This is the ninth Doctor Who Rare Entries Contest. There are some
minor rule changes from DWRE8 which have been highlighted below.
SHORT RULES
The purpose of this game is as follows: for each of the questions,
your objective is to give an answer that
(1) is correct, and
(2) will be duplicated by as FEW other people as possible.
** Answers must be submitted by email only. DO NOT POST ANSWERS HERE
**
THE QUESTIONS
0. Describe something which would provide evidence for the assertion
that the lead character in the series is called "Doctor Who".
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.
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.
3. Name a space-faring - but not time-travelling - craft on which at
least one of the regular characters has been seen to travel.
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...".
5. Name an award which the programme has won.
6. Name a character who met The Doctor at some time prior to the start
of the first story to feature them.
7. Name a piece of music which we have heard diagetically (in other
words, which was audible to the characters).
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.
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.
LONG RULES
In order to participate in the contest, send your answers to me by
email (tomsalin...@googlemail.com) before noon on Friday 19 February
2006. 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.
YOUR ATTENTION IS SPECIFICALLY DRAWN TO RULE 3. Please supply the
information asked for and only the information asked for. If you
supply two answers, I will take the first one. By way of example, in
DWRE2 one question read: "Some regular or recurring characters have
met their identical doubles. Name one of these doubles". Those who
submitted "Romana / Princess Strella" were deemed to have answered
"Romana" (the first of two answers given) and this was marked wrong,
since I asked for the name of the double, not the name of the regular
character. You have been warned.
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 by email:
tomsalin...@googlemail.com. Do NOT post your answers on 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. You can expect an acknowledgement when I
read your entry. If this bounces, it won't be sent again.
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 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 with their correct names
is taken to be the list presented on the Outpost Gallifrey Episode
Guide (http://www.gallifreyone.com/epguide.php), with the exceptions
that "Children in Need Special" and any stories listed under "Other
Stories" are excluded. "The Trial of a Time Lord" is considered to be
an honorary story title, as are the individual episode titles for
modern two-parters (which are generally referred to by both episode
titles, thus: "The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances").
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
episode. Any other flashbacks, recaps or the like are deemed to be
part of that episode.
RULE CHANGE 4.2 "Companion" refers to anyone who accompanied the
Doctor for two or more consecutive stories. For the avoidance of
doubt, the following all have companion status: Katarina, Sara
Kingdom, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Adam, Captain Jack, Mickey,
Donna. No other UNIT soldiers have companion status (Harry Sullivan,
Liz Shaw and Jo Grant obviously are companions).
4.3 "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.
4.4 "Alien" means not originating from the planet Earth. In the
absence of other clear evidence, a character is considered a member of
an alien race if they do not look entirely human, or if despite
looking human, their planet of birth is not Earth and they are not
referred to as human (or it can be shown that they are not accurately
referred to as human).
4.5 "Actor" includes both male and female performers, but excludes
stunt-people, stand-ins doubling for a credited actor etc. unless the
question indicates otherwise. Generally a performer who does not
receive a credit is not regarded as an actor.
4.6 Incarnations. Unless otherwise specified, different incarnations
of the same character are the same character and will be treated as
...