Continuity
Terrance Dicks wrote this book not only to begin this ongoing book series, but also as an attempt to rectify the various continuity problems that had emerged from the 1996 film.
This story appears to contradict some of the continuity set in place by the Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Missing Adventures, such as the freedom of Borusa from Rassilon's imprisonment (Borusa having been freed in Blood Harvest, itself written by Dicks), the identity of the President of Gallifrey (Flavia in this novel), and Romana in the subjectively later Virgin New Adventures, and the circumstances (albeit described only in brief) of the First Doctor's departure from Gallifrey. The BBC novels were not initially intended to be part of the same continuity as the earlier Virgins, although BBC novelists restored some continuity between the two ranges, for example by reinstating Romana as President in The Shadows of Avalon. Some issues at least may be explained away by assuming that, from the point of view of the Time Lords, the Eighth Doctor's role in The Eight Doctors actually occurs prior to the seventh Doctor's role in Blood Harvest. However, throughout the range certain contradictory elements still exist.
When Sam tells the Doctor that her surname is Jones, and the Doctor tells her that his is "Smith", she says that they were made for each other. It also foreshadows the revelations that would eventually be made about Sam's origins. A similar pun shows up in the title of the 2007 series episode "Smith and Jones", with the Tenth Doctor and new companion Martha Jones. Martha also uses the alias of "Sam Jones" in the spin-off series Torchwood.
The story has an inconsistency to Tegan knowing her Doctors as she mistakenly believed the Eighth Doctor to be the Fourth even though she had met the Fourth Doctor in Logopolis when he regenerated into the Fifth Doctor.
Read more about this topic: The Eight Doctors
Famous quotes containing the word continuity:
“Every society consists of men in the process of developing from children into parents. To assure continuity of tradition, society must early prepare for parenthood in its children; and it must take care of the unavoidable remnants of infantility in its adults. This is a large order, especially since a society needs many beings who can follow, a few who can lead, and some who can do both, alternately or in different areas of life.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Continuous eloquence wearies.... Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)