Now: Nineteen Eighty-Four                                                            

 

The Mark of Terror   Comic story, published 1969                                              Doctor: 2

Featuring the Cybermen (informative mention)

Illustrated ?and written by John Canning.

Informed guess Takes place on the Blenhim homeworld and in London after Action in Exile as published.

The Brotherhood   Comic story, published 1969                                                  Doctor: 2

Illustrated ?and written by John Canning.

Informed guess Takes place in London and Mexico; after The Mark of Terror as published. Self-dated, alas, four years after 1965 CE: I assume that the Elder is rambling a bit, distractedly jumping about in the sequentiality of his anecdote. The Doctor gives his age as five hundred: I think he is rounding down to the nearest half-millennium.

Kiss of Death   Audio drama, released 2011                                                  Doctor: 5

Featuring Nyssa, Tegan, Turlogh

Written by Stephen Cole.

Informed guess Takes place on Vektris, presumably between Doctor Who – Mawdryn Undead and Planet of Fire.

U.F.O.   Comic story, published 1969                                                                          Doctor: 2

Illustrated ?and written by John Canning.

Informed guess Takes place in London and Arizona; after The Brotherhood as published.

4-Dimensional Vistas   Comic story, published 1983                                          Doctor: 5

featuring Mortimus, the Ice Warriors, Gus, and the Time Lords (informative mention)

Written by Steve Parkhouse.

contemporary to publication, but the latest section takes place a year after an earlier

Takes place in the Pacific Ocean on an alternative Earth, and in the Arctic.

The Night Walkers   Comic story, published 1969                                               Doctor: 2

featuring the Time Lords

Written by Roger Noel Cook.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK; after U.F.O. as published.

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.

THE DOCTOR’S SECOND INCARNATION BECOMES A TV PERSONALITY (NO WONDER THE TIME LORDS FIND HIM) AND IS CARRIED OFF INTO A DISAPPEARING POLICE-BOX BY AMBULATORY SCARECROWS, I SUSPECT ON-CAMERA.

Hexagora   Audio drama, released 2011                                                            Doctor: 5

Featuring Nyssa, Tegan

Written by Paul Finch, from a story by Peter Ling and Hazel Adair.

Informed guess Takes place in London, on Luparis and near Brisbane, Australia, not long after Arc of Infinity but before The Awakening.

Power Game   Audio drama, released 2019                                                       Doctor: 5

Featuring Tegan, Turlogh, Kamelion

Written by Eddie Robson.

Informed guess Takes place in York; self-dated 1984 CE.

Kamelion is a robot of infinitly adaptable appearance. (If it had been striped, perhaps it would have coincidentally been named Xi Brah, or something). It seems to have been created billions of years before the Common Era, and indeed the Chronarchy.

The Awakening   TV story, broadcast 1984                                                      Doctor: 5

featuring Tegan, Turlogh

Written by Eric Pringle, script edited by Eric Saward.

Takes place in Little Hodcombe, a village in the southwest of England; self-dated May 1984 CE.

The Assassin’s Story   Short story, published 2004                                             Doctor: 5

featuring Tegan, Turlogh

Written by Andrew Collins.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK, including London; self-dated 1984 CE, plausibly just after The Awakening.

Resurrection of the Daleks   Novelisation, published 2019           Doctor: 5

Featuring the Daleks, Davros, Tegan, Turlogh, Lytton, with the Time Lords (informative mention)

Adapted by Eric Saward from his own script.

Informed guess Takes place variously; the earlier section in London, self-dated 1984 CE. I am assuming the dates given in the later section are a calendar in use in the fourth myriad, for reasons I will get to.

Doing it Right   Charity short story, published 1998                                            Doctor: 7

featuring Tegan, Ace

Written by Alan Taylor.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK, just after Tegan’s departure from the TARDIS. The earlier part of the story must take place while the TARDIS has landed in 1989 CE, as considerably more than five years have passed inside the TARDIS between Tegan’s departure from the TARDIS and Ace’s boarding of it.

Planet of Fire   TV story, broadcast 1984                                                      Doctor: 5

featuring the Master, Turlogh, Kamelion, Peri

Written by Peter Grimwade, script edited by Eric Saward.

Takes place on Lanzerote, an island of the north Atlantic, and Sarn; dated May 1984 CE in The Reaping. During this story Peri leaves linear time, being aboard the TARDIS when it dematerialises.

Heart of TARDIS   Novel, published 2000                                                  Doctors: 2, 4

featuring the Time Lords, Jamie, Victoria, Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT, Benton, Romana, and K9 II (glimpse), with the Daleks, Yates (informative mention)

Written by Dave Stone.

informed guess Takes place in London and the USA; self-dated July, “fifteen years” after 1968 CE. I take this as an approximate figure, as Lethbridge-Stewart’s return to active service is more likely to be happening a year after Doctor Who – Mawdryn Undead than two months. I am bolstered in this belief by the fact that he doesn’t seem to be back on active service in Doctor Who – The Five Doctors. Many commentators have supposed that because the Doctor and Romana travel through a fifteen-year time warp and back again, they age thirty years in this story, which causes some trouble in establishing their age as given in other stories; but I see no reason why a time warp which is fifteen years in one direction shouldn’t be minus fifteen years if you travel back by it in the opposite direction.

The Zygon Who Fell to Earth   Audio drama, released 2008               Doctor: 8

Featuring the Zygons, Lucie

Written by Paul Magrs.

Takes place in the Lake District; self-dated 1984 CE, evidently the holiday season.

Daemos Returns   Short story, published 2017                                                     Doctor: 0

Featuring Olive Hawthorne, the Daemons (informative mention)

Written by David J Howe.

Informed guess Takes place in Devil’s End, some time after The Daemons.

Day of the Dragon Illustrated short story, published 1984                                 Doctor: 6

featuring Peri

Written by the World Distributors 1985 Annual crew.

contemporary to publication Takes place in the UK; the Edwardian house is old and Harper is familiar with horror movies.

The Monkey House   Audio short story, released 2016                                        Doctor: 5

Featuring Jo, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlogh

Written by Nic Ford.

Informed guess Takes place mostly on the planet of the Thrandahars, ending “several years” after the late 1970s CE.

Nothing O’Clock   Illustrated short story, published 2013                          Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy, with the Time Lords (im)

Written by Neil Gaiman.

Informed guess Takes place in London; self-dated summer 1984 CE.

The Helliax Rift   Audio drama, released 2018                                           Doctor: 5

Featuring UNIT

Written by Scott Handcock.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK; dated 1984 CE in Warlock’s Cross

 

The Company of Wolves (1984) broadly fits Doctor Who lore on werewolves, including the suggestion that they can slip backwards and forwards between narrative and reality.

 

The Effect of Dimensional Transcendence on Mozarella Cheese   Charity short story, published 1999                                                                                                            Doctor: 5

Written by Diane Duane.

Informed guess Takes place in Philadelphia, “fifteen years back” from the story’s narration in Perfect Timing 2, published in 1999 CE.

The Reaping   Audio drama, released 2006                                               Doctor: 6

featuring the Cybermen, Peri

Written by Joseph Lidster.

Takes place on the Moon and in Baltimore, MD; self-dated September 1984 CE. Some of these Cybermen are time-travelling Cybermen, that do not crop up anything like as often as time-travelling Daleks. It is statistically reasonable to assume that the Cybermen have never become a temporal power like the Daleks and the Enemy. The USA certainly has a multiplicity of law enforcement uniforms, but Martin Geraghty’s illustration in the Doctor Who Magazine shows one so British, down to the sergeant’s stripes pointing down instead of up, that I think the story’s location was not conveyed to him.

The Nemertines   Illustrated short story, published 1983                                Doctor: 5

featuring Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT, Tegan, Turlogh

Written by the World Distributors 1984 Annual crew.

Informed guess Takes place in London; Lethbridge-Stewart is on active service. He is not wearing one of his usual badges on his beret: it could be Royal Artillery, or Parachute Regiment. As a senior member of the UK’s undercover community, no doubt he can turn up nominally attached to any unit.

The Carrionite Curse   Audio drama, released 2017                                 Doctor: 6

Featuring the Carrionites

Written by Simon Guerrier.

Informed guess Takes place in Birmingham; self-dated an October in “the nineteen-eighties”.

Birmingham was the second largest city of the UK, at this point in the landlocked metropolitan area of the West Midlands.

Iris Explains   Charity short story, published 2001       Doctor: 8 (the amnesiac sequence)

Featuring Iris Wildthyme, Miranda, with Benny, Faction Paradox, the War in Heaven (informative mention)

Written by Lance Parkin.

Informed guess Takes place in Kent; Miranda is sixteen. These events happen to the Doctor during the period in his eighth incarnation when he was stranded for over a century on Earth, with most of his memories missing, waiting for a severely damaged TARDIS to regrow back into functionality.

Miranda Dawkins is a non-Tellurian humanoid of implicitly Gallifreyan descent, born in the Doctor’s personal future, or possibly an oxbow timeline proceeding from the Second War in Heaven, or otherwise, averted by the Doctor’s actions. Iris’s explanation sheds little light in this, or other, regards.

Into the Silent Land Short story, published 2006    Doctors: 4, 1 (informative mention)

featuring Romana

Written by Steven A.Roman.

Takes place in Maine; a November in the late 20th century CE.

Maine is a constituent state of the USA, lying on the east coast immediately south of Canada.

Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma   Novel, published 1986                                                                                  Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Turlough

Written by Tony Atwood.

Takes place all over the Galaxy between Trion, New Trion and Earth, ending a few months after Planet of Fire. Eventually, there seem to have been three versions of Turlough: one killed by Rehctaht, one who killed Rehctaht and replaced the first in his timeline, one who came back to Trion with Rechtaht already dead, and probably a fourth, a possible future of the second, who worked with the Gardsormr.

The Fires Down Below   Comic story, published 1982                                         Doctor: 0

Featuring the Quarks and Dominators, UNIT, with Lethbridge-Stewart (informative mention)

Written by John Peel.

Informed guess Takes place under Iceland; self-dated 1984 CE.

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.

SEISMIC EVENTS TRIGGERED BY DOMINATOR HAAG KILL “MILLIONS” OF PEOPLE.

The Clanging Chimes of Doom  Short story, published 2004                          Doctor: 4

featuring K9 II, Romana

Written by Jonathan Morris.

Takes place in Notting Hill, in London; self-dated late November 1984 CE, on the day Do They Know It’s Christmas? was recorded.

Static Audio drama, released 2017                                                                           Doctor: 6

Featuring Flip, Constance

Written by Jonathan Morris.

Informative guess Takes place in southern England; self-dated the mid-eighties CE.

Philippa Jackson, known as Flip, is a Tellurian born in the early 1990s CE.

Constance Clarke is a Tellurian born in 1909 CE.

Loose Ends   Charity short story, published 2001                                                       Doctor: 8

Featuring Lytton, Sam

Written by Sue Cowley.

Takes place in Hammersmith, London; self-dated Christmas Eve 1984 CE.

Remain in Light  Short story, published 2007                                                          Doctor: 8

Featuring Lucie

Written by Eddie Robson.

Takes place in Malibu, Ca.; self-dated the Christmas before the release of The Breakfast Club.

 

 

 

 

Total Stories Considered               654  

Proportion Written By Women   8%                                          

 

Top Docs

3                 194 stories

4                 81 stories  

2                 42 stories  

5                 38 stories   Climber!

7                 29 stories           

1                 25 stories

8                 23 stories           

6                 17 stories   Climber!    

11               17 stories  

10               14 stories  

12               14 stories  

Unbound   9 stories             

13               4 stories    

9                 3 stories    

         

         

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

Alastair and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                                                                                         226 stories

UNIT                                                                    181 stories

London                                                               164 stories

Regional England                                             150 stories         

Jo                                                                         84 stories  

Benton                                                                84 stories  

North America                                                   79 stories

Yates                                                                   63 stories  

The Master                                                         54 stories            

The Travers family                                            52 stories

Liz                                                                        51 stories  

Sarah Jane                                                          51 stories  

At sea                                                                  49 stories   Climber!    

The Time Lords                                                  40 stories   Climber!

The Intrusion Counter-Measures Group        39 stories

Continental Europe                                           39 stories           

Scotland                                                              38 stories

Christmas                                                            34 stories  

Iris Wildthyme                                                   28 stories  

The K9s                                                               25 stories

         

         

 

         

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                           271 stories

The Seventies                                                    120 stories         

The Noughties                                                    112 stories

The Nineties                                                       57 stories

The Twenties                                                     38 stories  

The Sixties                                                          29 stories  

The Eighties                                                        29 stories   

 

 

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2016                                                          47 stories

2017                                                          33 stories   Climber!

2019                                                          32 stories   Climber!    

2015                                                          31 stories  

2013                                                          31 stories  

2018                                                          30 stories  

1970                                                          24 stories

2011                                                          23 stories   Climber!

2001                                                          22 stories   Climber!

2012                                                          22 stories  

1973                                                          20 stories  

2019                                                          19 stories

1972                                                          18 stories

2020                                                          18 stories

1974                                                          14 stories  

2008                                                          14 stories   Climber!

1993                                                          13 stories  

2007                                                          13 stories   Climber!    

2009                                                          12 stories

2010                                                          12 stories  

 

         

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                                280

Proportion of Female Writers                         13%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

? John Canning                                         29 stories   New number one!

Terrance Dicks                                          28 stories  

Paul Magrs                                                19 stories  

Anonymous Polystyle Writers               15 stories  

John Dorney                                             13 stories  

Andy Frankham-Allen                            13 stories  

Eric Saward                                               12 stories   Climber!

Eddie Robson                                            11 stories   Climber!

Robert Holmes                                         10 stories  

Malcolm Hulke                                         10 stories  

Mark Wright                                             10 stories  

Simon Guerrier                                        9 stories

Roger Noel Cook                                      8 stories     Climber!

Dennis Hooper                                         8 stories    

Jonathan Morris                                      8 stories     Climber!    

Justin Richards                                         8 stories    

1971 Annual crew                                   8 stories    

1973 Annual crew                                   8 stories             

Guy Adams                                               6 stories=            

Matt Fitton                                               6 stories=

Steve Lyons                                               6 stories=  

David A McIntee                                      6 stories=

John Peel                                                   6 stories=

Cody Schell                                               6 stories=

David Whitaker                                        6 stories=

1974 Annual crew                                   6 stories=