How do you feel about NA contiunty no longer being TV canon?

The companions referenced in Night of the Doctor are Big Finish ones, nothing to do with the NAs.

"Nothing in ze world will stop us now!" 


But in all seriousness, it's a discussion up there with "which is the definitive Shada?" or "what canonicity are TV Comic?" I only found out about Lungbarrow and the NAs through the official Doctor Who website circa 2006, I would never have known it existed otherwise. Back then, I took that as a tacit acknowledgment, particularly given that Human Nature was advertised on the main page as "the one that started it all!" The policy's changed so now that's less true. *shrug* Okay. That view's valid, but we still enjoy melding the two backgrounds together. Besides, writing on an everyday story-by-story basis, it won't really come into play too often. The Doctor likes to keep his past to himself.

Agreed, I'm not a fan of the auteur "this is the line upon which we make our continuity". I prefer to read my Rihannasu and have my Romulans too. Actually, talking of duplicate adventures, there's also the possibility -- because of time travel -- that some stories exist transcendentally as well. Like, if you wanted both versions of Shada to be canon, for instance, you could have the original be part of continuity up until The Five Doctors... Then, after Borusa and the time scoop, that gap is filled by the Paul McGann version and that becomes official.

My view of the Time War was very similar. Any solid rules established during the classic series get thrown straight out the window, along with the window... Potentially the whole wall too, we'll see how the Daleks feel. Debates become about whether the Third Doctor was Jon Pertwee, David Warner, Tim Treolear or Ron Moody; all are true and all are false. The whole of space and time becomes an utter madhouse before it eventually collapses into one single thread, the one followed by NuWho in whatever shape it may be (kronkburgers and Chelonians notwithstanding).

Shrodinger's canonicity. Any given story, character or whatever is both canon or non-canon until one or the other is imposed on it. In fact, this status usually only remains for the story imposing the canonicity, or lack of. The only stories rendering the book Human Nature non-canon are the TV adaptation and The End of Time Part 2. Time can easily be rewritten to make the book version canon over the TV version.

The Eighth Doctor audios. In Minuet in Hell former companion Sam is mentioned, putting the audios at this put in the same canon as the novels where Sam Jones (Short for Samantha) was the first companion. However it's explained in Terror Firma that Sam was the companion Samson, brother to Gemma, both of whom travelled with the Doctor prior to his travels with Charley (an example of retconning).

Of course they’re not part of the TV continuity. That’s on the OUTSIDE of the Bottle.

It's all canon. It's all valid even when it contradicts itself. Time's a tangled mess, so... whatever anybody says, in my head it's all canon in the Who Omniverse - including Cushing, REG and Rowan Atkinson.

I never bought that inside the bottle/outside the bottle stuff, myself.

A few years ago I did write a short story, The Other Three Doctors, for an anthology that put Cushing, REG, Atkinson and the Other together with a near miss from Eccleston (he was a few seconds late)... the best way I saw to make it works was to treat every one as if he saw his universe as Prime.

True, I get that, but Star Wars tends to fall prey to that nowadays anyway with Leia floating back through the vacuum of space and that Stormtrooper chap who yelled "Traitor!" in TFA, among other things. Going to the theatres with a hardcore fan and a casual viewer makes for some interesting post-film talks. One talking about Force Bubble, the other asking why that wasn't put in the script. Him saying it was in a book from the late 90s, her saying that she shouldn't have to read the book to understand the film, etc. Having done marketing (blegh), roping them all under the Legends banner feels like a marketing move. I think more than anything it was done so they could push their new EU material as being more relevant to the current trilogy, while still retaining their former fanbase.

Not even one day as it turns out, Thrawn has already made an appearance in Rebels and the Mandalorians frequented in The Clone Wars quite a bit (to the point that Mandalore got an appearance). I'd be pretty bewildered if the Emperor's Hand didn't pop up sooner rather than later.

That sounds brilliant. Isn't it great that DW is so large we can do this kind of stuff? I mean, hell, it's big enough that a dimension-hopping Eighth Doctor can briefly find himself in Peanuts with the Rani during The Glorious Dead: