Note the word in the above paragraph, views. We’ll be referring to it later.

Firstly, what, if anything, is canon? And thereby hangs a tale… Some will say that nothing is canon, one can believe precisely as one chooses as far as fiction is concerned. They are right, in principle, but in any discussion of a fictional text it makes sense to establish a set of conventions about what is, and isn’t canonical. Of course, some hard-liners will insist that everything ever written about the show (or, more specifically, everything they happen to like) is canon, with inclusion or exclusion of BBC/Virgin novels as and if desired. Others will say, as is the practice for fiction submissions to this page, that everything transmitted as part of the BBC produced series "Doctor Who" is canonical "Doctor Who", leaving spin-offs like the McGann thing, and the various licensed books as being on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis. Still more will argue that anything broadcast on BBC television and radio under the name "Doctor Who" is canon, thus including "The Time Machine", "Slipback", "Dimensions in Time", "A Fix with Sontarans", "Paradise of Death", "The Ghosts of N-Space" and "Doctor Who":The American Film as canonical. It’s probably only fair, in a debate which, as you will see, is very closely tied to issues of canon, if I set out my views and personal treatment of the canon for all to read.

Right. The Gospel according to St.William. Anything seen on screen during the BBC series which ran from 1963-1989 is established as ‘faction’. Anything else is entirely up to my discretion at the time: I accept "Slipback" as canonical because I like it, I ignore the TV movie because I hate it. Probably the most important aspect for this essay is the first part of the above.

Now, following from this viewpoint, the only ‘canonical’ titles are those which appear on screen. Story titles for those Hartnell stories are to be picked at the discretion of the Whovian. Personally, I think of Story A as two stories: "An Unearthly Child"[1], and "100,000 BC"[2-4]. That view was inspired by the fact that that was actually what they were; Anthony Coburn was commissioned to write a one episode introduction followed by a three episode historical, but depends far more on the fact that it makes logical sense. Story B is, in my opinion, "The Daleks." "The Mutants" would be just plain confusing, "The Survivors" is a rather better title, but it says "The Daleks" on my video box, and if I started calling it something else then I’d just have one more, quite unnecessary, confusion in my life. Story C is similarly going to be referred to as "The Edge of Destruction", because that’s the title it got when UK Gold repeated it, and because it’s a far better title than "Inside the Spaceship". The next contraversial title is of course for Story W. Here we face fewer practical considerations- except in recon format I rather doubt that this story will ever end up on anyone’s video shelf- audio maybe, if BBC Worldwide get there act together. I’m going to call it "The Massacre of St.Bartholomew’s Eve", because it sounds more interesting.

Well, there you have it. You don’t have to agree with me, but this does offer one solution to the titles problem. Call them whatever takes your fancy, is the basic message.

Regarding submissions to this page, well, fictional submissions oughtn’t include someone else’s story title anyway, and as far as canon is concerned, I don’t mind what position you adopt. Given my own alternative chronology for post-"Survival" stories, you’d be hard pressed to stretch the boundaries of canon too far.

William.