An Unearthly Child or 100,000 B.C.?
PowrWrap
of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for sale. The
title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
That settles it for me.
"When you argue with a fool, be sure he is not similarily occupied."
Keith Bradbury
I mean, "An Unearthly Child" is obviously episode 1. Episode 1 is NOT "100,000 BC"
And episodes 2-4 are obviously "100,000 BC" and NOT "An Unearthly Child." What do
we call the untransmitted pilot? Episode 1 of "100,000 BC?" No, it has nothing to
do with 100,000 B.C. (unless that is a reference to the modern public school
system, then I can see it...)
Obviously we have two stories in the video release, one dealing with Susan Foreman
(An Unearthly Child), and the other dealing with cavemen (100,000 BC). Isn't it
just as easy to say, "There's two stories here: An Unearthly Child and 100,000 BC."
Keith
Paul Ebbs
>Was at Suncoast video at the Mall of America yesterday. Checked their
selection
>of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for sale.
The
>title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
>
>AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>
>That settles it for me.
Oh you've spoilt it all - what are we all going to bitch about now ?
pauly
Season27
A brand new series of Doctor Who adventures on CD.
http://www.timelord.demon.co.uk/
Benjamin F. Elliott
>PowrWrap wrote in message <19981222182143...@ng151.aol.com>...
>>Was at Suncoast video at the Mall of America yesterday. Checked their
selection
of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for sale.
The title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
>>
>>AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>>
>>That settles it for me.
>
>Oh you've spoilt it all - what are we all going to bitch about now ?
>
episodic.
Benjamin F. Elliott
Nathan Cooke
>
> I know the arguments, but why can't it be both?
>
> I mean, "An Unearthly Child" is obviously episode 1. Episode 1 is NOT "100,000 BC"
> And episodes 2-4 are obviously "100,000 BC" and NOT "An Unearthly Child." What do
> we call the untransmitted pilot? Episode 1 of "100,000 BC?" No, it has nothing to
> do with 100,000 B.C. (unless that is a reference to the modern public school
> system, then I can see it...)
>
> Obviously we have two stories in the video release, one dealing with Susan Foreman
> (An Unearthly Child), and the other dealing with cavemen (100,000 BC). Isn't it
> just as easy to say, "There's two stories here: An Unearthly Child and 100,000 BC."
Just to put the cat amongst the pigeons. The story is called 100,000 BC.
Episode One (and the pilot) is called An Unearthly Child just as Episode
Two is called The Cave of Skulls etc. Episodes Two to Four have been
collectively called The Tribe of Gum in the past. I really don't know
why people keep having this debate, it's obvious. No one calls The
Aztecs The Temple of Evil do they?
Nathan Cooke
--
What sort of people are you up there? Do any of you live in the real
world?" - Charles Brelan
Welcome to the future, Welcome home...
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/2049
Nathan Cooke
jd9...@my-dejanews.com
powr...@aol.com (PowrWrap) wrote:
> Was at Suncoast video at the Mall of America yesterday. Checked their
> selection of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for
> sale. The title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
>
> AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>
> That settles it for me.
There are TWO major problems.
Firstly, the first episode SHOULD be considered a distinct story, IMHO, as it
has NO connection with the second, third and fourth episodes (which, IMHO,
correctly make up the story of "100,000 BC"). You CAN'T use the fact that the
first episode leads into the second, as they ALL do that. The last episode on
the first video leads into "The Daleks", for example.
Secondly, the first EPISODE on that tape is, indeed, titled "An Unearthly
Child". Each episode, from that era, had it's own, unique, title. Presumably,
this makes it a bit of a nightmare for BBC Enterprises, who have to work out
what they want to call the video. (There was no on-screen title for the
actual story, itself, so they couldn't simply use that. From what I
understand, there was a "working" title for each story, presumably used for
production and sales, and I presume that that's the title that's usually
used.)
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
jd9...@my-dejanews.com
kei...@hotmail.com wrote:
> I know the arguments, but why can't it be both?
>
> I mean, "An Unearthly Child" is obviously episode 1. Episode 1 is NOT "100,000
BC"
> And episodes 2-4 are obviously "100,000 BC" and NOT "An Unearthly Child." What
do
> we call the untransmitted pilot? Episode 1 of "100,000 BC?" No, it has nothing
to
> do with 100,000 B.C. (unless that is a reference to the modern public school
> system, then I can see it...)
>
> Obviously we have two stories in the video release, one dealing with Susan
Foreman
> (An Unearthly Child), and the other dealing with cavemen (100,000 BC). Isn't
it
> just as easy to say, "There's two stories here: An Unearthly Child and 100,000
BC."
Just a quick comment -- "Public School" in the UK means the same as "Private
School" in the US. The UK equivalent of a US "Public School" is a
Comprehensive.
Michael R. Wall
the TARDIS console called a "Yearometer", which logically means that it
measures the year the TARDIS is in (a similar device appeared in the TV
Movie), and that the Doctor stated the year was zero? And it was already
established that episode 1 takes place in 1963, so that means that no part
of this story at all takes place in 100,000 BC. If there is any proper
title for the first story that can help avoid controversy and endless
debates, we can always call it "Serial A", as that has been written in stone
for the past 35 years.
Michael R. Wall
Keith Bradbury wrote in message <36802D33...@evansville.net>...
>I know the arguments, but why can't it be both?
>
>I mean, "An Unearthly Child" is obviously episode 1. Episode 1 is NOT
"100,000 BC"
>And episodes 2-4 are obviously "100,000 BC" and NOT "An Unearthly Child."
What do
>we call the untransmitted pilot? Episode 1 of "100,000 BC?" No, it has
nothing to
>do with 100,000 B.C. (unless that is a reference to the modern public
school
>system, then I can see it...)
>
>Obviously we have two stories in the video release, one dealing with Susan
Foreman
>(An Unearthly Child), and the other dealing with cavemen (100,000 BC).
Isn't it
>just as easy to say, "There's two stories here: An Unearthly Child and
100,000 BC."
>
>Keith
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Just to put the cat amongst the pigeons. The story is called 100,000 BC.
> Episode One (and the pilot) is called An Unearthly Child just as Episode
> Two is called The Cave of Skulls etc. Episodes Two to Four have been
> collectively called The Tribe of Gum in the past. I really don't know
> why people keep having this debate, it's obvious. No one calls The
> Aztecs The Temple of Evil do they?
Well, I once saw a compilation of Serial F using that title...
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Isn't it clearly obvious in episode 2 that the Doctor mentions a gadget on
> the TARDIS console called a "Yearometer", which logically means that it
> measures the year the TARDIS is in (a similar device appeared in the TV
> Movie), and that the Doctor stated the year was zero?
He then said 'I'm afraid this yearometer is not working properly'!
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Secondly, the first EPISODE on that tape is, indeed, titled "An Unearthly
> Child". Each episode, from that era, had it's own, unique, title. Presumably,
> this makes it a bit of a nightmare for BBC Enterprises, who have to work out
> what they want to call the video. (There was no on-screen title for the
> actual story, itself, so they couldn't simply use that. From what I
> understand, there was a "working" title for each story, presumably used for
> production and sales, and I presume that that's the title that's usually
> used.)
IIRC Paul Vanezis said back in 1995 that when BBC Video released a
Hartnell story, they checked a computer which had data entered by
someone who did no more research than reading the early 80s edition of
the Programme Guide.
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Was at Suncoast video at the Mall of America yesterday. Checked their selection
> of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for sale. The
> title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
> AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
> That settles it for me.
Looked at The Television Companion yesterday. Checked the cover, which
states it is 'The official BBC Guide to every story'. It listed the
first Hartnell story. The title was printed on page 8, and read:
100,000 BC
That settles it for me.
:-)
Keith Bradbury
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Yes, but the Pilot Episode, which was never broadcast, is called "An Unearthly
Child," not 100,000 BC. Since the remake is just a reshoot of the pilot episode, you
therefore have 2 distinct stories, the one episode (An Unearthly Child) outweighed by
the presence of the of the other 3 episodes (comprising the story, "100,000 BC").
Corey Klemow
"Michael R. Wall" wrote:
> Isn't it clearly obvious in episode 2 that the Doctor mentions a gadget on
> the TARDIS console called a "Yearometer", which logically means that it
> measures the year the TARDIS is in (a similar device appeared in the TV
> Movie), and that the Doctor stated the year was zero?
I just rewatched "Dr. Who and a 100,000 BC" yesterday, actually, so --
Actually, the Doctor states that the Yearometer is *reading* zero -- and that
said Yearometer is obviously broken.
Considering that the Roman Empire was in full flourish by the Year Zero (unless
the Yearometer wasn't broken after all and was measuring by some other scale
than years AD and BC -- perhaps Year Zero of the TVM's "Humanian Era", which
could well be "100,000 BC" by our calendar?), I don't think that's when said
story takes place...
John Pettigrew
>Keith Bradbury wrote:
>>
>> I know the arguments, but why can't it be both?
>>
>> I mean, "An Unearthly Child" is obviously episode 1. Episode 1 is NOT "100,000 BC"
>> And episodes 2-4 are obviously "100,000 BC" and NOT "An Unearthly Child." What do
>> we call the untransmitted pilot? Episode 1 of "100,000 BC?" No, it has nothing to
>> do with 100,000 B.C. (unless that is a reference to the modern public school
>> system, then I can see it...)
Just to be a stubborn bugger, I call it "An Unearthly Child"
because... I've always called it that and the first episode has this
on-screen title. QED (for me)
Best Wishes
John Pettigrew - ji...@cableinet.co.uk
"When it's spring again, I'll sing again, Talons of Weng-Chiang..."
John Pettigrew
jd9...@my-dejanews.com clattered away at the keyboard and came up with
this:
>In article <19981222182143...@ng151.aol.com>,
> powr...@aol.com (PowrWrap) wrote:
>> Was at Suncoast video at the Mall of America yesterday. Checked their
>> selection of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for
>> sale. The title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
>>
>> AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>>
>> That settles it for me.
>
>
>There are TWO major problems.
>
>Firstly, the first episode SHOULD be considered a distinct story, IMHO, as it
>has NO connection with the second, third and fourth episodes (which, IMHO,
>correctly make up the story of "100,000 BC"). You CAN'T use the fact that the
>first episode leads into the second, as they ALL do that. The last episode on
>the first video leads into "The Daleks", for example.
But if it leads in to the other 3 episodes then it MUST be linked.
Besides all 4 eps were produced under the same block and the budget
was for the first 4 eps inclusive. I have never EVER thought that Ep
1 is a seperate story.
Sheesh! Talk about Retconning!
>Secondly, the first EPISODE on that tape is, indeed, titled "An Unearthly
>Child". Each episode, from that era, had it's own, unique, title. Presumably,
>this makes it a bit of a nightmare for BBC Enterprises, who have to work out
>what they want to call the video. (There was no on-screen title for the
>actual story, itself, so they couldn't simply use that. From what I
>understand, there was a "working" title for each story, presumably used for
>production and sales, and I presume that that's the title that's usually
>used.)
Not really - each "story" revolves around a certain number of
episodes. Story A is 4 episodes (not 1) and has been called An
Unearthly Child for decades before the devilishly intensive research
came up with the [granted, technically more accurate] title of 100,000
BC.
I mean, if we find out tomorrow that the Ford Fiesta had the working
title of the Ford Squid, would we all start calling it that?
John Pettigrew
wonderful Tim Roll-Pickering <m00p...@mcmail.com> clattered away at
the keyboard and came up with this:
>PowrWrap wrote:
>
>> Was at Suncoast video at the Mall of America yesterday. Checked their selection
>> of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for sale. The
>> title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
>
>> AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>
>> That settles it for me.
>
>Looked at The Television Companion yesterday. Checked the cover, which
>states it is 'The official BBC Guide to every story'. It listed the
>first Hartnell story. The title was printed on page 8, and read:
>
>100,000 BC
>
>That settles it for me.
>
>:-)
Hmm - in the opening lists, it states that the official title of story
RR is "Fury the Deep" Does this mean that I should now call it that?
Without the "from"?
And according to page 23 of last month's DWM, the official working
title for The Daleks' Master Plan is TWELVE PART DALEK SEGMENT.
Just becasue something is "Official" doesn't make it more
common-sense. Also, just because the TVC calls itself "official", I'm
sure JM-L guides were just as official when the were first published.
Only they didn't make a song and dance about it...
Ray Barker
>AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>
>That settles it for me.
NO! use the episode titles :
"The Forest of Trees" "The Cave of Stuff" etcetera.
Then nobody can fault you.
:-)
- Ray
Alden Bates
> PowrWrap wrote:
>
> > Was at Suncoast video at the Mall of America yesterday. Checked their selection
> > of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for sale. The
> > title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
>
> > AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>
> states it is 'The official BBC Guide to every story'. It listed the
> first Hartnell story. The title was printed on page 8, and read:
>
> 100,000 BC
If the BBC can't make up their minds, what hope do we have?
I'm all for calling it "That story that we don't know what it's
called". The only catch being that there's about 50 such stories...
I can see far in the future there's going to be whole religions devoted
to various naming systems for Doctor Who stories, and the clashes will
be mighty and bloody, and it'll all be the BBC's fault!!
Alden. (It'll all end in tears, mark my words.)
Daniel Frankham
>>Firstly, the first episode SHOULD be considered a distinct story, IMHO, as it
>>has NO connection with the second, third and fourth episodes (which, IMHO,
>>correctly make up the story of "100,000 BC"). You CAN'T use the fact that the
>>first episode leads into the second, as they ALL do that. The last episode on
>>the first video leads into "The Daleks", for example.
>
>But if it leads in to the other 3 episodes then it MUST be linked.
By that reasoning the whole... lessee... the whole first 22 episodes
are all one story.
>Besides all 4 eps were produced under the same block and the budget
>was for the first 4 eps inclusive.
This strikes me as a rather artificial way of determining what a
"story" is.
>I have never EVER thought that Ep
>1 is a seperate story.
>
>Sheesh! Talk about Retconning!
I'm fairly sympathetic to the idea of the 1st 4 episodes being two
stories.
Rather than looking at production trivia (production codes and the
like, which IMHO refer as much to the period for which the director
and other production personnel were employed than to the content of
the episodes) perhaps we should ask "What is a story?" If the first 4
episodes of Doctor Who are one story, then what is it about?
If the first episode is one story, then that's simple: two
schoolteachers solve the mystery of why a pupil is so weird. The next
story is about escaping from cavemen, and the Doctor grudgingly
accepting the invaders as part of his crew.
If the first 4 episodes are one story, then why not also The Rescue
and The Romans? They have a similar structure: new companion is
introduced to the TARDIS crew in a minor mystery/adventure; then goes
off with them to have a historical adventure. (With a cliffhanger
between the two settings.)
Anyway, it seems to me that thinking in terms of discreet stories is a
prejudice which comes from being introduced to Who late in the series,
when it was made very much as a series of serials. In the early days
it seems that the production team considered it more of a continuing
serial, hence the individual episode titles rather than umbrella
titles, and the cliffhangers at the end of practically every episode.
Umbrella concepts like production codes were always behind the scenes:
what the public saw were just 25-minute episodes with their own
titles, and a cliffhanger into the next 25-minute episode.
OK, so that's an extreme position... to some extent it's obvious that
the episodes between when the Daleks are introduced and the epieosde
when they're vanquished are one story... but it's not always that
clear. (As in The Daleks Master Plan, where you might or might not
consider Mission to the Unknown to be part of the story, and where
there's apparently a big gap between a couple of episodes, during
which other adventures might have happened off-screen. Then there's
The Ark, where you might think it's a 4-part story, or two 2-part
stories...) Even if some sequences of episodes are clearly part of a
discreet story, it seems the production was a lot more flexible in
those early daysd, and that sometimes that wasn't the case.
===========================================================================
The television critic, whatever his pretensions, does not labour in the
same vineyard as those he criticizes; his grapes are all sour.
--Frederic Raphael
Keith Bradbury
The fact is, the BBC called it "An Unearthly Child" because most people just hit
rewind at the end of episode one...
JeffWorks
*An Unearthly Child _can't_ be seperated from "The Tribe of Gum" because it has
no conclusion. A story needs three parts, right? To say AUC is it's own story
means it doesn't have a conclusion.
*Why call "The Daleks" "The Mutants?" It's far too confusing. What research
did Howe and Baker do to arrive at these new titles?
*"Inside the Spaceship" instead of "Edge of Destruction." Seems a quaint
title, but I'll go with it.
o--c
___
| _ _ _ | | _ _ _
| |_ |_ |_ | | | | | |_| |/|_ --c
|_| |_ | | |_|_| |_| | \ |\ _|
Building the foundations for a spookier tomorrow...
Tim Roll-Pickering
> >AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
> >That settles it for me.
> NO! use the episode titles :
> "The Forest of Trees" "The Cave of Stuff" etcetera.
> Then nobody can fault you.
But then what does 'Inferno' refer to?
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Hmm - in the opening lists, it states that the official title of story
> RR is "Fury the Deep" Does this mean that I should now call it that?
> Without the "from"?
Look at the actual entry.
> And according to page 23 of last month's DWM, the official working
> title for The Daleks' Master Plan is TWELVE PART DALEK SEGMENT.
But that is *not* the FINAL title used...
> Just becasue something is "Official" doesn't make it more
> common-sense. Also, just because the TVC calls itself "official", I'm
> sure JM-L guides were just as official when the were first published.
> Only they didn't make a song and dance about it...
And nor do the video sleeves settle thing-could someone please tell me
if the BBC's greatest ever classical drama is 'The Forsyte Saga' or 'The
Forstye Saga'?
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Just to be a stubborn bugger, I call it "An Unearthly Child"
> because... I've always called it that and the first episode has this
> on-screen title. QED (for me)
Remind me again... is it 'World's End' (which is the on-screen title for
the first episode) or 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' (which didn't come
to light until researchers looked at the documentation) for the second
Dalek story?
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Not really - each "story" revolves around a certain number of
> episodes. Story A is 4 episodes (not 1) and has been called An
> Unearthly Child for decades before the devilishly intensive research
> came up with the [granted, technically more accurate] title of 100,000
> BC.
Not always-'The Tribe of Gum' was once in heavy use, right into the
early 1990s when 100,000 BC emerged. The researchers were hardly
destorying a great concensus! :)
Benjamin F. Elliott
Simple. The Hartnell episode will be 'Inferno', and the 7 episode Pertwee
story will be 'Inferno 2 - This Time We Mean It'. ;-)
Benjamin F. Elliott
John Pettigrew
dan...@wantree.com.au (Daniel Frankham) clattered away at the
keyboard and came up with an interesting argument but one which failed
to convince me of anything, really.
>On Wed, 23 Dec 1998 22:41:37 GMT, John Pettigrew wrote:
>
>>>Firstly, the first episode SHOULD be considered a distinct story, IMHO, as it
>>>has NO connection with the second, third and fourth episodes (which, IMHO,
>>>correctly make up the story of "100,000 BC"). You CAN'T use the fact that the
>>>first episode leads into the second, as they ALL do that. The last episode on
>>>the first video leads into "The Daleks", for example.
>>
>>But if it leads in to the other 3 episodes then it MUST be linked.
>
>By that reasoning the whole... lessee... the whole first 22 episodes
>are all one story.
Yes, if you want to be that pedantic. But even if we can't agree on
story titles, I'm sure we can all agree how many episodes come under
the story title.
Does anybody *seriously* regard An Unearthly Child as being 1 episode
and the following 3 episodes being a totally new adventure? If that
were true (and, even the TVC doesn't suggest this, remember - "The
Official BBC Guide to Doctor Who")
>>Besides all 4 eps were produced under the same block and the budget
>>was for the first 4 eps inclusive.
>
>This strikes me as a rather artificial way of determining what a
>"story" is.
ARTIFICIAL?!!!
Logical.... Look, all I'm trying to put forward is the concept of
"The First Story" or Serial A (whatever you want to call it is
actually a 4 episode story that begins in the junkyard, goes on
through the terribly exciting adventure with the cavemen and ends with
the radiation counter going bananas after the curious crew explore the
outside dead planet...
>>I have never EVER thought that Ep
>>1 is a seperate story.
>>
>>Sheesh! Talk about Retconning!
>
>I'm fairly sympathetic to the idea of the 1st 4 episodes being two
>stories.
I'm sorry, I think you're off your cake with this one!
>Rather than looking at production trivia (production codes and the
>like, which IMHO refer as much to the period for which the director
>and other production personnel were employed than to the content of
>the episodes) perhaps we should ask "What is a story?" If the first 4
>episodes of Doctor Who are one story, then what is it about?
It is about two teachers following a strange pupil home, discovering
her extraordinary guardian and his TARDIS and being forcibly taken
away to (presumably) the stone age. They find themselves facing up to
the fact that they are in the company of time travellers from another
planet and he might have difficulty in returning them to their own
time.
>If the first episode is one story, then that's simple: two
>schoolteachers solve the mystery of why a pupil is so weird. The next
>story is about escaping from cavemen, and the Doctor grudgingly
>accepting the invaders as part of his crew.
>
>If the first 4 episodes are one story, then why not also The Rescue
>and The Romans? They have a similar structure: new companion is
>introduced to the TARDIS crew in a minor mystery/adventure; then goes
>off with them to have a historical adventure. (With a cliffhanger
>between the two settings.)
Yes but The Rescue is 2 self-contained episodes and has a different
cast to the next production which is 4 episodes long and is set
somewhere else.
The cliffhanger point doesn't really come into it since almost *every*
story featured this. Going by this argument do you count Four to
Doomsday and Kinda as an 8 part story or Frontios and Resurrection of
the Daleks as a 6 parter or The Caves of Androzani/The Twin Dillemma
as a big spangly epic?
The only difference with these stories is that they featured an
overall on-screen story title and episode numbers.
>Anyway, it seems to me that thinking in terms of discreet stories is a
>prejudice which comes from being introduced to Who late in the series,
>when it was made very much as a series of serials. In the early days
>it seems that the production team considered it more of a continuing
>serial, hence the individual episode titles rather than umbrella
>titles, and the cliffhangers at the end of practically every episode.
>Umbrella concepts like production codes were always behind the scenes:
>what the public saw were just 25-minute episodes with their own
>titles, and a cliffhanger into the next 25-minute episode.
Well this practice only lasted until May 1966, when The Savages began,
it had a story title and episode numbers.
Umbrella concepts have nothing to do with production methods.
Umbrella concepts are things like The Key to Time linking sequences or
the trial or the idea of featuring three stories linked by E-space or
Guardians or what have you.
The public where fairly sure when they were starting a new story or
finishing one. And we're not really talking about "The Public". They
wouldn't give a toasted frog about titles, episodes or what-have-you.
We''re talking in menky fan terms and we're debating the validity of
accepted terms, titles and numbers versus "official" terms which
no-one thought twice about or even knew about until fairly recently.
>OK, so that's an extreme position... to some extent it's obvious that
>the episodes between when the Daleks are introduced and the epieosde
>when they're vanquished are one story... but it's not always that
>clear. (As in The Daleks Master Plan, where you might or might not
>consider Mission to the Unknown to be part of the story, and where
>there's apparently a big gap between a couple of episodes, during
>which other adventures might have happened off-screen.
The missing stories which may have occurred between titled stories is
a bit irrelevent, isn't it?
>Then there's
>The Ark, where you might think it's a 4-part story, or two 2-part
>stories...) Even if some sequences of episodes are clearly part of a
>discreet story, it seems the production was a lot more flexible in
>those early daysd, and that sometimes that wasn't the case.
Yes but when one becomes a *fan*, one becomes "aware" of [basic] story
tables and codes and things. Once you grasp seasons and codes and
accepted story titles, you realise that The Ark has never been
documented as being anything other than one 4 episode story. In fact
one of the main points of this story *is* the idea of the crew
returning to the same place within minutes of their personal time
streams but hundreds of years later from the Monoid's time line.
And what is "discreet" about stories?
John Pettigrew
wonderful Tim Roll-Pickering <m00p...@mcmail.com> clattered away at
the keyboard and came up with this:
>PowrWrap wrote:
>
>> Was at Suncoast video at the Mall of America yesterday. Checked their selection
>> of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for sale. The
>> title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
>
>> AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>
>> That settles it for me.
>
>Looked at The Television Companion yesterday. Checked the cover, which
>states it is 'The official BBC Guide to every story'. It listed the
>first Hartnell story. The title was printed on page 8, and read:
>
>100,000 BC
>
>That settles it for me.
>
I refer the Right Honourable Gentleman back to my Ford Squid argument
before.
Nathan Cooke
> >Anyway, it seems to me that thinking in terms of discreet stories is a
> >prejudice which comes from being introduced to Who late in the series,
> >when it was made very much as a series of serials. In the early days
> >it seems that the production team considered it more of a continuing
> >serial, hence the individual episode titles rather than umbrella
> >titles, and the cliffhangers at the end of practically every episode.
> >Umbrella concepts like production codes were always behind the scenes:
> >what the public saw were just 25-minute episodes with their own
> >titles, and a cliffhanger into the next 25-minute episode.
>
> Well this practice only lasted until May 1966, when The Savages began,
> it had a story title and episode numbers.
The public were aware of there being seperate "stories" of varying
lengths within Dr Who despite the practice of individual episode
titling, as the Radio Times regularly did features on new stories
throughout the sixies, even occasionally billing the title such as MARCO
POLO.
I quite liked individual episode titles, and always hoped that they
would bring it back during the eighties.
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Does anybody *seriously* regard An Unearthly Child as being 1 episode
> and the following 3 episodes being a totally new adventure? If that
> were true (and, even the TVC doesn't suggest this, remember - "The
> Official BBC Guide to Doctor Who")
The Discontinuity Guide did break Serial A in two, but *still* listed
the whole thing as 'story number 1-An Unearthly Child'.
Azaxyr
>
>>>Besides all 4 eps were produced under the same block and the budget
>>>was for the first 4 eps inclusive.
>>
>>This strikes me as a rather artificial way of determining what a
>>"story" is.
>
>ARTIFICIAL?!!!
>Logical.... Look, all I'm trying to put forward is the concept of
>"The First Story" or Serial A (whatever you want to call it is
>actually a 4 episode story that begins in the junkyard, goes on
>through the terribly exciting adventure with the cavemen and ends with
>the radiation counter going bananas after the curious crew explore the
>outside dead planet...
>
Okay, but what about Trial of a Time Lord
then - clearly put out as a single 14 episode
story, but features 3 production codes, and
the last six episodes have the same production
code, so there's no way they're two seperate
stories...
"All these worlds....
...Will make excellent sites for our garbage dumps."
Daniel Frankham
>This is a weird thread.
>*An Unearthly Child _can't_ be seperated from "The Tribe of Gum" because it has
>no conclusion. A story needs three parts, right? To say AUC is it's own story
>means it doesn't have a conclusion.
Dividing AUC into a 3-act structure:
Act 1: Introducing Ian and Barbara, and the mystery of Susan.
Plot point 1: Ian and Babs decide to solve the mystery by following
Susan home.
Act 2: Ian and Babs hang out outside the junkyard, then when Susan
doesn't come out they go in and look around.
Plot point 2: The Doctor enters the junkyard.
Act 3: Ian and Babs confront the Doctor. They all go into the TARDIS
and the mystery is more-or-less solved. Ian is sceptical, but his
scepticism is answered by the closing moments, in which the TARDIS
leaves 1963 London behind and arrives... somewhere else.
Yes, it cliffhangs... but then so do a lot of other stories.
Daniel Frankham
>On Thu, 24 Dec 1998 13:43:35 GMT, the incredibly fluffy and wonderful
>dan...@wantree.com.au (Daniel Frankham) clattered away at the
>keyboard and came up with an interesting argument but one which failed
>to convince me of anything, really.
>
>>On Wed, 23 Dec 1998 22:41:37 GMT, John Pettigrew wrote:
>>>But if it leads in to the other 3 episodes then it MUST be linked.
>>
>>By that reasoning the whole... lessee... the whole first 22 episodes
>>are all one story.
>
>Yes, if you want to be that pedantic. But even if we can't agree on
>story titles, I'm sure we can all agree how many episodes come under
>the story title.
What we need is rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.
>Does anybody *seriously* regard An Unearthly Child as being 1 episode
>and the following 3 episodes being a totally new adventure? If that
>were true (and, even the TVC doesn't suggest this, remember - "The
>Official BBC Guide to Doctor Who")
Yes, but it also mentions _Fury the Deep_. (I wonder how many times
this answer will be given when someone uses the TVC as an
authority? :) Great book, though. Kept me up until 4am last night.)
>>This strikes me as a rather artificial way of determining what a
>>"story" is.
>
>ARTIFICIAL?!!!
>Logical.... Look, all I'm trying to put forward is the concept of
>"The First Story" or Serial A (whatever you want to call it is
>actually a 4 episode story that begins in the junkyard, goes on
>through the terribly exciting adventure with the cavemen and ends with
>the radiation counter going bananas after the curious crew explore the
>outside dead planet...
Well, I reckon the first episode is soooo different from the next
three that there's no real reason to combine them... any more than
there's a reason to combine the cavemen episodes with the Dalek
episodes. In fact, since they have similar themes, someone could
probably make a case for saying they *are* one story, addressing two
sides of the technology good/bad issue in different settings :)
>>Rather than looking at production trivia (production codes and the
>>like, which IMHO refer as much to the period for which the director
>>and other production personnel were employed than to the content of
>>the episodes) perhaps we should ask "What is a story?" If the first 4
>>episodes of Doctor Who are one story, then what is it about?
>
>It is about two teachers following a strange pupil home, discovering
>her extraordinary guardian and his TARDIS and being forcibly taken
>away to (presumably) the stone age. They find themselves facing up to
>the fact that they are in the company of time travellers from another
>planet and he might have difficulty in returning them to their own
>time.
That's one way to look at it I suppose... Another way might be to look
at An Unearthly Child -> The Planet of Decision (last ep of The Chase)
as one story, about two schoolteachers getting kidnapped by time
travellers and then eventually finding their way home after many
adventures. Is Babylon 5 one story or 120-odd stories?
My point is, if we're going to consider episodes 1, and 2, 3 and 4 to
be part of the same story, I'd be just as happy to consider huge
chunks of the series to be one story with lots of 2 - 12 episode
subplots...
>>If the first episode is one story, then that's simple: two
>>schoolteachers solve the mystery of why a pupil is so weird. The next
>>story is about escaping from cavemen, and the Doctor grudgingly
>>accepting the invaders as part of his crew.
>>
>>If the first 4 episodes are one story, then why not also The Rescue
>>and The Romans? They have a similar structure: new companion is
>>introduced to the TARDIS crew in a minor mystery/adventure; then goes
>>off with them to have a historical adventure. (With a cliffhanger
>>between the two settings.)
>
>Yes but The Rescue is 2 self-contained episodes and has a different
>cast to the next production which is 4 episodes long and is set
>somewhere else.
Likewise, to an extent, the first 4 episodes... It depends, I suppose,
on how self-contained you feel the first episode is. I reckon that,
since it answers the central mystery which is raised at the beginning,
it can be considered self-contained, with a cliffhanger at the end
just like many other Hartnell stories. (Apart from that, the cavement
story also has a different cast to the school story, and is set
somewhere else.)
>The cliffhanger point doesn't really come into it since almost *every*
>story featured this. Going by this argument do you count Four to
>Doomsday and Kinda as an 8 part story or Frontios and Resurrection of
>the Daleks as a 6 parter or The Caves of Androzani/The Twin Dillemma
>as a big spangly epic?
>
>The only difference with these stories is that they featured an
>overall on-screen story title and episode numbers.
Well, I'd consider (eg) 4toD and Kinda to be separate stories. Since
I've been arguing that the cliffhanger ending of AUC doesn't prevent
it being a complete story in itself, this common-sense belief is not
inconsistent with my claims about AUC.
>>Anyway, it seems to me that thinking in terms of discreet stories is a
>>prejudice which comes from being introduced to Who late in the series,
>>when it was made very much as a series of serials. In the early days
>>it seems that the production team considered it more of a continuing
>>serial, hence the individual episode titles rather than umbrella
>>titles, and the cliffhangers at the end of practically every episode.
>>Umbrella concepts like production codes were always behind the scenes:
>>what the public saw were just 25-minute episodes with their own
>>titles, and a cliffhanger into the next 25-minute episode.
>
>Well this practice only lasted until May 1966, when The Savages began,
>it had a story title and episode numbers.
True.
>Umbrella concepts have nothing to do with production methods.
>Umbrella concepts are things like The Key to Time linking sequences or
>the trial or the idea of featuring three stories linked by E-space or
>Guardians or what have you.
I was using the term "umbrella" in the sense that eg _The Aztecs_ is
the umbrella title for 4 episodes of early 60s Doctor Who.
>The public where fairly sure when they were starting a new story or
>finishing one. And we're not really talking about "The Public". They
>wouldn't give a toasted frog about titles, episodes or what-have-you.
>We''re talking in menky fan terms and we're debating the validity of
>accepted terms, titles and numbers versus "official" terms which
>no-one thought twice about or even knew about until fairly recently.
True :)
>>OK, so that's an extreme position... to some extent it's obvious that
>>the episodes between when the Daleks are introduced and the episode
>>when they're vanquished are one story... but it's not always that
>>clear. (As in The Daleks Master Plan, where you might or might not
>>consider Mission to the Unknown to be part of the story, and where
>>there's apparently a big gap between a couple of episodes, during
>>which other adventures might have happened off-screen.
>
>The missing stories which may have occurred between titled stories is
>a bit irrelevent, isn't it?
I was thinking of the missing stories which might have happened
between episodes of DMP (between Feast of Steven and Volcano, I
think)...
>>Then there's
>>The Ark, where you might think it's a 4-part story, or two 2-part
>>stories...) Even if some sequences of episodes are clearly part of a
>>discreet story, it seems the production was a lot more flexible in
>>those early days, and that sometimes that wasn't the case.
>
>Yes but when one becomes a *fan*, one becomes "aware" of [basic] story
>tables and codes and things. Once you grasp seasons and codes and
>accepted story titles, you realise that The Ark has never been
>documented as being anything other than one 4 episode story. In fact
>one of the main points of this story *is* the idea of the crew
>returning to the same place within minutes of their personal time
>streams but hundreds of years later from the Monoid's time line.
Well, that's allowing someone else (the production team) to impose
their interpretation on the work. Didn't Roland Barthes write a paper
called "The Production Team is Dead" or soemthing like that?
>And what is "discreet" about stories?
You never see anyone going to the lavatory or having sex.
(I was using it as shorthand for "a story that is complete in itself".
Unfortunately I spelled it wrong :) Should have been "discrete
stories".)
John Pettigrew
aza...@aol.com (Azaxyr) clattered away at the keyboard and came up
with this:
> ji...@cableinet.co.uk (John Pettigrew) writes:
>
>
>
>>
>>>>Besides all 4 eps were produced under the same block and the budget
>>>>was for the first 4 eps inclusive.
>>>
>>>This strikes me as a rather artificial way of determining what a
>>>"story" is.
>>
>>ARTIFICIAL?!!!
>>Logical.... Look, all I'm trying to put forward is the concept of
>>"The First Story" or Serial A (whatever you want to call it is
>>actually a 4 episode story that begins in the junkyard, goes on
>>through the terribly exciting adventure with the cavemen and ends with
>>the radiation counter going bananas after the curious crew explore the
>>outside dead planet...
>>
>
>Okay, but what about Trial of a Time Lord
>then - clearly put out as a single 14 episode
>story, but features 3 production codes, and
>the last six episodes have the same production
>code, so there's no way they're two seperate
>stories...
An excellent point Azzy!
But the only point worth arguing about *that* story is: if we want to
break the sub-stories down into segments, the commonly used titles are
The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids and The
Ultimate Foe. Devilishly intensive research has muddied the waters
and after the stories were novelised, we are now aware that the
official working titles were The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp, The
Ultimate Foe and Time Inc.
John Pettigrew
wonderful Nathan Cooke <n.c...@virgin.net> clattered away at the
keyboard and came up with this:
>John Pettigrew wrote:
>
>> >Anyway, it seems to me that thinking in terms of discreet stories is a
>> >prejudice which comes from being introduced to Who late in the series,
>> >when it was made very much as a series of serials. In the early days
>> >it seems that the production team considered it more of a continuing
>> >serial, hence the individual episode titles rather than umbrella
>> >titles, and the cliffhangers at the end of practically every episode.
>> >Umbrella concepts like production codes were always behind the scenes:
>> >what the public saw were just 25-minute episodes with their own
>> >titles, and a cliffhanger into the next 25-minute episode.
>>
>> Well this practice only lasted until May 1966, when The Savages began,
>> it had a story title and episode numbers.
>
>The public were aware of there being seperate "stories" of varying
>lengths within Dr Who despite the practice of individual episode
>titling, as the Radio Times regularly did features on new stories
>throughout the sixies, even occasionally billing the title such as MARCO
>POLO.
>I quite liked individual episode titles, and always hoped that they
>would bring it back during the eighties.
I don't disagree with you there, Nathan. It was the other chap who
posted the first paragraph, not me...
John Pettigrew
wonderful Tim Roll-Pickering <m00p...@mcmail.com> clattered away at
the keyboard and came up with this:
>John Pettigrew wrote:
>
>> Does anybody *seriously* regard An Unearthly Child as being 1 episode
>> and the following 3 episodes being a totally new adventure? If that
>> were true (and, even the TVC doesn't suggest this, remember - "The
>> Official BBC Guide to Doctor Who")
>
>The Discontinuity Guide did break Serial A in two, but *still* listed
>the whole thing as 'story number 1-An Unearthly Child'.
Ah! But going by (your?) previous post, ONLY the TVC is the Official
BBC Guide to Every Doctor Who story...
The Discontinuity Guide, going by that argument, is unnofficial and
therefore invalid. As is The Programme Guide or The Making of Doctor
Who.
An argument I don't agree with, of course..!
John Pettigrew
wonderful Tim Roll-Pickering <m00p...@mcmail.com> clattered away at
the keyboard and came up with this:
True, a valid point, Tim.
I suppose *I* always regarded it as An Unearthly Child because of the
Video and the novelisation usage.
John Pettigrew
wonderful "Benjamin F. Elliott" <bfel...@jnpcs.com> clattered away
at the keyboard and came up with this:
>Tim Roll-Pickering wrote in message <3682A1...@mcmail.com>...
>>Ray Barker wrote:
>>> >AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>>> >That settles it for me.
>>
>>> NO! use the episode titles :
>>> "The Forest of Trees" "The Cave of Stuff" etcetera.
>>> Then nobody can fault you.
>>
>>But then what does 'Inferno' refer to?
>
>Simple. The Hartnell episode will be 'Inferno', and the 7 episode Pertwee
>story will be 'Inferno 2 - This Time We Mean It'. ;-)
And on a similar note, do we now refer to Serial B as The Mutants and
serial NNN as Doctor Who and The Mutants, to follow in the footsteps
of Doctor Who and The Silurians...?
Persoanlly speaking: Oi! Dave Howe! NO! It's The Daleks! It always
has been and it always will be FOR AGES!!!!
(not strictly true but never mind!)
John Pettigrew
wonderful Tim Roll-Pickering <m00p...@mcmail.com> clattered away at
the keyboard and came up with this:
>John Pettigrew wrote:
Oh definitely The Dalek Invasion of Earth - because I was brought up
by the novelisation.
Yeah, I know my logic isn't consistent.
I've hardly *ever* seen this one referred to as World's End - The
Dalek Invasion of Earth was the accepted title for years. I doubt it
has much to do with the official behind-the-scenes documentation.
My main point is why bother to change "accepted" story titles because
they are more accurate after all these years?
By all means have your own *accurate* titles - but Serial C will
always be The Edge of Destruction and serial E The Keys of Marinus etc
because *that's* what they've been for years.
For me.
John Pettigrew
>On Thu, 24 Dec 1998 21:33:07 GMT, John Pettigrew wrote:
>>On Thu, 24 Dec 1998 13:43:35 GMT, the incredibly fluffy and wonderful
>>dan...@wantree.com.au (Daniel Frankham) clattered away at the
>>keyboard and came up with an interesting argument but one which failed
>>to convince me of anything, really.
>>
>>>On Wed, 23 Dec 1998 22:41:37 GMT, John Pettigrew wrote:
>
>>>>But if it leads in to the other 3 episodes then it MUST be linked.
>>>
>>>By that reasoning the whole... lessee... the whole first 22 episodes
>>>are all one story.
>>
>>Yes, if you want to be that pedantic. But even if we can't agree on
>>story titles, I'm sure we can all agree how many episodes come under
>>the story title.
>
>What we need is rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.
Point taken - but whoever draws up any such terms, they will always be
people who agree and those who disagree.
Look at what we're debating about just now - the validity of "correct"
story titles *as used in The Official BBC Guide to every Doctor Who
Story* versus accepted story titles that fans had been using for years
before the Pedant Police came along!
>>Does anybody *seriously* regard An Unearthly Child as being 1 episode
>>and the following 3 episodes being a totally new adventure? If that
>>were true (and, even the TVC doesn't suggest this, remember - "The
>>Official BBC Guide to Doctor Who")
>
>Yes, but it also mentions _Fury the Deep_. (I wonder how many times
>this answer will be given when someone uses the TVC as an
>authority? :) Great book, though. Kept me up until 4am last night.)
My point exactly - although I can't argue against the True Facts and
the good intentions of the authors of The TVC, just because it proudly
claims to be "The Official BBC Guide to Doctor Who", people are now
citing this volume as the be-all and end-all of reference works.
My argument is that, in their day, The Making of Doctor Who or JML's
Programme Guides were *just* as official as this TVC and were used as
the Last Word on accepted programme titles before The TVC.
>>>This strikes me as a rather artificial way of determining what a
>>>"story" is.
>>
>>ARTIFICIAL?!!!
>>Logical.... Look, all I'm trying to put forward is the concept of
>>"The First Story" or Serial A (whatever you want to call it is
>>actually a 4 episode story that begins in the junkyard, goes on
>>through the terribly exciting adventure with the cavemen and ends with
>>the radiation counter going bananas after the curious crew explore the
>>outside dead planet...
>
>Well, I reckon the first episode is soooo different from the next
>three that there's no real reason to combine them... any more than
>there's a reason to combine the cavemen episodes with the Dalek
>episodes. In fact, since they have similar themes, someone could
>probably make a case for saying they *are* one story, addressing two
>sides of the technology good/bad issue in different settings :)
I just don't agree with this assumption.
The first four episodes have *always* been grouped together as Serial
A and the intentions of the production crew were that this was a 4
episode serial which started out in Totter's Lane and ended up on
Skaro...
I mean, the first episode of The Web of Fear is quite self-contained
as is the first episode of The Wheel in Space but I wouldn't think of
sectioning off these episodes as stand-alone stories?
An Unearthly Child (or, if you must, 100, 000 BC) has always been
listed as Serial A and has always consisted of 4 episodes. To
suddenly argue that the first episode is a completely seperate entity
to the following 3 episodes is just getting silly...
>>>Rather than looking at production trivia (production codes and the
>>>like, which IMHO refer as much to the period for which the director
>>>and other production personnel were employed than to the content of
>>>the episodes) perhaps we should ask "What is a story?" If the first 4
>>>episodes of Doctor Who are one story, then what is it about?
>>
>>It is about two teachers following a strange pupil home, discovering
>>her extraordinary guardian and his TARDIS and being forcibly taken
>>away to (presumably) the stone age. They find themselves facing up to
>>the fact that they are in the company of time travellers from another
>>planet and he might have difficulty in returning them to their own
>>time.
>
>That's one way to look at it I suppose... Another way might be to look
>at An Unearthly Child -> The Planet of Decision (last ep of The Chase)
>as one story, about two schoolteachers getting kidnapped by time
>travellers and then eventually finding their way home after many
>adventures. Is Babylon 5 one story or 120-odd stories?
No, because as menky fans, we are *aware* of the concepts of serials,
story titles and serial codes. I can see what you're arguing but
nobody[1] seriously regards all those episodes as one big story
despite the ongoing narrative. If such terms have always been
available we are obliged to defer to them.
It's when these "accepted" story titles are suddenly redundant because
of fascinating research, I start to roll my eyes to heaven.
To be honest, although *my* terms would be An Unearthly Child as the
first 4 eps and The Edge of Destruction for the early Hartnell
two-parter, if 100, 000 BC *becomes* the accepted norm and Inside The
Spaceship too, I'm only really bothered about it when it comes to
these sort of debates!
But it's when confusion creeps in and the pedantics tell us to start
calling The Dead Planet[2] "The Mutants" and this jars with a certain
Pertwee story... that's when it all becomes really stupid.
1 - apart from you
2 - or The Daleks or The Mutants......
And I couldn't possibly comment on Babylon 5 as I don't have enough
fact, figures or opinions on such matters.
>My point is, if we're going to consider episodes 1, and 2, 3 and 4 to
>be part of the same story, I'd be just as happy to consider huge
>chunks of the series to be one story with lots of 2 - 12 episode
>subplots...
Why?
As a fan, you know how these stories are broken down into episode
numbers and group titles. To start splitting up these groups because
it seems like a good idea on a wet and boring Tuesday seems ludicrous
- as is deciding to ignore production codes and story titles just to
back up your argument....
>>Yes but The Rescue is 2 self-contained episodes and has a different
>>cast to the next production which is 4 episodes long and is set
>>somewhere else.
>
>Likewise, to an extent, the first 4 episodes... It depends, I suppose,
>on how self-contained you feel the first episode is. I reckon that,
>since it answers the central mystery which is raised at the beginning,
>it can be considered self-contained, with a cliffhanger at the end
>just like many other Hartnell stories. (Apart from that, the cavement
>story also has a different cast to the school story, and is set
>somewhere else.)
Sheesh!
Look, I've run out of argument! I just *don't* agree with this
deliciously unique concept that you've come up with of having:
Serial A - An Unearthly Child (1 episode)
------------ 100, 000 BC (3 episodes)
Serial B The Daleks[3] (7 episodes)
Serial C - The Edge of the Spaceship (2 episodes)
etc,etc...
Just because the first episode feels self-contained, you can't
suddenly inflict the reasoning that it is totally seperate to the
following three parts of the story!
3 - whatever you call the thing
>>The cliffhanger point doesn't really come into it since almost *every*
>>story featured this. Going by this argument do you count Four to
>>Doomsday and Kinda as an 8 part story or Frontios and Resurrection of
>>the Daleks as a 6 parter or The Caves of Androzani/The Twin Dillemma
>>as a big spangly epic?
>>
>>The only difference with these stories is that they featured an
>>overall on-screen story title and episode numbers.
>
>Well, I'd consider (eg) 4toD and Kinda to be separate stories. Since
>I've been arguing that the cliffhanger ending of AUC doesn't prevent
>it being a complete story in itself, this common-sense belief is not
>inconsistent with my claims about AUC.
Hmm, some confusion then - I thought you were arguing that a
cliffhanger ending meant that the next batch of episodes constituted
part of the same story. Didn't you say you considered the first 16
stories to be one big story *because* of this?
>>The public where fairly sure when they were starting a new story or
>>finishing one. And we're not really talking about "The Public". They
>>wouldn't give a toasted frog about titles, episodes or what-have-you.
>>We''re talking in menky fan terms and we're debating the validity of
>>accepted terms, titles and numbers versus "official" terms which
>>no-one thought twice about or even knew about until fairly recently.
>
>True :)
Aha, you concede! And I win my £5 prize...
>>>OK, so that's an extreme position... to some extent it's obvious that
>>>the episodes between when the Daleks are introduced and the episode
>>>when they're vanquished are one story... but it's not always that
>>>clear. (As in The Daleks Master Plan, where you might or might not
>>>consider Mission to the Unknown to be part of the story, and where
>>>there's apparently a big gap between a couple of episodes, during
>>>which other adventures might have happened off-screen.
>>
>>The missing stories which may have occurred between titled stories is
>>a bit irrelevent, isn't it?
>
>I was thinking of the missing stories which might have happened
>between episodes of DMP (between Feast of Steven and Volcano, I
>think)...
I still dont't see what this has to do with breaking up a story into
self contained episodes. I don't have any problems with MAs slotting
in between stories or even between episodes (eg a short story
happening between the episdoes 2 and 3 of The Ark)
That's maybe a topic for a different thread.
Even if novels-wise, we had such a book set then, discussing the TV
c****n is a different argument.
Surely?
>>>Then there's
>>>The Ark, where you might think it's a 4-part story, or two 2-part
>>>stories...) Even if some sequences of episodes are clearly part of a
>>>discreet story, it seems the production was a lot more flexible in
>>>those early days, and that sometimes that wasn't the case.
>>
>>Yes but when one becomes a *fan*, one becomes "aware" of [basic] story
>>tables and codes and things. Once you grasp seasons and codes and
>>accepted story titles, you realise that The Ark has never been
>>documented as being anything other than one 4 episode story. In fact
>>one of the main points of this story *is* the idea of the crew
>>returning to the same place within minutes of their personal time
>>streams but hundreds of years later from the Monoid's time line.
>
>Well, that's allowing someone else (the production team) to impose
>their interpretation on the work. Didn't Roland Barthes write a paper
>called "The Production Team is Dead" or soemthing like that?
I've never heard of it.
Surely the production team's interpretation is the only definite
interpretation to go by?
At least as far as how many episodes it has and what they called the
damn thing. (I don't mean the actual content of the story, the
subtexts etc)
No-doubt there will always be debate over what we "should" call these
contentious stories. But when we start to deconstruct the fundamental
basics of episode numbers for story groupings simply because it seems
like a good idea, AND argue that everone else should consider to do
this, that's when we've gone too far.
John Pettigrew
wonderful Tim Roll-Pickering <m00p...@mcmail.com> clattered away at
the keyboard and came up with this:
>John Pettigrew wrote:
>
>> Hmm - in the opening lists, it states that the official title of story
>> RR is "Fury the Deep" Does this mean that I should now call it that?
>> Without the "from"?
>
>Look at the actual entry.
Exactly - if the one book cannot be consistent, what hope do we mere
mortals have?
>> And according to page 23 of last month's DWM, the official working
>> title for The Daleks' Master Plan is TWELVE PART DALEK SEGMENT.
>
>But that is *not* the FINAL title used...
Exactly - but people are using working titles to bolster their
aqrgument. Are we seriously supposed to call Mission to the Unknown,
Dalek Cuttaway? Because of the working title?
I think not!
>> Just becasue something is "Official" doesn't make it more
>> common-sense. Also, just because the TVC calls itself "official", I'm
>> sure JM-L guides were just as official when the were first published.
>> Only they didn't make a song and dance about it...
>
>And nor do the video sleeves settle thing-could someone please tell me
>if the BBC's greatest ever classical drama is 'The Forsyte Saga' or 'The
>Forstye Saga'?
Ok, I'm not saying video sleeves are conclusive. The Genesis of the
Daleks, anyone? But when a video has called itself An Unearthly Child
for years and the novelisation has done so too, and we've all been
happy enpugh to call it that for years, why decide to rename it in
light of fiendishly accurate research?
Tim Roll-Pickering
> >> Does anybody *seriously* regard An Unearthly Child as being 1 episode
> >> and the following 3 episodes being a totally new adventure? If that
> >> were true (and, even the TVC doesn't suggest this, remember - "The
> >> Official BBC Guide to Doctor Who")
> >The Discontinuity Guide did break Serial A in two, but *still* listed
> >the whole thing as 'story number 1-An Unearthly Child'.
> Ah! But going by (your?) previous post, ONLY the TVC is the Official
> BBC Guide to Every Doctor Who story...
Yes, but you asked if *anyone* regarded the two seperately, and I
pointed out the only one I could think of.
Tim Roll-Pickering
> And on a similar note, do we now refer to Serial B as The Mutants and
> serial NNN as Doctor Who and The Mutants, to follow in the footsteps
> of Doctor Who and The Silurians...?
Don't you mean 'Dr Who and the Mutants' because of the novelisation? :)
Tim Roll-Pickering
> >> Just to be a stubborn bugger, I call it "An Unearthly Child"
> >> because... I've always called it that and the first episode has this
> >> on-screen title. QED (for me)
> >Remind me again... is it 'World's End' (which is the on-screen title for
> >the first episode) or 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' (which didn't come
> >to light until researchers looked at the documentation) for the second
> >Dalek story?
> Oh definitely The Dalek Invasion of Earth - because I was brought up
> by the novelisation.
> Yeah, I know my logic isn't consistent.
> I've hardly *ever* seen this one referred to as World's End - The
> Dalek Invasion of Earth was the accepted title for years. I doubt it
> has much to do with the official behind-the-scenes documentation.
I've seen it listed as 'World's End' in a few places, the most notable
being the novelisation as printed between 1977 and 1990. On the title
page it states something along the lines of 'Based on the BBC TV serial
Doctor Who and the World's End'.
And 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' emerged as the title in 1976 because
Terrance Dicks had done some research into what the production teams had
called the stories at the time, but a lot of documentation was
unavailable until the early 1990s. So I would say it has *everything* to
do with official behind-the-scenes documentation.
> My main point is why bother to change "accepted" story titles because
> they are more accurate after all these years?
Because, to be absolutely honest, the supposed accepted 'concensus' was
never too strong in the first place and in some cases, particularly the
first three stories, the argument had never really died out before the
titles emerged. If it had *always* been 'A: An Unearthly Child; B: The
Dead Planet; C: The Edge of Destruction; etc...' since 1976, there would
be a strong case for leaving things as they stood. But in practice, the
waters were still muddied for a long time, both by relics such as the
above mentioned novelisation which, IIRC, didn't have that particular
page changed until 1990, and by new material such as the script book of
Serial A.
Nick Smale
>
>"Michael R. Wall" wrote:
>
>> Isn't it clearly obvious in episode 2 that the Doctor mentions a gadget
>> on the TARDIS console called a "Yearometer", which logically means that
>> it measures the year the TARDIS is in (a similar device appeared in the
>> TV Movie), and that the Doctor stated the year was zero?
>
>Actually, the Doctor states that the Yearometer is *reading* zero -- and
>that said Yearometer is obviously broken.
>
>Considering that the Roman Empire was in full flourish by the Year Zero
>(unless the Yearometer wasn't broken after all and was measuring by some
>other scale than years AD and BC -- perhaps Year Zero of the TVM's
>"Humanian Era", which could well be "100,000 BC" by our calendar?), I
>don't think that's when said story takes place...
Maybe this is evidence for the theory that the TARDIS has left Earth -- that
this is another world, one maybe whose stone age was still in progress in
the year 0AD?
--
Nick Smale <n...@smale.demon.co.uk>
Spending Christmas with his parents in Devon
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Anyone for - "The Story Formerly Known as An Unearthly Child"?
> No matter what the research says, I can't imagine the BBC re-releasing
> this video under the title "100,000 B.C.". All it would take are a dozen
> or so complaints by customers claiming they were duped into buying a
> tape they already had under the false impression it was a different
> story...
> Remember, these things are being sold in America now. This could result
> in a multi-million dollar lawsuit :-)
It wouln't be too difficult to put a disclaimer on the package stating
'previously released as An Unearthly Child'...
Of course, IIRC, American law works on the assumption that people are
blind, deaf, dumb and have IQs of about 6.
Perry Armstrong
No matter what the research says, I can't imagine the BBC re-releasing
this video under the title "100,000 B.C.". All it would take are a dozen
or so complaints by customers claiming they were duped into buying a
tape they already had under the false impression it was a different
story...
Remember, these things are being sold in America now. This could result
in a multi-million dollar lawsuit :-)
Perry Armstrong.
Perry Armstrong
Perry Armstrong
Perry Armstrong
Perry Armstrong
Perry Armstrong
Perry Armstrong
Perry Armstrong
100,000 B.C.?" thread. It kept saying "Not Sent" so I kept trying,
though it had obviously got through every time!
Oops.
Perry Armstrong.
Perry Armstrong
Daniel Frankham
>On Fri, 25 Dec 1998 10:52:31 GMT, the incredibly fluffy and wonderful
>dan...@wantree.com.au (Daniel Frankham) clattered away at the
>keyboard and came up with this:
>
>>On Thu, 24 Dec 1998 21:33:07 GMT, John Pettigrew wrote:
>>>On Thu, 24 Dec 1998 13:43:35 GMT, the incredibly fluffy and wonderful
>>>dan...@wantree.com.au (Daniel Frankham) clattered away at the
>>>keyboard and came up with an interesting argument but one which failed
>>>to convince me of anything, really.
>>>
>>>>On Wed, 23 Dec 1998 22:41:37 GMT, John Pettigrew wrote:
>>
>>>>>But if it leads in to the other 3 episodes then it MUST be linked.
>>>>
>>>>By that reasoning the whole... lessee... the whole first 22 episodes
>>>>are all one story.
>>>
>>>Yes, if you want to be that pedantic. But even if we can't agree on
>>>story titles, I'm sure we can all agree how many episodes come under
>>>the story title.
>>
>>What we need is rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.
>
>Point taken - but whoever draws up any such terms, they will always be
>people who agree and those who disagree.
I'm not sure I had a point. I just saw an opening for a Hitch-Hiker's
quote :)
>Look at what we're debating about just now - the validity of "correct"
>story titles *as used in The Official BBC Guide to every Doctor Who
>Story* versus accepted story titles that fans had been using for years
>before the Pedant Police came along!
It might surprise you to know that I prefer the old titles, too... If
the first 4 episodes are going to have one name, let it be _An
Unearthly Child_; I call story #2 _The Daleks_ (though I'll also
accept _The Dead Planet_), #3 _The Edge of Destruction_...
>>Well, I reckon the first episode is soooo different from the next
>>three that there's no real reason to combine them... any more than
>>there's a reason to combine the cavemen episodes with the Dalek
>>episodes. In fact, since they have similar themes, someone could
>>probably make a case for saying they *are* one story, addressing two
>>sides of the technology good/bad issue in different settings :)
>
>I just don't agree with this assumption.
>The first four episodes have *always* been grouped together as Serial
>A
And people had always known the Earth was flat, until someone learned
better. Sorry, that's a fatuous argument isn't it :)
>and the intentions of the production crew were that this was a 4
>episode serial which started out in Totter's Lane and ended up on
>Skaro...
Weeeell, I'm not much concerned with the intentions of the production
team... Probably because I went to uni and learned to regard the
authority of apparent authorial intention as silly.
>I mean, the first episode of The Web of Fear is quite self-contained
>as is the first episode of The Wheel in Space but I wouldn't think of
>sectioning off these episodes as stand-alone stories?
Well, Web of Fear 1 also introduces the Yeti in the opening scenes,
and the rest of it happens in the same setting as the remainder of the
story. Wheel I'm not so sure about... Though ISTR it introduces the
crew of the Wheel in ep 1 also, so there's a continuity between it and
the other episodes.
>An Unearthly Child (or, if you must, 100, 000 BC) has always been
>listed as Serial A and has always consisted of 4 episodes. To
>suddenly argue that the first episode is a completely seperate entity
>to the following 3 episodes is just getting silly...
Yes... we 1st-episode-is-self-contained people have been sadly
oppressed and silenced for many years... But our time is coming.
>>>It is about two teachers following a strange pupil home, discovering
>>>her extraordinary guardian and his TARDIS and being forcibly taken
>>>away to (presumably) the stone age. They find themselves facing up to
>>>the fact that they are in the company of time travellers from another
>>>planet and he might have difficulty in returning them to their own
>>>time.
>>
>>That's one way to look at it I suppose... Another way might be to look
>>at An Unearthly Child -> The Planet of Decision (last ep of The Chase)
>>as one story, about two schoolteachers getting kidnapped by time
>>travellers and then eventually finding their way home after many
>>adventures. Is Babylon 5 one story or 120-odd stories?
>
>No, because as menky fans, we are *aware* of the concepts of serials,
>story titles and serial codes. I can see what you're arguing but
>nobody[1] seriously regards all those episodes as one big story
>despite the ongoing narrative. If such terms have always been
>available we are obliged to defer to them.
I'll grant that, for the purposes of discussion among fans, it's
useful to have the episodes divided up into parcels which we all
understand and more-or-less agree with. (Even now, when someone says
"An Unearthly Child" it's difficult to know if they mean the first
serial, the first episode, or some version of the unscreened pilot).
But for the private purposes of watching stories, I feel it's valid to
question when a story really begins and ends, and whether that might
be different the convenient packages we use in everyday fandom.
<snip>
>And I couldn't possibly comment on Babylon 5 as I don't have enough
>fact, figures or opinions on such matters.
Well, the point of bringing up B5 is, that it's possible to see B5 as
one big story, about the lead-up to a war, the war itself, and then
the aftermath of a war. The series was apparently conceived as a
"novel for television", with each episode as a chapter... but usually
a dramatically (if not narratively) self-contained chapter. So I think
it peripherally touches on similar issues to the "when do stories
start and end" debate we're having here.
>>My point is, if we're going to consider episodes 1, and 2, 3 and 4 to
>>be part of the same story, I'd be just as happy to consider huge
>>chunks of the series to be one story with lots of 2 - 12 episode
>>subplots...
>
>Why?
>
>As a fan, you know how these stories are broken down into episode
>numbers and group titles. To start splitting up these groups because
>it seems like a good idea on a wet and boring Tuesday seems ludicrous
>- as is deciding to ignore production codes and story titles just to
>back up your argument....
Well, as a fan I've been told this by various reference books and
maybe the production team... but also as a fan I want to make up my
own mind from my own observations of the series.
>>>The cliffhanger point doesn't really come into it since almost *every*
>>>story featured this. Going by this argument do you count Four to
>>>Doomsday and Kinda as an 8 part story or Frontios and Resurrection of
>>>the Daleks as a 6 parter or The Caves of Androzani/The Twin Dillemma
>>>as a big spangly epic?
>>>
>>>The only difference with these stories is that they featured an
>>>overall on-screen story title and episode numbers.
>>
>>Well, I'd consider (eg) 4toD and Kinda to be separate stories. Since
>>I've been arguing that the cliffhanger ending of AUC doesn't prevent
>>it being a complete story in itself, this common-sense belief is not
>>inconsistent with my claims about AUC.
>
>Hmm, some confusion then - I thought you were arguing that a
>cliffhanger ending meant that the next batch of episodes constituted
>part of the same story. Didn't you say you considered the first 16
>stories to be one big story *because* of this?
Nah. It is getting a bit complicated, isn't it? :)
In a nutshell:
I'm arguing that the first episode isn't necessarily the first episode
of a 4-part story. Some people might think it is, because it has a
cliffhanger, but I reckon cliffhangers don't mean diddlysquat, and if
they did then the whole first 22(?) episodes of the show would be one
story, because all those episodes have cliffhangers.
Further, I'm pointing out the absurdity of considering those first 4
episodes to be one story despite the completely different settings and
plots, by saying that if someone felt that such wildly different
segments could be regarded as one story, to be consistent that person
would also have to regard lots of the rest of the series as one big
story. There is, for example, no more difference between episode 5 and
episode 4 of Doctor Who, than there is between episode 1 and episode
2. So why regard episode 4 a story ending, but not episode 1? The
reason, apparently, is that that's what people have always thought.
(Or that that's what the production team said... to which I say
pfooie :)
Despite all that, I can see a kind of logic in finding longer stories
within the series... such as from the first episode to the end of The
Chase. But considering that block of episodes to be one story seems to
me no less absurd than considering the first 4 episodes to be one
story.
>>>The public where fairly sure when they were starting a new story or
>>>finishing one. And we're not really talking about "The Public". They
>>>wouldn't give a toasted frog about titles, episodes or what-have-you.
>>>We''re talking in menky fan terms and we're debating the validity of
>>>accepted terms, titles and numbers versus "official" terms which
>>>no-one thought twice about or even knew about until fairly recently.
>>
>>True :)
>
>Aha, you concede! And I win my £5 prize...
It always helps to concede some minor point. It makes you look
reasonable :)
>>>>OK, so that's an extreme position... to some extent it's obvious that
>>>>the episodes between when the Daleks are introduced and the episode
>>>>when they're vanquished are one story... but it's not always that
>>>>clear. (As in The Daleks Master Plan, where you might or might not
>>>>consider Mission to the Unknown to be part of the story, and where
>>>>there's apparently a big gap between a couple of episodes, during
>>>>which other adventures might have happened off-screen.
>>>
>>>The missing stories which may have occurred between titled stories is
>>>a bit irrelevent, isn't it?
>>
>>I was thinking of the missing stories which might have happened
>>between episodes of DMP (between Feast of Steven and Volcano, I
>>think)...
>
>I still dont't see what this has to do with breaking up a story into
>self contained episodes. I don't have any problems with MAs slotting
>in between stories or even between episodes (eg a short story
>happening between the episdoes 2 and 3 of The Ark)
I'm not sure myself, now... I think the point was to point out the
plasticity of the concept "story" in the early series... That in the
later series there are mostly very clearly defined stories, but in the
days of every episode having it's own name, the production team was
more flexible, and were happy to put a great big gap in the middle of
an ongoing narrative, during which for all we know the characters
might have gone off and had months of other experiences, for instance.
A fairly minor point though...
>>>>Then there's
>>>>The Ark, where you might think it's a 4-part story, or two 2-part
>>>>stories...) Even if some sequences of episodes are clearly part of a
>>>>discreet story, it seems the production was a lot more flexible in
>>>>those early days, and that sometimes that wasn't the case.
>>>
>>>Yes but when one becomes a *fan*, one becomes "aware" of [basic] story
>>>tables and codes and things. Once you grasp seasons and codes and
>>>accepted story titles, you realise that The Ark has never been
>>>documented as being anything other than one 4 episode story. In fact
>>>one of the main points of this story *is* the idea of the crew
>>>returning to the same place within minutes of their personal time
>>>streams but hundreds of years later from the Monoid's time line.
>>
>>Well, that's allowing someone else (the production team) to impose
>>their interpretation on the work. Didn't Roland Barthes write a paper
>>called "The Production Team is Dead" or soemthing like that?
>
>I've never heard of it.
Actually, it's "The Death of the Author". But the principle holds for
TV, I think.
>Surely the production team's interpretation is the only definite
>interpretation to go by?
>At least as far as how many episodes it has and what they called the
>damn thing. (I don't mean the actual content of the story, the
>subtexts etc)
Not in my book.
>No-doubt there will always be debate over what we "should" call these
>contentious stories. But when we start to deconstruct the fundamental
>basics of episode numbers for story groupings simply because it seems
>like a good idea, AND argue that everone else should consider to do
>this, that's when we've gone too far.
I don't believe I've ever asked anyone else to subscribe to my theory
of what constitutes a Doctor Who story.
Cheers
Dastari
>this video under the title "100,000 B.C.". All it would take are a dozen
>or so complaints by customers claiming they were duped into buying a
>tape they already had under the false impression it was a different
>story.
>Remember, these things are being sold in America now. This could result
>in a multi-million dollar lawsuit :-)
>
>
You forgot the fact that its a damn silly name anyway:)
Flame on
Dastari Creel
Demigod for hire
Dastari
>>Actually, the Doctor states that the Yearometer is *reading* zero -- and
>>that said Yearometer is obviously broken.
>>
>>Considering that the Roman Empire was in full flourish by the Year Zero
>>(unless the Yearometer wasn't broken after all and was measuring by some
>>other scale than years AD and BC -- perhaps Year Zero of the TVM's
>>"Humanian Era", which could well be "100,000 BC" by our calendar?), I
>>don't think that's when said story takes place...
>
>Maybe this is evidence for the theory that the TARDIS has left Earth -- that
>this is another world, one maybe whose stone age was still in progress in
>the year 0AD?
>
Argh I can't keep quiet any longer. There never was a year zero in either AD or
BC. The year changed from 1BC to 1AD without a zero in the middle. That is why
the Doctor said that it couldn't possibly be zero. There never was a zero year.
This makes sense when you consider two things. First AD stands for anno domini
(sp?) and means "in the year of our lord". The calendar was meant to start with
1AD as the date of Christ's birth. 1BC would then be the year before Christ's
birth. Modern research now shows that is more likely that Christ was born in
2BC and that the year of Christ's birth was not accurately figured previously.
That has no impact on the original intent though.
The second point is that Roman numerals were widely used at the time of the
creation of our modern dating system (around 300AD I believe). There is no
Roman numeral for zero because people in those days had no concept of that
number.
Sorry for the lecture. I just can't stand people talking about a zero year for
some reason.
Nick Smale
>Just a quick comment -- "Public School" in the UK means the same as
>"Private School" in the US.
Bizzare, isn't it! :-)
>The UK equivalent of a US "Public School" is a
>Comprehensive.
I'd say 'State School', as not all publicly funded schools are
comprehensives.
A 'Comprehensive' is a particular *sort* of state school, one which doesn't
restict entry on the basis of ability - some areas still use the old Grammar
School/Secondary Modern system in which more able pupils are separated from
less able at the age of 11, and sent to different schools.
OBWho - in MAWDRYN UNDEAD the Brigadier teaches at a Public School...
Daniel Frankham
>Argh I can't keep quiet any longer. There never was a year zero in either AD or
>BC. The year changed from 1BC to 1AD without a zero in the middle. That is why
>the Doctor said that it couldn't possibly be zero. There never was a zero year.
>
>
>This makes sense when you consider two things. First AD stands for anno domini
>(sp?) and means "in the year of our lord". The calendar was meant to start with
>1AD as the date of Christ's birth. 1BC would then be the year before Christ's
>birth. Modern research now shows that is more likely that Christ was born in
>2BC and that the year of Christ's birth was not accurately figured previously.
>That has no impact on the original intent though.
>
>The second point is that Roman numerals were widely used at the time of the
>creation of our modern dating system (around 300AD I believe). There is no
>Roman numeral for zero because people in those days had no concept of that
>number.
>
>Sorry for the lecture. I just can't stand people talking about a zero year for
>some reason.
Wouldn't it have made sense for them to have a zero in there
somewhere? Like, the day before Jesus was born would have been in zero
BC, because it wasn't a whole year before.
I gather the reason there's no year zero is that when those monks came
up with the calendar they hadn't thought of the number zero yet, and
they didn't know about it until centuries later, when returning
Crusaders imported zeros from the Holy Land, where they'd had them for
years.
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Maybe this is evidence for the theory that the TARDIS has left Earth -- that
> this is another world, one maybe whose stone age was still in progress in
> the year 0AD?
But there wasn't a year 0! It went from 1 BC to 1 AD, no year in
between.
Tim Roll-Pickering
> Wouldn't it have made sense for them to have a zero in there
> somewhere? Like, the day before Jesus was born would have been in zero
> BC, because it wasn't a whole year before.
> I gather the reason there's no year zero is that when those monks came
> up with the calendar they hadn't thought of the number zero yet, and
> they didn't know about it until centuries later, when returning
> Crusaders imported zeros from the Holy Land, where they'd had them for
> years.
It didn't at the time-the concept of zeroes and negative numbers wasn't
in force, and because they used such bizarre numerals, the Romans
weren't the greatest mathematicians.
Nathan Cooke
> Okay, but what about Trial of a Time Lord
> then - clearly put out as a single 14 episode
> story, but features 3 production codes, and
> the last six episodes have the same production
> code, so there's no way they're two seperate
> stories...
Absolutely. It's all one story. with four "segments", but one story all
the same.
Nathan Cooke
--
What sort of people are you up there? Do any of you live in the real
world?" - Charles Brelan
Welcome to the future, Welcome home...
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/2049
Simon Marsh
Is it really important what it's called?
I call it Unearthly Child as that's what I've alway known it as and the
video and book is also called it. But if someone else calls it something
different so what?
However all four episodes must be one story as they have one production code
(things are different for TOTL as it had one title in the title sequence).
It might seem to be a different story line but then you could say that about
The Mind Robber. That's my argumant anyway.
Where did the name Tribe of Gum come from?
PowrWrap wrote in message <19981222182143...@ng151.aol.com>...
>Was at Suncoast video at the Mall of America yesterday. Checked their
selection
>of Dr. Who videos for sale. They had the first Hartnell episode for sale.
The
>title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
>
>AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
>
>That settles it for me.
>
>"When you argue with a fool, be sure he is not similarily occupied."
Nathan Cooke
> Where did the name Tribe of Gum come from?
It's been around for years, apparently since 100,000 BC was in
production.
It cropped up in the early 80's, enjoyed a brief moment of fame, and
then was dropped when people found out what it was really called.
As for me, well I don't really care what it's called in coversation
(digital or otherwise), but when its being published or used as a
reference, I think it should be correct.
Tim Roll-Pickering
> You lot can get worked up over this?
> Is it really important what it's called?
> I call it Unearthly Child as that's what I've alway known it as and the
> video and book is also called it. But if someone else calls it something
> different so what?
> However all four episodes must be one story as they have one production code
> (things are different for TOTL as it had one title in the title sequence).
What about Galaxy 4 and Mission to the Unknown? It seems they shared the
same production code-T.
> It might seem to be a different story line but then you could say that about
> The Mind Robber. That's my argumant anyway.
> Where did the name Tribe of Gum come from?
It was a working title for serial A, but in late October 1963 (IIRC),
they changed the final title used to '100,000 BC'.
The title poped up again in the late seventies/early eighties, sometimes
for the three cavemen episodes and sometimes for all four episodes of
serial A. In 1987, Titan published a script book of the story, using the
title. Their explanation was similar to the current
discussion-(paraphrased) 'if it were not for the production code, it
would be easy to think of this as a one parter and then a three parter.
However, since all four episodes were in one production, "The Tribe of
Gum" is usually used to refer to the story. "An Unearthly Child" is just
the title of the first episode and only started to be used as the story
title after the 1973 Radio Times special called all the first twenty
five stories by the titleof their first episode.' However, they also
listed "100,000 BC" as a title, and gave no reason why it should or
should not be used instead!
The title continued to float around right into the early 1990s, when the
BBC's files were now made available, and it was discovered that the
final title was "100,000 BC" after all. "The Tribe of Gum" has since
practically vanished.
Simon Marsh
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote in message <36851B...@mcmail.com>...
>Simon Marsh wrote:
>
>> You lot can get worked up over this?
>> Is it really important what it's called?
>> I call it Unearthly Child as that's what I've alway known it as and the
>> video and book is also called it. But if someone else calls it something
>> different so what?
>> However all four episodes must be one story as they have one production
code
>> (things are different for TOTL as it had one title in the title
sequence).
>
>What about Galaxy 4 and Mission to the Unknown? It seems they shared the
>same production code-T.
>
I always thought that MttU's (dose anyone still call that Dalek Cutaway?)
production code was T/A (it is in all the ref' works i've looked at) which
is different from T (if slightly). Having said that DWM's achive page 24
says even that's not certain.
Cheers for the tribe of Gum info anyway!
Simon
Brett O'Callaghan
> sale. The title was emblazoned on the jacket of the videotape, and read:
> AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
> That settles it for me.
Ho hum, here we go again.
--
http://www.cbl.com.au/~boc/
Home of WhoINFO, free Doctor Who Database for W95/98/NT
Watch me trawl through my old computer magazine collection
Brett O'Callaghan
Tim Roll-Pickering
> >What about Galaxy 4 and Mission to the Unknown? It seems they shared the
> >same production code-T.
> I always thought that MttU's (dose anyone still call that Dalek Cutaway?)
> production code was T/A (it is in all the ref' works i've looked at) which
> is different from T (if slightly). Having said that DWM's achive page 24
> says even that's not certain.
T/A comes from Raymond Cusick's earlier design drawings, but later ones
say 'Serial T, episode 5'. This would suggest that T/A is primarily for
personal reference, to distinguish it from Galaxy 4. Though the wipe
sheet does say 'Serial Ta 1/1'...
Alden Bates
> Nick Snale wrote:
> >Maybe this is evidence for the theory that the TARDIS has left Earth -- that
> >this is another world, one maybe whose stone age was still in progress in
> >the year 0AD?
>
> BC. The year changed from 1BC to 1AD without a zero in the middle. That is why
> the Doctor said that it couldn't possibly be zero. There never was a zero year.
That must have confused them at the time. I mean, everyone would throw
out calenders for year 1, and then put up calenders for the year 1
again. I wonder if there was a year 1AD bug on everyone's abacus. I
mean, how do you account for two years in a row having the same number?
Were there huge street parties when they changed over to AD? Enquiring
minds want to know!
Alden. (I know, I know, I'm just being silly.)
John Pettigrew
wonderful Tim Roll-Pickering <m00p...@mcmail.com> clattered away at
the keyboard and came up with this:
>John Pettigrew wrote:
>
>> Not really - each "story" revolves around a certain number of
>> episodes. Story A is 4 episodes (not 1) and has been called An
>> Unearthly Child for decades before the devilishly intensive research
>> came up with the [granted, technically more accurate] title of 100,000
>> BC.
>
>Not always-'The Tribe of Gum' was once in heavy use, right into the
>early 1990s when 100,000 BC emerged. The researchers were hardly
>destorying a great concensus! :)
True - wasn't the Script Book titled The Tribe of Gum?
Best Wishes
John Pettigrew - ji...@cableinet.co.uk
"When it's spring again, I'll sing again, Talons of Weng-Chiang..."
John Pettigrew
b...@lin.cbl.com.au (Brett O'Callaghan) clattered away at the keyboard
and came up with this:
><Yawn>
Yes, maybe.
But if there's a time and a place for such menky arguments, then I'm
sure a harmless thread on RADW is it.
John Pettigrew
wonderful Tim Roll-Pickering <m00p...@mcmail.com> clattered away at
the keyboard and came up with this:
>John Pettigrew wrote:
>
>> And on a similar note, do we now refer to Serial B as The Mutants and
>> serial NNN as Doctor Who and The Mutants, to follow in the footsteps
>> of Doctor Who and The Silurians...?
>
>Don't you mean 'Dr Who and the Mutants' because of the novelisation? :)
No, spines aren't c***n!!! :-)
John Pettigrew
wonderful "Simon Marsh" <simon...@tardis99.freeserve.co.uk>
clattered away at the keyboard and came up with this:
>You lot can get worked up over this?
>Is it really important what it's called?
Only in menky fan circles, yes. In day-to-day real life, no not
really.
>I call it Unearthly Child as that's what I've alway known it as and the
>video and book is also called it. But if someone else calls it something
>different so what?
It's handy to have a universal point of reference and everybody likes
a lively debate when their points of view differ.
Which is what I feel should be one of the main roles of RADW.
>However all four episodes must be one story as they have one production code
>(things are different for TOTL as it had one title in the title sequence).
>It might seem to be a different story line but then you could say that about
>The Mind Robber. That's my argumant anyway.
See? *You* have an argument because you feel strongly enough about
something. Does that make you any less sad and menky than me?
I think not!
>Where did the name Tribe of Gum come from?
The Titan Script book?
John Pettigrew
>>>
>>>>>>But if it leads in to the other 3 episodes then it MUST be linked.
>>>>>
>>>>>By that reasoning the whole... lessee... the whole first 22 episodes
>>>>>are all one story.
>>>>
>>>>Yes, if you want to be that pedantic. But even if we can't agree on
>>>>story titles, I'm sure we can all agree how many episodes come under
>>>>the story title.
>>>
>>>What we need is rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.
>>
>>Point taken - but whoever draws up any such terms, they will always be
>>people who agree and those who disagree.
>
>I'm not sure I had a point. I just saw an opening for a Hitch-Hiker's
>quote :)
Ah!
>>Look at what we're debating about just now - the validity of "correct"
>>story titles *as used in The Official BBC Guide to every Doctor Who
>>Story* versus accepted story titles that fans had been using for years
>>before the Pedant Police came along!
>
>It might surprise you to know that I prefer the old titles, too... If
>the first 4 episodes are going to have one name, let it be _An
>Unearthly Child_; I call story #2 _The Daleks_ (though I'll also
>accept _The Dead Planet_), #3 _The Edge of Destruction_...
>
Crikey!
So at the end of the day, the pair of us use the same titles...
Typical, really.
>>>Well, I reckon the first episode is soooo different from the next
>>>three that there's no real reason to combine them... any more than
>>>there's a reason to combine the cavemen episodes with the Dalek
>>>episodes. In fact, since they have similar themes, someone could
>>>probably make a case for saying they *are* one story, addressing two
>>>sides of the technology good/bad issue in different settings :)
>>
>>I just don't agree with this assumption.
>>The first four episodes have *always* been grouped together as Serial
>>A
>
>And people had always known the Earth was flat, until someone learned
>better. Sorry, that's a fatuous argument isn't it :)
Well yes, I thought so.
I just don't see any reson to split up An Unearthly Child into two
distinct stories. Fine, if you want to but I think it's a bit
unnecessary and <whispers> wrong.
But that's just my opinion.
>>and the intentions of the production crew were that this was a 4
>>episode serial which started out in Totter's Lane and ended up on
>>Skaro...
>
>Weeeell, I'm not much concerned with the intentions of the production
>team... Probably because I went to uni and learned to regard the
>authority of apparent authorial intention as silly.
>
Whereas I think the deconstruction of something so, so... clear cut
and accepted is pointless and silly. Sorry!
>>I mean, the first episode of The Web of Fear is quite self-contained
>>as is the first episode of The Wheel in Space but I wouldn't think of
>>sectioning off these episodes as stand-alone stories?
>
>Well, Web of Fear 1 also introduces the Yeti in the opening scenes,
>and the rest of it happens in the same setting as the remainder of the
>story. Wheel I'm not so sure about... Though ISTR it introduces the
>crew of the Wheel in ep 1 also, so there's a continuity between it and
>the other episodes.
Yes - well, The Web of Fear part 1 was a weak example and doesn't
really stand up to my argument (sorry)
But the crew of the space station was introduced in part 2 - part one
just had the Doctor and Jamie escaping from the poisoned atmosphere
inside the TARDIS and landing/exploring the Silver Carrier.
>>An Unearthly Child (or, if you must, 100, 000 BC) has always been
>>listed as Serial A and has always consisted of 4 episodes. To
>>suddenly argue that the first episode is a completely seperate entity
>>to the following 3 episodes is just getting silly...
>
>Yes... we 1st-episode-is-self-contained people have been sadly
>oppressed and silenced for many years... But our time is coming.
At the end of the day, you're entitled to your own perceptions and
reasonings but I just see it as silly and playing the devil's
advocate... No offence meant.
>>>>It is about two teachers following a strange pupil home, discovering
>>>>her extraordinary guardian and his TARDIS and being forcibly taken
>>>>away to (presumably) the stone age. They find themselves facing up to
>>>>the fact that they are in the company of time travellers from another
>>>>planet and he might have difficulty in returning them to their own
>>>>time.
>>>
>>>That's one way to look at it I suppose... Another way might be to look
>>>at An Unearthly Child -> The Planet of Decision (last ep of The Chase)
>>>as one story, about two schoolteachers getting kidnapped by time
>>>travellers and then eventually finding their way home after many
>>>adventures. Is Babylon 5 one story or 120-odd stories?
>>
>>No, because as menky fans, we are *aware* of the concepts of serials,
>>story titles and serial codes. I can see what you're arguing but
>>nobody[1] seriously regards all those episodes as one big story
>>despite the ongoing narrative. If such terms have always been
>>available we are obliged to defer to them.
>
>I'll grant that, for the purposes of discussion among fans, it's
>useful to have the episodes divided up into parcels which we all
>understand and more-or-less agree with. (Even now, when someone says
>"An Unearthly Child" it's difficult to know if they mean the first
>serial, the first episode, or some version of the unscreened pilot).
>But for the private purposes of watching stories, I feel it's valid to
>question when a story really begins and ends, and whether that might
>be different the convenient packages we use in everyday fandom.
By all mreans question established terms and boundaries, titles and
numbers but not when it muddies the waters and seems purely to be an
exercise in argument!
><snip>
>
>>And I couldn't possibly comment on Babylon 5 as I don't have enough
>>fact, figures or opinions on such matters.
>
>Well, the point of bringing up B5 is, that it's possible to see B5 as
>one big story, about the lead-up to a war, the war itself, and then
>the aftermath of a war. The series was apparently conceived as a
>"novel for television", with each episode as a chapter... but usually
>a dramatically (if not narratively) self-contained chapter. So I think
>it peripherally touches on similar issues to the "when do stories
>start and end" debate we're having here.
Yes, but it's a different programme, a million miles away from the BBC
cica 1963 with different intentions and production concepts. IIRC,
Doctor Who was optimistically planned for its first season but they
had the option of pulling the plug on it after, what?, the first 13
episodes.
>>>My point is, if we're going to consider episodes 1, and 2, 3 and 4 to
>>>be part of the same story, I'd be just as happy to consider huge
>>>chunks of the series to be one story with lots of 2 - 12 episode
>>>subplots...
>>
>>Why?
>>
>>As a fan, you know how these stories are broken down into episode
>>numbers and group titles. To start splitting up these groups because
>>it seems like a good idea on a wet and boring Tuesday seems ludicrous
>>- as is deciding to ignore production codes and story titles just to
>>back up your argument....
>
>Well, as a fan I've been told this by various reference books and
>maybe the production team... but also as a fan I want to make up my
>own mind from my own observations of the series.
Ok, point taken. And you are entitled to "do your own thing". Of
course you are. But surely there is sense in going by "established
facts" which are probably always going to be 98% right in order to
form some sort of universal point of reference.
There will always be some question over the early story titles,
granted. But to question the actual episode breakdown - which has
never been challenged by any of the 1990s devilshly intensive research
that was carried out - seems silly and obtuse.
>>Hmm, some confusion then - I thought you were arguing that a
>>cliffhanger ending meant that the next batch of episodes constituted
>>part of the same story. Didn't you say you considered the first 16
>>stories to be one big story *because* of this?
>
>Nah. It is getting a bit complicated, isn't it? :)
It IS, really. I'm sorry!
>In a nutshell:
>
>I'm arguing that the first episode isn't necessarily the first episode
>of a 4-part story. Some people might think it is, because it has a
>cliffhanger, but I reckon cliffhangers don't mean diddlysquat, and if
>they did then the whole first 22(?) episodes of the show would be one
>story, because all those episodes have cliffhangers.
Hmm, right...
But if cliffhangers don't mean anything then (going by the same logic)
episodes 1 and 2 of The Seeds of Doom is one story and episodes 3 to 6
are another. And I don't accept that, either I'm afraid.
>Further, I'm pointing out the absurdity of considering those first 4
>episodes to be one story despite the completely different settings and
>plots, by saying that if someone felt that such wildly different
>segments could be regarded as one story, to be consistent that person
>would also have to regard lots of the rest of the series as one big
>story.
Ah, no! If I follow the serial codes then I can group the first four
episodes as one story called An Unearthly Child (as I always have) and
The Keys iof Marinus as a seperate. self-contained 6 episodes as is
The Romans as 4 eps etc, etc...
Serial codes and estab;ished episode numbers gives us this universal
reference point (which EVERY reference book published has subscribed
to) to harmonise with.
> There is, for example, no more difference between episode 5 and
>episode 4 of Doctor Who, than there is between episode 1 and episode
>2. So why regard episode 4 a story ending, but not episode 1? The
>reason, apparently, is that that's what people have always thought.
>(Or that that's what the production team said... to which I say
>pfooie :)
But that's my point exactly!
Serial A has always been 4 episodes long and includes a prelude
episode (if you like) but has always been about a)meeting the TARDIS
crew and b) having an enthralling escapade with some cavemen
"people have always thought" this - because it always has been.
There are no published facts to question either the production team's
intentions nor the viewing public's expectations.
Episode 5 of Doctor Who clearly is part of serial B - not because of
the on-screen narrative (which I concede, if there were no established
refernce material to go upon, would be more valid) but because it has
always been established by the story tables.
My argument isn't that we should slavishly and blindly follow
established facts - especially where there is a possiblility of
factual errors.
It is that there is no need to question such fundamental facts when
there is no contention. If we can't agree on something like this...
"pfooie"!
>Despite all that, I can see a kind of logic in finding longer stories
>within the series... such as from the first episode to the end of The
>Chase. But considering that block of episodes to be one story seems to
>me no less absurd than considering the first 4 episodes to be one
>story.
Whereas I consider looking as the first episode as one story and the
next three episodes as a totally seperate entity to be absurd - as
absurd as seeing the first 16 stories as one big story.
But *only* bacause we menky fans have knowledge of such reference
lists and season titles. They *are* correct and so it seems sensible
to use them - that's what distinguishes us from the frog toasting
general Public. :-)
>>>>The public where fairly sure when they were starting a new story or
>>>>finishing one. And we're not really talking about "The Public". They
>>>>wouldn't give a toasted frog about titles, episodes or what-have-you.
>>>>We''re talking in menky fan terms and we're debating the validity of
>>>>accepted terms, titles and numbers versus "official" terms which
>>>>no-one thought twice about or even knew about until fairly recently.
>>>
>>>True :)
>>
>>Aha, you concede! And I win my £5 prize...
>
>It always helps to concede some minor point. It makes you look
>reasonable :)
In that case, I concede....
>>>>>OK, so that's an extreme position... to some extent it's obvious that
>>>>>the episodes between when the Daleks are introduced and the episode
>>>>>when they're vanquished are one story... but it's not always that
>>>>>clear. (As in The Daleks Master Plan, where you might or might not
>>>>>consider Mission to the Unknown to be part of the story, and where
>>>>>there's apparently a big gap between a couple of episodes, during
>>>>>which other adventures might have happened off-screen.
>>>>
>>>>The missing stories which may have occurred between titled stories is
>>>>a bit irrelevent, isn't it?
>>>
>>>I was thinking of the missing stories which might have happened
>>>between episodes of DMP (between Feast of Steven and Volcano, I
>>>think)...
>>
>>I still dont't see what this has to do with breaking up a story into
>>self contained episodes. I don't have any problems with MAs slotting
>>in between stories or even between episodes (eg a short story
>>happening between the episdoes 2 and 3 of The Ark)
>
>I'm not sure myself, now... I think the point was to point out the
>plasticity of the concept "story" in the early series... That in the
>later series there are mostly very clearly defined stories, but in the
>days of every episode having it's own name, the production team was
>more flexible, and were happy to put a great big gap in the middle of
>an ongoing narrative, during which for all we know the characters
>might have gone off and had months of other experiences, for instance.
>A fairly minor point though...
Quite! I'd say we probably agree on this one.
>>>>>Then there's
>>>>>The Ark, where you might think it's a 4-part story, or two 2-part
>>>>>stories...) Even if some sequences of episodes are clearly part of a
>>>>>discreet story, it seems the production was a lot more flexible in
>>>>>those early days, and that sometimes that wasn't the case.
>>>>
>>>>Yes but when one becomes a *fan*, one becomes "aware" of [basic] story
>>>>tables and codes and things. Once you grasp seasons and codes and
>>>>accepted story titles, you realise that The Ark has never been
>>>>documented as being anything other than one 4 episode story. In fact
>>>>one of the main points of this story *is* the idea of the crew
>>>>returning to the same place within minutes of their personal time
>>>>streams but hundreds of years later from the Monoid's time line.
>>>
>>>Well, that's allowing someone else (the production team) to impose
>>>their interpretation on the work. Didn't Roland Barthes write a paper
>>>called "The Production Team is Dead" or soemthing like that?
>>
>>I've never heard of it.
>
>Actually, it's "The Death of the Author". But the principle holds for
>TV, I think.
It means nothing to me, I'm afraid (excuse my ignorance). Call me a
blind, brainless, sheep if you must (although I'd hope that you
woyuldn't. It is the season of goodwill, after all) but I'm quite
happy to defer to the established table of stories/seasons/stories
which appears in every reference guide that has been printed.
>>Surely the production team's interpretation is the only definite
>>interpretation to go by?
>>At least as far as how many episodes it has and what they called the
>>damn thing. (I don't mean the actual content of the story, the
>>subtexts etc)
>
>Not in my book.
We agree to differ then. Let's shake on it then.
<extends hand>
>>No-doubt there will always be debate over what we "should" call these
>>contentious stories. But when we start to deconstruct the fundamental
>>basics of episode numbers for story groupings simply because it seems
>>like a good idea, AND argue that everone else should consider to do
>>this, that's when we've gone too far.
>
>I don't believe I've ever asked anyone else to subscribe to my theory
>of what constitutes a Doctor Who story.
True, you didn't. In fact, *my* posts have more of a "I'm right,
you're wrong" tone about them than yours.
For that I apologise, I was merely in full menky argument mode.
You debate a good argument, Daniel, and I'd be a liar to say that you
haven't got me thinking about accepted facts in the last few days. At
the end of the day, we disagree and there's no harm in that.
It's been nice posting with you on this thread, sir. And if anything,
I think we can proudly hold our heads up with pride - we have never
found the need to fall into a slagging match and we've put across our
points with consideration and thought.
Seasons Greetings
PS
I'm argued out! and to anybody else, looking in - yeah, I know it's
one of those sad, menky debates but we've not hurt anyone...
Perry Armstrong
I don't care what the production codes say, there's a better argument
that "Mission to the Unknown" is part of "The Dalek's Master Plan" (as
several key plot points link directly with each other) than there is to
include "The Feast of Steven" with the rest of the story that surrounds
it! Apart from the TARDIS crew of the time being in it, "The Feast of
Steven" has so little connection with the rest of "Master Plan" that the
BBC did not even offer it for sale with the rest of the story.
Perry Armstrong.
Dastari
>T/A comes from Raymond Cusick's earlier design drawings, but later ones
>say 'Serial T, episode 5'. This would suggest that T/A is primarily for
>personal reference, to distinguish it from Galaxy 4. Though the wipe
>sheet does say 'Serial Ta 1/1'...
I have read the novelisation and I don't remember any T&A in Mission to the
Unknown:) Where did I miss it?
Dastari
>That must have confused them at the time. I mean, everyone would throw
>out calenders for year 1, and then put up calenders for the year 1
>again. I wonder if there was a year 1AD bug on everyone's abacus. I
>mean, how do you account for two years in a row having the same number?
>Were there huge street parties when they changed over to AD? Enquiring
>minds want to know!
Props to you for giving the best response to one of my posts yet. If you're
reading this, you're number 2 Erin (aka Michael S. Tumilty).
Simon Marsh
Oh...
(I feel humbled)
Cheers
Simon
John Pettigrew wrote in message <36856d97...@news.cableinet.co.uk>...
>On Sat, 26 Dec 1998 16:30:50 -0000, the incredibly fluffy and
>wonderful "Simon Marsh" <simon...@tardis99.freeserve.co.uk>
>clattered away at the keyboard and came up with this:
>
>>You lot can get worked up over this?
>>Is it really important what it's called?
>
>Only in menky fan circles, yes. In day-to-day real life, no not
>really.
>
>>I call it Unearthly Child as that's what I've alway known it as and the
>>video and book is also called it. But if someone else calls it something
>>different so what?
>
>It's handy to have a universal point of reference and everybody likes
>a lively debate when their points of view differ.
>
>Which is what I feel should be one of the main roles of RADW.
>
>>However all four episodes must be one story as they have one production
code
>>(things are different for TOTL as it had one title in the title sequence).
>>It might seem to be a different story line but then you could say that
about
>>The Mind Robber. That's my argumant anyway.
>
>See? *You* have an argument because you feel strongly enough about
>something. Does that make you any less sad and menky than me?
>I think not!
>
>>Where did the name Tribe of Gum come from?
>
>The Titan Script book?
>
>
Simon Marsh
team if An Unearthly Child - The Firemaker was one or two stories?
I think they'll say one
Cheers
Simon
-----Original Message-----
From: John Pettigrew <ji...@cableinet.co.uk>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Date: 27 December 1998 00:13
Subject: Re: An Unearthly Child or 100,000 B.C.?
>On Sat, 26 Dec 1998 05:40:57 GMT, the incredibly fluffy and wonderful
>dan...@wantree.com.au (Daniel Frankham) clattered away at the
>keyboard and came up with this:
snip
>>>>>>>But if it leads in to the other 3 episodes then it MUST be linked.
Daniel Frankham
>On Sat, 26 Dec 1998 05:40:57 GMT, the incredibly fluffy and wonderful
>dan...@wantree.com.au (Daniel Frankham) clattered away at the
>keyboard and came up with this:
>>>Look at what we're debating about just now - the validity of "correct"
>>>story titles *as used in The Official BBC Guide to every Doctor Who
>>>Story* versus accepted story titles that fans had been using for years
>>>before the Pedant Police came along!
>>
>>It might surprise you to know that I prefer the old titles, too... If
>>the first 4 episodes are going to have one name, let it be _An
>>Unearthly Child_; I call story #2 _The Daleks_ (though I'll also
>>accept _The Dead Planet_), #3 _The Edge of Destruction_...
>>
>Crikey!
>So at the end of the day, the pair of us use the same titles...
>Typical, really.
Yes, I'm a conservative fan at heart. But I don't care enough about
the titles to duke it out in newsgroups.
<snip further affirmations of our disagreement which are unlikely to
be resolved and seem to be largely semantic in nature anyway>
>>>I mean, the first episode of The Web of Fear is quite self-contained
>>>as is the first episode of The Wheel in Space but I wouldn't think of
>>>sectioning off these episodes as stand-alone stories?
>>
>>Well, Web of Fear 1 also introduces the Yeti in the opening scenes,
>>and the rest of it happens in the same setting as the remainder of the
>>story. Wheel I'm not so sure about... Though ISTR it introduces the
>>crew of the Wheel in ep 1 also, so there's a continuity between it and
>>the other episodes.
>
>Yes - well, The Web of Fear part 1 was a weak example and doesn't
>really stand up to my argument (sorry)
>But the crew of the space station was introduced in part 2 - part one
>just had the Doctor and Jamie escaping from the poisoned atmosphere
>inside the TARDIS and landing/exploring the Silver Carrier.
I checked this in the TV Companion, and apparently episode 1 ends with
the crew of the Wheel deciding to destroy the Carrier. But since this
is part of the cliffhanger maybe I should disregard it, just like I do
the cavemen who casts the shadow at the end of "An Unearthly Child" :)
>>Yes... we 1st-episode-is-self-contained people have been sadly
>>oppressed and silenced for many years... But our time is coming.
>
>At the end of the day, you're entitled to your own perceptions and
>reasonings but I just see it as silly and playing the devil's
>advocate... No offence meant.
None taken. And none given in the past few days, I hope.
To an extent I am playing devil's advocate. I don't really expect or
want the next edition of the TVC to separate the first 4 episodes, and
I'm not trying to change the way people name the stories etc etc. I
think it's handy to have generally accepted names and boundaries and
so on, to make it easier to talk about stuff.
At the same time, I find it stimulating to question whether those
boundaries have any meaning beyond the convenience of having a
commonly understood boundary. As someone who's dabbling in screenplay
authorship, and with the concepts of the three-act structure divided
by two "plot points" I find it interesting to apply these structural
ideas to things I watch. It's always fascinating to see that a 22½
minute sitcom episode can be demonstrated to have the same structural
elements as a 3-hour epic. (And two see that each of the 4 storylines
in some Seinfeld episodes -- each with an average of about 5½ minutes
of screen time -- can be similarly analysed). To me, episode 1 seems
like a complete story -- it could easily be a self-contained episode
of The Twilight Zone, for instance. Similarly, I can kind of see how
it might be argued that the whole first 16-odd serials could be
considered a story.
I guess part of the reason for communicating this interpretation to
other people is the hope that it might bring some small element of
newness and freshness to the old episodes. But I'm not advocating a
rewriting of reference books to make themm into "facts" or anything...
>>Well, the point of bringing up B5 is, that it's possible to see B5 as
>>one big story, about the lead-up to a war, the war itself, and then
>>the aftermath of a war. The series was apparently conceived as a
>>"novel for television", with each episode as a chapter... but usually
>>a dramatically (if not narratively) self-contained chapter. So I think
>>it peripherally touches on similar issues to the "when do stories
>>start and end" debate we're having here.
>
>Yes, but it's a different programme, a million miles away from the BBC
>cica 1963 with different intentions and production concepts. IIRC,
>Doctor Who was optimistically planned for its first season but they
>had the option of pulling the plug on it after, what?, the first 13
>episodes.
Apparently so. Again, I don't care too much about what the production
team thought :) I think that you can find "story arcs" in Who that
probably no-one in the production team really intended to be there...
The change in the Doctor's character under the influence of Ian and
Barbara, for instance, is something that can be interpreted into the
show in hindsight, but was probably never the intention of any writer
or producer or script editor. It's one of the great things about Who
that all the different creative minds behind the show were given the
freedom to create something as "organic" as Who, with all its
different nuances and styles (and mistakes), unlike certain other
series where a single person had complete control, and the series was
limited to expressing their ideas. The "organicness" created by Doctor
Who's haphazard production, IMHO, is what makes it possible to
interpret interesting stuff like this into it.
>>Well, as a fan I've been told this by various reference books and
>>maybe the production team... but also as a fan I want to make up my
>>own mind from my own observations of the series.
>
>Ok, point taken. And you are entitled to "do your own thing". Of
>course you are. But surely there is sense in going by "established
>facts" which are probably always going to be 98% right in order to
>form some sort of universal point of reference.
Facts have their place. (One of my paragraphs above covers this.)
>There will always be some question over the early story titles,
>granted. But to question the actual episode breakdown - which has
>never been challenged by any of the 1990s devilshly intensive research
>that was carried out - seems silly and obtuse.
Those researchers are just getting started :)
>>In a nutshell:
>>
>>I'm arguing that the first episode isn't necessarily the first episode
>>of a 4-part story. Some people might think it is, because it has a
>>cliffhanger, but I reckon cliffhangers don't mean diddlysquat, and if
>>they did then the whole first 22(?) episodes of the show would be one
>>story, because all those episodes have cliffhangers.
>
>Hmm, right...
>But if cliffhangers don't mean anything then (going by the same logic)
>episodes 1 and 2 of The Seeds of Doom is one story and episodes 3 to 6
>are another. And I don't accept that, either I'm afraid.
I'm certainly sympathetic to the idea... though the 1st 2 episodes
certainly have a rather unsatisfying conclusion, with the main
characters appearing to be dead. If episode 2 had ended *slightly*
differently, with the 1st Krynoid exploding, and the Doctor and Sarah
being dug out of the snow by rescuers, I think we'd all be very happy
to see it as one story, with the next 4 episodes as the sequel in
which the Doctor and Sarah deal with the second Krynoid pod in a
different location.
OTOH, I reckon "An Unearthly Child" has quite a satisfying ending,
with the characters plunging into the unknown. Now, if they all looked
like they were dead at the end of the episode, I might have had to
think twice about this whole thing :)
BTW, as an aside from the world of written sf: There's a similar issue
with the _Hyperion_ books by Dan Simmons. A lot of people are mightily
pissed off by the end of _Hyperion_, the 1st book. (I won't say why,
for fear of spoiling it.) Considered purely in terms of plot, it ends
on a pretty big cliffhanger, not entirely unlike "AUC"'s cliffhanger,
I suppose. But I reckon that, in terms of character (rather than
plot), the end is a perfect conclusion to the novel... Because the end
shows us that these characters who we've gotten to know throughout the
book are willing to submit themselves to... whatever mysterious (but
probably very nasty) thing is going to happen to them after that last
page. So the willingness to submit to the... mysterious cliffhanging
thing... tells us something interesting about the characters. I even
think it would have been a very satisfying and self-contained novel
without a sequel which resolved all the plotty bits.
So maybe I just see story-ends everywhere :)
>>Further, I'm pointing out the absurdity of considering those first 4
>>episodes to be one story despite the completely different settings and
>>plots, by saying that if someone felt that such wildly different
>>segments could be regarded as one story, to be consistent that person
>>would also have to regard lots of the rest of the series as one big
>>story.
>
>Ah, no! If I follow the serial codes then I can group the first four
>episodes as one story called An Unearthly Child (as I always have) and
>The Keys iof Marinus as a seperate. self-contained 6 episodes as is
>The Romans as 4 eps etc, etc...
>Serial codes and estab;ished episode numbers gives us this universal
>reference point (which EVERY reference book published has subscribed
>to) to harmonise with.
Yes, but as I say above, these boundaries are useful for reference
books and fannish communication, but I reckon it can be a good idea to
shrug off some of those things when actually watching the episodes.
Not that it's likely to make a *huge* difference... unless it makes it
easier for someone to watch the first episode without feeling obliged
to submit themselves to the cavemen... :)
>> There is, for example, no more difference between episode 5 and
>>episode 4 of Doctor Who, than there is between episode 1 and episode
>>2. So why regard episode 4 a story ending, but not episode 1? The
>>reason, apparently, is that that's what people have always thought.
>>(Or that that's what the production team said... to which I say
>>pfooie :)
>
>But that's my point exactly!
>Serial A has always been 4 episodes long and includes a prelude
>episode (if you like) but has always been about a)meeting the TARDIS
>crew and b) having an enthralling escapade with some cavemen
>"people have always thought" this - because it always has been.
>There are no published facts to question either the production team's
>intentions nor the viewing public's expectations.
>Episode 5 of Doctor Who clearly is part of serial B - not because of
>the on-screen narrative (which I concede, if there were no established
>refernce material to go upon, would be more valid) but because it has
>always been established by the story tables.
>
>My argument isn't that we should slavishly and blindly follow
>established facts - especially where there is a possiblility of
>factual errors.
>It is that there is no need to question such fundamental facts when
>there is no contention. If we can't agree on something like this...
>"pfooie"!
Well, as is clear above, we're coming from two different directions
here... I'm concerned purely with stories as stories, whereas you're
talking about stories as batches of episodes with the same name in
reference books etc. I concede that the latter is handy to have for
the purposes of communication. But what I'm talking about is
*stories*: narratives with certain structural elements... with a plot
with a beginning, a middle and an end (though not necessarily in that
order); a theme; character "arcs"; mysteries that are solved; dramatic
conflicts which are resolved; etc.
What it boils down to is that IMHO the first 4 episodes don't fit this
idea of what a "story" is.
>>>>Well, that's allowing someone else (the production team) to impose
>>>>their interpretation on the work. Didn't Roland Barthes write a paper
>>>>called "The Production Team is Dead" or soemthing like that?
>>>
>>>I've never heard of it.
>>
>>Actually, it's "The Death of the Author". But the principle holds for
>>TV, I think.
>
>It means nothing to me, I'm afraid (excuse my ignorance). Call me a
>blind, brainless, sheep if you must (although I'd hope that you
>woyuldn't. It is the season of goodwill, after all) but I'm quite
>happy to defer to the established table of stories/seasons/stories
>which appears in every reference guide that has been printed.
<delete tirade about brainless sheep, by request>
"The Death of the Author" is a seminal work of modern literary theory,
in which Roland Barthes argues against the authority of the "author"
as an interpreter of their productions. The author is just another
reader, who just has the advantage of knowing the work really well
(having typed it all :), but who has no more authority as an
interpreter than any other reader with a high level of familiarity
with the text.
One of the great follies of previous litcrit (he argues, IIRC -- and
it's been a while) was that critics would spend all their time trying
to figure out "what the author meant". Generally, they'd come up with
very good and convincing arguments... all proving completely different
and contradictory authorial intentions. Wouldn't it be more sensible,
Barthes and his successors argued, instead of playing this silly game
of trying to work out what some person had in his head when he wrote
this book, to instead just try to figure out what I think the book
means, without bringing some imagined author into it? Because, to an
extent, the "author" of a book is an imaginary construct created in
our minds by the book, and that "author" might be completely different
for every reader. So, that game of working out what authors were
thinking was a very limited way of interpreting books -- it really
involved just writing about the kind of author the book constructed
for you, and ignoring all of the other interesting things that you
could be discussing about the book instead.
But what if someone asks the author what the book means? For a lot of
readers, that would clinch it... But what do you do if the author
comes up with a different answer every time he's asked the question?
Or if he says he doesn't know? Of if he says "It don't mean squat, it
was just a job I did when I needed the money"? Or if he's dead?
(Some of this stuff may not be in the original essay, but in other
works which follow the same general idea.)
Of course, it's not very relevant for our concerns of where stories
start and end... but it has contributed to the way of thinking which I
and I think some other overeducated members of the ng have, which
allows us to completely disregard proclamations of the production
team.
>>>Surely the production team's interpretation is the only definite
>>>interpretation to go by?
>>>At least as far as how many episodes it has and what they called the
>>>damn thing. (I don't mean the actual content of the story, the
>>>subtexts etc)
>>
>>Not in my book.
>
>We agree to differ then. Let's shake on it then.
> <extends hand>
OK.
<shakes hand>
>>I don't believe I've ever asked anyone else to subscribe to my theory
>>of what constitutes a Doctor Who story.
>
>True, you didn't. In fact, *my* posts have more of a "I'm right,
>you're wrong" tone about them than yours.
>For that I apologise, I was merely in full menky argument mode.
Don't mention it.
>You debate a good argument, Daniel, and I'd be a liar to say that you
>haven't got me thinking about accepted facts in the last few days. At
>the end of the day, we disagree and there's no harm in that.
Certainly not. It's been fun.
>It's been nice posting with you on this thread, sir. And if anything,
>I think we can proudly hold our heads up with pride - we have never
>found the need to fall into a slagging match and we've put across our
>points with consideration and thought.
<holds head up with pride>
Well, after all, we weren't talking about anything *important*, like
episode titles, or whether Dalek Cutaway's production code is T, T/A
or DC.
>Seasons Greetings
Likewise.
>PS
>I'm argued out! and to anybody else, looking in - yeah, I know it's
>one of those sad, menky debates but we've not hurt anyone...
Naturally, I didn't read this until *after* writing another couple of
hundred lines... Oh well. Please don't feel obliged to respond to any
of it. I think my post is fairly "conclusion"y anyway.
(BTW, what does "menky" mean?)
Michael S. Tumilty
Dastari wrote in message <19981227043500...@ng-cc1.aol.com>...
get him everywhere and back again?
-Erin (St.) ~Right Honourable RADW Babe of the Year~
President of Save Our Doctor: Television's Hero In Space
Proudly telling the Beeb to SOD THIS since 1997
"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead
it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if
there isn't any Narnia." Puddleglum, _The Silver Chair_
Jon Preddle
although the producer, director and actors all considered it to be _one_
story at the time they were making it, there is no reason why we can't
increase the Hartnell story total to 30 stories by making AN UNEARTHLY CHILD
a one-parter, and 100,000 BC a three-parter.
Jon Preddle
Waxvax
An Unearthly Child
___________________________________________________________
" By midnight, tonight, this planet will be pulled inside out."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tim Roll-Pickering
> The first story is An Unearthly Child
Only in YNSHO. I say it is 100,000 BC.
John Pettigrew
>Yes, I'm a conservative fan at heart. But I don't care enough about
>the titles to duke it out in newsgroups.
>
Sorry if it's appeared like that...
>>PS
>>I'm argued out! and to anybody else, looking in - yeah, I know it's
>>one of those sad, menky debates but we've not hurt anyone...
>
>Naturally, I didn't read this until *after* writing another couple of
>hundred lines... Oh well. Please don't feel obliged to respond to any
>of it. I think my post is fairly "conclusion"y anyway.
:-)
>(BTW, what does "menky" mean?)
Hmm, cue for a new thread!
Daniel Frankham
>On Sun, 27 Dec 1998 14:54:09 GMT, the incredibly fluffy and wonderful
>>the titles to duke it out in newsgroups.
>>
It didn't. I was thinking of all the other people who duke it out over
story titles :)
Perry Armstrong
How does that song go: "You say Banana, and I say Banana, you say
Potato, and I say Potato..."
Perry Armstrong.
Mike Sivier
>Waxvax wrote:
>> The first story is An Unearthly Child
>Only in YNSHO. I say it is 100,000 BC.
And I say the story is: deadly dull.
(Apart from the first episode, that is).
--
Mike
Tim Roll-Pickering
> >> The first story is An Unearthly Child
> >Only in YNSHO. I say it is 100,000 BC.
> And I say the story is: deadly dull.
> (Apart from the first episode, that is).
Anyone disagree-we need an argument about 100,000 BC the story, not
100,000 BC the title for a change!
Simon Marsh
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote in message <368A6D...@mcmail.com>...
You mean people actually argue about what An Unearthly Child (all four
episodes) is called. I thought that was simple. An Unearthly Child.
Cheers
simon
Tim Roll-Pickering
> >> >> The first story is An Unearthly Child
> >> >Only in YNSHO. I say it is 100,000 BC.
> >> And I say the story is: deadly dull.
> >> (Apart from the first episode, that is).
> >Anyone disagree-we need an argument about 100,000 BC the story, not
> >100,000 BC the title for a change!
> You mean people actually argue about what An Unearthly Child (all four
> episodes) is called. I thought that was simple. An Unearthly Child.
I'm tempted to say "No, it's 100,000 BC!" but that would be about as
helpful as an average Wavaxyr post.
Nathan Cooke
>
> Mike Sivier wrote:
>
> > >> The first story is An Unearthly Child
>
> > >Only in YNSHO. I say it is 100,000 BC.
>
> > And I say the story is: deadly dull.
>
> > (Apart from the first episode, that is).
>
> Anyone disagree-we need an argument about 100,000 BC the story, not
> 100,000 BC the title for a change!
Yes, I really like 100,000 BC. It shows the Doctor's nasty side (like
THE MUTANTS (1963) and INSIDE THE SPACESHIP).
It's very creepy as well. I much prefer this Hartnell to the cuddly
grandfather figure that he became.
Nathan Cooke
--
What sort of people are you up there? Do any of you live in the real
world?" - Charles Brelan
Welcome to the future, Welcome home...
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/2049
Simon Marsh
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote in message <368A8C...@mcmail.com>...
>Simon Marsh wrote:
>
>> >> >> The first story is An Unearthly Child
>
>> >> >Only in YNSHO. I say it is 100,000 BC.
>
>> >> And I say the story is: deadly dull.
>
>> >> (Apart from the first episode, that is).
>
>> >Anyone disagree-we need an argument about 100,000 BC the story, not
>> >100,000 BC the title for a change!
>
>> episodes) is called. I thought that was simple. An Unearthly Child.
>
>I'm tempted to say "No, it's 100,000 BC!" but that would be about as
>helpful as an average Wavaxyr post.
Only joking! (manic grin)
Dastari
>Yes, I really like 100,000 BC. It shows the Doctor's nasty side (like
>THE MUTANTS (1963) and INSIDE THE SPACESHIP).
>
>It's very creepy as well. I much prefer this Hartnell to the cuddly
>grandfather figure that he became.
>
>
Yes Hartnell was unique because he was playing the hero in An Unearthly Child.
Yet, we didn't want to root for him because he was such a nast old man.
It made sense that Hartnell later changed into a Yodalike character. His
experiences with Ian and Barbara and the fact that Susan left him for humans,
showed him that their must be something in these people after all. After that,
he was much kinder.
Mike Sivier
>Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
>>
>> Mike Sivier wrote:
>>
>> > >> The first story is An Unearthly Child
>>
>> > >Only in YNSHO. I say it is 100,000 BC.
>>
>> > And I say the story is: deadly dull.
>>
>> > (Apart from the first episode, that is).
>>
>> Anyone disagree-we need an argument about 100,000 BC the story, not
>> 100,000 BC the title for a change!
>Yes, I really like 100,000 BC. It shows the Doctor's nasty side (like
>THE MUTANTS (1963) and INSIDE THE SPACESHIP).
>It's very creepy as well. I much prefer this Hartnell to the cuddly
>grandfather figure that he became.
I like seeing Nasty Hartnell as well, but that doesn't prevent the
story he's appearing in from being, as I said earlier, deadly dull.
--
Mike