Talk:Lady Serena

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This should be in List of Doctor Who spin-off companions, and much of the info here actually should be in a plot synopsis for World Game itself. She's only appeared once, and unlikely to appear again. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 22:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Eh, except I fundamentally disagree with the definition of "spin-off" as applied throughout the project. World Game is not a spin-off of Doctor Who. It is Doctor Who itself.CzechOut 22:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

That's another discussion, really. My point is that the content of that article concerns tie-in companions, or whatever you want to call it, that aren't notable enough for their own articles. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 22:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Ahhh, but there's the rub. If you believe that everything in a BBC licensed production entitled Doctor Who is a part of the same continuity, even if by means of an "alternate reality", then all companions are equal in status, and part of the same category. Length of service isn't the determining factor on whether someone is a "companion". The book has an explicit scene as to this point. She's definitely a companion, because that's what the Doctor and the CIA believe. Given the potential impact of this relatively new novel, which for the first time, outside of TV Comic solidifies the notion of Season 6B, her part to play is huge even though, as you say, she's only in the one book. It is her very death that makes her notable, really. To my way of thinking, the category "Doctor Who companions" is cheapened by the inclusion of SSard and Adam Mitchell and Grace Holloway and, ahem, Kroton, if it simultaneously excludes Serena. She's a lynchpin character in any serious study of the Second Doctor.CzechOut 23:07, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Khaosworks - I don't think one appearance merits her own page, but I'd say she's enough of a companion to merit an entry on the list. --Brian Olsen 22:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I've pared the material down a bit and redirected it to the list. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 22:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Geez. Nice to be in the middle of actively discussing the point when you just up and took action. Whatever. CzechOut 23:08, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If you can convince others, really, this article can be restored. What you seem to be arguing about is criteria, not content, and so far, the consensus has been to place non-television companions, if they only appeared once or are minor, in that particular list. If you can convince the other editors that the criteria should be changed, it can go back very easily. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 23:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

So, we're saying that multiple appearance in a comic strip, not even a comic book is more worthy of "full" companion status than a character created over the course of at least one full novel? I don't particularly see the rationale of that. I mean, we had John and Gillian for the better part of a decade, and we still don't know, by virtue of "The Land of Happy Endings", if they even existed. Yet they're in the category. And Kroton, please, let me the count the number of panels he was actually a companion. I think I've got a free hand...

I am entirely arguing content, here. Contentually, Serena has a larger impact on the overall structure of Doctor Who than many of the non-televised companions who have made it into the category simply on the basis of whether they had more than one appearance.CzechOut 23:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

We're saying that the novels are not any "better" than the comic strips or the audio plays, or anything else - the only thing that trumps it is the television series. It's very hard for me to swallow the idea that Serena has a larger impact on the "overall structure" of Doctor Who from one appearance. Kroton at least has the virtue of having a history - and a long hiatus - prior to his stint as a companion. John and Gillian have been repeatedly referenced in the tie-in fiction. Ssard and Stacy have crossed media. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 23:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

And I'm not arguing that, either. No, the novels are not "better" than any other form of media. God knows that's not true as a matter of quality. I'm simply saying that having read World Game, she strikes me as being entirely key to the whole notion of Season 6B, and without her you don't get the development of the side of the Doctor's personality that would allow for 6B to have occurred. How does a principled rebel become an agent of the government against which he's rebelling? It's a question you really can't answer anywhere else in Doctor Who fiction except for Serena. She, and particularly her death, gives the Doctor a measure of control over the CIA that he wouldn't have had any other way, and thus wouldn't have been able to basically continue on with his largely free-wheeling life of adventure. The only reason that she, or the impact of her death, hasn't been explored elsewhere has nothing to do with the importance of her concept, but, rather, the discontinuation of new fiction about the classic series. It is not so difficult to imagine that were the PDAs continuing, further reference to Serena would be made in Second or Third Doctor adventures.CzechOut 23:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

But surely that last point is hypothetical; as it is right here, right now, she's only appeared in one book. On top of that, altholugh World Game fleshes out Season 6B, the specifics of 6B were pretty established before Serena ever came along, so it's not her impact on Doctor Who, it's in fact 6B's impact on her. That's an argument for talking about Serena in 6B (which I believe there is a brief mention) rather than for giving her an article by herself. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 00:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

As for your first sentence, sure, it's hypothetical, obviously. I only included it to point out that your "one appearance only" statement was somewhat misleading. It's not for lack of the strength or importance of the character that she was limited to one appearance. As for the rest, I agree with just about nothing you say. Regardless, you've made the case, I suppose, that the criterion for "separate article status" is that they must have more than one appearance (and not even more than one appearance as a companion), period. This fact should probably be added to the page for the category, and for the list, in order to avoid this sort of confusion in future. I think someone new to the world of Doctor Who would have a problem with our "distinctions", unless they're given clear signposts as to where they can find information about a particular character.CzechOut 00:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm coming in late here, so I'll just summarize a few thoughts I've had reading this:

1. I haven't read World Game yet, so I can't really speak to the potential importance of Serena as a concept.
2. I do support a shift in the way we've been using "spin-off" in the project (although changing all those links and references will be a pain in the tuckus, "tie-in" or "other media" are more accurate).
3. I agree with CzechOut that we should probably be clearer in the "ground rules" for who and what merits an independent page, and who and what get merged into a list. (A reference to Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) is probably helpful at this stage — although we'd still have to be more precise about what constitutes a major or minor character in the context of Doctor Who.)
4. I think that in addition to the "number of appearances" (which is a legitimate factor in whether a companion should get his or her own page), there's the question of how widespread the character's influence is: this is partly determined by how large an audience the character has had. Thus, even though Adam Mitchell and Grace Holloway may have had less time in the TARDIS than Serena (if you accept the books' canonicity, a subject I'm agnostic on), they're more notable just because more people will be familiar with the source material. Serena seems comparable to Samson and Gemma, who Terror Firma tells us had many adventures with the Eighth Doctor before Davros got his hand on them. If you look at it from the point of view of the fictional tapestry of the Doctor's life, they're probably quite important, but if you look at it from the point of view of how likely it is that a casual Doctor Who fan, or even a random UK resident, might have heard of them or be familiar with their story, they're pretty insignificant. And I think that we've got to weigh that pretty heavily — that's one of the differences between Doctor Who entries here on Wikipedia and, say, Wikicities TARDIS. A site that's exclusively fan-based has the luxury of using the fictional universe(s) for editorial judgement, but we've got to keep at least one foot in the real world (more's the pity).
5. It's only tangentially related to the question at hand, but I think we might have some productive discussion on what constitutes a companion, and what companions are major or minor, if we bit the bullet and made that Companion (Doctor Who) article we've been muttering about for a while. I'm busy this weekend, but if nobody else has stepped up to the plate by Monday or so I'll start it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)