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-188432-20130514042227/@comment-4503698-20130517160931

I placed my responses to most objections in my last post that had to be recovered but I feel I must strongly reiterate that this prequel most certainly does not break the forth wall. That would require us to prove that Clara and the Doctor are addressing us, the audience, with conscious awareness that they are addressing us, and this cannot be shown to be the case.

As for the rest I do sort of understand why the strange presentation of the story would cause potential confusion. However, I am struggling to understand the difference between the terms "story" and "narrative" as they are being using in this thread to make arguments as to whether the clip has equal status.

On the matter of whether or not it is and advert. Well, obviously, yes it is. It has the time and place for episode 13 on the back. However, as it's an advert that only likely to be seen by people who already plan to watch episode 13 that's hardly likely to be its primary role.

Is it a story? Well whoever wrote up the article has managed to write story notes on it, both characters are telling their own personal story, they are both fictional characters and it has "By Stephen Moffat" on the front so it looks like a story.

So is it narrative or non-narrative? Well it would seem, again, to be narrative. Whosoever wrote the page on it was able to write several pieces under the continuity heading and continuity is a narrative element. The fact is, because this prequel is sequentially connected to E13, if we watch episode thirteen and it turns out that what they said happened, happens then it's narratively consistent and a valid addition.

It easy to say that we can wait until Saturday night, but I don't find that particularly satisfying because the problem isn't going to go away if it doesn't provide the answer we hope for. It could even make things more confused than are now.

Strax's Field Report is harder because we don't generally follow Strax narratively so much while we do follow Clara and the Doctor. But at least that should be clearer if something comes up tomorrow.