From: jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Re: New Adventures as canon?
Date: 5 Oct 92 03:03:22 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

In article <1992Oct5.011528.22563@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> ira2p@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Iain Robert Asplin) writes:
>In article <15888@umd5.umd.edu> jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...) writes:
>>Until the novels come up with something blatantly wrong, or until a new
>>production team finally shows up and clarifies the status of the books, 
>>I'd have no problem accepting Peter Darvill-Evans as a substitute producer.

>Well, the New Adventures novels were making continuity mistakes since
>"Timewyrm:Genesys"  (not biggies mind you, but still mistakes).  

Ditto for the show.  We've just spent weeks explaining away every mistake
we could think of in the Continuity Catalog, so I'm sure that enterprising
minds could figure out ways to explain away, say, the Doctor forgetting
that the Cloister Bell rang in "Logopolis" (after all, he had just done a
memory core dump at the time).

Personally I think the continuity in the novels has been excellent --
especially with each other.  The use of nitro-nine-A in "Nightshade"
confirmed this.  Also, the Doctor's characterization has been surprisingly
logical in its development -- "Time's Crucible" developed well from the
end of the Timewyrm saga, and "Nightshade" again dealt with the Doctor's
reaction to his own actions in the Cat's Cradle series.

>Even though the New Adventures are completely made up, I still feel they
>cannot and should not be taken as canon, not only from thetrack record
>of Target, but also from a stylisitc point of view, i.e. each individual
>writer gets to put their imprints on not only the Doctor's actions as
>in television, but also on his very thoughts.  This is a little too much
>for me to take as official, as oftentimes one writer's intrepretation of
>his innermost opinions and thoughts will vary from others (and mine).
                                                           ^^^^^^^^^^
Seems to me that's the reason for most fans' continuity arguments anyway.
We're looking for facts that fit our views, and it's great to discard any
messy little ones that get in the way.

Seriously, though, I quite understand the problem with different writers
putting different imprints on the Doctor.  John Peel's seventh Doctor in
"Genesys" didn't even sound like McCoy to me -- Peel was writing for
Hartnell, it sounded like.  There's also different writers' takes on the
is-he-or-isn't-he-more-than-he-seems mystery, and even longtime continuity
bugaboos like Susan (Mark Gatiss pretty clearly believes that she wasn't
really the Doctor's granddaughter, and it shows in his book.)

The thing is, this happened in the series too.  Was Adric, the light-fingered
Artful Dodger of "State of Decay", really the same as the sullen, whining
adolescent of "Four to Doomsday" or the screwed-up genius of "Full Circle"?
This happens in any shared universe, and the best we can do is to try to
gloss over the inconsistencies as best we can.

>In television at least, we have the safety cushion of not knowing what
>he's thinking.   

And if you want, you can interpret the novels as the adventures "as told to"
the authors.  That's my convenient escape-hatch for continuity / character
holes in all of Star Trek, Doctor Who, et cetera -- the stories are not
necessarily what was seen on the screen / printed on the page.  Guess that's
my historian background shining through.

>In the novel format, there are
>essentially only two people in editorial control of what's going to be
>changed (the author and the editor).  IOn television, at least approval
>still needs to be given from the Producer, input from a Director, and
>the BBC Script Unit have a say.  It's more representative that way,
>i.e. it feels to me to be less of a dictatorship on television than
>what we get in the books.  

Well, that depends on the producer.  I seem to remember Marc Platt saying
about his New Adventure that he, Paul Cornell, and some other writers had
been in touch fairly regularly, and that the novel crew were a team much as
the writers of the last season of the show had been.  But I digress

>I'm indecisive about these myself.  I think we very gently can take them
>as official, meaning should a later story wish to retcon these stories,
>I can forgive it, but until that happens, let's assume they happened.

Which is exactly my attitude towards the New Adventures.  We can get away
with assuming they count until we have proof they don't.