Doctor Who Rare Entries Contests

DWRE9: 29 January 2007

Results

Just 23 entries, but DWRE10 would have had to wait a while in any case since my 
schedule is crazy for the next few weeks. Of these, the mighty WILF returned 
triumphant, with regular competitors Solar Penguin and HolmesBaker not too far 
behind. Here are their answer slates.

     WILF                   SOLAR PENGUIN          HOLMESBAKER            
0    Next episode caption   Programme title no ?   Doctor von Wer
1    The Savages            The Savages            Resurrection/Daleks  
2    Tannoy on Lazar Ship   Wotan                  The Oracle             
3    The Nosferatu 2        Recovery 7             SS Shadow              
4    Dalek Invasion Earth   Terror of the Zygons   The Web Planet         
5    The Best New Titles    Most Popular Drama     Hugo Award
6    Hallett                Morgaine               Padmasambhava          
7    The First Noel         Un bel dì vedremo aria Ticket to Ride         
8    Edwin Richfield        Colin Spaul            Wendy Padbury          
9    Orcini's flick-knife   Kal's Knife            Impulse Laser          

To review the 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

Here is the complete table of scores.

RANK     SCORE    ENTRANT             Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9

 1           8    Wilf                 1  2  1  2  1  1  2  1  1  1 
 2          48    Solar Penguin        1  2  2  3  2  2  1  1  1  1 
 3          96    HolmesBaker          4  2  1  1  2  3  1  1  1  2 
 4         160    A Marshall           5  1 WR  2  1  2  1  1  1  1 
 5         384    Aloysius             4  1  1  2  2  4  1 WR  1  1 
 6         480    Alomiakoda           5  1  1 WR  1 WR  1  1  1  2 
 7         512    Fortmap              4 WR  2  1  4  1  2  1  1  1 
 8         672    John Dorney          2  1  1  1  2  1  3  2  4  7 
 9       2,240    Yohinnchild          5  4  2  2  2  1  1  1  2  7 
10       2,304    Ed Jolley            4  4  2  1  2  3  3  1  4  1 
11       3,072    NathantheWhovian     4 WR  1  2  2  3  1  1 WR  1 
12       4,608    Jonathan Morris      1  1  2 WR  4  4 WR  1  2  2 
13       5,376    The Magic Wanderer   4  3 WR  1  4  1  2  1  1  7 
 =       5,376    PaulBArthur          1  3 WR  1  2  4  2  2  1  7 
15       8,064    Doyle                3  4  4  1  2  3  2  2  1  7 
16      10,080    Gazza Innit          5  2  2  2  1  3  1 WR  2  7 
17      13,824    Andrew Wiggins       3  2  4  3 WR  3  1  2  2  2 
 =      13,824    Ged Sweeney          4 WR  4  3  1  1  3 WR  1  2 
19      20,736    Artyclarty           3  3 WR  3  2  3  1  2  4  2 
20      55,296    Luke Curtis          4  2  4  3 WR  3  1 WR  4  1 
21     122,880    JCCMMBailey         WR WR  1  2  4  4 WR  1 WR  1 
22     241,920    Chriskelk            5  4 WR  3  2  3 WR  2  1  7 
23     327,680    Chicken Man         WR WR WR  2  2 WR  2  1 WR  1 

Here is the complete list of answers given. Each list shows correct answers in
 the order worst to best (most to least popular). >>> indicates that the "more
  specific variant" scoring was used.

0. Describe something which would provide evidence for the assertion that the
 lead character in the series is called “Doctor Who”.

5 Wotan calls him Doctor Who
4 Calls himself Doctor von Wer
4 Signs himself Dr W
3 Doctors 1-4 credited as Doctor Who
2 Programme title
>>> 1 Programme title has no question mark
1 Doctor Who will return at Chrismas *in* The Runaway Bride
1 Next episode caption Doctor Who and the Savages
1 The story title Doctor Who and the Silurians
Wrong
1 The TV comic strips
1 Earth delegate asks "Doctor Who?"

I thought there were a lot more options than this, although I was gratified to
see that Target books were never mentioned, despite the care I took to plant
the idea in a later question. Doctor W, Doctor von Wer and Wotan were vying
for the most popular answer all the way through, with Wotan finally emerging
triumphant. Only a couple of people zeroed in on individual stories, whereas
I fully expected the entrants who gave the credit for the lead actor to be
further penalized under MSV scoring when others submitted “Tom Baker
credited as Doctor Who in The Stones of Blood” for example.

Merely citing the TV comic strips I didn’t feel was evidence of anything, and
was out of scope under rule 4 anyway. People asking “Doctor Who?” are asserting
that they don’t know his last name, not that his last name is “Who”.

My favourite answer was the observation that the programme title has no question 
mark. It is not therefore asking “Doctor who?” but telling us “Doctor Who”. Nice one.

1. An “arrival/departure event” occurs when a companion is seen to leave the 
show, or when a new companion is introduced. Name a story which features 
exactly one arrival/departure event.

4 Terminus (Nyssa leaves)
3 The Face of Evil (Leela joins)
2 Resurrection of the Daleks (Tegan leaves)
2 The Massacre (Dodo joins)
2 The Savages (Steven leaves)
1 Dalek Invasion of Earth (Susan leaves)
1 Robot (Harry Sullivan arrives)
1 Terror of the Zygons (Harry leaves)
1 The Ribos Operation (Romana joins)
1 The Wheel in Space (Zoe joins)
Wrong
2 The Myth Makers (Vicki leaves AND Katarina joins)
1 Terror of the Vervoids (Mel not seen to join)
1 The Web of Fear (Lethbridge Stewart not seen to join)
1 Time Flight (nobody in fact leaves the show)

This was a difficult one to phrase, but I think the wording I settled on was 
unambiguous. Certainly no-one queried it by email. The question centres on 
characters who are “seen to leave/join” the regular cast. To fulfill this 
requirement, two things must happen. Firstly a character must actually join 
or leave the regular cast. Secondly, we must see this take place.

Hence, in Terror of the Vervoids – or whatever you please to call episodes 
9-12 of The Trial of a Time Lord – we do not see Mel join. She’s already 
there. And since Lethbridge-Stewart does not feature in the story which 
follows The Web of Fear, he didn’t join the regular cast in that story. 
Conversely, Tegan is in the story which follows Time Flight, so we did not 
in fact see her leave the show, despite appearances at the time.

I can only assume that those who picked the Myth Makers couldn’t count or 
didn’t read the question. One entrant even spelled out that Vicki leaves 
and Katarina joins for me. That’s exactly two arrival/departure events, 
then, isn’t it?

Nice to see I’m not the only Nyssa fan out there. Ahh... Terminus. Made a 
big impression on me too, at about 12 years old. Mmm... I’m sorry, where was I?

2. Name a computer or robot, or other wholly mechanical or electronic device, 
which nevertheless required an actor to provide its voice on at least one occasion.

4 BOSS (The Green Death)
2 Kamelion
2 Sentinel Six (Warriors of the Deep)
2 Wotan (The War Machines)
1 Agella (Destiny of the Daleks)
1 Drathro (The Mysterious Planet)
1 K9 Mark IV
1 SV7 (Robots of Death)
1 Station Computer (The Two Doctors)
1 Tannoy on Lazar Ship (Terminus)
1 The Oracle (Underworld)
Wrong
3 Mechanoid (does not identify one computer/robot)
2 K9 (does not identify one computer/robot)
1 The Megara (does not identify one computer/robot)

BOSS wins easily, but clearly multiple entities cannot be “a computer or robot”. 
At least those who picked Mechanoids can comfort themselves with the thought 
that it was a lousy answer anyway!

I would have thought Robots of Death would feature more highly, and maybe 
Destiny of the Daleks.

3. Name a space-faring – but not time-travelling – craft on which at least 
one of the regular characters has been seen to travel.

3 Recovery 7 (The Ambassadors of Death)
3 The Hyperion III (Terror of the Vervoids)
2 Liz79 (The Space Pirates)
2 R1C (Underworld)
2 The Buccaneer (Enlightenment)
2 The Nosferatu 2 (Dragonfire)
1 C982 (Frontier in Space)
1 Morestran Probe
1 SS Shadow (Enlightenment)
1 The Empress
1 The Hecate (Nightmare of Eden)
1 The Silver Carrier (The Wheel in Space)
1 The Wheel (in Space)
Wrong
1 Nostalgia Trips coach (time-traveller)
1 RIE
1 The ship in Four to Doomsday (not named)

Hyperion III clearly sticks in the mind (dear god, why?) as does the Recovery 7. 
Once again, you need to avoid nameless ships. And don’t forget that the 
Nostalgia Trips coach (also unnamed, now I come to think about it) was “going 
all the way back to good old 1955”.

There is no clear evidence that the various ships in Enlightenment are 
capable of time travel, so these answers are correct.

4. Identify one story which has been published under different names in two 
or more different media. “Different names” does not include the addition of 
standard phrases such as “Doctor Who and...”

4 Invasion of the Dinosaurs (aka Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion)
2 An Unearthly Child (aka Doctor Who: The Tribe of Gum - Titan script book)
2 Colony in Space (aka Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon)
2 Frontier in Space (aka Doctor Who and the Space War)
2 Terror of the Zygons (aka The Loch Ness Monster)
2 The Silurians (aka Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters)
2 The Web Planet (aka Doctor Who and the Zarbi)
1 The Abominable Snowmen (aka Doctor Who and the Yeti)
1 The Crusade (aka Doctor Who and the Crusaders)
1 The Dalek Invasion of Earth (aka Kampf um die Erde)
1 The Daleks (aka Doctor Who In An Amazing Adventure With The Daleks)
1 The Moonbase (aka Doctor Who and the Cybermen)
Wrong
2 The Daleks Master Plan (no one book accounts for whole story)

Several people gave right answers here for wrong reasons. An Unearthly Child 
has never been published as “100,000 BC” but the Titan script book did bear 
the name “The Tribe of Gum”. This was in the dark days when DWM had us believe 
that the early stories had “true” names such as the appalling “The Massacre 
of St Bartholemew’s Eve” and not merely commonly accepted names. Names are 
what we call things. Everybody calls the clock tower at Westminster “Big Ben”. 
If you point out that only the bell is called that, you deserve a punch in 
the face. Rant over.

Similarly, it is irrelevant that the first episode of Invasion of the Dinosaurs 
was just called “The Invasion”. What does make this a right answer is the name 
of the Target book.

Daleks Master Plan was a real headscratcher. There is no one book which 
encompasses The Daleks Master Plan, so I don’t think it makes sense to say that 
it was published under an alternative title. It wasn’t. One half was published 
as Mission to the Unknown and the other as The Invasion of Time. Clearly 
neither of these two on their own qualifies as “publishing” The Daleks Master 
Plan, and the two together have no official title, so I think this one is wrong.

5. Name an award which the programme has won.

4 Best Popular Drama - BBC Auntie Awards
3 Best Photography Direction, BAFTA Cyrmu
3 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation
3 Writers Guild of Great Britain Award Best Children's Drama Script 1975
2 Most Popular Drama (NTA 2006)
1 1978 BAFTA Rediffusion Star Award "Harlequin" Childrens' Drama/Light Entertainment
1 Best Costume, BAFTA Cymru 2006
1 The Best New Title Sequence Award, Cult TV Festival
1 BBC TV60 Award
1 Best Actor Heat Readers Award
1 Best Drama Series (NTA 2005)
Wrong
1 Best Program NTA 2005 (no such award)
1 Longest running sci-fi series in Guinness Book of Records (not an award)

BAFTA Cymru was suitably crafty, but you needed to go for Costumes and not 
Photography. The question was also designed to steer you towards recent awards, 
which the programme has been stacking up, and so going further back was usually 
a winning strategy.

The National Television Awards do not have a “Best Program” prize as far as 
I can see, and an entry in the Guinness Book of Records may be an accolade 
but it isn’t an award as far as I’m concerned.

6. Name a character who met The Doctor at some time prior to the start of 
the first story to feature them.

3 Commodore Travers
2 Dastari
2 Hallett
2 Runcible
1 Azmael
1 Drax
1 K'Anpo Rimpoche
1 Morgaine
1 Padmasambhava
1 The Keeper
1 The Master
1 The Rani
1 Toymaker
1 Xoanon
1 Zastor (Meglos)
Wrong
1 Commander Lytton (met the Doctor for the first time in Resurrection of the Daleks)
1 Leonardo da Vinci (not a character)
1 Megelen (not one character)

Lots of choice here, and I tended to be lenient with the arguable cases: 
The Rani, The Keeper etc. However, I’m pretty sure that Lytton was a 
stranger to The Doctor when Resurrection of the Daleks began. The Megelen 
are not a single character and Leonardo da Vinci, although endlessly 
discussed in City of Death, does not actually appear and so is not a 
Doctor Who character.

7. Name a piece of music which we have heard diagetically (in other words, which was audible to the characters).

2 Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick (Tooth and Claw)
2 Paperback Writer (The Chase)
2 Tainted Love (The End of the World)
1 A Taste of Honey (Remembrance of the Daleks)
1 A Whiter Shade of Pale (Revelation of the Daleks)
1 As Time Goes By (The Happiness Patrol)
1 Do You Want To Know A Secret? (Remembrance)
1 La donna è mobile (Inferno)
1 Merry Christmas Everybody (The Christmas Invasion)
1 Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen (Evil of the Daleks)
1 Teddy Bears Picnic (The Invasion)
1 The Charleston (Black Orchid)
1 The First Noel (The Feast of Steven)
1 Ticket to Ride (The Chase)
1 Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (Attack of the Cybermen)
1 Un bel dì vedremo aria from Madame Butterfly
Wrong
3 Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon (not heard by characters)
1 Harp tune in The Five Doctors (not named)

Plenty of choice here, but I’m ruling against The Ballad of the Last Chance 
Saloon. I haven’t seen The Gunfighters for years, but I’m pretty certain 
that this serves as linking narration only, and so exists outside the world 
of the story, like the theme music or the incidentals.

On the other hand, you were allowed snatches of pieces of music, and the 
Doctor’s singing as well as full recordings.

No Toxic. Wilf?

8. Name a contributor to Doctor Who whose first contribution was at least 
10 years prior to their most recent contribution. Contributions are dated 
by the first BBC broadcast of the episode in question.

4 Jacqueline Hill (1963-1980)
2 Barry Letts (1968-1981)
2 Graeme Harper (1984-2006)
1 Colin Spaul (1985-2006)
1 Dudley Simpson (1964-1980)
1 Edwin Richfield (1972-1984)
1 Gabriel Woolf (1975-2006)
1 Louis Marks (1964-1976)
1 Michael Atwell (1967-1985)
1 Patrick Troughton (1966-1985)
1 Pauline Collins (1968-2006)
1 Terrance Dicks (1969-1983)
1 Terry Nation (1963-1977)
1 Wendy Padbury (1968-1983)
1 William Thomas (1988-2005)
Wrong
1 Alec Wheal (1979-1988)
1 Christopher H Bidmead (CDs and future releases don't count)
1 John Lucarotti (No credit on Ark in Space)

Again, plenty of choice but Jacqueline Hill’s return appearance in Meglos 
is clearly very fondly remembered. Most went for actors or writers, but 
several people worked their way slowly up the production team ranks. 
John Nathan-Turner I would have thought was obvious – too obvious maybe.

The entrant who proposed Alec Wheal provided no corroborating information 
and IMDB only showed a nine year span. The entrant who proposed Bidmead 
hoped that a forthcoming Big Finish CD would do the trick and was therefore 
wrong on two counts, and John Lucarotti received no credit on The Ark in Space, 
the implication being that Holmes wrote the script from scratch and that 
therefore Lucarotti did not “contribute” anything to it.

9. Name a lethal weapon we have seen which is small enough to be used by 
one person with one hand. For the purposes of this question, a lethal 
weapon is an object whose principal purpose is the taking of life.

7 Janis Thorn
2 Brigadier's gun
2 Impulse Laser 
2 TCE
1 Dalek Gun
1 Grenades
1 Kal's Knife
1 Leela's knife
1 Maser
1 Orcini's flick-knife
1 Raston spears
1 Scorpion venom (Talons of Weng-Chiang)
1 Shield gun (Underworld)
1 Sonic blaster

“Brigadier’s pistol” and “Brigadier’s revolver” I eventually decided were 
equivalent answers (Brigadier’s gun). The entrant who proposed “scorpion 
venom” nearly had me mark it wrong since that is a substance, not an object. 
But since Weng-Chiang was specified, I took it to mean the capsule swallowed 
in (I think) episode 1, which certainly qualifies. No-one was silly enough 
to venture “knife” but we got a huge collision on Janis Thorns instead.

That wraps up DWRE9. DWRE10 might appear in the spring.

Thanks to all who entered.

Cheers

Tom