TIME LINES

Nothing I enjoy more than stumbling across some televisiological discourse......

This one comes courtesy of "The High Council Of Time Lords" group on Facebook:

Bob:
Speculation: In the unaired Doctor Who pilot, Susan Foreman says, “I was born in the 49th century”. The line was changed to “born in another time” in the broadcast pilot “An Unearthly Child”. Arguably, for anyone who's ever wondered what the original Doctor's “present” time was, this would suggest it was somewhere in the neighborhood ...of the AD 4800s. Three possible objections to this reasoning come to mind.

One: Since the original pilot was replaced by a revised pilot, the dialog in the original may not be “canon”. Two: The in-continuity mutability of time may mean the original Doctor's “present” is not a fixed point. Three: The effect on the ...Doctor's personal history from the universe's reboot in “The Big Bang” and his subsequent “recovery” from the other side of the Time Field remains uncertain.

Edward 'Oh':
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd they may have meant Gallifrey's 49th century :)

Colin P:
And, they may only have been visiting the 49th century.

Gazz:
Four: at the time of the original pilot, the had absolutely no idea 'Doctor Who' would still be going strong in 2011 :P

Edward 'Oh':
Or if they did, they were wondering how they were going to keep Billy reanimated!

Gazz(?):
Absolutely

Bob:
Possible, Mr. E. Although given that Susan was speaking to her human teachers on 20th century Earth, I would assume her "49th century" reference would have been the corresponding era based on the Gregorian calendar.

Edward 'Oh':
I know, hence the daft smiley thing. Mind you, it would be just as worth a go as telling them she was from THEIR 49th century. My teachers never believed ME!

Simon Th:
[I] Have had the 'Is it canon?' argument so many times and can catagorically state that the 49th century line is NOT canon. In order for it to be canonical, it has to be included in a broadcast episode. Deleted scenes, novelisations, etc don't count.

Original novels, comics, audio dramas, etc each have their own separate continuity but, while each of them is bound by what happens in the TV series, the TV series does not have to pay any attention to what has happened in any other media.

Trish:
Heck Simon, sometimes they don't pay attention to what has happened in the series just preceding it! haha

Edward 'Oh':
Very true there, Trish... the series often veers from its own cannon. At best it can claim to be a small handgun ;)

Colin P:
It's the effects of time travel rather than canonical inconsistencies. Apparently.

Ana R:
When I saw it on You Tube Susan said "49th century." Too bad all the awesome "1" episodes got taken down! :(

Bob:
Debates about "canon" are kind of surreal anyway: "THIS fiction is the REAL fiction. That OTHER fiction is fake fiction."

Simon Th:
It's a case of semantics. Canon is defined as a body of work. With 'Doctor Who', the original work is the TV series, anything else is an incorrect use of the word. (Can you tell I was brought up by an English teacher?).

The TV series, as it has on a number of occasions, is perfectly able to contradict itself. I try not to think about these instances as it frequently brings on headaches. But if a throw-away line in the Christmas special contradicts every single New Adventure, then, for the purposes of 'Doctor Who' continuity, the television episode takes precedence.

Don't get me wrong, there can be some fantastic stories in the, for want of a better expression, expanded universe. I grew up on the New Adventures and actually prefer some of them to a number of stories in the original run. But, unless they are directly referenced in the TV series, they are not canonical.

David W. R:
My understanding has always been that Gallifrey stood 'outside' of time. Which can be a fairly mind-boggling concept. For instance: the Great Time War apparently occurred in a linear fashion, and yet throughout different points in time somehow. I can't grasp it, but I'm not sure anyone's really meant to!

Gazz:
Post-Time War events can contradict pre-Time War events, and still be right. As RTD said, the Time War was like a big reset button.

Ana R:
IT'S ALL WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY! OH LOVE RTD! :)

David W. R:
And we all love big red reset buttons! It's such a rare concept in modern sci-fi!! ; ). But of course, once reset, someone's bound to come along eventually and reset the previous reset...

Gazz:
And that's already happened, with the Cracks in Time. And the next head writer will hit it again, then the next and so on......

Simon Th:
But can you have an anti-reset button, something that resets things to how they were before the reset button was pressed the previous time? ;)

David W. R:
Hmm. Well there's a thought, and an obvious one you'd think. But I've yet to see anyone use that anti-reset in anything. Problem is: there's a few good ideas that always have come since, and no one wants to lose those new ideas.

Gazz:
Anything is possible in the world of scfi, some one may just hit the anti-reset button...... one day

And finally I chimed in.....

Toby O'B:
I'm with the "Only TV Is Canon" crowd, but then my particular line of interest is the overall TV Universe. Some movies and online content has been absorbed into the "Toobworld" concept, but it can only be the fictional realms of visual media. As Simon pointed out, each of those other sources have their own fictional universes. It's a lot like the realms to be found in the "Incompleat Enchanter" stories by Pratt and deCamp.....

I'm sure the dialogue will continue!

{Trish and Gazz, and I think Bob as well, are administrators for the Facebook site.}

BCnU!