Now: Two Thousand and Six                                                                      

 

Night Thoughts   Audio drama, released 2006                              Doctor: 7

featuring Ace, Hex

Written by Edward Young.

contemporary to publication Takes place in the Hebrides; self-dated during the winter break of the Academic year. Dickins and the Deacon are veterans of the Falklands war, which is compatible with a contemporary setting.

The Hebrides is an archipelago off the northwest coast of Albion, politically part of Scotland.

The Mother Road   Short story, published 2006                                     Doctor: 1

featuring Susan, Barbara, Ian

Written by Gareth Wigmore.

informed guess Takes place across the USA, taking in Chicago, St Louis, a city of Missouri, Kansas, Tulsa, a city of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, the state capital of same, Texas, Santa Fe, a city of New Mexico, Arizona and Santa Barbara, Ca; self-dated 2006 CE.

Missouri was a landlocked constituent state of the USA, west of Illinois and northwest of Tennessee

Kansas was a landlocked constituent state of the USA, east of Colorado and west of Missouri.

Oklahoma was a landlocked constituent state of the USA, south of Kansas, northwest of Texas and southeast of Colorado.

New Mexico was a landlocked constituent state of the USA, south of Colorado, west of Oklahoma, northwest of Texas, north of Mexico and east of Arizona.

UNIT: Time Heals   Audio drama, released 2004                               Doctor: 0

Featuring Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT, with the Earth Reptiles (informative mention)

Written by Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett.

informed guess Takes place in Oxfordshire, Essex, London and at sea, not long after The Coup.

Surprisingly late UNRECONCILED UNIT DATING

The Rise of the Dominator puts this story in 2004 CE, but I can’t get The Coup in that early.

UNIT: Snake Head   Audio drama, released 2004                             Doctor: 0

Featuring Vampires, UNIT, with China, Kosovo (informative mention)

Written by Jonathan Clements.

Takes place in Southend, shortly after UNIT: Time Heals, and in January. Unlike conventional vampires, the vrykolaks don’t seem bothered by a recital of the Lord’s Prayer and are vulnerable to gunfire; but I suggest that like the Primords, werewolves and Saturnyns, they possess a quality of ‘vampireness’ deriving from the Yssgaroth.

Kosovo was an autonomous landlocked region of the Balkan peninsula of southern Europe.

UNIT: The Longest Night   Audio drama, released 2004               Doctor: 0

Featuring UNIT, with Scotland, regional England (informative mention)

Written by Joseph Lidster.

Takes place in London, a few hours after UNIT: Snake Head.

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.

ISIS (AND THAT NAME WOULD HAVE SOUNDED UNFORTUNATE A FEW YEARS LATER IF THE ORGANISATION HAD SURVIVED), A ROGUE GOVERNMENT SECURITY AGENCY, INFLICTS MANY CASUALTIES, INCLUDING TEN THOUSAND FATALITIES, IN A FALSE FLAG TERRORIST OPERATION. ALSO, LONDON SEEMS TO BE USING THE EURO SINCE LAST MONTH.

The Law Machines   Audio drama, released 2018                              Doctor: 0

Featuring Torchwood

Written by Matt Fitton.

Informed guess Takes place in London, some time after Uprising and self-dated 2006 CE.

UNIT: The Wasting   Audio drama, released 2004                            Doctor: 0

Featuring Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT, with the Earth Reptiles, Harry (informative mention)

Written by Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett.

Takes place in an area formerly in the USSR, presumably not too far from the NATO laboratory where Earth Reptile scientists have synthesised the cure to an interstellar plague, London, and Markham, a village in south Wales, starting two weeks after UNIT: The Longest Night.

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.

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS ARE INFECTED BY A 28 DAYS LATER STYLE FLESH-EATING VERY ENERGETIC ZOMBIE DISEASE.

 

A Prairie Home Companion (2006) features an avatar of Death, in attendance at the final performance of the titular radio programme. This also counts as alternative history, as in our timeline the show continued until 2016

 

Blind Summit   Audio drama, released 2018                                        Doctor: 0

Featuring Torchwood

Written by Gareth David-Lloyd.

Informed guess Takes place in London, after The Law Machines.

The Woman in a Black Beehive   Audio drama, released 2015   Doctor: 0

Featuring Brenda

Written by Paul Magrs.

Informed guess Takes place in Whitby, North Yorkshire, some time before Never the Bride.

Brenda is a synthetic humanoid, assembled from posthumous body-parts some time in the nineteenth century, though her memory is too fragmentary for her to be precise.

9 to 5   Audio drama, released 2018                                                            Doctor: 0

Featuring Torchwood

Written by Tim Foley.

Informed guess Takes place in London, after Blind Summit.

Curtain Call   Short story, published 2006                                                Doctor: 6

featuring Mel (informative mention)

Written by Joseph Lidster.

Takes place in the UK; self-dated March, 2006 CE.

Aliens of London and World War Three   TV Story, broadcast 2005                                                                                                                                                        Doctor: 9

Featuring Rose, Mickey, Jackie, the Raxacoricofallapatorians, with UNIT (glimpse)

Written by Russell T Davies.

Takes place in London; self-dated March 2006 CE.

Moving On   Short story, published 1996                                                   Doctor: 0

featuring Sarah Jane, K9 III

Written by Peter Anghelides.

Informed guess Takes place in London; finishes ten years after the date of publication.

Never the Bride         Novel, published 2006                                  Doctor: 0

Featuring the Vampires, the Smudgelings, Brenda

Written by Paul Magrs.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in Whitby, North Yorkshire; dated spring in Conjugal Rites.

I Am A Dalek   Novella, published 2006                                                    Doctor: 10

Featuring the Daleks, Rose, with the Moon (informative mention)

Written by Gareth Roberts.

Contemporary to publication Takes place on the English south coast, Berkshire and Durham; self-dated May..

Gravestone House   Illustrated short story, published 2006                   Doctor: 10

Featuring Rose

Written by Justin Richards.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in the UK; self-dated spring.

Primeval Episode 1   TV Story, broadcast 2007                                  Doctor: 0

Featuring the Anomaly Investigation Team

Written by Adrian Hodges.

Informed guess Takes place in the Forest of Dean, that part of Gloucestershire lying west of the Severn, against the Welsh border, some time after May 2006 CE, but before September that year, as established by dating in Series Two of Primeval.

Primeval Episode 2   TV Story, broadcast 2007                                 Doctor: 0

Featuring the Anomaly Investigation Team

Written by Adrian Hodges.

Informed guess Takes place in London and in the New Forest an arboreal area of southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire, one or two days after Primeval Episode 1.

Something Borrowed   Novel, published 2007                          Doctor: 0

Featuring the Vampires, the Smudgelings, Brenda

Written by Paul Magrs.

Informed guess Takes place in Whitby, North Yorks, not long after Never the Bride.

The Velvet Dark Short story, published 2006                                          Doctor: 5

featuring the Master, Tegan, Turlogh

Written by Stewart Sheargold.

contemporary to publication Takes place in the UK.

Winner Takes All Novel, published 2005                                      Doctor: 9

Featuring Rose, Mickey, Jackie

Written by Jacqueline Rayner.

Informed guess Takes place in London and on Toop, sometime between Aliens of London and World War Three and Boom Town.

Primeval Episode 3   TV Story, broadcast 2007                                  Doctor: 0

Featuring the Anomaly Investigation Team

Written by Adrian Hodges.

Informed guess Takes place in London and elsewhere in the UK, some time after Primeval Episode 3.

Primeval Episode 4   TV Story, broadcast 2007                                 Doctor: 0

Featuring the Anomaly Investigation Team

Written by Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle.

Informed guess Takes place in London and elsewhere the UK, within a day of Primeval Episode 3.

F.A.Q.   Comic story, published 2006                                                          Doctor: 10

Featuring Rose

Written by Tony Lee.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in Wimbledon; self-dated ‘today’.

Exchange   Novel, published 2006                                                       Doctor: 0

Written by Paul Magrs.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in Darlington, a town in County Durham, and elsewhere.

Primeval Episode 5   TV Story, broadcast 2007                                 Doctor: 0

Featuring the Anomaly Investigation Team

Written by Chris Lang.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK, about a month after Primeval Episode 4.

Primeval Episode 6   TV Story, broadcast 2007                                 Doctor: 0

Featuring the Anomaly Investigation Team

Written by Adrian Hodges.

Informed guess Takes place in the London, the Forest of Dean and elsewhere, shortly after Primeval Episode 5. At the end of this episode, Cutter comes back from the Permian Era to find himself in a different timeline, which is where all subsequent episodes of Primeval take place. I think this relieves me of the responsibility of listing anymore. The implication is that the Series One timeline is extinguished by actions back in the Permian, but The Skull and the Soldier suggests that it might be the Great Houses’ scheme to overwrite the Second War in Heaven with the Last Great Time War.

The Wickerwork Man   Short story, published 2006                              Doctor: 8

Written by Paul Magrs.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in Levenshulme, Manchester; self-dated the school summer holidays.

Conjugal Rites   Novel, published 2009                                           Doctor: 0

Featuring the Vampires, Brenda

Written by Paul Magrs.

Informed guess. Takes place in Whitby, North Yorkshire, less than a year after Never the Bride.

Sync   Audio drama, released 2019                                                             Doctor: 0

Featuring the Raxacoricofallapatorians, Torchwood

Written by Lisa McMullin.

Takes place in and outside Cardiff, not long before Boom Town.

Fried Death   Comic story, published 2006                                               Doctor: 10

Featuring Rose

Written by Alan Barnes.

Contemporary to publication Takes place just off the A342, which runs between Pewsham in Wiltshire and Andover in Hampshire.

No Fun at the Fair   Short story, published 2006                                     Doctor: 10

Featuring Rose, the Raxacoricofallapatorians

Written by Jacqueline Rayner.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in the UK; self-dated summer.

 

Syndromes and a Century (2006), like director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's previous film, Tropical Malady, has a dreamlike relationship to narrative, with its characters playing out their story first around a hospital in the Thai countryside, then in a different way forty years later around a hospital in the city. There is a distinctly Second War in Heaven ambience.

 

Boom Town   TV Story, broadcast 2005                                                 Doctor: 9

Featuring Rose, Mickey, the Raxacoricofallapatorians, Captain Jack

Written by Russell T Davies

Takes place in Cardiff; self-dated six months after Aliens of London and World War Three.

R&J   Audio drama, released 2020                                        Doctor: 9 (informative mention)

Featuring River Song, Captain Jack, Jackie, with Benny, the Raxacoricofallapatorians, Ashildr (informative mention)

Written by James Goss.

Takes place in London, New York, Gallipoli but crucially in Cardiff during Boom Town.

Gallipoli was a peninsula of southeast Europe, separated from Asia by a narrow strait.

Ashildr is a Tellurian born in the ninth century CE.

Genesis of Evil   Comic story, published 1965                                           Doctor: 0

featuring the Daleks

Written by David Whitaker and Alan Fennel.

Takes place on Skaro, ending three years after the first page of The Dalek Tapes.

 

Nikki Grace, the protagonist of Inland Empire (2006) is a Hollywood actress who finds herself moving between competing versions of reality and on at least one occasion looping back in time. It is established in Print the Legend that in Second War in Heaven terms, the United States is the territory of the Celestis, although The Book of the War suggests that Faction Hollywood gives Faction Paradox a significant foothold in Los Angeles. It was of course during the shoot of Michael Brookhaven’s Ghost Kingdom that a manifestation of The Enemy erupted into the Hollywood Bowl, possibly claiming Chris Cwej. Hollywood’s frenzied obsession with narrative might make it very vulnerable to Enemy incursion, and I suggest that Grace’s experience – ontological horror with a suggestion of body-horror – is very redolent of The Enemy.

 

Corner of the Eye   Illustrated short story, published 2006                     Doctor: 10

Written by Steven Moffat.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in the UK.

The Gathering   Audio drama, released 2006                                  Doctor: 5

featuring the Cybermen, Tegan, with Peri, Erimem (informative mention)

Written by Joseph Lidster.

Takes place in Brisbane, Australia; self-dated September, 2006 CE

The Nightmare of Black Island   Novel, published 2006   Doctor: 10

Featuring Rose

Written by Mike Tucker.

Contemporary to publication Takes place in and off the coast of Wales; self-dated late September.

Hell’s Belles   Novel, published 2009                                                 Doctor: 0

Featuring the Vampires, Brenda

Written by Paul Magrs.

Informed guess Takes place in Whitby; self-dated October. Presumably it is the October after Conjugal Rites, as Brenda is on honeymoon.

The Very Last Picture Show   Short story, published 2006                    Doctor: 4

featuring Leela

Written by Andrew Collins.

contemporary to publication Takes place ostensibly in the UK; self-dated November.

Moving Target   Audio drama, released 2016                                      Doctor: 0

Featuring Torchwood

Written by Guy Adams.

Takes place in Cardiff; self-dated late November 2006 CE.

 

The Lost Room, a TV miniseries broadcast in 2006, features a motel room removed from time and space by something the The Book of the War might well have described as a Violent Unknown Event. The room itself and its contents behave in a way not dissimilar to Wartime Ship, and the factions competing to find its contents might plausibly be the unwitting minions of Wartime powers.

 

Jigsaw               Short story, published 2007                                                           Doctor: 3

featuring UNIT, Jo, and Christmas, Lethbridge-Stewart (informative mention)

Takes place beneath London, on the Northern Line; self-dated December 2006 CE. Despite Will Hoffman having died earlier in the year, his signature appears as a witness on the UNIT report on the matter. So does Emily Chaudhry’s, happily suggesting she survived the massacre of UNIT experts at Downing Street in March (Aliens of London and World War Three). Although UNIT Officer Commanding, UK, perhaps she avoided the meeting on the grounds of not being an expert.

Meet Rose   Illustrated short story, published 2005                                  Doctor: 9

Featuring Rose, Mickey, Jackie

Written by Russell T Davies.

For Rose, takes place not long before The Christmas Invasion.

Deep and Dreamless Sleep   Short story, published 2006                     Doctor: 10

Written by Paul Cornell.

Takes place variously, including in Belgium, but pivotally in London; self-dated Christmas 2006 CE.

The Christmas Invasion  TV Story, broadcast 2005                        Doctor: 10

Featuring UNIT, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, the Pilot Fish, the Sycorax, with Torchwood (informative mention)

Written by Russell T Davies.

Takes place in and above London; self-dated the Christmas after Boom Town.

The Pilot Fish are spacefaring scavengers travelling in advance of major belligerents, in this case the Sycorax. As their forms include humanoid robots and animated Christmas trees, we may assume that this is a job description rather than a species.

The Sycorax are a bipedal spacefaring species.

The Final Darkness   Short story, published 2006                                   Doctor: 10

Featuring UNIT, Rose, the Sycorax

Written by Stephen Cole.

Takes place above London, simultaneously with The Christmas Invasion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Stories Considered               1122

Proportion Written By Women   9%                                          

 

Top Docs

3                 213 stories

4                 118 stories

7                 110 stories

8                 72 stories  

5                 71 stories   Climber!    

2                 64 stories  

6                 63 stories   Climber!             

1                 43 stories

10               31 stories   Climber!

Unbound   28 stories  

11               27 stories  

12               15 stories            

9                 15 stories

13               5 stories    

         

         

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

London                                                                294 stories         

Alastair, Kate and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                                                                               280 stories

Regional England                                               272 stories

UNIT                                                                    246 stories

North America                                                   134 stories

Jo                                                                         93 stories  

Benton                                                                91 stories

Sarah Jane                                                          90 stories  

The Master, including Missy                            74 stories                     

Continental Europe                                           72 stories   Climber!    

Ace                                                                      71 stories  

The Time Lords                                                  66 stories  

Yates                                                                   65 stories  

Liz                                                                        62 stories  

Christmas                                                            60 stories   Climber!    

At sea                                                                  60 stories  

The Travers family                                            60 stories  

Scotland                                                              55 stories

The K9s                                                               54 stories   Climber!    

Iris Wildthyme                                                   53 stories  

 

         

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                           352 stories

The Noughties                                                    321 stories

The Nineties                                                       180 stories

The Seventies                                                    120 stories         

The Twenties                                                     62 stories  

The Eighties                                                        54 stories  

The Sixties                                                          33 stories  

 

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2001                                                          68 stories  

2016                                                          54 stories

2018                                                          49 stories   Climber!

2019                                                          44 stories   Climber!

2005                                                          43 stories Climber!

2015                                                          42 stories

1999                                                          40 stories           

2004                                                          40 stories   Climber!

2013                                                          40 stories  

2017                                                          39 stories  

1993                                                          32 stories  

2006                                                          32 stories   Re-entry!

2011                                                          29 stories           

2012                                                          29 stories           

2003                                                          28 stories  

2021                                                          25 stories

1970                                                          24 stories

2000                                                          24 stories

2002                                                          24 stories  

2007                                                           24 stories   Re-entry!

 

 

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                                434

Proportion of Female Writers                         15%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

Terrance Dicks                                          34 stories  

Paul Magrs                                                33 stories

? John Canning                                         30 stories  

Andy Frankham-Allen                            18 stories  

Justin Richards                                         17 stories   Climber!    

Eric Saward                                               16 stories  

Anonymous Polystyle Writers               15 stories  

Paul Cornell                                              15 stories  

John Dorney                                             15 stories  

Steve Lyons                                               15 stories  

Eddie Robson                                            15 stories            

Andrew Cartmel                                      14 stories   Climber!    

Simon Guerrier                                        14 stories   Climber!    

Joseph Lidster                                          12 stories   New entry!

Gary Russell                                              12 stories                     

Mark Wright                                             12 stories  

Robert Holmes                                         11 stories  

David A McIntee                                      11 stories  

Jonathan Morris                                      11 stories  

David Bishop                                            10 stories=

Stephen Cole                                            10 stories= Re-entry!

Scott Gray                                                 10 stories=

Malcolm Hulke                                         10 stories=