Talk:Doctor Who/Archive 1

message: The show is described as "the longest-running television science fiction series ever". While this is undoubtably true, I usually hear it referenced without the "science fiction" clarification. Are there in fact *ANY* TV shows that are longer running?
:Yes.  The longest running show is "Meet the Press", which has been on the air since 1948.  Mr. Rogers ran for 34 years before he hung up his sweater.  I think at least one soap opera has been on since the 1950s. --Belltower
And Coronation Street, the perennial northern soap opera, is definitely the longest running fictional television series in the UK. sjc
And didn't The Sooty Show run for some inordinately long period of time?
Yes but it was in non-continuous periods
:Also The Sky at Night has been running continuously once a month from 1957 ; Patrick Moore missed his very first episode this month because of food poisoning -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 16:46, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, while Doctor Who is the longest-running dramatic science-fiction series, the Australian children's programme Mr. Squiggle (about a man from the moon with a pencil for a nose) technically wins, since it was never on hiatus for 14 years and ran from 1959 to 1999 - 40 years without any significant breaks. But I'm just being a pedant, looking for an excuse to create an entry for him. ;) Guybrush 03:45, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if you want to be pedantic, Mr. Squiggle sounds more like a fantasy series than a science fiction one. But then again, when we're talking about Doctor Who's science we're getting onto dangerous ground... :) -khaosworks 03:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Longest-running? 

message: Could somebody better explain the behind the sofa reference?  What do sofas have to do with anything? Tuf-Kat 06:21, Oct 2, 2003 (UTC)
:Watching Doctor Who from a position of safety behind the sofa, peering cautiously out to see if the scary bit's over, is (or used to be) one of the great shared experiences of English childhood. Probably not that many people actually did it, strictly speaking, but everyone knew it happened. —Paul A 08:06, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: I definatelty used to watch Dr Who from behind the sofa, it's one of my earliest memories quercus robur 15:31, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

text: Actually, we didn't have a sofa in the room with the TV in it -- I used to watch Doctor Who through the crack in the door at the bottom of the stairs! Arwel 10:20, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

text: FWIW: the day after I read the above comment I bought the October 2003 issue of SFX magazine. P. 23 has a quote from Mark Doyle (who??), talking about his favourite sci-fi or fantasy hero (The Doctor of course): "Many hours spent watching from behind the sofa in my formative years...[possibly explains a lot]"-- Malcolm Farmer 22:53, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Behind the sofa? 

message: List of Doctor Who serials needs a lot of work - or rather, the individual stories need a lot of work. A few have started appearing (some wikified, some not) but most are still missing. I'm doing what I can. We could do with some sort of consistency of what info is included, how it appears, etc. Anyone got any ideas? --ALargeElk 16:00, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of serials 

message: The page is approaching the 32kb limit, and I'm thinking of culling some of the information and links. Any suggestions? Right now I'm considering removing the info on The Master in the main article, since it's not directly relevant to the Doctor, per se (and also mostly covered in the Master's own entry). The Missing Episodes, Doctor Who in America and Doctor Who Spin-offs sections could be moved to separate articles as well, with pointers as needed. What do you guys think, or shall I just do it?
:Well- a subject like this could conceivably take up much more than 32kb very easily - if the only way to accommodate that is by splitting into different pages, then so be it - go ahead, I say.  Love the work you're doing on this page - looking good -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 16:46, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Splitting the page 

message: Does anybody else think that "New beginnings" ought to be moved up to follow "1989 cancellation", ahead of "Missing episodes" and "Other appearances"? Also, it could perhaps do with a new title, such as "2005 revival" or "the new series" or similar. Opinions? Angmering 14:57, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, what I've done is this. Move 1989 Cancellation down, past "Other appearances" and "Missing episodes" to just before the 2005 section which I've renamed "2005 revival". This makes more intuitive sense (at least to me), as the latest information on the show should be at the bottom of the article. I've also moved the Peter Cushing info from the end of "Changing faces" to where it more properly belongs, in "Other appearances". --khaosworks 16:51, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like a good solution to me. You're right about the newest information needing to be at the bottom, I hadn't thought about that. Angmering 19:54, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving sections 

message: Were the Zygons an important enough adversary to put in the list of monsters?  There's a Zygons orphaned article floating around out there.  Joyous 02:56, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
:There's actually a Zygon link in the BBV entry. Proper wiki format should mean that Zygons should be moved to Zygon, anyway. I've done that, and for the moment, categorized it as well as added a bit to it. As to whether they should be in the list of monsters, probably not - they only appeared in one serial, and while popular with fans, those mentioned in the main entry under "The monsters" have all appeared at least twice. --khaosworks 03:47, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zygon query 

message: As the series progressed, the Doctor's role was gradually fleshed out.  From nothing at the beginning to apparently quite a senior position or respect (if not approval) amongst Time Lords, going by vague memory perhaps even close to the Presidency or similar.
So the section "Who was Dr Who?" never really answers its own title.  Could someone with more knowledge than I have, fill in what's actually known of the Doctor and his background by adding a sentence or so about Dr Who as a Time Lord, his position, and stance amongst time lords, or similar? Thanks  FT 01:54, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)
:That is, in effect, the entire point of the section. "Who is the Doctor?" points out the unanswered, eternal question at the heart of the series, more than any dry recitation of the Doctor's character history would - which is riddled with contradictions anyway. His position among his people has never been particularly good - he was Lord President for a time, but as Arc of Infinity showed, he was replaced because he ran away from the job, and he was placed on trial in Trial of a Time Lord. 
:So it's all status quo now, really. The last time we saw Gallifrey was in Trial, spin-offs notwithstanding. The Doctor is what he's always been, a renegade, and that is amply, IMO, represented in the text. Any one else have any other thoughts?
:By the by, the regeneration bit you added is a bit redundant, since it's covered under "Changing faces" below. ----khaosworks 06:30, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Who is the Doctor?

message: Noticed that there were a few links to the Eye of Harmony but no article for it.  I have created a short stub to fill the gap - feel free to add/delete/modify/whatever. Zaphod Beeblebrox 11:31, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: The Eye of Harmony

message: Rassilon - Another in Dave's sequence of "plant a stub and watch it grow" articles on the back of yesterday's Eye of Harmony success.  Again - modify as you see fit. Zaphod Beeblebrox 05:29, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Rassilon

message: Added Matrix (Doctor Who) as an entry. --khaosworks 16:34, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Matrix

message: What about a doctor who subpage with a list of enemies instead of a tiny section on the main page? First we could add the main ones and when people come they can add others.
:My difficulty with that is that in 40 years, the Doctor has racked up a lot of enemies. Who do we put in and who don't we? I don't think that it's useful to put in everybody. I'd rather list the major recurring villains - Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen, Autons, and leave the others to individual entries. Category: Doctor Who adversaries, perhaps. Thoughts? -khaosworks 21:24, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enemies 

message: A couple of things with the spinoffs - 
Should the Novellas section be merged (or at least moved adjacent to) the original fiction?  I don't see why there should be an artificial split based on length especially as the short stories are mentioned in the original fiction section.
What about a games and other merchandising section?
Should the Audio and Original Fiction (and novelisations for that matter) have links to a complete list of works?
Would like to hear what others who have done a lot of the extant work think before ploughing ahead as some of these sections will be exhausting as well as exhaustive.
:I've done some reoganization so hopefully the arrangement of sections is a bit more logical. If you want to put in external links to lists of the fiction, that'd be fine. The Virgin New Adventures, for example, article already has a list of all the Virgin novels (I would just balk at having the list within the current article). A merchandizing section would also not be amiss, I think, but if it gets too long, may deserve its own article. Let's try it and see. -khaosworks 21:54, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spinoffs 

message: List of Doctor Who villains is redundant, as there is a list of Doctor Who villains in the List of supporting characters in Doctor Who. One should be folded into the other. Thoughts? -khaosworks 22:12, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: List of Doctor Who villains

message: I reckon this is close to being a Featured Article. Khaosworks has made some excellent additions and would be ideal to take it through.  Personally I can't see much more that could be added. violet/riga (t) 17:41, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: My blushes, although of course this was a group effort over the last six months or so. I'll put it up as a kind-of self-nomination and see how it goes. -khaosworks 02:56, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  FAC