Do you consider McGann canon?

The common consensus around here is that the only way to save Doctor Who is with an alternate sequel which disregards NuWho, but where should that alternate sequel begin? Should Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor be kept, given the relentless drive in recent years to integrate him into NuWho canon? I can't quite decide.

Pros
- He's an excellent actor worthy of the role
- He received several strong audio stories in his first 14 years with Big Finish

Cons
- The TV Movie is a mess, introducing a lot of problems that would resurface in NuWho
- His recent box sets are set in the NuWho timeline, featuring the Time War, River, Missy, etc.
- He has a filmed regeneration story penned by Moffat which sets up the events of NuWho

Well in my alternate sequel series I include McGann as canon. In fact for fun I had him travel with Avon after the events of B7 and the original Arnold Rimmer hologram from Red Dwarf (who left as Ace.) Apparently that WAS an idea for a revival in the 00s. It didn't get anywhere obvs as it probably would have been too much on tv, but I thought it was a nice way of linking three great series together as a bit of backstory.

A series with Paul McGann, Paul Darrow in his prime, and Chris Barrie would have been hilarious and more fun than fucking New Who at least.

I don't see why you'd need to ditch Paul to get right of New Who. Sadly all of the Classic era Doctors have appeared in the revival, and sadly even Tom has done an audio with River Song (I can't imagine how they would go together but I'm in no interest too. "Hello Sweetie" UGH.

As I've said before just use the DC comics formula. New Who takes place on lets call it Earth-B (it certainly feels like a B-Universe as Bender from Futurama would say.) Whilst True Who takes place on Earth-A.

Both have similar histories but diverged at certain points (like in Earth-A, everyone became aware of aliens in 1986 as seen in the Tenth Planet, a different renegade became the Master in Earth-B etc.)

That way McGann can be in both and you can still keep some good Big Finish stuff like the First Sontarans, but junk the Pissy, Kissy, Missy and River shit.

Personally though I wouldn't use Paul as the Doctor in an alternate sequel series. He's too romantic and I'd like an older, more authorative Doctor to start the alternate sequel off personally.

McGann is canon, but any new series should start after his supposed tenure.

I've never really understood the hype about his acting or interpretation of the Doctor. He had some good BF stories, but he never really felt like the Doctor to me.

burrunjor wrote:I don't see why you'd need to ditch Paul to get right of New Who. Sadly all of the Classic era Doctors have appeared in the revival, and sadly even Tom has done an audio with River Song (I can't imagine how they would go together but I'm in no interest too. "Hello Sweetie" UGH.

I suppose the difference is that we saw most of the major events of his predecessors' lives play out on-screen, which limits how much Big Finish can rock the boat in terms of continuity. So what if Briggs claims the Fourth Doctor met River on some random day we didn't see on TV? That's easily dismissed, whereas with McGann, we're dealing with four years worth of content (and counting) building up to a filmed regeneration story.

Certainly, in the absence of an official alternate sequel, I find Death Comes To Time a much more satisfying conclusion than setting for myself a seemingly arbitrary cutoff point within an officially continuing story. It's a situation just as messy and frustrating as that of NuWho, and my mild obsessive compulsive tendencies won't allow me to let it go.

Without a doubt, yes. I consider McGann to be the last True Doctor.

I was going to make this a separate topic, but I'll just say it here: The 8th Doctor is not a romantic at all. He actually acts just as much of an Victorian aristocrat as the 1st or the 4th Doctor. He never acts like he is in love, more he has a love for the unpredictablity of humans. He's still authoritative over situations, but never to the point of acting like a God, which was something that I got tired of when it came to the 7th Doctor. In fact, 8 acts a lot like the 1st and the 2nd Doctors in many ways. When 8 loses his memory in the Books, he acts like the 1st Doctor from An Unearthly Child; cold, manipulative, mysterious and most importantly alien. And in the Books, he's had to get some major character development much like the 1st Doctor. Then, while he's still retaining some grumpyness and stubbornness, he's more lighthearted and unpredictable (keyword being that, not inconsistent). But he still has a likeable personality still acting like Doctors 1-7. He's tied with the 1st Doctor in terms of being the most developed Doctor, and is my personal favourite with the 3rd, 2nd and 1st Doctor.

My personal head canon is the TV movie, then the Big Finish studios with Charley and then Lucie Miller, with the comics coming after, then his era finishes with the EDA books. The last book even left it ambiguous whether 8 dies or goes to have many more adventures. It's like a mirror version of the ending of Survival, and for me, that is the last true Doctor Who story.

I don't have a very robust argument but I regard Paul's film as cannon. The MGann BF stories i like - especially with Lucie Miller who was a far better companion than Charlie in my mind - but i don't tend to regard them cannon.

The short regeneration minisode is not cannon as far as i am concerned. Its a part of New Who not the classic series and should be treated with the disdain and contempt that era deserves. I am sure Paul has no problem with it as he got paid for a short return to the role but i have always felt it was a bit of insult to him / the character - a 10 minute role in a web thing.

But such a reboot will never happen. The BBC regard the RTD era as an unmitigated (ratings) success. If they did reboot they would probably restart with a female 11th Doctor, erasing Matt, Peter and Wittershitter.

ClockworkOcean wrote:I suppose the difference is that we saw most of the major events of his predecessors' lives play out on-screen, which limits how much Big Finish can rock the boat in terms of continuity. So what if Briggs claims the Fourth Doctor met River on some random day we didn't see on TV? That's easily dismissed, whereas with McGann, we're dealing with four years worth of content (and counting) building up to a filmed regeneration story.

Certainly, in the absence of an official alternate sequel, I find Death Comes To Time a much more satisfying conclusion than setting for myself a seemingly arbitrary cutoff point within an officially continuing story. It's a situation just as messy and frustrating as that of NuWho, and my mild obsessive compulsive tendencies won't allow me to let it go.

I think the best, most common way to view it is that the Big Finish or spin-off material is only ever really optionally canon. I loved the world-building that went on in the audios and liked to believe it was all real and true to the show's universe.

That Davros, The Apocalypse Element, Live 34, Point of Entry and the Dalek Empire series could all have took place in the same universe as The Two Doctors, Remembrance of the Daleks, The Happiness Patrol and Parting of the Ways.

After all I tend to think of Doctor Who as building a fantastic set-up, up to Talons of Weng Chiang (or City of Death at a push), and the rest of the show largely squandering that potential, and Big Finish providing a "what if they hadn't and did all this good stuff with that potential instead"?

But if there was no way of reconciling, say, The Ultimate Adventure audio with it all, then I could scrub that one from canon too. The Zoe companion chronicle Fear of the Daleks isn't really canon to me either because there is no way I would see Troughton's Doctor ever hesitate to destroy the Daleks. And if as Dalek Empire III went on several millenia and had its more galaxy-shattering events and loose ends, it became impossible to reconcile with New Who's portrayal of the galaxy and the Daleks, I could live with them as alternate timelines.

Indeed that's why say the McGann books and the McGann audios can separately be optionally canon for any fan even though few would really think of them as compatible with each other.

It also meant that the Davros/I' Davros audios' retcons to Genesis of the Daleks were never really able to bother me because I had the power to dispute their canonicity enough. Whereas The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar seriously did, and did feel they were doing serious damage to Genesis' lore that I had to effectively cut it off and quarantine it to prevent.

As for McGann, his audios have always been to me what New Who should've. A clean slate after a dust settling period to work out shrewdly what worked about the show and the character and what to jettison and forget as dead weight.

So in that he has become one of my favourite Doctors. And certainly when I listen to the McGann of Terror Firma, Blood of the Daleks and Lucie Miller/To The Death, I really don't see how Moffat's version of the character in Night of the Doctor makes any sense.

I would probably say that McGann's audio canonicity could have an easy cut-off point of ending on To The Death, or if you prefer, even The Girl Who Never Was (as at the time they did feel like a proper end-game).

I've not been interested enough to check out any of the River Song audios. I was sick of her character by the end of Series 6, and as far as I'm concerned, Silence in the Library should've made it officially canon that Tennant was the first Doctor to ever meet her and none of his predecessors ever did or could (and certainly never needed to). So I'd consider them definitely non-canon.

Incidentally, I kind of consider McGann and the TV Movie canon-ish (infact for many years I was convinced that was the Master's official long overdue final end), but would reserve the option to scrub the half-human reference from being canonical.

As for the poll question, I think the best way to reboot the show in a way that would please most parties would be to bring back McGann, somewhere in the midst of the Time War, and basically carry on from there with a line explaining that this is now a different timeline because of the war's temporal fall-out. And I guess eventually cast someone new to play the new Ninth Doctor from there.

Yeah I'd agree with comments above but McGann's Doctor is always going to be problematic since any potential he showed was never fulfilled on screen. Whatever his merits in the BF stories, McGann was never granted the same popular recognition available to other Doctors simply because he never starred in even one series on television. Also isn't he the only Doctor never to have met the Daleks on screen? I'm not counting Pisstaker as I don't consider her a 'proper' Doctor but I mean even the Cush had adventures with Daleks (something that possibly defines being Doctor Who in popular imagination) and his two films have frequently been screened on television over the years.

Nevertheless I'd personally favour the TV movie being considered canon anyway as it is directly linked to the classic series by closing Sylvester's era with his regeneration into McGann. It is an actual screened episode too - unlike Moffat's minisode which was, if I recall correctly, only available anyway for viewers via the 'red button' so wasn't even included in an actual episode! I'd rather disregard New Who's version of McGann's demise altogether and instead imagine something that didn't involve being linked to any New Who incarnations!

I'd favour a new true Who series picking up the narrative from a re-imagined ending of McGann's era in order to explain a new 9th Doc as the revised starting point to change direction from New Who's timeline. This could even be explained as a consequence of the 'Time War' so perhaps it might bring on board at least some fans of New Who who might still wish to imagine that timeline in their canon (well if they must!) but it'd certainly offer plenty of True Who fans an alternative, hopefully much more authentic, progression of Who.

BillPatJonTom wrote:Also isn't he the only Doctor never to have met the Daleks on screen? I'm not counting Pisstaker as I don't consider her a 'proper' Doctor but I mean even the Cush had adventures with Daleks (something that possibly defines being Doctor Who in popular imagination)

I'm not too sure that should disqualify him. After all, if say the classic show had ended on The Daemons before Pertwee got to face-off with them, or on Time-Flight or The Five Doctors, before Davison did, I don't think it would make either of them any less the Doctor for it, or their run any less canonical.

I'd rather disregard New Who's version of McGann's demise altogether

I always preferred the idea of him going out in a blaze of glory amidst the Time War to what we eventually got under Moffat.

It never really made sense to me that the Doctor would refuse any involvement in fighting the war to save the universe from his oldest enemies.

This could even be explained as a consequence of the 'Time War' so perhaps it might bring on board at least some fans of New Who who might still wish to imagine that timeline in their canon (well if they must!)

I strongly get the sense they would. They would generally like to see more from McGann, and although many of them did love the RTD and even the Moffat era, I think for them the Chibnall era has so tainted it that they'd honestly welcome a clean new slate (with the idea that the New Who they loved is still canon in a pocket dimension).

Not really. The TV Movie is shit and as irreconcilable with classic Who as most of New Who tbh.

iank wrote:Not really. The TV Movie is shit and as irreconcilable with classic Who as most of New Who tbh.

Agreed.

iank wrote:Not really. The TV Movie is shit and as irreconcilable with classic Who as most of New Who tbh.

Spot on.

Do you think McGann's Doctor enjoyed getting pegged?

Lately, I've been feeling so utterly disgusted by the conduct of the Fitzroy Tavern clique that I resent giving them credit for anything, and these people are responsible for so much of the Eighth Doctor's story, whether in audio or prose form, that I just can't accept it, no matter how good it may be. Just yesterday, Briggs retweeted a message from Barnaby Edwards implying that anyone who dares to complain about the ideological hijacking of Doctor Who is morally indistinguishable from a gang of homophobic thugs who beat up an innocent lesbian couple on a bus. Let that sink in. These scumbags actually had the nerve to say that standing up for creative freedom and meritocracy in the entertainment industry makes one every bit as bad as a Neo-Nazi thug. How dare they? Some of you might say I ought to separate the art from the artist. Well, fuck that. This is personal. These people openly despise me, regard me as a lesser human being, and sadistically relish the thought of depriving me of happiness. What loathsome creatures. Why should I give their work the time of day, regardless of its merit? The Gareth Roberts debacle has shown that from fans and customers to friends, colleagues and employees, there is no one these pathetic sacks of shit aren't prepared to throw under the bus to score brownie points with the postmodernist millennial mob, so fuck them.

To answer my poll question, if an alternate sequel wanted to count McGann, or even start by giving him more televised stories, I could live with that. He's a great actor and if a well-intentioned writer unrelated to the current riff-raff wanted to give him the send-off he deserves, that'd be fine. However, at present, there isn't an alternate sequel, and if there ever will be, I imagine it's at least two decades away. Until then, I'm afraid my version of Doctor Who ends with Death Comes To Time. Sorry Paul.

I like to think Eccelston is still canon after McGann, but not in the way one thinks,

Just prior to the 2005 series begining, the original plan was to regenerate The Doctor in the comic strip story "The Flood" which featured the Cybermen and an organisation that could very well have been Torchwood under different circumstances. RTD even approved it and the change was even illustrated, all it needed was colouring...then the BBC kiboshed it. RTD went on to recycle some of that comic strip for the new series...including the cause of McGann's regeneration (absorbing the time/space vortex to become godlike) and even the Cybermen inflitration of that organisation and a take over of the Earth (Army of Ghosts/Doomsday)

ClockworkOcean wrote:Lately, I've been feeling so utterly disgusted by the conduct of the Fitzroy Tavern clique that I resent giving them credit for anything, and these people are responsible for so much of the Eighth Doctor's story, whether in audio or prose form, that I just can't accept it, no matter how good it may be. Just yesterday, Briggs retweeted a message from Barnaby Edwards implying that anyone who dares to complain about the ideological hijacking of Doctor Who is morally indistinguishable from a gang of homophobic thugs who beat up an innocent lesbian couple on a bus. Let that sink in. These scumbags actually had the nerve to say that standing up for creative freedom and meritocracy in the entertainment industry makes one every bit as bad as a Neo-Nazi thug. How dare they? Some of you might say I ought to separate the art from the artist. Well, fuck that. This is personal. These people openly despise me, regard me as a lesser human being, and sadistically relish the thought of depriving me of happiness. What loathsome creatures. Why should I give their work the time of day, regardless of its merit? The Gareth Roberts debacle has shown that from fans and customers to friends, colleagues and employees, there is no one these pathetic sacks of shit aren't prepared to throw under the bus to score brownie points with the postmodernist millennial mob, so fuck them.

To answer my poll question, if an alternate sequel wanted to count McGann, or even start by giving him more televised stories, I could live with that. He's a great actor and if a well-intentioned writer unrelated to the current riff-raff wanted to give him the send-off he deserves, that'd be fine. However, at present, there isn't an alternate sequel, and if there ever will be, I imagine it's at least two decades away. Until then, I'm afraid my version of Doctor Who ends with Death Comes To Time. Sorry Paul.

I understand. I lost all respect for Nicholas Briggs in January when he retweeted some virtue signalling arse that the Daleks were better than the notmydoctor people. How fucking dare he insult the very people who've bought his work for several decades and given him the comfortable lifestyle he has now. To be fair I'd been getting annoyed with him for a while. His ego had gotten completely out of control, but that truly showed his head was up his arse.

Oh and Barnaby Edwards has ALWAYS been a wanker. My god the virtue signalling he does is ridiculous. I remember he even lost an argument with Piers Morgan one time FFS and resorted to petty insults. Its a sad world we live in where Piers Morgan is the one you take the side of in arguments

I too was quite shocked that they turned on Gareth Roberts so quickly, a man they've worked with for 2 decades and known personally quite well.

Lets compare that to the makers of old who. In the Pertwee era (which idiots like Whovian Feminism and Richard H Cucker and Mr Tardis often cite as being the precursor to New Who in terms of being political.) Behind the scenes it had Barry Letts a liberal and Buddhist, Malcolm Hulke a raving communist leftie and Terrance Dicks an old conseravtive who described feminism as the most repulsive thing he had ever seen, and felt that the British empire falling was a bad thing as we did a much better job of ruling the world than anybody else!

Yet bizarelly enough these people were all able to work together brilliantly, produce great stories and be great friends in real life. Could it be because they actually cared about producing a great series above all else, and were mature enough to respect other people's opinions?

Can you imagine such a diverse set of people politically working on the current train wreck?

FFS Terrance Dicks views on the British empire are MORE offensive than Gareth Roberts are on trans people, yet communist Malcolm Hulke (who I'd wager was more of a genuine lefty compared to the likes of Whovian Feminism ranting about not wanting fans without enough disposable income watching the show, or Christel Dee happily going to work for the most right wing government this country has ever seen; or Mr Tardis being happy that Julian Assange was arrested for exposing the crimes of the US government.) Yet he was still able to be one of Terrance Dicks closest friends and most frequent collaborators!

It goes to show what I'm always saying is true. Classic Who was a show made by adults, New Who is a show made by teenagers. That's all the Fitzroy crowd are, teenagers in men's bodies, hence the infantile political episodes, the obsession with sex, the cheesy, Twilight style romances, the shallow lets make the hero edgy crap etc. Its all so teenage.

ClockworkOcean wrote:These people openly despise me, regard me as a lesser human being, and sadistically relish the thought of depriving me of happiness. What loathsome creatures. Why should I give their work the time of day, regardless of its merit? The Gareth Roberts debacle has shown that from fans and customers to friends, colleagues and employees, there is no one these pathetic sacks of shit aren't prepared to throw under the bus to score brownie points with the postmodernist millennial mob, so fuck them.

There was a bit in the notes section in the review book About Time 6 (covering everything from Season 22 to The Curse of Fatal Death) where Tat Wood describes how the Fitzroy Tavern meet-ups always take place. And it was quite stomach-churningly sickening to read.

It made me lose respect for Tat Wood to know he was part of that, given he was up until then one of my favourite Who reviewers, because of how he described how *ridiculously* cold and cliquey they were, and how petty and pretentious they are about it.

How they deliberately would avoid congregating or letting on until they'd seem anyone with a scarf or anorak had given up on finding the fan gathering and left. And then they'dd form into their cliques. Apparently it would separate into tables and certain writers (Cornell, Miles, Moffat) would each be holding court surrounded by their biggest fans.

They've always hated and despised fans they consider not like them, refused to even give them a chance to know them better first, they've always been elitist and petty. They've always echoed the most right-on and approved opinions to each other. They've always wanted any excuse to feel like they're superior and better than us, even as they profit from us as their buyers. And they've always had a sanctimonious view of how the show and fandom should be and what views and politics it should have (and I do feel like prior to Davison's time, the show was never really that sanctimonious or PC at all).

burrunjor wrote:FFS Terrance Dicks views on the British empire are MORE offensive than Gareth Roberts are on trans people, yet communist Malcolm Hulke (who I'd wager was more of a genuine lefty compared to the likes of Whovian Feminism ranting about not wanting fans without enough disposable income watching the show, or Christel Dee happily going to work for the most right wing government this country has ever seen; or Mr Tardis being happy that Julian Assange was arrested for exposing the crimes of the US government.) Yet he was still able to be one of Terrance Dicks closest friends and most frequent collaborators!

To be honest, I think from Invasion of the Dinosaurs I get the sense that even Malcolm Hulke was getting disillusioned in the growing cultist lunatic fringe of the left at the time.

Tanmann wrote:

ClockworkOcean wrote:These people openly despise me, regard me as a lesser human being, and sadistically relish the thought of depriving me of happiness. What loathsome creatures. Why should I give their work the time of day, regardless of its merit? The Gareth Roberts debacle has shown that from fans and customers to friends, colleagues and employees, there is no one these pathetic sacks of shit aren't prepared to throw under the bus to score brownie points with the postmodernist millennial mob, so fuck them.

There was a bit in the notes section in the review book About Time 6 where Tat Wood describes how the Fitzroy Tavern meet-ups always take place. And it was quite stomach-churningly sickening to read.

It made me lose respect for Tat Wood to know he was part of that, given he was up until then one of my favourite Who reviewers, because of how he described how *ridiculously* cold and cliquey they were, and how petty and pretentious they are about it.

How they deliberately would avoid congregating or letting on until they'd seem anyone with a scarf or anorak had given up on finding the fan gathering and left. And then they'dd form into their cliques. Apparently it would separate into tables and certain writers (Cornell, Miles, Moffat) would each be holding court surrounded by their biggest fans.

They've always hated and despised fans they consider not like them, refused to even give them a chance to know them better first, they've always been elitist and petty. They've always echoed the most right-on and approved opinions to each other. They've always wanted any excuse to feel like they're superior and better than us, even as they profit from us as their buyers. And they've always had a sanctimonious view of how the show and fandom should be and what views and politics it should have (and I do feel like prior to Davison's time, the show was never really that sanctimonious or PC at all).

I'm going to be doing an article on the Fitzroy crowd and how they destroyed the brand. I'm going to be debunking all of the classic fanboy myths they perpetuate such as the following.

Women never liked DW until Tennant.
DW was never mainstream until they came along.
DW was never popular outside of the UK until they came along.
DW was completely dead in the 90s and would never have been brought back until they came along.

I'll be starting it next week after finishing the last bit of my Dalek story and the last bit of the Circus Master part 2.

I just wish I had done it sooner. I'm also going to be debunking the DW is all about change article once and for all.

There's another way you can dump New Who from canon that doesn't involve alternate universes.

Have it that in the 90s a few stories about the Doctor leaked out, like in Love and Monsters and some people wrote books about him, but that this fringe area of science was soon taken over by some terrible hack authors desperate to flog their own failing careers and that's all New Who is. Literally bad fan fiction within the DW universe.

Just include this piece in a DW book.

"Despite the Time Lords attempts to remain in the shadows, the impact he had on several important historical events, allowed some academics to put the pieces together and work out that one alien had been visiting and protecting us throughout our history. There was a brief spurt of Doctor Mania in the 60s that lasted through to the 90s. Whilst it was always seen as a fringe area of science, it still garnered a lot of interest and even some respect in academic circles.

Sadly that was to come to an end in the 90s. A group of hack authors who knew nothing about the Doctor would write various ridiculous theories about the Time Lord and his enemies. These theories garnered a lot of press attention, but they ultimately destroyed the credibility of research into the Time Lord (and indeed alien life in general for several decades.)

The three worst offenders were, Russell who wrote inappropriate teenage, Twilight style love stories involving the Doctor and made him into a Jesus like figure regrowing hands and flying through the air; Steven who wrote erotic fiction about the Doctor and various dominatrix's, including a female version of the Master. Finally another called Chris put forward ridiculous theories that the Doctor could be anyone.

Ultimately whilst the three men destroyed the credibility of research into the Doctor for good, all three would later meet with horrific deaths.

Steven was found shrunk and his minature corpse placed into an uncompromising position with his daughters Barbie and Ken Dolls. Russell was later absorbed through in time and space into another universe where the laws were contradictory and made zero sense, whilst Chris was killed by a strange alien that sat on top of his head. Many believed that it had just been a terrible toupee, but it was soon revealed to be a weird alien that had been draining his mind (explaining his earlier insane decisions regarding the Doctor) and left him a burnt out husk of a man."

burrunjor wrote:"Ultimately whilst the three men destroyed the credibility of research into the Doctor for good, all three would later meet with horrific deaths.

Steven was found shrunk and his minature corpse placed into an uncompromising position with his daughters Barbie and Ken Dolls. Russell was later absorbed through in time and space into another universe where the laws were contradictory and made zero sense, whilst Chris was killed by a strange alien that sat on top of his head. Many believed that it had just been a terrible toupee, but it was soon revealed to be a weird alien that had been draining his mind (explaining his earlier insane decisions regarding the Doctor) and left him a burnt out husk of a man."

Not a fan of the leather-jacketed, handbag 8th Doctor then, Clockwork? I have to confess I'm so behind on Big Finish at this point that I didn't even realise they'd cancelled the main range 8th Doctor series years ago. Now its all "Doom Eyes" and "Coalition Force". Fine if you want sell a kidney for a coffin-full of binge-listening, but otherwise...