Talk:The Masque of Mandragora

"The Gift of Languages"?

The third entry of the Continuity section of this article discusses the fourth Doctor explaining to Sarah Jane Smith that the reason she can converse with these 15th century Italians is a function of the TARDIS, "a 'Time Lord gift' he allows her to share." I had no memory of seeing/hearing this, nor of encountering any previous discussion of it, when I read it in the then brand new Dr. Who: The Discontinuity Guide (by Paul Cornell, Martin Day & Keith Topping, Virgin Books, 1995). The only time thereafter that I've seen this story (KERA-TV, Ch. 13, PBS affiliate for Dallas, TX, USA, Summer 2002, feature compilation version), there was no such statement! There was a point (early in episode four, I believe) when Sarah, the Doctor, and the guest character Giuliano are talking as they are walking somewhere and the last named quotes somebody in the original Latin, which the Time Lord translates for the woman's benefit. She responds, "Well, I never studied Latin.---Wait a minute! I never studied Italian either, so how...?" (I obviously can not guarantee that this is absolutely ver batim, but it is extremely close, and I do guarantee that if there is any variation from the actually spoken lines, it does not affect the point). Rather than going into the alleged "gift", the Doctor simply says, "I'll explain later," but never does (a la the Comic Relief sketch, The Curse of Fatal Death). If the Doctor did "explain later," it would had to have been in the TARDIS after the pair's departure from the story's locale, a scene which would have been painfully anti-climactic. Was this recorded, but deleted prior to transmission on that ground (as was a scene of the third Doctor and Jo Grant meeting themselves from the opposite perspective of an earlier incident, from Season Nine's Day of the Daleks)? Or could this be like the widely reported "museum plaque" in the Troughton era story, The Web of Fear, that supposedly established the date of the events of the earlier but directly related serial, The Abominable Snowmen, as 1935, i.e. it's really only in the novelization (dialogue in one episode there does state this year on-air, BTW)? Granted, for many years Web existed for fans in that book form only, allowing such misconceptions to occur. That excuse can't be claimed for Masque, obviously. The only alternative I can conceive is that there are two different edits of this story beyond the usual episodic vs. feature variations, i.e., there are two different ways the "Latin translation" scene plays out. Can anybody clear this up so we can be sure to make this article accurate (maybe from Andrew Pixley's "Archive" feature on this story for Doctor Who Magazine or his update in the Complete Fourth Doctor special)? Ted Watson 19:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that my old, worn out copy of Mandragora has the Doctor saying that it's a Time Lord gift (doesn't say anything about the TARDIS though)...

"The Doctor explains for the first time that he and his companions are able to understand unfamiliar languages by virtue of a 'Time Lord gift'." -- Doctor Who: The Television Companion

"The Doctor tells Sarah that understanding other languages is 'a Time Lord gift I allow you to share'." -- The Discontinuity Guide

"It is revealed that the reason Sarah can understand Italian (and other alien tongues) is that this is a Time Lord gift which the Doctor allows her to share." -- Doctor Who: The Handbook; The Fourth Doctor

DonQuixote (talk) 02:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I am well aware that many print discussions of the series say this--I have an "old, worn out copy of" The Discontinuity Guide myself, and regardless of when the others might have been originally published, that is where I initially encountered this--but the telecast that I myself saw had the dialogue to this point as I described it above and no more, and that outweighs after-the-fact studies. The given example of The Web of Fear 's alleged museum plaque demonstrates that. Is your "copy" of Mandragora the novelization, or a videotape of the serial itself? If the latter, then unlikely as it seems "the Time Lord gift" got left out in creating the continuous feature version. But where would "I'll explain later" which replaces it have come from? Or was the "gift" bit in a TARDIS scene at the very end? Ted Watson (talk) 23:16, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Er...my old, worn out VHS copy of Mandragora. The Doctor and Sarah are in a dungeon tied up to the wall, and the Doctor says, "Well...I've taken you to some strange places before, and you've never asked how you understood the local language. It's a Time Lord gift I allow you to share."

Again, apart from the fact that my old, worn out copy of Mandragora -- etc, etc, see above. DonQuixote (talk) 15:30, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

O.K., O.K., you did mean a video. I'll leave it. Ted Watson (talk) 00:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)