Now: Nineteen Ninety-Eight                                                                       

 

What Does it Profit a Man?   Charity short story, published 2001      Doctor: Unbound 3

featuring Unbound Lethbridge-Stewart, an Unbound Master, Unbound Earth Reptiles

Written by Arfie Mansfield.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in a parallel reality.


Goodbye Rembrandt   Charity short story, published 1999                    Doctor: 4

featuring K9 II, Romana

Written by David J Howe.

informed guess Takes place in London; self-dated 1998 CE.


System Shock  Novel, published 1995                                               Doctor: 4

featuring Sarah Jane, Harry, the Voracians, with UNIT (informative mention)

Written by Justin Richards.

informed guess Takes place in London and Wiltshire; self-dated 1998 CE.

The Voracians are spacefaring cyborgs, originally reptilian, from the planet Vorella.


Should Have Been Dancing   Charity short story, published 2001                                                                                                           Doctors: Unbound 4, and Unbound 3 (informative mention)

featuring Sarah Jane, and Jo (informative mention)

Written by Paul Magrs.

informed guess Takes place in the Doctor’s head, plausibly not long before Sarah’s Hurt.


Sarah’s Hurt  Charity drabble, published 1993                                           Doctor: 7

featuring Sarah Jane

Written by Andrew W Donkin and Graham S Brand.

informed guess Takes place in London, some time after Sarah Jane has first met the Doctor’s seventh incarnation in Bullet Time.


Train-Flight   Comic story, published 1990                                               Doctor: 7

featuring Sarah Jane, with K9 III, Ace (informative mention)

Written by Andrew W Donkin and Graham S Brand.

informed guess Takes place in and above London, immediately after Sarah’s Hurt.

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.

LOTS OF LONDON BUSES AND THEIR OCCUPANTS DISAPPEAR FOREVER, WHILE A TRAIN AND ITS OCCUPANTS DISAPPEAR FROM A TUNNEL AND REAPPEAR ON THE STEPS OF THE ALBERT HALL.


Could It Be Magic?   Novel, published 1998                                 Doctor: 0

Featuring Iris Wildthyme

Written by Paul Magrs.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in Northern England; possibly the Obverse.


What Guns Do   Charity short story, published 2001                            Doctor: Unbound 7

Written by Dale Smith.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK, in an alternative timeline, not long before publication.


Dog Days of Summer   Short story, published 2013                            Doctor: ?Unbound

Featuring Iris Wildthyme

Written by Roy Gill.

Takes place in the UK outside London, ending self-datedly in summer 1998 CE. A reference to a thesis suggests to me that Andrew’s mother is an unbound incarnation of the Doctor. An alternative identity for her is another incarnation of Iris, possibly one expressing her jealousy of the Doctor by obtaining a doctorate herself.

 

The film Pi (1998), with contesting parties seeking to exploit the mathematical nature of reality, feels like a possible manifestation of the Second War in Heaven.

 

Mother’s Little Helper   Short story, published 1998                              Doctor: 2

Written by Matthew Jones.

Contemporary to publication Takes place at the English seaside.


Absent Friends Audio Drama, released 2016                                       Doctor: 8

Featuring Liv, Helen

Written by John Dorney.

Takes place in and not far outside London; self-dated August 1998 CE.

 

Blade, a vampire film of 1998, is not incompatible with Doctor Who narrative.

 

Going Home               Charity short story, published 2001                                    Doctor: 6

featuring Peri, Anji

Written by Colin Brake.

Informed guess Takes place in Boston; self-dated an autumn in the late twentieth century CE. Anji, b.1973, was going out with Dave when her five-years younger brother went to University (1996 CE?) and by this time, her relationship with him is stable enough to survive her being away for a year in Boston.

Boston was a port and major city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a constituent state on the northern Atlantic seaboard of the USA, west of the state of New York.


Human Remains   Audio Drama, released 2015                                  Doctor: 0

Featuring Dorian Gray

Written by James Goss.

Informed guess Takes place in London; self-dated 1998 CE.

 

John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998) is a film that may self-explanatorily be included in Doctor Who narrative.

 

The Aurelius Gambit   Charity short story, published 1998                    Doctor: 0

featuring Sarah Jane, K9 III, with the Master, UNIT (informative mention)

Written by Helen Fayle.

contemporary to publication Takes place in the UK.


Option Lock   Novel, published 1998                                                 Doctor: 8

featuring Sam

Written by Justin Richards.

Takes place in London and rural England, North America and central Asia, and in orbit; dated 1998 CE by the Doctor, mostly a month before snowfall in the UK.

 

Meet Joe Black (1998) features the seventh Doctor's occasional sparring partner, Death.


The Bells of Saint John: SA Prequel   Webcast, posted 2013                Doctor: 11

Featuring Clara

Written by Steven Moffat.

Informed guess Takes place probably in Lancashire. Sophie Downham, the actress playing Clara, was twelve at the time the webcast was filmed; Clara was born in 1986 CE, so I’m dating this in 1998 CE.


Wild Palms was a surrealist comic strip published in Details magazine between 1990 and 1993 and details a paranoiac conspiracy in Hollywood, a few years in the future. If Faction Hollywood are not involved, they must surely be lurking outside most of its frames.


The Red Bicycle Illustrated short story, published 2016                           Doctor: 9

Featuring Rose (informative mention)

Written by Gary Russell.

Takes place partly in London; self-dated Christmas Eve, 1998 CE.


Better Watch Out, Better Take Care   Short story, published 2000    Doctor: 4

featuring Romana, and Lethbridge-Stewart (informative mention)

Written by Steve Burford.

informed guess Takes place in the UK; self-dated a Christmas Eve after Lethbridge-Stewart has married Doris.

 

 

 

 

Total Stories Considered               855  

Proportion Written By Women   8%                                          

 

Top Docs

3                 206 stories

4                 103 stories

7                 81 stories  

2                 58 stories  

5                 49 stories  

6                 47 stories

8                 38 stories   Climber!

1                 36 stories

11               25 stories  

Unbound   17 stories   Climber!

10               15 stories  

12               15 stories            

9                 6 stories    

13               4 stories    

         

         

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

Alastair, Kate and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                 253 stories

London                                                                219 stories

Regional England                                               213 stories Climber!   

UNIT                                                                   208 stories

North America                                                   102 stories

Jo                                                                         90 stories  

Benton                                                                87 stories           

Sarah Jane                                                         74 stories           

The Master, including Missy                            66 stories  

Yates                                                                   65 stories  

Liz                                                                        60 stories  

The Time Lords                                                  57 stories  

The Travers family                                            56 stories

Continental Europe                                           54 stories  

At sea                                                                  54 stories            

Ace                                                                      54 stories   Climber!    

Christmas                                                            47 stories  

The K9s                                                               44 stories   Climber!

Scotland                                                              41 stories

Iris Wildthyme                                                   40 stories   New Entry!

 

 

 

         

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                           314 stories

The Noughties                                                    155 stories

The Nineties                                                       140 stories         

The Seventies                                                    120 stories

The Eighties                                                        53 stories  

The Twenties                                                     42 stories  

The Sixties                                                          32 stories  

 

 

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2016                                                          50 stories

2019                                                          40 stories

2018                                                          37 stories  

2001                                                          36 stories   Climber!    

2013                                                          36 stories   Climber!    

2015                                                          35 stories   Climber!

2017                                                          35 stories            

1993                                                          30 stories  

2012                                                          29 stories           

2011                                                          28 stories            

1970                                                          24 stories

2021                                                          22 stories

1973                                                          20 stories  

2020                                                          20 stories  

2008                                                          19 stories

1972                                                          18 stories

1992                                                          18 stories                     

1999                                                          16 stories  

1995                                                          15 stories= Re-entry!

1999                                                          15 stories= New entry!

2005                                                          15 stories=

2009                                                          15 stories=

 

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                               355

Proportion of Female Writers                         13%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

Terrance Dicks                                          32 stories  

? John Canning                                         30 stories  

Paul Magrs                                                25 stories  

Andy Frankham-Allen                            16 stories

Eric Saward                                             16 stories  

Anonymous Polystyle Writers               15 stories  

Eddie Robson                                            15 stories            

John Dorney                                             14 stories  

Andrew Cartmel                                      12 stories  

Justin Richards                                         12 stories   Climber!    

Paul Cornell                                              11 stories  

Simon Guerrier                                        11 stories

Robert Holmes                                         11 stories  

Gary Russell                                              11 stories   Climber!    

Malcolm Hulke                                         10 stories  

David A McIntee                                      10 stories

Jonathan Morris                                      10 stories  

Mark Wright                                             10 stories  

Roger Noel Cook                                      9 stories    

Steve Lyons                                               9 stories    

 

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