Canon: fired

[adders]

Paul Cornell, writer of much Dr Who (book, audio and TV), explains why canonicity doesn't matter in the show.

I can hear fanboys' heads gently imploding all over the world.

Comments

[ellefurtle]

Excellent! Some sanity :)

[wtimmins]

I hadn't paid sufficient attention to grasp how essential Dr Who didn't care about canonicity, which lead to some confusion last season (Eccleston).

Some details that didn't jibe caused me to read up on the history at which point I was enlightened. ;)

Normally I like a series to have a canon, but I find I can watch Dr Who without it and just bob my head with the fun.

And so happy local BBC America is showing Baker-era episodes (what I grew up with).

[point5b]

Ehn, I watched various eras of Who broadcast by PBS back in the 80s, but I never knew enough of the history to react to any inconsistencies that such a long-running show would pick up. And the guy ranting about "continuity" versus "canon" had a point - did Peter Parker get his powers from a spider totem or from a genetically engineered spider that was either red and blue or involved in research to recreate Captain America? The answer to that is "depends on the continuity".

I only object to weird contradictions in the current stuff. In one case, it strikes the Doctor as perfectly sensible to help aliens colonize the dead of 1800s England, despite Rose's alarm at the prospect of changing Earth history in such a huge way. History is always in flux, little girl! But when Rose prevents the death of her father a few episodes later, it's a cosmic catastrophe. You've thrown a spanner in the works of the great machine of inevitable destiny! That's the sort of thing that irritates me (despite my liking that episode), not that it doesn't