Now: Nineteen Seventy-Six
Signal S.O.S Illustrated short story, published 1974 Doctor: 3
featuring
Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT, Sarah Jane
Written
by a writer employed by Polystyle
informed guess Takes place in the UK, after Who’s Who, as published.
No Future: Prelude Illustrated
short story, published 1994 Doctor: 0
featuring
UNIT, the Vardans
Written
by Paul Cornell.
Takes
place in the USA, some months before No
Future.
Planet of Spiders
TV story, broadcast 1974 Doctor: 3, with 4 (glimpse)
featuring
the Time Lords, Lethbridge-Stewart,
UNIT, Benton, Yates, Sarah Jane, the Giant Spiders
Written
by Robert Sloman, script edited by Terrance Dicks.
Takes
place in the UK, much of it in an area characterised as “Mummerset” in
reference to an actor’s traditional generic rural English accent (although it’s
not impossible that in Doctor Who narrative there is actually an English county
called Mummerset); as broadcast, three weeks before Robot. With the Doctor’s third regeneration, the eighth phase of
his time as UNIT scientific adviser begins.
Strictly
speaking, Giant Spiders could refer
to any arachnids of the hypertrophic persuasion, but in this chronology it
specifically describes the sentient time-travelling descendants of Tellurian
spiders evolved in the unusual radioactivity to be found on the colony world of
Metebilis III.
Cracked Actor Short story, published 2012 Doctor: 0
Featuring Iris
Wildthyme
Written
by Stewart Sheargold.
informed guess Takes place in Italy,
on the set of what is clearly a Giallo film, a genre that flourished in the
1970s CE. Valentina Fabrizi, aged ten in 1960, considers herself eligible for
the ingénue role.
Robot TV story, broadcast 1975 Doctor: 4
featuring
Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT, Benton, Sarah
Jane, Harry
Written
by Terrance Dicks, script edited by Robert Holmes.
Takes
place in the UK; as broadcast, self-dated early April. Harry leaves linear
time, being aboard the TARDIS as it dematerialises.
Juggling Charity short story, published 2001 Doctor: 5
featuring
Nyssa
Written
by Zoe Ellis.
Takes
place in Oxford; self-dated Spring, three or so years before Shada.
The
city of Oxford was the county seat
of Oxfordshire, a landlocked county
east of Gloucestershire, northeast of Wiltshire, north of Berkshire, west of
Buckinghamshire and southwest of Northamptonshire.
Drowned in Moonlight Short story, published 2018 Doctor: 0
Featuring Iris Wildthyme
Written by
Kenneth James McGowan.
Takes
place variously but pivotally in Elstree Studios in the spring of 1976 CE.
Elstree was a village in Hertfordshire.
Euterpe, the Muse of
Music: An Overture Too Early Short story, published 2003 Doctor: Unbound 3
featuring
Unbound Time Lords, Unbound
Lethbridge-Stewart, Unbound UNIT, Unbound Benton, Unbound Sarah Jane,
William/Isaac
Written
by Simon Guerrier.
Concludes
at UNIT HQ, some weeks after Robot. The
reason for the multiple unbounds is that many of these events are negated, or
should be, by DS al Fine.
William,
later known as Isaac, is a
Tellurian born perhaps in the early 1950s CE.
The Killing Stone Audio story, released 2002 Doctor:
4
featuring
Lethbridge-Stewart, the Master, UNIT, Benton,
Yates
Written
by Richard Franklin.
informed guess Takes place in the UK and Morocco, shortly after Robot.
Morocco was a kingdom on the northwest coast of
Africa, across the straits of Gibraltar from Spain, to the north.
DS al Fine Short story, published 2006 Doctors: 8,
with 6 (glimpse)
Featuring the Time Lords, Benton, with William/Isaac
Written by Simon Guerrier.
Takes place variously, including on an island in the
Mediterranean, but crucially, shortly after Euterpe, the Muse of Music: An
Overture Too Early. The Doctor is near the end of his eighth
incarnation: could this grotesque, not entirely comprehensible rewriting of his
own timeline, characteristically undertaken to protect the innocent, have given
the time-travelling Daleks the opportunity to move against the Time Lords,
restored from back up after the Second War in Heaven, as illustrated in The Gallifrey
Chronicles and, if The Sisterhood of the Flame and The Vengeance of Morbius are anything to go by, traumatised to the point
of timidity?
The Ship of the Sleepwalkers Audio Drama, released 2017 Doctor: 0
Featuring the Counter Measures Group
Written by
Christopher Hatherall.
Informed guess Takes
place at sea, after The Splintered Man.
1976 CE was a US Presidential election year, which fits with Ted Hunter’s
agenda.
A Tapestry of Shadows Charity short story, published
1999 Doctor: 0
featuring
Liz
Written
by Alan Taylor.
Takes
place in the USA; self-dated June, a few years after The Country of the Blind.
To Sarah Jane, Wot I
Like Best of All Charity drabble, published 1993 Doctor: 0
featuring
Sarah Jane
Written
by Vanessa Bishop.
Informed guess Self-dated
1976 CE.
No Future Novel,
published 1994 Doctor: 7
featuring
Mortimus, Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT,
Benton, Yates, the Chronovores, the Vardans, Ace, Benny, with the Zygons
(informative mention)
Written by Paul Cornell.
Informed guess Takes place in London, Wiltshire and elsewhere in
England; self-dated around midsummer’s day, 1976 CE.
UNRECONCILED
UNIT DATING
Paul
Cornell puts a lot of effort into placing this six months after Terror of the Zygons but I cannot be
having it. There is, after all, no reason why Zygons shouldn’t have been at
large before Terror of the Zygons,
nor why UNIT shouldn’t have been up to something on Tulloch Moor, given that in
Doctor Who reality it is evidently a place, and not just a reference to the
manufacturer of sugary Scottish biscuits.
Fear Buds Comic story, published 2016 Doctor: 12
Featuring Jata
Written by
Andrew Cartmel.
Takes
place in England; self-dated three hundred and seventy-three years after 1603
CE.
Jata is an equine Osumaran, at large on Earth
in the late eighteen-nineties CE following a spaceship crash.
Starfall Audio Drama, released 2010 Doctor: 4
Featuring Yates, Mrs Wibbsey
Written by
Paul Magrs.
Takes
place in New York, NY; self-dated July 1976 CE.
Fenella Wibbsey was a Tellurian. From Susan
Jameson’s age when The Dead Shoes was
released, I shall assume she was born in 1864 CE.
The 1976
film The Man Who Fell to Earth tells a story of extra-terrestrial incursion
broadly compatible with the quite heavily populated cosmos implied by Doctor Who
narrative.
Hang Onto Yourself Short story, published 2012 Doctor: 0
Featuring Iris Wildthyme, Vince Cosmos, with ?the Ice
Warriors
Written by
Paul Magrs.
Informed guess Takes
place pivotally in Wembley Stadium, self-dated 1976 CE. There is a lot of talk
of “Martians”, but this may be an excessively camp way of describing
extra-terrestrials in general.
Vince Cosmos is a non-Tellurian humanoid from the
planet Glam, and I can’t imagine his date of birth is important.
A Cold Snap Comic story, published 2017 Doctor: 12
Written by
James Hill.
Informed guess Takes
place in Blackpool; self-dated summer, 1976 CE.
Hunky Dory Novel, published 2021 Doctor: 0
Written by Paul Magrs.
Takes place in Manchester, presumably not long after The Ninnies on Putney Common and during a hot summer.
The Heavenly Paradigm Audio
Drama, released 2017 Doctor: 0
Featuring the Time Lords, the
Master, with the Daleks (informative mention)
Written by Guy Adams.
Informed guess Takes place in Stamford Bridge, a village in Yorkshire; self-dated 1976 CE.
The Mutant Strain Comic story, published 1976 Doctor: 4
Illustrated
?and written by John Canning.
Contemporary to publication Takes place in the UK.
Low/Profile Short story, published 2012 Doctor: 0
Featuring Iris Wildthyme
Written by
George Mann.
The main
action takes place in Berlin, during the recording of David Bowie’s album Low,
historically in September and October 1976 CE.
The events
of the 1985 werewolf film Silver Bullet conclude
in October 1976.
The Sinister Sea Comic story, published 1975 Doctor: 4
featuring
Sarah Jane
Illustrated
?and written by John Canning.
Informed guess Takes place on the coast of and in the North Sea;
arguably after the message received via space-time telegraph at the end of Revenge of the Cybermen, calling the
Doctor to somewhere near Loch Ness. The Inverness end of Loch Ness is handily
placed for the North Sea.
Iris Wildthyme and the Polythene Terror Novel,
published 2019 Doctor: 0
Featuring Iris Wildthyme, Vince Cosmos
Written by
Paul Magrs.
Takes
place in London; self-dated autumn, 1976
CE.
My Enemy’s Enemy Audio
Drama, released 2017 Doctor: 0
Featuring the Counter Measures
Group
Written by Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky.
Takes place after The Ship of the
Sleepwalkers as released. Gilmore’s attendance at a punk rock club in
London puts it no earlier than late 1976 CE.
Time of the Intelligence Audio
Drama, released 2017 Doctor: 0
Featuring Edward Travers, the
Great Intelligence, the Counter Measures Group
Written by Andy Frankham-Allen.
Takes place in London, immediately after My Enemy’s Enemy.
Total Stories Considered 495
Proportion Written By Women 7%
Top Docs
3 193 stories
2 32 stories
1 21 stories
7 20 stories
4 17 stories
8 13 stories
10 11 stories
11 11 stories
12 11 stories Climber!
6 9 stories Climber!
Unbound 9 stories
5 7 stories
13 3 stories
9 2 stories
Top Twenty Recurring Elements
Alastair and the Lethbridge-Stewart family 204 stories
UNIT 154
stories
London 137 stories
Regional England 107 stories
Jo 83 stories
Benton 75
stories
North America 64 stories
Yates 61
stories
The Travers family 50
stories
Liz 49
stories
The Master 45
stories
At sea 39
stories
The Intrusion Counter-Measures Group 36
stories
Scotland 29
stories
Continental Europe 28 stories
Christmas 25 stories
The Time Lords 25 stories Climber!
Iris Wildthyme 24 stories Climber!
Sarah Jane 23
stories Climber!
Senor 105 19
stories
Top Decades
The Teens 221 stories
The Seventies 91
stories
The Noughties 77 stories
The Nineties 47 stories
The Twenties 33
stories
The Sixties 24 stories
The Eighties 2
stories
And Top Twenty Years
2016 42 stories
2013 27 stories
2018 27 stories
2015 26 stories
1970 24
stories
2017 24
stories Climber!
2019 23
stories
1973 20 stories
2011 19 stories
1972 18
stories
2012 17 stories Climber!
2021 17
stories
2001 16
stories
2020 15 stories
1974 14
stories Climber!
1993 10
stories Climber!
2007 10
stories
1971
9 stories=
2005 9 stories= Climber!
2009 9
stories=
2010 9
stories= Climber!
Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology
linking material writers) 217
Proportion of Female Writers 12%
Top Twenty Writers
Terrance Dicks 26
stories
Anonymous Polystyle Writers 14 stories
Paul Magrs 13
stories Climber!
? John Canning 12
stories Climber!
Andy Frankham-Allen 12 stories
John Dorney 10 stories
Malcolm Hulke 10
stories
Mark Wright 10
stories
Simon Guerrier 8 stories Climber!
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= Climber!
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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