Talk: Minister of Chance

Question

So, I know it's early days, but is his spin-off series worthy of note? The extent of it's connection to Death Comes to Time is unclear as of yet, but it IS the same character. Third Bannerman 01:17, April 25, 2011 (UTC)Third Bannerman

It depends on its nature whether we record the spin off here, from what I've heard so far it seems to just be created by fans and not a proper production company like Big Finish. If this is the case then it is unlikely that we will regard the spin off as canon like the Doctor Who Audio Visuals plays. --Revan\Talk 16:55, April 25, 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Although I would add that the fans involved are the Minister's creator Dan Freeman and so are being produced by the copyright holders, unlike the AVs. Plus, IIRC, the people involved are all being paid a wage, which probably puts them closer to Big Finish than the enthusiastic amateur approach of the AVs. Or, I suppose, like the Obverse Books Iris Wildthyme series which IIRC is covered. I'm not especially commited to either outcome myself, just asking - so thanks for clarifying policy. :) Third Bannerman 22:11, April 26, 2011 (UTC)Third Bannerman

If you are right and a proper production team like BBV or Big Finish is doing the series then by our policy it should be canon. Check Tardis:canon policy and see if you think it falls into our boundries. --Revan\Talk 19:43, April 27, 2011 (UTC)

The new Minister of Chance Audios are being done by a company called Radio Static that includes the Licence Holders & creators of the non-BBC copyrighted content from Death Comes to Time, including the Minster of Chance and other original characters created for that production. All actors are being paid for their work on the new audios. As far as quality is concerned, they're better than BBV, and about on the same tier as Magic Bullet Productions. It's obviously a small studio, but they are producing quality professional product. So far the only Doctor Who connection is the Miniser, but there have been a couple subtle references to other things from Death Comes to Time as well as the larger Whoniverse in general. Anyway, I hope that clears up any questions as to the veracity of the canon of these productions. Cousin Zagreus 01:05, May 16, 2011 (UTC)

I've created a page for the series at the The Minister of Chance, feel free to take a look and add any information that is missing. --Revan\Talk 12:08, June 20, 2011 (UTC)

Why is the Minister of Chance audio series not on this wiki? It seems to be pretty explicitly tied to Doctor Who. I mean heck, the website for it is doctor-who-spin-off.com, it even has a big "Doctor Who: Death Comes To Time" logo on every page (except for the main one). The Minister from these audios is listed as the next regeneration of the Stephen Fry incarnation http://www.doctor-who-spin-off.com/who_is_the_minister_of_chance.php and he's even mentioned as a timelord.

It's pretty clear they're marketing this as a Doctor Who spinoff, it bears the Doctor Who logo and features a character introduced in Doctor Who. How does this not warrant inclusion? Have I missed something important here? – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Duke1337 (talk • contribs) .

The main problem here is over if it is licensed or not, which it appears to lack BBC approval. On the other hand, it does only feature characters copyrighted by the creator... Similar to K9, which we only feature do to the involvement of Bob Baker. So I personally think it should be included. I'll look into it a bit though... OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 00:14, March 3, 2012 (UTC)

WAIT, NO, User:CzechOut has stated it is not to be covered, I'm stepping out of this. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 00:37, March 3, 2012 (UTC)

@Duke1337: The audio series isn't on this wiki because its producers have explicitly said that it's in no way shape or form a part of the DWU in audio interviews on the Flashing Blade Podcast, amongst others. Also, Death Comes to Time has been voted outside the scope of the things we cover, because it's producers gave interviews in DWM which cast serious doubt as to the seriousness of their narrative attempt. They flatly admitted it was a one-off, and had they been granted the right to produce the series by the BBC — and they were in contention for it alongside RTD — they would have gone off in different directions than DCTT. So DCTT is a narrative oddity, a curio on the way from the 1996 movie to Rose, and it does not deserve much of our attention on this wiki.
czechout ☎ ✍  01:23: Mon 01 Oct 2012

@User:CzechOut How about the Minister (of "Luck", tentatively), being a major character in the recent Big Finish Short Trip, "The Same Face"? https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Same_Face_(audio_story). IMGibbon ☎ 22:37, August 14, 2019 (UTC)

Speculation

Since the name "Minister of Chance" is never used in any Doctor Who story currently considered valid by this wiki, this article is speculation. I'm making it into a redirect to Minister of Chance. NateBumber ☎ 15:38, February 13, 2017 (UTC)

Clarification needed

I don't currently understand the true nature as to why Death Comes to Time and the Minister of Chance series as a whole are either covered in an invalid capacity or not at all. The entire reasoning seems to be down to producer comments. Regardless of what the producers stated about their intentions when creating Death Comes to Time it was still a BBC-produced Doctor Who story which made efforts to fit in with the series' continuity and wasn't treated as a parody. The fact that they may have gone in a different direction if they were placed in charge of the 2005 revival should have no real impact on whether this story is seen as being valid or not. Likewise, simply because the producers have stated that the Minister of Chance audio series isn't part of the DWU shouldn't mean that we do not cover it here. I seem to recall Paul Magrs making similar statements about the Iris Wildthyme series. Their version of being "part of the Doctor Who universe" and ours could be completely different. As it stands the main character originated in a BBC-produced Doctor Who story, and elements such as regeneration passed onto the project. I think that it has every right to be covered. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 04:04, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Hey, sorry that I hadn't seen this before! Well, fwiw, here goes a bit:

As concerns Death Comes to Time, as you can see at Tardis:Valid sources, there are other ways to be set outside the DWU than being parodical. A story could "fit" continuity in every detail, and be absolutely serious, and we would still discount it if the author clearly said that at the time of release they did not intend it to count.

It is believed/it was ruled that Death Comes to Time is one example of such: because Dan Freedman had already decided he'd go in a different direction in a potential Doctor Who continuation, when Death Comes to Time was released, he must already have discounted it from his own view of continuity; intended it as something that would not "count" to any further stories. So, it is held to break Rule 4 of the four little rules. Of course, Freedman's comments are a little hazy, and there's room for reasonable minds to disagree, but if we want to change this, I'm afraid we'd need a new Forum thread on the subject.

As concerns the Minister of Chance audio series, it's clearly intended to take place in "the universe of Death Comes to Time" — Freedman made comments about the Minister still being the same character, and still a Time Lord, even if copyright prevented the word "Time Lord" from being uttered in the story itself. So as long as Death Comes to Time is held by us not to take place in the conventional DWU, the same obviously applies to Minister of Chance media.

Now you might ask, if that is so, why haven't we been covering The Minister of Chance as {{invalid}} all these years, in line with DCTT itself? What User:CzechOut's 2012 post above fails to mention — I think because it predates the final thread that originally ruled out the audio series, but don't quote me on this — is also that there were concerns about licensing at the time. It was an earlier age of the Internet, and a Kickstarter-funded series released for free online was a rather odd situation; a spin-off of an already-invalid BBC story also. And some comments made by Freedman were found which kind of suggested that the BBC might own part of the copyright to the Minister, meaning that the audio series was partially unlicensed; with it being released for free, it seemed plausible that it was a kind of "authorial fan work", like when Paul Magrs publishes stories about Iris meeting the Doctor on his blog. Clearly more official to the Iris Wildthyme franchise than a random fic on AO3, but, in Wiki terms, not something we cover.

I think hindsight rather clearly shows our worries were unfounded. The Minister of Chance novelisation is a fully-commercial product, by an established DWU publisher, so we were probably overly cautious in our original treatment of the Minister audio series. I believe it is time to bring User:NateBumber/Sandbox/The Minister of Chance (series) into the main namespace again; to grant pages to the Minister of Chance audio series, as the licensed spin-off that it visibly is. That being said, it, and any other media directly set in "the world of Death Comes to Time", are still {{invalid}}, and a Forum thread would be necessary to change this. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 01:13, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Definite article

Shouldn't this page be at The Minister of Chance, as per The Doctor, The Master, The Chiropodist, The Monk, The Rani, The Corsair, etc. ? Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 22:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Very probably. Though a wrinkle to all of this is that he's much more often "the Minister" than "the Minister of Chance", to about the same degree that "the Doctor" is "the Doctor" in-story relative to in-universe instance sof them being "Doctor Who"… Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:15, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

That's a good point. I think this should be at The Minister, with what currently exists there being relegated to The Minister (The Same Face), not being the primary topic. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 22:19, 12 December 2023 (UTC)