Now: Nineteen Seventy-Seven                                                                    

 

Death Flower   Comic story, published 1975                                              Doctor: 4

featuring Sarah Jane, with UNIT (informative mention)

Written by a writer employed by Polystyle

Takes place in Wiltshire; self-dated early in the new year after the Doctor’s third regeneration.


The Helm of Awe   Audio Drama, released 2017                           Doctor: 4

Featuring Leela, with Lethbridge-Stewart (informative mention)

Written by Marc Platt from a story by Philip Hinchcliffe.

Takes place in Shetland; self-dated January 1977 CE. By this time, Lethbridge-Stewart will be teaching at Brendon. Still, if the Doctor gives you a space-time telegraph, no doubt you regard it as your property rather than your employer’s, and take it with you to your next job.

Shetland was an archipelago lying considerably to the north of Albion, politically at this time part of Scotland.


The Fire Feeders   Comic story, published 1977                                        Doctor: 4

Illustrated ?and written by John Canning.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in southern England.

 

Eraserhead, released in March 1977, with its Man in the Planet and its melding of body horror and its postmodern meaning-as-embodiment of horror, seems a very plausible example of a manifestation of The Enemy, as suggested by The Annotation Autopsy of Agent A, and other narrative in The Book of the Enemy.

 

The Orb   Comic story, published 1977                                                       Doctor: 4

featuring Leela

Illustrated ?and written by John Canning.

contemporary to publication Takes place on and above Earth.


Mawdryn Undead   TV story, broadcast 1983                               Doctor: 5

featuring Lethbridge-Stewart, Grace technology, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlogh and the Time Lords, UNIT, Benton (informative mention)

Written by Peter Grimwade, script edited by Eric Saward.

Takes place in the UK (I have found no firm evidence that Brendon School is in England rather than Wales, Scotland, Man or the Channel Islands; the earlier sections self-dated June 1977 CE.


The Cloisters of Terror   Audio Drama, released 2015                     Doctor: 4

Featuring Leela, K9 I, with Lethbridge-Stewart, Liz, South America (im)

Written by Jonathan Morris.

Informed guess Takes place in Oxford; self-dated 1977 CE. Liz is now working on a moonbase project. Lethbridge- Stewart has been teaching maths at Brendon for the first half of the year and then suffered a major nervous breakdown, so I think the assertion that he’s investigating stuff in South America is Ministry of Defence disinformation.


Image of the Fendahl   TV story, broadcast 1977                       Doctor: 4

featuring Leela, the Fendahl, and the Time Lords, K9 I (informative mention)

Written by Chris Boucher, script edited by Robert Holmes and Anthony Read.

Takes place in rural England and approaching the outer Solar System; self-dated the end of July, and dated 1977 CE by Parkin in Ahistory.

K9 mark I is a self-propelled artificial intelligence, apparently gendered male for cultural reasons. It was built in Tellurian space at the end of the fiftieth century CE, incorporating elements, it would appear, of K9 IV (Tautology).

The Fendahl is a form of anti-life, some of its vectors being humanoid. It has indeed influenced Tellurian evolution for twelve million years so that Tellurians will serve that purpose: from one viewpoint, it might be considered a disease of Tellurians, like being of the Malakh, or a Cyberman.


An Extraterrestrial Werewolf in Belgium   Audio Drama, released 2015          Doctor: 0

Featuring Iris Wildthyme, werewolves

Written by Scott Handcock.

Takes place in Antwerp and in northern England in 1977 CE.

Antwerp was a city in Belgium, a monarchy on the northwest coast of Europe, southwest of the Netherlands, west of Germany and northeast of France.


That’s All Right, Mama   Short story, published 2019     Doctors: 13, with 10, 11, 12

Featuring Graham, Ryan, Yaz

Written by Paul Magrs.

Takes place in Memphis, Te; pivotally in August 1977 CE.

Memphis was a city in Tennessee, a landlocked constituent state of the USA, southwest of Virginia.


The Fugitive   Illustrated short story, published 1976                                Doctor: 0

featuring the Daleks, with Venus (informative mention)

Written by or under the aegis of Terry Nation.

Takes place in the UK; self-dated 1977 CE. The humanoid Venusian who appears from the future is likely a Tellurian-descended inhabitant of a terraformed Venus, whose ancestors have presumably lived there long enough to develop distinctive genetic characteristics.

 

Rabid (1977) is about not conventional vampires as such, but what appears to be a form of vampirism, fitting in well enough with Doctor Who narrative.

 

The Android Invasion   TV story, broadcast 1975                     Doctor: 4

featuring UNIT, Benton, Sarah Jane, Harry

Written by Terry Nation, script edited by Robert Holmes.

informed guess Takes place on Oseidon and in rural England, during a summer before The Oseidon Adventure. This pretty much implies that Sarah Jane is meeting her UNIT colleagues “out of order”, but, yes, actually, why not? Benton has evidently been recalled to active service from the car dealership mentioned in Mawdryn Undead. That blow he receives looks potentially fatal, nice to know that it wasn’t.


Doctor Who and the Nightmare Game   Comic story, published 2003          Doctor: 8

Written by Gareth Roberts.

Takes place in Delchester, an English town clearly some way from London; self-dated 1977 CE. Most of the story takes place towards the end of the football season, and it concludes six months later.


The Devil’s Mouth   Comic story, published 1977                                    Doctor: 4

featuring Leela

Illustrated ?and written by John Canning.

contemporary to publication Takes place in the UK.


The Hollow King   Audio Drama, released 2019                                 Doctor: 0

Featuring the Counter Measures Group

Written by Ian Potter.

Informed guess Takes place in rural England; self-dated the 1970s CE, after Night of the Intelligence.


The Foe From the Future   Audio Drama, released 2012        Doctor: 4

Featuring Leela

Adapted by John Dorney, from a script by Robert Banks Stewart.

Informed guess Takes place in Staffham, Devon; self-dated 1977 CE.

 

 

 

Total Stories Considered               510  

Proportion Written By Women   7%                                          

 

Top Docs

3                 193 stories

2                 32 stories  

4                 26 stories   Climber!

1                 21 stories

7                 20 stories           

8                 14 stories           

10               12 stories  

11               12 stories  

12               12 stories  

6                 9 stories    

Unbound   9 stories             

5                 8 stories             

13               4 stories    

9                 2 stories    

         

         

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

Alastair and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                                                                                         187 stories

UNIT                                                                    157 stories

London                                                                137 stories

Regional England                                               116 stories         

Jo                                                                         83 stories  

Benton                                                                77 stories  

North America                                                   65 stories

Yates                                                                   61 stories  

Liz                                                                        50 stories           

The Master                                                         45 stories  

The Travers family                                            50 stories  

At sea                                                                  39 stories  

The Intrusion Counter-Measures Group        37 stories

Continental Europe                                           29 stories           

The Time Lords                                                  26 stories            

Iris Wildthyme                                                   25 stories   Climber!

Christmas                                                            25 stories  

Sarah Jane                                                          25 stories   Climber!

Scotland                                                              30 stories           

Senor 105                                                           19 stories  

 

         

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                           227 stories

The Seventies                                                    98 stories

The Noughties                                                    78 stories

The Nineties                                                       47 stories

The Sixties                                                          24 stories  

The Twenties                                                     33 stories  

The Eighties                                                        3 stories

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2016                                                          42 stories

2015                                                          28 stories   Climber!

2013                                                          27 stories  

2017                                                          25 stories   Climber!

1970                                                          24 stories

2018                                                          27 stories  

1973                                                          20 stories  

2011                                                          19 stories

1972                                                          18 stories

2012                                                          18 stories   Climber!

2021                                                          17 stories

2001                                                          16 stories           

2019                                                          25 stories   Climber!

2020                                                          15 stories  

1974                                                          14 stories  

1993                                                          10 stories

2007                                                          10 stories

1971                                                          9 stories

2005                                                          9 stories    

2009                                                          9 stories    

2010                                                          9 stories    

 

         

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                                223

Proportion of Female Writers                         11%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

Terrance Dicks                                          26 stories  

? John Canning                                         15 stories  

Anonymous Polystyle Writers               14 stories  

Paul Magrs                                                14 stories   Climber!

Andy Frankham-Allen                            12 stories  

John Dorney                                             11 stories            

Malcolm Hulke                                         10 stories  

Mark Wright                                             10 stories  

Simon Guerrier                                        8 stories    

Dennis Hooper                                         8 stories    

Justin Richards                                         8 stories    

Eddie Robson                                            8 stories    

1971 Annual crew                                   8 stories    

1973 Annual crew                                   8 stories             

Roger Noel Cook                                      7 stories    

Guy Adams                                               6 stories=            

Robert Holmes                                         6 stories=   New entry!

David A McIntee                                      6 stories=  

John Peel                                                  6 stories=

Cody Schell                                               6 stories=  

David Whitaker                                        6 stories=           

1974 Annual crew                                   6 stories=  

 

 

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