Now: Nineteen Sixty Five
Time in Reverse Comic story, published 1965 Doctor: 1
featuring
Gillian, John
The
TV Comic strips drawn by Neville Main
were the “exciting adventures” anticipated by John in The Klepton Parasites, naïve, lively and often characterised by clever plot
technicalities, like this one, where time runs backwards for the Doctor from
his emergence from/entry to the TARDIS at the beginning of the story to his
entry to/emergence from it at the end. Again, I think it likely that Main wrote
them himself.
contemporary to publication Takes place in an area of Earth with an unpopular,
probably totalitarian regime. Could be eastern Europe, could be Latin America,
or, at this time, the Iberian peninsula. On the last page of the strip as
published in Doctor Who Classic Comics
in 1994, the contents of the second speech bubble, “Good! Stand by whilst I
switch on the controls!” actually belong in the penultimate panel, having
somehow been transposed with the contents of the Doctor’s speech bubble there,
“H’m! I’m more interested in spying on the TARDIS!” (good Hartnell dialogue in
both cases.) I assume this was a mistake in the original publication in TV Comic, which I confess I haven’t
seen. Anyway, this information may be of use if you have occasion to read it
yourself.
Manhunt Audio Drama, released 2013 Doctor: 0
Featuring The Counter Measures Group
Written by
Matt Fitton.
Takes
place in London; self-dated March 1965 CE.
The Exploding Somewhat Inevitable Short story, published 2018 Doctor: 0
Featuring Iris Wildthyme
Written by
Philip Marsh.
Takes
place in New York, NY; self-dated the year after Andy Warhol’s film Empire was shot, and a week after it had
been screened. The only known screening of the film in 1965 CE was its premiere
on March 6th.
Iris Wildthyme is a
time-travelling humanoid. Her occasional claims to the Doctor to be a Time Lord
he finds neither plausible nor coherent. Paul Magrs clearly intended her to be
a narrative convention, self-consciously, can we say archly? yes, I think we
can say archly, at large in the world and interacting with it. First appearing
in the story Old Flames, she answers
the question, if the Doctor had an old flame, what would she be like? Part of
the answer being that she would have no legibly orderable past: trying to impose
cause and effect on it is against the spirit in which Paul Magrs conceived her.
Still, it’s my chronology. What can we say? She appears, particularly to the
Doctor, as a free-standing, immortal stereotype of growing old disgracefully:
one might say a goddess of it. Her alcohol abuse would kill her if she were a
Tellurian: it appears to make her drunk, and one can say that nobody makes a
habit of drunkenness because they are happy. My suggestion then, given that her
time-travelling bus has been described as a Celestial Omnibus, is that she is
some sort of survival of the Celestis, the Time Lords who removed themselves
from reality ahead of the Second War in Heaven and continued as archetypes or
soul-stealing devils posing as gods until their well-merited annihilation as a
War-time power. If Iris is in some sense their survival, it explains her
ambiguous fictionality, her memories of Gallifrey that are both true and
impossible, and her drinking, because she has a very, very dark past to
anesthetise.
New York was a constituent state of the USA on its
eastern seaboard. Its principal port and city bore the same name and was the country’s
largest metropolis.
Space Oddity Comic story, published 2013 Doctor: 11
Featuring the Vashta Nerada
Written by
Joshua Hale Fialkov.
Takes
place above the Earth; self-dated March 1965 CE.
The Vashta Nerada are
microscopic canrnivores found on billions of planets, including Earth, their
origins so far untraced. They are capable of sentience in swarms large and
dense enough, but there is no evidence of having been allies of the Time Lords,
possibly because they’re not bipedal enough.
Salvation Novel, published 1999 Doctor: 1
featuring
Steven, Dodo
Written
by Steve Lyons
Takes
place in Wimbledon, a district of London and, mostly, New York, NY; self-dated
April, 1965 CE. On the back of these events, Peter Cushing starred in at least
one film as “Doctor Who”.
Things
That Doctor Who Writers Who Want To Set Things In “The Present” Should Find
Difficult To Ignore. Though Quite Likely They’ll Just Pile More Stuff In.
A
PANTHEON OF GODS SET UP SHOP IN CENTRAL PARK FOR A WEEK, ATTRACTING CROWDS OF
THOUSANDS.
Steven Taylor
is a Tellurian, born, in my estimation, in the late twenty-ninth century CE.
Dorothea
Chaplet, known as Dodo, is a
Tellurian born in 1948 or 1949 CE. During this story, she leaves linear time,
being aboard the TARDIS when it dematerialises.
The Fifth Citadel Audio Drama, released 2013 Doctor: 0
Featuring The Counter Measures Group
Written by
James Goss.
Takes
place in London, some time after Manhunt.
By this time, the County of London had become the metropolitan area of Greater
London, absorbing all of the county of Middlesex,
some of Essex, the coastal county to
its east, some of Kent, the coastal
county to its south-east, some of Surrey,
the landlocked county to its south, and even a bit of Hertfordshire, the landlocked County of Hertford to the north of
what had been Middlesex.
Peshka Audio Drama, released 2013 Doctor: 0
Featuring The Counter Measures Group
Written by
Cavan Scott and Mark Wright.
Takes
place in Amsterdam, Prague and London, some time after The Fifth Citadel.
Amsterdam was the principal city of The Netherlands, a monarchy on the
north-west coast of continental Europe, separated from the British Isles by the
North Sea.
Prague at
this time was the capital city of Czechoslovakia,
a landlocked republic also in Europe.
Sins of the Fathers Audio
Drama, released 2013 Doctor: 0
Featuring The Counter Measures Group
Written by
John Dorney.
Takes
place in London, some time after Peshka.
Changing of the Guard Audio
Drama, released 2014 Doctor: 0
Featuring The Counter Measures Group
Written by
Matt Fitton.
Takes
place in London, some time after Sins of
the Fathers.
The Vanity Box Audio Drama, released 2007 Doctor: 6
featuring
Mel
written
by Paul Magrs.
(informed guess) Takes place in Salford, Lancashire; self-dated 1965
CE.
Melanie
Bush, known as Mel, is a Tellurian
born in 1964 CE.
Lancashire, the County of Lancaster, lay on the north-west coast
of England.
The Time Travellers Novel, published 2005 Doctor: 1
featuring
Susan, Barbara, Ian
Written
by Simon Guerrier.
Takes
place in London; the latest date not in a negated timeline is June, 1965 CE.
This story hinges on the underused but logical concept that if you are offered
the chance to travel into the future in a time machine, and don’t take it, you
are liable to find yourself alongside the version of you that did travel into
the future and has now returned to your mutual past. This is a potentially
useful way of explaining Doctor Who characters who appear to be at large after
their deaths are described, like Lethbridge-Stewart, Liz or Ace. One can
imagine the first two turning down the opportunity through caution and Ace
doing it out of moodiness.
The Silent City Charity short story, published 2001 Doctor:
1
featuring
Vicki, Steven
Written
by Jonathan Morris.
Takes
place in London; self-dated July, 1965 CE.
The Concrete Cage Audio Drama, released 2014 Doctor: 0
Featuring The Counter Measures Group
Written by
Justin Richards.
Takes
place in London, some time after Changing
of the Guard.
The Forgotten
Village
Audio Drama, released 2014 Doctor: 0
Featuring The Counter Measures Group
Written by
Ken Bentley.
Takes
place in London and Herefordshire, some time after The Concrete Cage.
Herefordshire was the landlocked County of Hereford, in
western England.
A Wee Deoch An...? Illustrated short story, published 1991 Doctor:
6
featuring
Lethbridge-Stewart, Mel
Written
by Colin Baker.
(informed guess) Takes place in Brighton; dated eleven years previously
in The Planet of Spiders.
Brighton
was a city in Sussex, a county on
the south coast of England.
The Space Age Novel, published 2000 Doctor: 8
Featuring Compassion, the remembered Fitz
Written by
Steve Lyons.
Takes
place mostly on an asteroid in what fairly randomly turns out to be 3012 CE,
but pivotally on the coast of England in 1965 CE.
Compassion was humanoid synethesised in a Faction
Paradox Remembrance Tank in the Remote colony on Anathema, some years before
1996 CE. The individual from who she had been remembered had also been created
in a Remembrance Tank: she was the fifth such iteration remembered from a
humanoid of Tellurian descent named Laura Tobin, born on Ordifica a couple of
decades before 2596 CE. At this stage of her career, Compassion had merged with
the TARDIS: the Doctor and Fitz were travelling, as Sigmund Freud would have
been delighted to discover, in her.
The remembered Fitz was a
humanoid synthesised by the TARDIS in imitation of a Remembrance Tank, from an
indefinitely numbered iteration of Faction Paradox remembrances of Fitz Kreiner. As most of the memories
used for the synthesis were the TARDIS’s and the rest were the Doctor’s, the
remembered Fitz resembled the original almost identically, and was conscious of
being virtually the same individual.
Trust Me, I’m a Doctor (The Café Royale, New Orleans, 1965) Charity drabble, published 1993 Doctors: 4, 7, Unbound
featuring
Ace
Written
by Steve Morgan.
Takes
place in New Orleans, La; self-dated 1965 CE.
New Orleans was the principal city and port of Louisiana, a constituent state of the
USA, lying on the Gulf of Mexico east of Texas.
Unto the Breach Audio Drama, released 2014 Doctor: 0
Featuring The Counter Measures Group
Written by
John Dorney.
Takes
place in London and Berlin, a month after The
Forgotten Village.
Berlin was the capital of the German Democratic
Republic, lying on the coast of the Baltic Sea, north of Czechoslovakia. About
three-quarters of it, however, was ruled by the German Federal Republic, the
bulk of which lay to the west, following tensions between the victorious powers
that had occupied Germany after
World War Two, twenty years previously.
Doctor Who and the Daleks film,
released 1965 Doctor: Unbound
featuring
unbound Daleks, unbound Susan, unbound
Barbara, unbound Ian
written
by Milton Subotsky, from a screenplay by Terry Nation, script-edited by David
Whitaker.
contemporary to release The opening section takes place in the UK.
The Darkest Shadow Audio Drama, released 2014 Doctor: 0
Featuring Dorian Gray, werewolves
Written by
Nev Fountain.
(informed guess) Takes
place in the USA; self-dated 1965 CE.
Werewolves, humanoids who periodically transform
into wolves, or at any rate lupinoids, may be a kind of Malakh. There is a
degree of resemblance to Primords, who are almost certainly Malakh, and the
reversible transformation is difficult to explain, other than as a quantum
ambiguity like those of vampires.
New Horizons Audio Drama, released 2015 Doctor: 0
Featuring The Counter Measures Group
Written by
Mark Wright and Cavan Scott.
Takes
place in the UK after Unto the Breach,
self-dated 1965 CE.
The Keep
Audio Drama, released 2015 Doctor: 0
Featuring
The Counter Measures Group
Written by
Ken Bentley.
Takes
place in the UK after New Horizons;
self-dated 1965 CE.
Blackout
Audio Book, released 2011 Doctor: 11
Featuring Amy, Rory
Written by Oli Smith.
Takes place in New York, NY; self-dated
November 1965 CE.
Rory Williams is a Tellurian born in 1989
CE.
Rise and Shine
Audio Drama, released 2015 Doctor: 0
Featuring
The Counter Measures Group
Written by
John Dorney.
Takes
place in the UK after The Keep;
self-dated 1965 CE.
The Goats of Christmas Past Comic
story, published 2009 Doctor: 10
Featuring Heather
Written by Eddie Robson.
Takes place in Norway; self-dated December
1965.
Heather McCrimmon is a Tellurian, born in 1990 CE.
Norway was a monarchy on the Arctic and Atlantic Ocean coasts of Europe, its northernmost state.
Clean Sweep
Audio Drama, released 2015 Doctor: 0
Featuring
The Counter Measures Group
Written by
Matt Fitton.
Takes
place in the UK after Rise and Shine;
self-dated 1965 CE.
The Man Who (Nearly) Killed Christmas Short story, published 2004 Doctor: 2
featuring
Santa Claus, with Barbara (informative mention)
Written
by Mark Michalowski.
Takes
place on Earth, probably in the UK, in a December after Barbara has arrived
back on Earth and is teaching, but before she has
taken Ian’s surname in marriage; probably 1965 CE.
The Little Drummer Boy Short
story, published 2003 Doctor: 1
featuring
Steven, Sara Kingdom, with Mars
(informative mention)
Written
by Eddie Robson.
Takes
place variously, including in Los Angeles, Ca., France and Sussex; self-dated (pivotally)
December 1965 CE.
Sara Kingdom is a Tellurian or humanoid of Tellurian descent, born
in the late fortieth century CE.
Mars
was the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is a planet that
gets conspicuous attention from the Doctor, the Time Lords and Iris Wildthyme. The Book of the Enemy says that multiple
versions of it were created in the Second War in Heaven. It may be part of a
sequence of significance: an individual (the Doctor), a city (London), a
continent (North America), a planet (Mars). Further elements of this sequence
would be too vast to be discernible to this chronology.
Los Angeles was the principal city and port of California, a constituent state of the
USA on its south-western seaboard, west of Nevada.
France
was a republic of western Europe, lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the
Mediterranean Sea, west of Switzerland and separated from the British Isles by
the English Channel.
Total Stories Considered 50
Proportion Written By Women 8%
Top Docs
1 9 stories
7 5 stories
4 4 stories
11 4 stories
6 3 stories Climber!
2 2 stories Climber!
8 2 stories Climber!
Unbound 2 stories Climber!
3 1 story
5 1 story
9 1 story
10 1 story
12 1 story
Top Twenty Recurring Elements
London 27 stories
The Intrusion Counter-Measures Group 20
stories
Barbara and Ian 8 stories
North America 7 stories Climber!
Regional England 7 stories Climber!
Susan 5 stories Climber!
Continental Europe 5 stories New entry!
Christmas 4 stories Climber!
Coal Hill School 3 stories
The Daleks and Davros 3 stories Climber!
Steven 3 stories New entry!
The K9s 3 stories
Ace 3 stories
Clara 3 stories
The Time Lords 2 stories =
Mars and the Ice Warriors 2 stories = New entry!
Lethbridge-Stewart 2 stories = New entry!
Gillian and John 2 stories = New entry!
Vicki 2 stories = New entry!
Romana 2 stories =
Mel 2 stories = New entry!
Dorian Gray 2 stories = New entry!
Top Decades
The Teens 30 stories
The Noughties 10 stories
The Nineties 5 stories
The Sixties 4 stories
The Eighties 1
story
And Top Years
2013 8 stories
2014 6 stories
2015 6 stories
2012 4 stories
1965 2 stories
2000 2 stories
2003 2 stories
2016 2 stories
Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology
editors) 37
Proportion of Female Writers 11%
Top Writers
John Dorney 5 stories
Justin Richards 5 stories
Matt Fitton 4 stories New entry!
Ken Bentley 2 stories New entry!
Andrew Cartmel 2 stories
Steve Lyons 2 stories New entry!
Jonathon Morris 2 stories New entry!
Eddie Robson 2 stories New entry!
Cavan Scott 2 stories New entry!
David Whitaker 2 stories New entry!
Mark Wright 2 stories New entry!
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