Now: Nineteen Ninety-Two                                                             

 

Fond Memories   Illustrated short story, published 1992                         Doctor: 0

featuring Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT, Benton, Sarah Jane

Written by Nicholas Courtney.

contemporary to publication Takes place in Geneva.

The Vanity Trap   Audio Drama, released 2020                                  Doctor: 6

Featuring Peri

Written by Stuart Manning.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK, the later section dated 1992 CE.

Time Fraud   Comic story, published 2012                                                 Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy, Rory, the Time Agency, with Captain Jack (glimpse)

Written by Richard Dinnick.

Takes place partly in Peru; self-dated 1992 CE. Amy is certainly not a ganger, as the story takes place for the Doctor and his colleagues after A Good Man Goes to War.

Peru was a republic on the west coast of South America, southwest of Colombia.

Only Connect Short story, published 2008                                               Doctor: 4

Written by Andy Lane.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK. James Willaker, in his thirties, worked on Chase Manor some time before The Seeds of Doom. His memories of seeing Jean-Michel Jarre’s Docklands concert as a student must consequently be a bit jumbled, as it can only have taken place a few years earlier.

Beyond the Ultimate Adventure   Audio Drama, released 2011 Doctor: 6

Featuring the vampires, the Rutan, the Raston Warrior Robot (informative mention)

Written by Terrance Dicks.

Informed guess This was clearly written as a sequel to the audio adaptation of The Ultimate Adventure and was released three years after. I am therefore dating it three years later. I am perversely impressed that they went with this title.

Office Politics   Short story, published 2013                                              Doctor: 0

Featuring Faction Paradox, with the Second War in Heaven (informative mention)

Written by Alan Taylor.

Takes place in Stevenage, Herts; ending self-datedly in 1992 CE.

Hour of the Cybermen   Audio Drama, released 2018              Doctor: 6

Featuring the Cybermen, UNIT

Written by Andrew Smith.

Informed guess Takes place in London, dated 1992 CE with reference to Warlock’s Cross and The Heliax Rift.

Brief Encounter   Illustrated short story, published 1992                        Doctor: 7

featuring Ace

Written by Paul Ferry.

contemporary to publication Takes place in London. This is effectively one of three illustrated short stories in the Brief Encounter range in Doctor Who Magazine to bear the title Brief Encounter as they were not published with a separate title of their own. In the online Doctor Who Reference Guide it is given the title Duggan. In the spirit of the Magazine itself retrospectively naming TV Comic strips, I would like to suggest the title Small Change, referencing the small amount of money featured in the story an also exploiting the ambiguity in English idiom by which ‘small change’ means ‘there’s been no change worth noticing’ and also, almost antonymically, ‘there has at least been one change worth noticing’, given that the story revisits Duggan and gives him a further unwelcome interaction with the Doctor thirteen years after City of Death.

Cat’s Cradle: Witchmark   Novel, published 1992                  Doctor: 7

featuring Ace

Written by Andrew Hunt.

Informed guess Takes place in Wales and Tir na n-Og, self-dated early summer and 1992 CE by Parkin in Ahistory.

Ships   Illustrated short story, published 1992                                            Doctor: 0

featuring Dodo, Sarah Jane

Written by Jamie Woolley.

contemporary to publication Takes place in suburban London. This established pretty conclusively that Dodo did not die in the early 1970s, as reported by James Stevens in Who Killed Kennedy. Murdering her to mess with Stevens’s mind seemed rather petty of the Master, who is established as having cloning technology in Freedom. It would appear that he dumped the body of a mindless clone on Stevens, and later released Dodo with her memories further scrambled.

Invaders From Gantac!   Comic story, published 1989                           Doctor: 7

Featuring the Daleks (informative mention)

Written by Alan Grant.

Informed guess Takes place in London; self-dated 1992 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.

GANTACIAN SPACESHIPS APPEAR ABOVE THE EARTH AND SHOOT DOWN AEROPLANES LIVE ON TV. THE GANTACIANS LAND IN LONDON AND POSSIBLY OTHER PLACES, KILL LOTS OF PEOPLE AND ROUND THE REST UP IN PLACES LIKE HYDE PARK. THEY THEN DROP DEAD.

An Alien Werewolf in London   Audio Drama, released 2019        Doctor: 7

Featuring Ace, Mags

Written by Alan Barnes.

Informed guess Takes place in London; self-dated the early 1990s CE.

Mags is a werewolf born on the planet Vulpana in the far future (my own tentative suggestion is the fifth milliaeon), possibly of Tellurian descent.

Farewells   Illustrated short story, published 1992                                     Doctor: 4

featuring Sarah Jane, K9 III

Written by Terrance Dicks.

contemporary to publication Takes place in the UK, a considerable time after K9 & Co.: A Girl’s Best Friend.

Timewyrm: Revelation   Novel, published 1991                        Doctor: 7, with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (informative mention)

featuring Ace, the Timewyrm, Death and the Time Lords (glimpse), the Daleks (informative mention)

Written by Paul Cornell.

Takes place in Cheldon Bonniface, Norfolk, and on the Moon; self-dated December 1992 CE.

The Timewyrm was originally a cybernetically enhanced humanoid named Qataka from the planet Anu, who became an incorporeal virus in the universe’s structure when the Doctor ill-advisedly ejected her into the space-time vortex with some of the TARDIS’s structure.

 

 

 

Total Stories Considered               759  

Proportion Written By Women   8%                                          

 

Top Docs

3                 196 stories

4                 90 stories  

7                 52 stories   Climber!    

2                 52 stories  

5                 43 stories  

6                 40 stories

1                 31 stories

8                 27 stories           

11               22 stories  

10               15 stories  

12               14 stories  

Unbound   10 stories           

9                 5 stories    

13               4 stories    

         

         

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

Alastair and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                                                                                        236 stories

UNIT                                                                    191 stories

London                                                               190 stories

Regional England                                             178 stories         

North America                                                  94 stories  

Benton                                                                87 stories   Climber!    

Jo                                                                         85 stories  

Yates                                                                   63 stories  

Sarah Jane                                                          61 stories           

The Master                                                         58 stories  

The Travers family                                            54 stories  

Liz                                                                        52 stories  

At sea                                                                  51 stories           

Continental Europe                                           51 stories   Climber!    

The Time Lords                                                  48 stories  

Christmas                                                            40 stories  

The Intrusion Counter-Measures Group        39 stories

Scotland                                                              39 stories   Re-entry!  

Ace                                                                      37 stories  

The K9s                                                               32 stories   Re-entry!

 

 

         

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                           298 stories

The Noughties                                                    135 stories

The Seventies                                                    120 stories         

The Nineties                                                       83 stories

The Eighties                                                        51 stories  

The Twenties                                                     41 stories  

The Sixties                                                          32 stories  

 

 

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2016                                                          48 stories

2019                                                          37 stories  

2018                                                          36 stories  

2017                                                          34 stories            

2015                                                          33 stories  

2013                                                          33 stories  

2001                                                          28 stories  

2011                                                          28 stories   Climber!    

2012                                                          28 stories   Climber!    

1970                                                          24 stories

2021                                                          21 stories

1973                                                          20 stories  

2008                                                          19 stories   Climber!

2020                                                          19 stories   Climber!    

1972                                                          18 stories

1974                                                          14 stories  

1992                                                          14 stories   Re-entry!

1993                                                          14 stories            

2005                                                          14 stories  

2009                                                          14 stories

 

         

 

         

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                               325

Proportion of Female Writers                         13%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

Terrance Dicks                                          31 stories   New number 1! 

? John Canning                                         30 stories  

Paul Magrs                                                20 stories  

Eric Saward                                              16 stories  

Andy Frankham-Allen                            16 stories

Anonymous Polystyle Writers                 15 stories  

Eddie Robson                                            14 stories 

John Dorney                                             13 stories  

Robert Holmes                                         11 stories  

Andrew Cartmel                                      10 stories  

Simon Guerrier                                        10 stories  

Malcolm Hulke                                         10 stories  

Jonathan Morris                                      10 stories  

Mark Wright                                             10 stories

Roger Noel Cook                                      9 stories    

Paul Cornell                                             8 stories=   Re-entry!

Dennis Hooper                                         8 stories=  

Justin Richards                                       8 stories=

Gary Russell                                            8 stories=   Climber!    

1971 Annual crew                                   8 stories=  

1973 Annual crew                                   8 stories=