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. Name someone who has seen the TARDIS appear or disappear.

1. Name an actor who has appeared in both the new series of Doctor Who
and in any episode or episodes of "The Bill"

2. Name something there were exactly three of in the new series.

3. Name someone who received a credit on at least one episode of the
new series, but who did not in fact work on that episode.

4. Name a piece of Time Lord technology we have seen in the new series.

5. Name something which exists in the world today, which also features
in the fictional world of the new series stories, and which did not
exist in 1989.

6. Name somewhere the TARDIS has landed.

7. Name an alien race which we have seen at least two members of, and
heard at least one speak.

8. Some people who have contributed to Doctor Who episodes have written
other things. Name one such thing first made available to the public
after at least one of that person's Doctor Who episodes was
transmitted.

9. Name someone who has been credited on every single episode of the
new series.

In order to participate in the contest, send your answers to me by
email (tomsalin...@googlemail.com) before noon on Friday 21 July 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, or appear to supply two answers, I will take the first
one.

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 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 - TEMPORARY RULE CHANGE FOR DWRE4
Unless a question indicates otherwise, all questions refer to the
transmitted episodes of the BBC television series "Doctor Who" in its
current incarnation which began in 2005. Only episodes transmitted at
the time of posting (in this case 11 July 2006) are included, and all
other Doctor Who related works are excluded. This excludes audio plays,
comic strips, spin-offs, TARDISodes, novelisations and probably more
from the scope of the contest.

4.1 For the purposes of DWRE4 only, the television series "Doctor
Who" is considered to be a collection of discrete episodes, generally
45 minutes in length, some of which can also be thought of as
comprising two parts of one story. The episode titles are those
displayed on the screen at the beginning of the episode and are the
only titles which should be used to identify episodes, regardless of
whether or not they happen to be one part of a two-episode story.

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.

4.2 "Companion" refers to anyone who travelled with the Doctor for two
or more consecutive stories. For the avoidance of doubt, the following
all have companion status: Adam, Captain Jack, Mickey.

RULE CHANGE 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.

RULE CHANGE 4.4 "Alien" means not originating from the planet Earth. 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.

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.

Have fun

Cheers

Tom
tomsalin...@googlemail.com

Cheers

Tom

     NEIL TOYNAY            WILF                   DANNYBOY
0    Matt                   K9 Mark IV             Captain Reynolds
1    Lucy Robinson          Simon Greenall         Jo Stone-Fewings
2    Stories w/ Pete Tyler  Eps w/ P. Wilton       Writers start w/M
3    Dave Martin            Marc Platt             Kit Pedler
4    K9 Mark IV             Ghost hunting kit      Dimens'l Trans'ism
5    National Lottery       Big Brother            News clips on phones
6    Tizana's pizza         Albion Hospital        Between two crates
7    Sisters of Plenitude   Sisters of Plenitude   Sycorax
8    Jump Mr Malinoff,Jump  DWM diary              [WRONG]
9    Peter Chester          Dave Houghton          Endaf Emyr Williams

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          16    Neil Toynay          4  1  1  1  2  1  1  2  1  1
 =          16    Wilf                 1  2  1  1  1  1  2  2  1  2
 3          60    DannyBoy             1  1  1  2  1  1  1  5 WR  1
 4         192    mw_x                 4  2  1  1  1  2  1  6  1  2
 5         288    chriskelk            1  2  1  8  1  3  2  3  1  1
 6       1,680    BeyondtheVoid        2  2  1  5  1  1  2  3  2  7
 7       1,920    Christopher Gerardy  4  2  4  5  1  1  2  6  1  1
 8       3,360    Jonathan Morris      2  2  4  5  2  1  1  3  1  7
 9       3,456    JesseS               1  1  4  8  2  1  2  3  3  3
10       5,376    Llama Roddy          1  2  1  8  2  2  1  6  2  7
11       5,400    Ceadge               1  2  1  5 12  1  1  5  3  3
12       7,680    Fortmap              6  2  1  8  4  1  1  5  2  2
13       8,640    Yohinchild           5  1  1  2  4  1  3  6 WR  2
14       9,072    BTN                  3  1  1  6  2  1  2  6  3  7
15      12,096    Hotmissile           2  2  1  6 12  1  2  3  1  7
16      13,440    John Dorney          6  1  1  8  4  1  1  5  1 WR
17      15,120    Peter Scandrett      5  1  1  6  1  1  2  6  3 WR
18      19,200    Andrew Lowrie        1  3  2  4  2  5  8  5  2  1
19      23,328    Affirmation          6  2  1  6 12  1  3  3  3  1
20      24,192    exterminateallhumans 6  3  1  8  2  3  2  1  1 WR
21      28,800    Dave Jones           6  2 WR  5  2  5  2  3  1  1
22      31,104    Biggles              2  2  1  6 12  1  1  6 WR  3
23      34,560    Sean                 4  2  1  4 12  5  1  3  2  3
 =      34,560    Simon Kinnear        5  2  1  8  4  3  3  6  1  2
25      48,384    cols123              3  1  1 WR  2  1  3  2 WR WR
26      77,760    Artyclarty           3  2  1  6  1 WR  3  6 WR  2
27     311,040    Chris Brannigan      6  1  2  4 12  5  1  6 WR  3
28   1,161,216    kiwikat              1 WR WR WR  2  3  1  6 WR  7
29   2,721,600    Aaon                 5  3  4  4 12  5  3  3  3  7
30   8,294,400    Michael S Collins    5  1 WR  8 12 WR  2  6 WR  3

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.

There was no problem with public posting of answers this time round,
I'm pleased to say.

0. Name someone who has seen the TARDIS appear or disappear.

6 The Doctor (The Parting of the Ways)
5 Charles Dickens
4 Matt (Army of Ghosts)
3 Rose Tyler
2 Adam (The Long Game)
2 Sarah Jane Smith
1 Abzorbaloff
1 Bev (Bridesmaid, Father's Day)
1 Captain Reynolds
1 Harriet Jones
1 K9 Mark IV
1 Mickey Smith
1 The Abzorbaloff
1 The Emperor Dalek

Dickens proved to be a popular answer here, maybe because seeing the
TARDIS disappear is a profound moment for him. As usual, The Doctor and
Rose feature strongly with several people commenting that no-one else
will want to be this obvious. This strategy tends not to work. Of
course, now I've said that it may... One entrant submitted "The
Ninth Doctor", but since I have previously ruled that a person who
regenerates is still the same person, this is not a more specific
variant here.

Matt is the chap in Army of Ghosts who sees the TARDIS on his monitor
and it may be this "one-remove" plus his recent appearance which
accounts for his strong showing.

The Emperor Dalek and K9 both just about scrape in as "someone"s
and the other answers were uncontroversial. Other right answers not
given include Jackie Tyler, Sycorax Leader, Alex (The Christmas
Invasion) and various people in the church in Father's Day.

1. Name an actor who has appeared in both the new series of Doctor Who
and in any episode or episodes of "The Bill"

3 Elisabeth Sladen
2 David Tennant
2 Dona Croll
2 Freema Agyeman
2 Judy Holt
2 Marc Warren
2 Noel Clarke
2 Rupert Vansittart
2 Simon Greenall
1 Annette Badland
1 Danny Webb
1 Ellen Thomas
1 Jo Stone-Fewings
1 John Leeson
1 Lucy Robinson
1 Rochelle Gadd
1 Silas Carson
1 Simon Day
1 Tim Faraday
Wrong
1 No answer given

Plenty to choose from here, with familiar faces like Elisabeth Sladen,
Noel Clarke, Marc Warren and Freema Agyman (who inspired the question)
tending to do better than the more obscure actors. I was surprised
David Tennant didn't get more votes.

Judy Holt was Adam's mum in The Long Game and had a recurring role in
The Bill in 2002. Dona Kroll was a Cat-Nun and appeared in two roles in
The Bill, seven years apart. I suspect their score of 2 among the more
well-known faces (in quite a flat distribution) is just coincidence.

2. Name something there were exactly three of in the new series.

4 Episodes with five word titles
2 Big Brother housemates
1 Announced Torchwood regular cast members
1 Appearances of The Face of Boe
1 Cars (not vans) Mickey Smith drives
1 Ds in 'Blaidd Drwg Project'
1 Episodes containing Daleks broadcast in 2005
1 Episodes featuring Penelope Wilton
1 Episodes featuring the Slitheen
1 Episodes set before 20th century
1 Episodes with 'The' as the first and fourth words
1 Forest of Cheem
1 Ghost-hunting pods
1 Male companions
1 Metal objects TARDIS crashed into
1 People in Rose's family
1 Reality shows on Satellite 5
1 Robot TV Presenters
1 Stories featuring Pete Tyler
1 Transmission blocks
1 Versions of end title music
1 Ways to enter Battersea Power Station
1 Writers whose first name starts with M
Wrong
1 Adherents of the Repeated Meme (five)
1 People possessed by Cassandra (four)
1 Things picked up by ninth Doctor in Rose's flat (four)

A "use your imagination" rather than a "do your research"
question which makes the collision on "five word titles" even more
bizarre. You also have to be able to count - there were more than
three Adherents of the Repeated Meme, and Cassandra possessed a patient
as well as The Doctor, Chip and Rose.

The three Torchwood cast members are John Barrowman (Captain Jack), Eve
Myles (Gwyneth in The Unquiet Dead) and Naoko Mori (Doctor Sato in
Aliens of London).

After some thought, I accepted the answer "Ds in 'Blaidd Drwg
Project'". This looks more like an answer to "What are there
three of in 'Blaidd Drwg Project'?". I think if I give you a
constraint, you can't add further constraints to make a wrong answer
right - and there was no shortage of right answers here. Even the
entrant commented that this was not a good answer. However, rejecting
this would probably also have meant rejecting "Dalek episodes in
2005" and "Cars Mickey Smith drives (not vans)" and I couldn't
see a clear place to draw the line.

"Things picked up by the Ninth Doctor in Rose's flat in Rose"
falls into the same category, but thankfully this was an incorrect
answer in any case: even if one discounts the Auton hand, the entrant
forgot the letter addressed to Rose, citing only cards, book and
magazine.

The three versions of the end title music are Murray Gold's original,
the National Orchestra of Wales version and the combination of both
heard when the "Next Episode" preview is delayed.

3. Name someone who received a credit on at least one episode of the
new series, but who did not in fact work on that episode.

8 Gerry Davis
6 Ron Grainer
5 Robert Holmes
4 Terry Nation
2 Kit Pedler
1 Dave Martin
1 Fintan Coyle
1 Marc Platt
Wrong
1 Jo Joyner
1 No answer given

Generally this means people whose prior work was re-used, or to whom
thanks are due. Ron Grainer was a popular answer - not surprising as
I think he must be the most-credited person on Doctor Who, appearing in
the credits of every episode bar one, I believe (ob-puzzle: name the
one). See question 9 for more on him.

I believe only two right answers were overlooked here. Dave Martin got
a mention, but nobody picked fellow K9 creator Bob Baker. Similarly
Fintan Coyle was submitted once, but fellow Weakest Link creator Cathy
Dunning was never named. The entrant who submitted "Jo Joyner"
seemed to think that she would be credited for her appearance in a
flashback. This was not the case.

4. Name a piece of Time Lord technology we have seen in the new series.

12 TARDIS ...

read more »

Michael

person: a human being; "there was too much for one person to do"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

However...at the end of the day Tom is the quizmaster and he has the
difficult task of adjudicating the entries and assigning the overall scores.
That can't be an easy task so he must hold some artistic licence to say "The
Judges Decision is Final"

Bazza

Bazza

On an unrelated note, was it you who posted this?

I heard there have been cases of fake postings, i just wanted you to
confirm this...

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.arts.drwho/msg/d8cf9a9316466c2d?...

WG

Baz

Also, don't forget that K9 Mark IV is a rebuild of K9 Mark III. And the
evidence suggests that K9 Mark III was built from scratch, after K9
Mark II was left behind in E-Space.

So, I'm satisfied with my ruling.

And he is certainly a person!

Cheers

Tom

Well played Tom another good quiz. I for one thank you.

Sean

Cheers

Tom

Here, if I built an identical replica of George Stevenson's "Rocket"
steam locomotive, the "technology of the new Rocket" would still be
Stevenson's not mine, regardless of whatever modern tools I used to
produce the components. If I made the boiler 10% bigger, it would still
be Victorian technology, not 21st Century, providing I didn't use
titanium to make the boiler! Whilst it is true that K9 Mark IV
"originated" from the Dr, in that he constructed it, it still is an
object of "Prof Marius technology". I think this has to be an immutable
definition of the term "technology".

As for the "someone" argument: well, perhaps we need a new word in the
English language that denotes something that is either intelligent or
artificially intelligent whether alive or mechanical! Answers on the
back of a postcard, maximum ten words....

Michael

I don't have a problem with being mocked if it makes someone else feel
good. Be my guest.

Michael

It's still an irrelevant point, since I made it clear how I was
interpreting the phrase "Time Lord technology". You don't have to agree
with that interpretation (and I make no particular claims about its
truthfulness or usefulness outside of this contest) but once you know
it, you have a fair shot at playing.

Plus Wilf has won once already.

Cheers

Tom

Cheers

Tom

Errors: The Abzorbaloff was listed twice as two different answers, and
scored like this. This has been corrected. Florizel Street should have
been scored as a More Specific Variant of London, and the Tyler flat as
a More Specific Variant of The Powell Estate.

K9 Mark IV: All evidence suggests that K9 Mark IV was built by The
Doctor. He therefore qualifies as Time Lord technology according to the
interpretation note provided. He also qualifies as a "person" for the
purposes of Question 0.

Psychic Paper: While this is also seen in Captain Jack's possession,
this is not quite enough to render it a wrong answer.

Shows on Satellite 5: The entrant wrote "There were three evil reality
shows in the 2002nd century" and this is a wrong answer. Had they
written "We saw three evil reality shows..." this would have been a
correct answer, provided I accepted The Weakest Link as a "reality"
show.

Housemates: One entrant wrote "There were exactly three people in the
Big Brother House immediately prior to the Doctor leaving." and the
other "Big Brother housemates when the Doctor arrived." These are both
correct answers, and I treated them as equivalent (a little harsh that,
but I'm satisfied with my ruling).

Here is the new table of scores - there are no changes in the top
rankings.

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

 1          16    Wilf                 1  2  1  1  1  1  2  2  1  2
 =          16    Neil Toynay          4  1  1  1  2  1  1  2  1  1
 3          60    DannyBoy             1  1  1  2  1  1  1  5 WR  1
 4          96    mw_x                 4  2  1  1  1  2  1  6  1  1
 5         168    chriskelk            1  2  1  7  1  2  2  3  1  1
 6       1,260    Fortmap              6  1  1  7  3  1  1  5  1  2
 7       1,680    BeyondtheVoid        2  2  1  5  1  1  2  3  2  7
 8       1,920    Christopher Gerardy  4  2  4  5  1  1  2  6  1  1
 9       2,880    Yohinchild           4  1  1  2  3  1  2  5 WR  2
10       3,024    JesseS               1  1  4  7  2  1  2  3  3  3
11       3,360    Jonathan Morris      2  2  4  5  2  1  1  3  1  7
12       3,780    BTN                  3  1  1  6  2  1  1  5  3  7
13       5,400    Ceadge               1  2  1  5 12  1  1  5  3  3
14       8,820    John Dorney          6  1  1  7  3  1  1  5  1 WR
15      14,112    exterminateallhumans 6  3  1  7  2  2  2  1  1 WR
16      16,800    Andrew Lowrie        1  3  2  4  2  5  7  5  2  1
17      23,328    Affirmation          6  2  1  6 12  1  3  3  3  1
18      28,800    Dave Jones           6  2 WR  5  2  5  2  3  1  1
19      31,104    Biggles              2  2  1  6 12  1  1  6 WR  3
20      31,360    Llama Roddy          1  2 WR  7  2  2  1  5  2  7
21      34,560    Sean                 4  2  1  4 12  5  1  3  2  3
22      42,336    cols123              3  1  1 WR  2  1  3  2 WR WR
23      80,640    Peter Scandrett      4  1 WR  6  1  1  2  5  3 WR
24      96,768    Hotmissile           2  2 WR  6 12  1  2  3  1  7
25     311,040    Chris Brannigan      6  1  2  4 12  5  1  6 WR  3
26     518,400    Artyclarty           3  2 WR  6  1 WR  3  5 WR  2
27   1,016,064    kiwikat              1 WR WR WR  2  3  1  6 WR  7
28   2,177,280    Aaon                 4  3  4  4 12  5  3  3  3  7
29   5,806,080    Michael S Collins    4  1 WR  7 12 WR  2  6 WR  3

Cheers

Tom
tomsalin...@google.com