Talk:The Massacre (Doctor Who)

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On 19 May 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved from The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve to The Massacre (Doctor Who). The result of the discussion was moved.

Novelization differences

If anyone is familiar with the differences between the serial and the novelization, could you add a section listing some of them? Thanks! 23skidoo 07:42, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's many, many years since I read it but I think the novelisation has a framing device of a couple of Time Lords visiting the Doctor in his garden and accusing him of meddling with time. There's also something about a wood carving... And I think the Doctor is in it rather more than the TV story. Not much help, is it? Sorry. —Wh o uk (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From what I've read (although I've yet to read the book itself) the novelisation basically junks the televised plot and starts again. The Doctor is far more active and at one stage is impersonating the Abbot. The scene with Dodo's arrival is removed but she is mentioned when the Time Lords confront the Doctor. And erm... I'll post on Outpost Gallifrey to see if anyone can help. Timrollpickering 17:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Title

As an aside: I saw a clip of Elizabeth R last night in which a character refers to the massacre itself as "The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve" (rolls eyes) —Wh o uk (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bizarre! More pertinantly several prominent historians, including G. M. Trevelyan and Hugh Trevor-Roper both call the event "the Massacre of St Bartholomew" in books that were either written or republished in the 1960s - I suspect a lot of the confusion about what the story's name refers to stems from later generations who've only seen it in history books as the "St. Bartholomew's Day massacre". (And that's a misnomer in itself - see Talk:St. Bartholomew's Day massacre#St Adrian's Day Massacre?)

Looking again at Andrew Pixley's By Any Other Name article, it seems to me that originally the story was to be called just "The Massacre of St Bartholomew" which is entirely logical and in line with what the historians of the time were using. Somewhere along the line "'s Eve" got added - was someone in the production office either muddling up their history (the contemporary Radio Times did mention the story "is soon to culminate in the bloody massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve") or deciding to modify the title to emphasise the story is about the events leading up to the Massacre rather than the Massacre itself? Timrollpickering 21:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've just done a Google search for '"Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve" - "doctor who"' and although there are still some references to the story, there are quite a few links to websites that do indeed say "Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve". See for instance [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] This would suggest that the name for this story is by no means a one-off usage. Timrollpickering 02:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC's official Doctor Who website [10] refers to this story simply as "The Massacre". This is the only serial where the Wikipedia article has a different title. 146.198.6.244 (talk) 16:02, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@146.198.6.244: This thread was raised more than nine years ago, and at that time the BBC's Doctor Who website, such as it was, was very different from the present one. But as with several stories prior to The Savages, there are different titles in different sources, mainly because the episodes themselves, and the Radio Times, showed only the episode titles, the story titles being omitted. The BBC may now use the short title on their website; but they're not consistent: the BBC Audiobooks CD of the serial (ISBN 0-563-55261-1), uses the short title on the booklet and inlay card, but the long title on the actual discs. Some more examples of the full title may be found here and here. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:27, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Episode possibly found?

I was the one who put the information about a gateworld forum member claiming to find an episode. Here's the link to the forum area were it mentions it. I know it says the Beginning boxset but the episode information is mentioned around the first page. Here's the link http://forum.gateworld.net/showthread.php?t=22851 Finalwars 20:52, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. Unless the episode is confirmed found, I don't think this should be noted in the article though - anyone can post a message like that online. The fact that he refers to the episode as Bartholomew's Eve is pretty suspicious as that's not a title he would have found on-screen. —Wh o uk (talk) 21:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds decidedly dodgy to me. (Sorry, I removed the note as "no citation" because I hadn't seen this talk page yet, but I'm not restoring it just because the whole thing sounds extremely unlikely - copied video tapes of The Massacre? I don't think so.) --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 22:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Writer credits

As far as I'm aware, the main source of "Lucarotti wasn't credited on screen" is Donald Tosh's memory (which has been proven false on other occasions, such as remembered modifications to the Myth Makers and the Daleks' Master Plan). Most references I've seen say that Lucarotti was credited on all four episodes and Tosh was given a co-credit on the final one because he had now left the production office (which makes his memory even more suspect) and so was not technically filling a dual role frowned on by the Writers' Guild. Timrollpickering (talk) 15:16, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Information Missing

Much of the information, like when Anne tells the Doctor what day it is (Episode 4, which I find is important information to the plot), is missing. Could someone explain why? Vincinel (talk) 05:44, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Only stills and/or fragments exist"

What stills or fragments? There is no offscreen whatsoever of any episodes of this story, only the audio and on-set photos. (Mission to the Unknown is the only other full story where this is the case, plus 17 other odd episodes.) Romomusicfan (talk) 09:43, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

name

Shouldn't this page be simply called "The Massacre (Doctor Who)"? The shortened version of the title is BY FAR the WP:COMMONNAME within the Doctor Who community, both by fans and official BBC sources. And since the general public probably largely isn't even aware of a random obscure completely missing 60s Doctor Who serial, the best we have is how it's referred to within that community, which is definitely by far most often with the shortened form of the name. Yes, the title currently used by this page was the actual title used during production, but WP:COMMONNAME explicitly trumps the "official" name of a subject. --StrexcorpEmployee (talk) 11:04, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here is what various reference books books show. The majority of authors favour the two-word title The Massacre:

Dicks, Terrance; Hulke, Malcolm (1976) [1972]. The Making of Doctor Who. London: Target Books. p. 63. ISBN 0-426-11615-1.
Lofficier, Jean-Marc (1981). The Doctor Who Programme Guide - Volume 1: The Programmes. London: Target Books. pp. 8, 34. ISBN 0-426-20139-6.
Bentham, Jeremy (1986). Doctor Who: The Early Years. London: W.H. Allen. p. 221. ISBN 0-491-03612-4.
Saunders, David (1987). Encyclopedia of The Worlds of Doctor Who: A-D. London: Piccadilly Press. Story Table. ISBN 0-946826-54-4.
Lucarotti, John (19 November 1987). Doctor Who: The Massacre. London: Target Books. ISBN 0-426-20297-X.
Haining, Peter (November 1988). Doctor Who: 25 Glorious Years. London: W.H. Allen. p. 212. ISBN 1-85227-021-7.
Cornell, Paul; Day, Martin; Topping, Keith (1995). Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide. London: Doctor Who Books. p. 51. ISBN 0-426-20442-5.
Richards, Justin (2005) [2003]. Doctor Who: The Legend Continues - 5 decades of time travel (revised ed.). London: BBC Books. p. 63. ISBN 0-563-48640-6.
Tribe, Steve (2009). Doctor Who: Companions and Allies - a gallery of heroes from across time and space. London: BBC Books. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-846-07749-4.

whereas the full title The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve is favoured by just one group of authors:

Howe, David J.; Stammers, Mark; Walker, Stephen James (1994). Doctor Who The Handbook - The First Doctor. London: Doctor Who Books. p. 118. ISBN 0-426-20430-1.
Howe, David J.; Walker, Stephen James (1998). Doctor Who: The Television Companion. London: BBC Worldwide. p. 79. ISBN 0-563-40588-0.

The books by Howe, Stammers and Walker were the principal source for most of the material on the BBC website, which thus uses the longer title. I'll post at WT:WHO. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:43, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Doctor Who: The Complete History also favours the full title, as does Radio Times and a passing mention by Digital Spy. It's an interesting scenario, for sure; if only the serial wasn't lost, we could see whatever the DVD calls it. For now, I guess the closest "official" releases are the novelisation, audiobook, and off-air recordings—all of which use the shortened title. I suppose the strongest argument for the full name (besides the fact that it sounds cool) is that it's natural disambiguation—it doesn't require parentheses, which the shortened title does. – Rhain ☔ 02:53, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The off-air recording actually uses the full title on the discs and the audio itself. Most of the books listed above are from the 1970s and 1980s before the full title was rediscovered (and the 1972 edition of The Making didn't actually give story titles) so aren't persuasive; nor is what some fans call it. Timrollpickering (talk) 08:27, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC website does not use the longer title. It uses the short version, as you can see here and here. Also, The Complete History also calls An Unearthly Child "100,000 BC", The Daleks "The Mutants", The Edge of Destruction "Inside the Spaceship", and so forth. StrexcorpEmployee (talk) 13:00, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 19 May 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Rough consensus in the RM discussion and previous thread that the proposed name is the WP:COMMONNAME. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 12:15, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve → The Massacre (Doctor Who) – Formalising move request per the above rationale. This certainly seems to have slipped through the net for a long time. U-Mos (talk) 02:54, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The long title is a valid alternate title; the question is whether it's worth keeping it as natural disambiguation. O.N.R. ^(talk) 04:17, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support per WP:CONCISE and WP:RECOGNIZABILITY BilledMammal (talk) 04:34, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support The closest thing we have to an official title of this serial are the titles of the official audio release, the Target novelisation, and the audiobook of said novelisation, all of which name it just The Massacre.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 14:02, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Er, my copy of the audio soundtrack (ISBN 0-563-55261-1) has "The Massacre" on the inlay card (except as below), and "The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve" on the actual discs, and on the inlay at the start of the text headed "The Programme". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:12, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The natural full title is preferable to disambiguation. With regards "official", the full title is used on both the actual CDs and on the released audio itself; this is also the title that was given the in contemporary BBC published Doctor Who: The Television Companion: The Official BBC Guide to Every TV Story (emphasis mine) which is closer to official than the novelisation from an earlier decade - the books often changed the name. The current title works well enough and ain't broke so don't fix it. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:55, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - both titles are used in the various published media and the more detailed title is helpfully more descriptive and less ambiguous. I, for one, was briefly confused when I saw a reference online to just "The Massacre" but once I looked it up here and saw the title I knew which serial was being talked about (although I appreciate that this is anecdote, not data). Harris (talk) 07:50, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.