Board Thread:Inclusion debates/@comment-6032121-20181230112657

Oh wee, another inclusion debate.

Facts of the case: Festive Thirteenth Doctor Yule Log. A webcast. I say it's a narrative, SOTO disagrees.

My case is that, well, it's not the most gripping of stories, of course (since the point of it is to be a relaxing moment with the Doctor, in real time), but "we see a mysterious room (possibly on Gallifrey) with a warm fire in the chimney, adorned in a way that suggests it's home to the Doctor; after a while a Kerblam Man comes in but realizes she isn't here and leaves; some time later the Doctor arrives in the TARDIS, realizes the wind from the TARDIS materializing has blown out the fire, relights it with the Sonic, sits by the fire for awhile, then leaves on some unknown errands, and later returns" is an entirely sensical succession of events happening to the character without any fourth-wall breaking.

SOTO's argument is, I believe, that since the same animation is recycled for the Doctor's different arrivals in the room, it's less of a "the Doctor came in, left, then returned" and more of the clip being looped in on itself.

But I don't think that's what's happening here; yes, the same animation is recycled, but it's not the same event being looped back to us. These are clearly meant to be different visits of the Doctor to the room, at different times — different events in the same evening/night. We know this because the webcast gives us a clear way to track the passage of time: the day slowly turning to night in the window. It's still later afternoon during the Doctor's first visit; it's night (with stars and snow) during her second. 