Welcome to Gaia! ::

Okay, so my list is a lot more simple since I haven't seen many of the little things like annuals and so on so I'll leave them out. They can be in an alternate annual universe.

IN! The Original TV series.

Obviously - it's the bit I love best!

IN! K9 & Company.

(it's silly but it fits)

OUT! The 'original' Target novels

OUT! The New Adventures novels

OUT! The Missing Adventures novels

OUT! The BBC Eighth Doctor Novels

OUT! The BBC Past Doctor novels

This is probably a pretty insane move... and I know it's really unfair of me since I've only scratched the surface on reading them... but I really have to chuck out the books for my own sanity. There are just too many little things that annoy me and too much reminds me of the worser parts of fanfiction without the fan-based charm, not to mention messing around with the timelines to the point of insanity. NB: There are some really good books out there but I'd rather lose them than gain the bad ones.

IN! Bernice Summerfield's Audio Adventures

IN! The Eighth Doctor telemovie

IN! Iris Wildthyme Audios

IN! Big Finish's Doctor Who Audios

IN! Big Finish's BBC7 Doctor Who radio plays

(even though I don't like the companions I'm letting them in...)

IN! Big Finish's spin-off audios

IN! The Scream of the Shalka.

Ok, bit complicated here but I absolutely love and adore and worship Richard E. Grant's alt. 9th Doctor and I would kill to have him be the 11th Doctor. So purely for selfish reasons I keep him in and view him (depending on the weather) as either an alternative 9th Doctor from a different dimension (one without the Time War(s)) or the future 11th Doctor (if for some bizarre reason the Timelords returned).

OUT! The Curse of Fatal Death

I love it but I don't believe it.

IN! Torchwood

I hate it but it hasn't actually given me a reason to chuck it out yet.

IN! The Sarah-Jane Adventures

IN! The Current TV series.

Okay then...
I haven't read many Doctor Who novels nor listened to any Audio adventures, but I don't think they should be strictly canonical, simply because they're just going to be flatly contradicted in the TV series.
In my opinion, the only things that should be canonical should be the original series, the new series, Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures (even though I haven't seen any of the last one. I hate living in Australia...)

Well, they (like everything else) can't be considered 'strictly canonical' because Doctor Who has no strict canon. smile

So while your opinion is as correct as everyone else's, there's a couple of things I'd say to the logic by which you arrive at it.

• Yes, the new series has contradicted the novels. Though not as often as it's referenced them.
  
  
• 'Contradiction' doesn't work as a guide to 'what counts' in Doctor Who. Season Two of the classic series contradicts Season One, that doesn't mean it was throwing it out of canon. Season Twenty contradicts the entire UNIT era. Season Fourteen contradicts almost everything that came before it. Nobody ever argues that the classic series was constantly throwing its earlier stories out of canon.
  
  
• The New Series contradicts the original television series unashamedly from its second episode on. And from its third episode on it spells out that it's now got a good reason to. History gets altered during Time Wars and, with the Time Lords gone then history is now mutable...

History's changing every second. Just ask the Fourth Bountiful Human Empire if you can find them.

So just because something's completely and flatly contradicted doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just means it happened and then unhappened. smile


Good luck with that. wink

Again, as I rather feel I've shown in the post directly above, that line of arguement doesn't work because the TV series can ignore and/or contradict itself as it pleases.

And it does. It always has, and it always will.

Logical arguements to show what is and isn't officially canon will always fail, because the official policy is that There Is No Official Canon.


The new series has gone even further by, rather wonderfully and rather paradoxically, putting it in canon that there is no canon. twisted

There's no right answer. There's no meaningful or logical way of saying, "This is official because..."

All you can say is "This is what feels to me like the True History of the Doctor." And if that's just the TV series then fine, popular choice. But that's all it is. A choice. There's no 'bottom line' to be drawn.

All's good then. smile

It just didn't sound to me like you were stating your personal choice because you were using the word 'official', which means sort of the opposite. Oh, except here on Gaia where it means almost anything. I must try to remember that!

Anyway, now that's cleared up, then I completely agree with you. Including the books, comics and audios does make the Doctor Who universe a big confusing mess. Making it, for my tastes, the perfect habitat for an unknowable trickster god like the Doctor. wink

Oh, some of us had been saying that something was up there & that the Doctor had clearly messed up what was supposed to be a really good period of history in a snit at Harriet. For crying out loud, would he be happier having someone with that power who would use it without qualms such as she definately had? She didn't want to shoot down that spacecraft, she did what she saw as being necessary for the safety of Earth. Some politicians in her shoes at that moment wouldn't care a bit to blow away some aliens, and could go right on using that power to abusive lengths. The Doctor was a real idiot for getting rid of Harriet whether you believe it was responsible for the Saxon term or not.


Oh, and I used "official" because that's how I'm used to talking about it. I'm a geezery old school fan in her 40's. This however-you-like-it type continuity just annoys me. I don't even read any of the new novels--I want them to bring back the Classic Series novels, and in paperback! I'm not paying $13 for a Who novel!

I don't know--it just feels a lot more random now that nobody's trying to keep any of it straight. If this is supposed to be due to the Time War, I'm quite ready for some of this randomness to ricochet back on the War and cause it NOT to have ever happened. I want Gallifrey and the stuffy, boring, insular Time Lords and a Doctor that is just a carefree wanderer again. This "Last of the Time Lords" & "Lonely Angel" stuff is getting boring.



As to books, I'd be happy if they'd at least print the Short Trips in paperback. Sometimes those have been OK--but getting the Past Doctors Novels back would be even better. Don't they realize the new fans are discovering and enjoying the Classic Series now?


Oh, yeah--something that occured to me last night about Harriet....Suppose she'd still been in office when the Master decided he wanted to ruin the Doctor's favorite planet. Would he really have just said, "oh, fudge, no election!" & gone on his way? More likely he would have caused her to disappear, & then gotten himself elected.