Forum:Roland Rat: The Series

Introduction
On the 13 September 1986, the second episode of the first series of Roland Rat: The Series aired. In what this wiki has mistakenly identified as a continuity ident, Colin Baker appeared, in-character as the Sixth Doctor.

It wasn't a continuity ident, although it certainly looks like one. Let me explain.

The conceit of Roland Rat: The Series was that it was an actual talk show broadcast on BBC Three, and that Roland Rat, Errol the Hamster and the like all existed in-universe. To invoke this deception, they invited various personnel to introduce RR:tS in fictional continuity idents. It was one of these in which the Sixth Doctor appeared.

Why we should cover the whole thing
Someone made a reasonable mistake and presented incorrect facts. That's about it. There's a draft of what a page for the overall series would look like over at User:Epsilon the Eternal/Sandbox Four that I've contributed to rather significantly.

Validity
I'm fairly sure that there's no reason to doubt the DWUness of this. As Scrooge states at Talk:Untitled (1986 TV story): "[I]n such matters, when the evidence isn't black-and-white, the onus is on the people trying to prove that the story was meant to be outside the DWU, not the other way around. [Emphasis his]"

- User:Scrooge MacDuck

But if people want to bring up validity, then feel free to.

Additional nuance that shouldn't affect validity but is worth mentioning
One can't really expect a new television series to introduce all of its recurring segments in the first episode, so in the second episode (which, I may remind you, is the Doctor Who crossover), several concepts were introduced that went on to appear several times in the series. And this means that the majority of RR:tS actually passes T:VS. (The concepts introduced, as far as I can make out, for those interested, are Iris and Freddy Rat and RatEnders, although there may be some that I've missed.) On the one hand, this shouldn't make anything invalid. On the other, it makes rather a lot of things valid. The following table is of the episodes that would be validated, although only going over the first series and Christmas special, as I haven't been able to get hold of the second.

Conclusion
So, that's about it. What do people think? Aquanafrahudy  📢   18:41, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Discussion
As fun as it might be, covering basically all of Roland Rat: The Series might be a bit much; this feels somewhat similar to Lady Penelope being introduced in Mr. Steelman, where a character obviously not meant to be seen as "DWU" first appears in a crossover. It's complicated, but I think just covering (the full!) second episode is fine. Cookieboy 2005 ☎  10:50, 4 September 2023 (UTC)


 * But if you were to look at individual episodes as opposed to the series overall, then each of the episodes featuring DWU elements would be a Doctor Who spin off. We could theoretically do it, but it'd be dangerous precedent to set imo, and much to similar to the old threads that ruled this or that spin off uncovered due to lack of evidence that they were intended to be set in the DWU (see Sleeze Brothers). Also, I'm no expert here, not having watched it, but didn't Lady Penelope originate in the Thunderbirds TV series? Asking purely out of interest, as it doesn't really have an awful lot to do with the thread. Aquanafrahudy   📢   12:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)


 * If you look at release dates, Mr. Steelman beats Trapped in the Sky by several months. Cookieboy 2005 ☎  12:49, 4 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's interesting! So Lady Penelope is a DWU concept like Unity City! Aquanafrahudy   📢   12:51, 4 September 2023 (UTC)


 * More like Big Finish's Dorian Gray if anything. You could try starting an inclusion debate for all of Thunderbirds, but I don't think it would go very well. Cookieboy 2005 ☎  13:10, 4 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I may very well do, once I've watched it, but it isn't terribly high on my list of things to watch, so that may not be for a while. Aquanafrahudy   📢   13:16, 4 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Thunderbirds is actually available for free on Shout! TV. Cgl1999 ☎  18:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I meant that there were other things that I meant to watch first, but never mind. Aquanafrahudy   📢   18:41, 4 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I am all for this I believe that the validation of these Stories could lead to beneficial debates on this wiki. These to me seem to fulfil a solid function as I do not believe this show currently has significant documentation elsewhere. And whilst the first episode would not be validated, which is a shame but fair, I think the rest should either be validated or at the least have increased coverage, it goes without saying the 2nd episode should absolutely be valid. Anastasia Cousins ☎  18:32, 5 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Episodes 8 and 9 wouldn't be liable for coverage (I don't think; I need to rewatch them), as they feature no prior DWU elements, and I don't have access to the second series, so I can't say about that for sure. Aquanafrahudy   📢   18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

First off, I'll express my support for covering the entirety of Roland episode 2. We've known Untitled (1986 TV story) wasn't an ident for some time now so I'm grateful this forum thread is rectifying that to allow us to properly document the complete product.

As for a potential Thunderbirds inclusion debate, I don't know. As the person responsible for the coverage of the vast majority of Anderverse material on this Wiki, I'm not convinced it's a good idea. Excluding a few adverts and the like, I fully believe everything from TV Century 21's first 104 issues (the timeframe of The Daleks comic strip) passes Rule 4 with flying colours. I believe the same is implicitly true of onscreen Thunderbirds (at least up to the first film) considering the strong connections on the production side of things and that it theoretically passes T:VS. However, isn't that what the Thunderbirds Wiki is for? Aside from the appearance of Agent 21 in 30 Minutes After Noon and perhaps the televised appearances of the Fireflash and the Junglecat, I struggle to see how Tardis really gains anything from duplicating the TB Wiki's information.

A related area from which I think the Wiki would benefit improving is the aforementioned first 104 issues of TV21. During this era of the magazine the notion of each issue's contents being an issue of an in-universe TV Century 21, a serious newspaper from the 2060s intended to be read by special agents, was incredibly strong. There are running threads throughout each issue to such an extent that I've seriously considered in the past whether the best and most faithful way to cover this material would be to consider individual issues e.g. TV Century 21 No. 1 Universe Edition as sources in their own right, made up of lots of different parts. We'd still have articles such as The Penta Ray Factor (comic story) for a place to discuss serialised stories as a whole but especially with the advent of this would help stuff from falling through the cracks. The reason I think this would be beneficial for the Wiki is that under the current set-up some TV21 stories pass Rule 4 but not Rule 2, as in they utilise no pre-existing Doctor Who universe elements. This is very frustrating for in-universe coverage due to the interconnected of TV21. To take an example I attempted to wikify recently, the Stingray story The Monster Jellyfish (published in #1-#7) isn't currently covered but is freely referenced in the following concurrently-released things we do cover: all three parts of Genesis of Evil, Stingray Attacked!, Fireball Surrenders!, Power Play Part 1, Titan Declares War! and Marineville Waits!. I've tried my best on pages like Sam Shore but it's not ideal.

Sorry, Thunderbirds tangent over. I don't think I'm in support of covering the other episodes of Roland Rat. I sympathise with Anastastia's point about the lack of documentation available for the series but I don't think that should override our validity policies. A beefy expansion of Roland Rat: The Series (series) is the most we're responsible for, in my opinion. To invoke another Anderverse example, I'd say these supposed DWU elements are comparable to FAB 2's debut in The Man from MI.5. Iris Rat and Freddy Rat seem to me to be Roland Rat: The Series concepts first appearing in a Roland Rat: The Series episode and then reappearing in further Roland Rat: The Series episodes. The fact that the Sixth Doctor (or in the case of FAB 2, the Daleks) appeared briefly in their debut is incidental and does not necessarily affect the DWUness of these concepts. Borisashton ☎  21:48, 5 September 2023 (UTC)