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Post by Kestrel on Oct 10, 2021 4:19:16 GMT
But what if the pre-Hartnell Doctors had companions? Susan wouldn't be the first then, would she? At the risk of being a typical Doctor Who fan and responding far too seriously ( )... Susan (and Ian and Barbara) are the first companions the same way Hartnell is still the first Doctor (and Eccleston was still the ninth after the War Doctor, etc, etc). The real world is different from the fictional world and a retcon "in-universe" doesn't erase the actual people's legacy. Delgado will always be the first actor to play the Master, even though we could reasonably assume (insane efforts by several Wilderness Years publications to suggest otherwise aside...) he was not the first incarnation after Deadly Assassin has the Master on his final regeneration. That's part of why I don't think the Timeless Child (or the Morbius Doctors or the deleted lines in Power of the Daleks) erase Hartnell's legacy. He's still the First Doctor to us, the one who started the show. The fact that the Doctor as a fictional character has a longer, hidden, history does nothing to change that. Susan might not literally be the first companion ( Fugitive shows she isn't and I'm sure we'll get more Jo Martin companions when her "era" gets expanded on), but Carole Ann Ford is one of the first companions regardless of retcons. Yeah, this is how I approach it, too. The whole 1st Doctor, 2nd Doctor, 3rd Doctor, etc. are all IRL naming conventions... they don't exist in-universe. That said, I do think pre-Hartnel Doctors are kind of disrespectful, in a general sense. Like... for literally any other Doctor, the number doesn't matter--because they all came later. Hartnel's status is unique, and slotting in predecessors just seems an attempt to undermine that status. Of course, I'm also predisposed in general to dislike retcons of this nature: to me they're fundamentally backwards-facing, which is the last thing SF should be IMhO.
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mbt66
Chancellery Guard
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Post by mbt66 on Oct 10, 2021 5:54:31 GMT
At the risk of being a typical Doctor Who fan and responding far too seriously ( )... Susan (and Ian and Barbara) are the first companions the same way Hartnell is still the first Doctor (and Eccleston was still the ninth after the War Doctor, etc, etc). The real world is different from the fictional world and a retcon "in-universe" doesn't erase the actual people's legacy. Delgado will always be the first actor to play the Master, even though we could reasonably assume (insane efforts by several Wilderness Years publications to suggest otherwise aside...) he was not the first incarnation after Deadly Assassin has the Master on his final regeneration. That's part of why I don't think the Timeless Child (or the Morbius Doctors or the deleted lines in Power of the Daleks) erase Hartnell's legacy. He's still the First Doctor to us, the one who started the show. The fact that the Doctor as a fictional character has a longer, hidden, history does nothing to change that. Susan might not literally be the first companion ( Fugitive shows she isn't and I'm sure we'll get more Jo Martin companions when her "era" gets expanded on), but Carole Ann Ford is one of the first companions regardless of retcons. Yeah, this is how I approach it, too. The whole 1st Doctor, 2nd Doctor, 3rd Doctor, etc. are all IRL naming conventions... they don't exist in-universe. That said, I do think pre-Hartnel Doctors are kind of disrespectful, in a general sense. Like... for literally any other Doctor, the number doesn't matter--because they all came later. Hartnel's status is unique, and slotting in predecessors just seems an attempt to undermine that status. Of course, I'm also predisposed in general to dislike retcons of this nature: to me they're fundamentally backwards-facing, which is the last thing SF should be IMhO. How do you feel about Roger Delgado as The Master? He was the first actor to play The Master, but it is commonly assumed that he isn’t The First Master?
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Post by Kestrel on Oct 11, 2021 0:21:33 GMT
Delgado is the first master, though, because that naming convention exists solely out-of-universe. But no, I don't feel as strongly about it because the show's not called Master Who. It's also worth noting that, as the Master was introduced with the 3rd Doctor, there was always an assumption of there being prior incarnations. There was never any such assumption with Hartnell.
Hartnell has a very specific position in the legacy of the show that has NO equivalent. As i said: it's unique.
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Oct 11, 2021 1:25:30 GMT
At the risk of being a typical Doctor Who fan and responding far too seriously ( )... Susan (and Ian and Barbara) are the first companions the same way Hartnell is still the first Doctor (and Eccleston was still the ninth after the War Doctor, etc, etc). The real world is different from the fictional world and a retcon "in-universe" doesn't erase the actual people's legacy. Delgado will always be the first actor to play the Master, even though we could reasonably assume (insane efforts by several Wilderness Years publications to suggest otherwise aside...) he was not the first incarnation after Deadly Assassin has the Master on his final regeneration. That's part of why I don't think the Timeless Child (or the Morbius Doctors or the deleted lines in Power of the Daleks) erase Hartnell's legacy. He's still the First Doctor to us, the one who started the show. The fact that the Doctor as a fictional character has a longer, hidden, history does nothing to change that. Susan might not literally be the first companion ( Fugitive shows she isn't and I'm sure we'll get more Jo Martin companions when her "era" gets expanded on), but Carole Ann Ford is one of the first companions regardless of retcons. Yeah, this is how I approach it, too. The whole 1st Doctor, 2nd Doctor, 3rd Doctor, etc. are all IRL naming conventions... they don't exist in-universe. Except they do. The Lodger
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Post by Digi on Oct 11, 2021 3:03:26 GMT
Yeah, this is how I approach it, too. The whole 1st Doctor, 2nd Doctor, 3rd Doctor, etc. are all IRL naming conventions... they don't exist in-universe. Except they do. The LodgerNot sure what this is meant to prove. The Doctor as we've known him/her wasn't aware of their Division/Fugitive incarnations until the end of this past series. Eleven can't count something that he doesn't know exists.
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Post by theillusiveman on Oct 11, 2021 5:39:55 GMT
Yeah, this is how I approach it, too. The whole 1st Doctor, 2nd Doctor, 3rd Doctor, etc. are all IRL naming conventions... they don't exist in-universe. Except they do. The LodgerName of the Doctor and the lodger come instantly to mind
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Oct 11, 2021 7:21:41 GMT
Yeah, this is how I approach it, too. The whole 1st Doctor, 2nd Doctor, 3rd Doctor, etc. are all IRL naming conventions... they don't exist in-universe. Except they do. The LodgerYep. At that point which was prior to them being aware of what had been kept hidden from them. So to doesn't really matter.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2021 7:30:13 GMT
Not sure what this is meant to prove. The Doctor as we've known him/her wasn't aware of their Division/Fugitive incarnations until the end of this past series. Eleven can't count something that he doesn't know exists. It was meant to prove that it isn't true to state that phrases such as first doctor are only IRL naming conventions. The numbering of incarnations in the show has been common since JNT's time, with Davison for example, telling Hurndall he's the fifth incarnation. RTD dropped this convention, there are no references during his reign to which incarnation we're seeing, but Moffat then makes it clear (if unclear) by specifying that eleven is the thirteenth, and final incarnation. Of course, as others have said, this numbering is based on the Doctor and the Timelords mistaken impression that the Hartnell incarnation was the first. Davison saying he's the fifth doctor doesn't make it true. In my head-canon, this is why the regeneration in Time of the Doctor is enough to destroy dalek spaceships - the Time Lords give him the energy for a whole new regeneration cycle, but he didn't need it, he already had unlimited lives, so has loads of excess energy to blow off.
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Oct 11, 2021 17:12:58 GMT
Not sure what this is meant to prove. The Doctor as we've known him/her wasn't aware of their Division/Fugitive incarnations until the end of this past series. Eleven can't count something that he doesn't know exists. It was meant to prove that it isn't true to state that phrases such as first doctor are only IRL naming conventions. The numbering of incarnations in the show has been common since JNT's time, with Davison for example, telling Hurndall he's the fifth incarnation. RTD dropped this convention, there are no references during his reign to which incarnation we're seeing, but Moffat then makes it clear (if unclear) by specifying that eleven is the thirteenth, and final incarnation. Of course, as others have said, this numbering is based on the Doctor and the Timelords mistaken impression that the Hartnell incarnation was the first. Davison saying he's the fifth doctor doesn't make it true. In my head-canon, this is why the regeneration in Time of the Doctor is enough to destroy dalek spaceships - the Time Lords give him the energy for a whole new regeneration cycle, but he didn't need it, he already had unlimited lives, so has loads of excess energy to blow off. Exactly. The Doctor not knowing the true number of regenerations doesn't nullify the fact that the numbering did/does exist in universe.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2021 21:16:08 GMT
It's also worth noting that, as the Master was introduced with the 3rd Doctor, there was always an assumption of there being prior incarnations. There was never any such assumption with Hartnell. There were lines cut from The Power of the Daleks script that refer to it not being the Doctor's first "renewal"* which would have implied that William Hartnell's Doctor wasn't actually the first. Yes, those lines were never transmitted, but it showed that somebody back then had some sort of an idea for a pre-Hartnell incarnation.
*Regeneration was not the term used back then, it was a "renewal".
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Post by Kestrel on Oct 12, 2021 19:54:08 GMT
That's some interesting trivia, but even had the line been in the actual episode I don't think it would affect my opinion here. Maybe I didn't make this clear before, but to me this has nothing to do with the show's continuity. Doctor Who is a cultural institution... not just in terms of UK culture, but the broader SF culture as well. William Hartnell has a very specific legacy as the first Doctor. And nothing in continuity will change that... but the fact that this status also matches 1:1 with his status in-continuity as the (First) Doctor makes any attempt to insert pre-Hartnell Doctors feel like an attempt to undermine that legacy, which I find disrespectful. Furthermore I find the idea just kind of blandly offensive at a narrative level. I hope I'm explaining myself well here, this can be kind of hard to articulate... but to me, storytelling is fundamentally about the process of change. Who the Doctor "was" is and always irrelevant--the interesting thing, the thing we're all here to see, is who the Doctor is and who they're becoming. We've followed this character for more than 50 years. That is a long time. That is generations. Literal empires have risen and fallen within that span. And throughout it all, we've seen the Doctor continue to grow and change and move on, their world continuously growing bigger and broader and more faceted. And if we're going to say, at this point--60 years later!--that the stories worth exploring are those that occurred prior to this (technically not) unprecedented journey... then the series is dead. Or at least fundamentally incapable of the imagination required to continue in any meaningful way. That's not to say that pre-Pilot stories are a fundamentally bad idea, or that I'm against the idea of earlier Doctors full-cloth... I am not. Bit rather, there's a time and a place to explore those things, and the forefront of the franchise ain't it. Exactly. The Doctor not knowing the true number of regenerations doesn't nullify the fact that the numbering did/does exist in universe. He points to himself and says "eleventh." This is not the same thing as referring to himself as "the eleventh Doctor." I read that scene as more of a meta nod than anything else, just like all of the other scenes (of which there are many) that refer to or otherwise call back to the Doctor's "number."
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Oct 12, 2021 20:27:23 GMT
That's some interesting trivia, but even had the line been in the actual episode I don't think it would affect my opinion here. Maybe I didn't make this clear before, but to me this has nothing to do with the show's continuity. Doctor Who is a cultural institution... not just in terms of UK culture, but the broader SF culture as well. William Hartnell has a very specific legacy as the first Doctor. And nothing in continuity will change that... but the fact that this status also matches 1:1 with his status in-continuity as the (First) Doctor makes any attempt to insert pre-Hartnell Doctors feel like an attempt to undermine that legacy, which I find disrespectful. Furthermore I find the idea just kind of blandly offensive at a narrative level. I hope I'm explaining myself well here, this can be kind of hard to articulate... but to me, storytelling is fundamentally about the process of change. Who the Doctor "was" is and always irrelevant--the interesting thing, the thing we're all here to see, is who the Doctor is and who they're becoming. We've followed this character for more than 50 years. That is a long time. That is generations. Literal empires have risen and fallen within that span. And throughout it all, we've seen the Doctor continue to grow and change and move on, their world continuously growing bigger and broader and more faceted. And if we're going to say, at this point--60 years later!--that the stories worth exploring are those that occurred prior to this (technically not) unprecedented journey... then the series is dead. Or at least fundamentally incapable of the imagination required to continue in any meaningful way. That's not to say that pre-Pilot stories are a fundamentally bad idea, or that I'm against the idea of earlier Doctors full-cloth... I am not. Bit rather, there's a time and a place to explore those things, and the forefront of the franchise ain't it. Exactly. The Doctor not knowing the true number of regenerations doesn't nullify the fact that the numbering did/does exist in universe. He points to himself and says "eleventh." This is not the same thing as referring to himself as "the eleventh Doctor." I read that scene as more of a meta nod than anything else, just like all of the other scenes (of which there are many) that refer to or otherwise call back to the Doctor's "number." It is exactly the same thing. You can read the scene as meta all you want, and it makes no difference to either of us, but that is exactly what he is doing, he's referring to himself as the Eleventh Doctor. If he wasn't then why is he saying it at all?
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Post by Kestrel on Oct 12, 2021 20:34:48 GMT
It is not "exactly the same thing," by any stretch of the imagination, and asserting that it is indictates that you're not really approaching this conversation in good faith.
If you'd wanted me to clarify, all you had to do was ask. In which case we could have had a pleasant interaction where I would reply that saying, "I'm the eleventh Doctor" would be a line where the Doctor is explicitly applying a name/title to himself, whereas saying, simply, "eleventh" is merely an acknowledgment of his place within the show's continuity.
Why is he saying it at all? Again, it's a meta-reference to the fact that he's the 11th Doctor. Moffat's kinda famous for,this kinda thing, yeah? If you want an explicit declaration, I'm afraid you're going to have to find an *explicit* declaration.
Anyway, I've expressed my opinions here about as well as I think I'm able, and I have zero interest in combative arguments, so I think I'm done with this topic.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Oct 12, 2021 21:25:13 GMT
That's some interesting trivia, but even had the line been in the actual episode I don't think it would affect my opinion here. Maybe I didn't make this clear before, but to me this has nothing to do with the show's continuity. Doctor Who is a cultural institution... not just in terms of UK culture, but the broader SF culture as well. William Hartnell has a very specific legacy as the first Doctor. And nothing in continuity will change that... but the fact that this status also matches 1:1 with his status in-continuity as the (First) Doctor makes any attempt to insert pre-Hartnell Doctors feel like an attempt to undermine that legacy, which I find disrespectful. Furthermore I find the idea just kind of blandly offensive at a narrative level. I hope I'm explaining myself well here, this can be kind of hard to articulate... but to me, storytelling is fundamentally about the process of change. Who the Doctor "was" is and always irrelevant--the interesting thing, the thing we're all here to see, is who the Doctor is and who they're becoming. We've followed this character for more than 50 years. That is a long time. That is generations. Literal empires have risen and fallen within that span. And throughout it all, we've seen the Doctor continue to grow and change and move on, their world continuously growing bigger and broader and more faceted. And if we're going to say, at this point--60 years later!--that the stories worth exploring are those that occurred prior to this (technically not) unprecedented journey... then the series is dead. Or at least fundamentally incapable of the imagination required to continue in any meaningful way. That's not to say that pre-Pilot stories are a fundamentally bad idea, or that I'm against the idea of earlier Doctors full-cloth... I am not. Bit rather, there's a time and a place to explore those things, and the forefront of the franchise ain't it. Exactly. The Doctor not knowing the true number of regenerations doesn't nullify the fact that the numbering did/does exist in universe. He points to himself and says "eleventh." This is not the same thing as referring to himself as "the eleventh Doctor." I read that scene as more of a meta nod than anything else, just like all of the other scenes (of which there are many) that refer to or otherwise call back to the Doctor's "number." Mind you…. He didn’t count the War Doctor either, so he’s got a rubric in his mind as to what makes a Doctor.
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Oct 12, 2021 21:43:46 GMT
It is not "exactly the same thing," by any stretch of the imagination, and asserting that it is indictates that you're not really approaching this conversation in good faith. If you'd wanted me to clarify, all you had to do was ask. In which case we could have had a pleasant interaction where I would reply that saying, "I'm the eleventh Doctor" would be a line where the Doctor is explicitly applying a name/title to himself, whereas saying, simply, "eleventh" is merely an acknowledgment of his place within the show's continuity. Why is he saying it at all? Again, it's a meta-reference to the fact that he's the 11th Doctor. Moffat's kinda famous for,this kinda thing, yeah? If you want an explicit declaration, I'm afraid you're going to have to find an * explicit* declaration. Anyway, I've expressed my opinions here about as well as I think I'm able, and I have zero interest in combative arguments, so I think I'm done with this topic. I'm not approaching the conversation in good faith? Well, I'm not agreeing with you. If agreeing with you is your definition of good faith then there's not much I can do about that. You say it isn't, I say it is and never the twain shall meet. I didn't ask you to clarify because your posts were well composed and you got your point across. I just think you're wrong about it. I maintain that the recognition of his numbering in universe is explicit. It's not Smith's Doctor having a monologue about all his incarnations, it's a dialogue with Craig, who already knows him as the Doctor, and 11 clarifies that he IS the 11th. I'm not intending to have a combative discussion, but it IS one where there isn't a middle ground. One of us is right. I think it is me, you think it is you. Well, that's fine by me. We've both made our point. Let's move on.
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Post by Kestrel on Oct 12, 2021 21:53:04 GMT
I apologize if I misread your tone, but it's hard for me not to read misconstruing of my points (which you just did again) as anything but needlessly combative/antagonistic. Mind you…. He didn’t count the War Doctor either, so he’s got a rubric in his mind as to what makes a Doctor. At one point I remember reading that Moffat had intended Eccleston to play Hurt's role, so it's possible this script was written before the War Doctor was a thing.
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Oct 12, 2021 22:08:31 GMT
I apologize if I misread your tone, but it's hard for me not to read misconstruing of my points (which you just did again) as anything but needlessly combative/antagonistic. Mind you…. He didn’t count the War Doctor either, so he’s got a rubric in his mind as to what makes a Doctor. At one point I remember reading that Moffat had intended Eccleston to play Hurt's role, so it's possible this script was written before the War Doctor was a thing. Well, apology accepted. Apparently I am misconstruing your points. Well, ok then. You know what you meant better than me just reading it. Anyhoo.
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Post by elkawho on Oct 12, 2021 22:23:50 GMT
This has actually been a fun conversation to read. I've been reading as heated debate, not necessarily argumentative. You both make good points. Who do I agree with? Hmm, not gonna say.
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Post by theillusiveman on Oct 22, 2021 12:25:29 GMT
https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/qdagrc/mcgann_says_he_is_ready_to_return_onscreen_and/
if Paul isn't in the 60th Anniversary it would be a crime had no idea he is 61 he looks incredible
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Post by commonman on Oct 22, 2021 13:01:56 GMT
McGann in the 60th? We can only hope
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