Doctor Who Rare Entries Contests

DWRE19: 23 May 2011

This is my nineteenth Doctor Who Rare Entries Contest. Two new rules have been added since DWRE18, both of which merely attempt to codify and clarify existing principles.

SHORT RULES

For each of the following questions, your objective is to give an answer that
(1) is correct, and
(2) will be duplicated by as FEW other people as possible.

This contest closes at noon (UK time) on Friday 3 June 2011

** Answers must be submitted by email only. DO NOT POST ANSWERS HERE **

QUESTIONS

0. Name a story during which two characters get married to each other.
1. Name someone who has directed at least one Doctor Who story and who has also directed at least one feature-length movie theatrically released in the UK or the USA.
2. Name a story whose title consists only of words found in earlier story or episode titles. Consider whole words only (so the word "ear" is not found in Earthshock for example).
3. Name a character who has appeared in three or more "eras" of Doctor Who. (For the purposes of this question, Doctor Who stories are divided into "eras", each identified by the then-current Doctor. Every story belongs to exactly one era, there are no overlaps. So for example, the Peter Davison Era begins with Castrovalva and ends with The Caves of Androzani and includes 20 stories in total.)
4. Name or otherwise identify a fictional kind of food or drink we have seen. The food or drink in question need not be seen to be consumed, it just needs to be clearly identifiable as suitable for eating or drinking and must not exist in the real world.
5. Name an actor who has appeared in at least one episode of Doctor Who and at least one theatrically-released movie based on the Batman series of comics.
6. Name two characters who have each appeared in ten or more Doctor Who stories, but who have never appeared with each other in the same story.
7. Name someone whose credit on at least one episode of Doctor Who included the word "producer" but who was not at that time the de facto "show-runner" (i.e. the person with the greatest overall control over the programme).
8. Name a Doctor Who audio book, the reader(s) of which never played on TV any of the characters depicted in the book. For the purposes of this question, an audio book is a reading (possibly abridged) of the text of a Doctor Who story which is or was also available in print. It may or may not be based on a televised Doctor Who story.
9. Name a story in which the phrase "Doctor Who" is spoken.

LONG RULES

In order to participate in the contest, send your answers to me by email (tomsalinsky@googlemail.com) before noon on Friday 3 June 2011. It is of course essential that nobody sees the answers given by other entrants before the deadline, so please do NOT post your answers here!

If there are fewer than 10 entrants, I may not bother working out who's won, so if this sounds like fun, do encourage others to play.

Make sure you have read the rules before submitting your answers.

1. Answers
For each of the questions above, your objective is to give an answer that (1) is correct, and (2) will be duplicated by as FEW other people as possible. Feel free to use any reference material you like to RESEARCH your answers; but when you have found enough possible answers for your liking, you are expected to choose on your own which one to submit, WITHOUT mechanical or computer assistance: this is meant to be a game of wits.

2. Scoring
The scores on the different questions are MULTIPLIED to produce a final score for each entrant. Low score wins; a perfect score is 1. If your answer to a question is correct, then your score is the number of people who gave that answer, or an answer I consider equivalent. A wrong answer, or a skipped question, gets a high score as a penalty. This is the median of:
- the number of entrants
- the square root of that number, rounded up to an integer
- double the largest number of entrants giving the same answer (right or wrong) as each other on the question

2.1 More Specific Variants
On some questions it's possible that one entrant will give an answer that is a more specific variant of an answer given by someone else. In that case the more specific variant will usually be scored as if the two answers are different, but the other, less specific variant will be scored as if they are the same.

2.2 Scoring Example
Say I ask for someone the Doctor has kissed. There are 27 entrants: 19 say "Rose" or "Rose Tyler", 2 say "Cassandra in the body of Rose Tyler", 4 say "Captain Jack", 1 says "Daphne Ashbrook" and 1 says "Lynda Moss". The 4 people who answered "Captain Jack" get 4 points each. Since "Cassandra in the body of Rose Tyler" is a more specific variant of "Rose Tyler", those who said "Rose Tyler" get 21 points each, and those who said "Cassandra in the body of Rose Tyler" get 2 points each. The Doctor never kissed actress Daphne Ashbrook (although he may have kissed Grace Holloway) nor Lynda Moss, so those answers are both wrong. The persons who gave them both get the penalty score, which is the median of:
- number of entrants = 27:
- sqrt(27) = 5.196+, rounded up = 6:
- double the most popular answer's count = 21 x 2 = 42:
or in this case, 27.

3. Entries
Entries must be emailed to me personally: tomsalinsky@googlemail.com. Do NOT post your answers on the the forum! In general there is no penalty for errors of spelling, capitalization, English usage, or other such matters of form. Sometimes a specific question may imply stricter rules, though. And if you give an answer that properly refers to a different thing related to the one you intended, I will normally take it as written. Once you intentionally submit an answer, no changes will be allowed, unless I decide there was a problem with the question. Similarly, alternate answers within an entry will not be accepted. Only the first answer that you intentionally submit counts.

3.1 Clarifications
Questions are not intended to be hard to understand, but I may fail in this intent. (For one thing, in many cases clarity could only be provided by an example which would suggest one or another specific answer, and I mustn't do that.) In order to be fair to all entrants, I must insist that requests for clarification must be emailed to me, NOT POSTED in any mailing list. But if you do ask for clarification, I'll probably say that the question is clear enough as posted. If I do decide to clarify or change a question, all entrants will be informed.

3.2 Supporting Information
It is your option whether or not to provide supporting information to justify your answers. If you don't, I'll email you to ask for it if I need to. If you provide any explanatory remarks along with your answers, you are responsible for making it sufficiently clear that they are not part of the answers. The particular format doesn't matter as long as you're clear.

4. Scope
Unless a question indicates otherwise, all questions refer to the transmitted episodes of the BBC television series "Doctor Who" in its original run from 1963 to 1989, the TV Movie of 1996 and the current series which began in 2005. Only episodes transmitted at the time of posting (in this case 2 June 2010) are included, and all other Doctor Who related works are excluded. This excludes audio plays, comic strips, spin-offs, TARDISodes, novelisations and probably more.

4.1 "Story" refers to one or more episodes, generally with the same production code, writer and director, which tell a complete tale. For the avoidance of doubt, the list of stories is taken to be the list presented here. This page also provides a list of characters who are referred to as "companions".

4.1.1. Anything which is seen only in the “Previously on…” or “Next week on…” segments of the 2005- series is not deemed to be part of that story. Any other flashbacks, recaps or the like are deemed to be part of that story.

4.1.2. Where multiple versions of a story exist, consider only the version originally prepared for transmission on BBC1, unless the question specifies otherwise.

4.2 "Appears" or "Seen" mean seen on-screen, as opposed to merely referred to in dialogue or implied. If a character is clearly heard to speak, then they, and the actor who played them, are deemed to have "appeared" regardless of whether we see them or not. “Appears with” means that the two characters featured at least once in the same scene, with the exception that a character who appears in a scene only in “flashback” footage shot for a previous episode is not deemed to have “appeared with” any other characters in the scene.

4.3 An "actor" is a person of either sex who plays a character in a particular episode or story. In borderline cases, the following criteria should be applied. The person in question must receive a credit on the episode in question and that credit must identify them as playing a particular part or they must be clearly heard to speak in the programme (or both). This generally includes voice artists and generally excludes stunt performers, extras and monster "operators".

Example: Robert Anyactor first appeared in Threat of the Zygotrons inside a Zygotron suit and was credited as "Zygotron operator", which does not qualify. He later appeared in Evil of the Zygotrons, where he and three others were credited as "Zygotrons" which again does not qualify, because it doesn't identify a particular part. However, in Revenge of the Zygotrons, he is credited as "King Zygotron" and so he qualifies even though he didn't perform the voice. (Gerald R Thespian receives a credit for "Zygotron voices" but he counts because he is clearly heard to speak.) Many years later, he returned to the programme as Professor Bowtie in Last of the Hggluibdiums. Due to an error, he was not credited, but he appears on camera in four scenes and has pages of dialogue with the Doctor and other characters. This is not a borderline case and so the fact that he was not credited is not relevant.

4.3.1 The word "performer" implies anyone whose contribution to the programme is in front of the camera, or behind the microphone, regardless of their role and credit status, and so includes stunt performers, extras and monster operators.

4.3.2 A person who plays themselves in footage specially-shot for the show probably qualifies as an "actor", but a person who appears only in footage originally shot for another non-Doctor Who production will not qualify.

4.4 A character is "named" if at least one name is provided for them in dialogue, in the credits or by any other reasonable means within the programme itself. A title is acceptable as a name if it is used as a name and uniquely identifies this individual. So, a character who is known only as The Officiator is "named", but a character who is identified in the credits as "Guard" would not be "named" (even if other characters call him "Guard") since this term does not uniquely identify them, nor is it used as a name.

4.5 Unless otherwise specified, different incarnations of the same character are the same character and will be treated as equivalent answers, and equivalent to specifying that character without reference to incarnation. In other words, “Romana”, “Romana I” and “Romana II” are all the same answer.

4.6 Any two answers which are expressed in the same words are treated as equivalent, even if entrants specify that they have different referents in mind. This does not prevent me from also ruling that two answers are equivalent even if they are expressed in different words.

5. Judging
As moderator, I will be the sole judge of what answers are correct, and whether two answers with similar meaning are considered the same, different, or more/less specific variants. I will do my best to be fair on all such issues, but sometimes it is necessary to be arbitrary. I may rescore the contest if I agree that I made a serious error and it affects the high finishers.

6. Results
Results will normally be posted within a few days of the contest closing. They may be delayed if I'm unexpectedly busy or for technical reasons.

7. Archive
This contest will be added to the archive of DWRE contests at www.tomsalinsky.co.uk/dwre/ where past contests are available for viewing.

8. Forum Disclaimer
This contest is not endorsed by Gallifrey Base, Gold Usher Ltd NFP or its staff. Gallifrey Base and Gold Usher Ltd NFP are not responsible for this contest or any issues arising from this contest.

Cheers

Tom