Then: History Before the Common Era

 

Approximately, the three thousand years before the Common Era.

 

The Secret of the Stones   Short story, published 2007              Doctor: 10

Featuring Martha

Written by Justin Richards.

Takes place on Salisbury Plain, an infertile upland of southern Albion mostly occupied in the twenty-first century by Wiltshire; over the first generation of work on the Stonehenge site.

Timewyrm: Genesys   Novel, published 1991                   Doctor: 7

featuring Ace, the Timewyrm

Written by John Peel

Takes place in Mesopotamia, a fertile region of southwest Asia; dated 2700 BCE by Parkin in Ahistory.

The People’s Temple   Short story, published 1998                     Doctor: 8

featuring Sam

Written by Paul Leonard.

Takes place on Salisbury Plain; self-dated four and a half thousand years before Sam’s birth.

The Coldest War   Gamebook, published 2010                       Doctor: 11

Featuring the Sycorax, Amy

Written by Colin Brake.

Informed guess Takes place in space, while the Sycorax are at large, and so not far temporally from The Christmas Invasion.

Snowball!   Comic story, published 2012                                        Doctor: 11

Featuring Decky Flamboon

Written by Moray Laing.

Informed guess Takes place in the Alps. The Alps as a skiing destination were shaped by the last glaciation; I’m guessing the Doctor has taken Decky there well before the slopes became crowded with Tellurians.

Fallen Gods   Novella, published 2003                                      Doctor: 8

Featuring Atlantis, the Chronovores

Written by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman.

Takes place on and around Theros, some five hundred years before The Time Monster. We may reasonably assume that the Titans are the Chronovores, and that the name Deucalion takes on his accession to the throne is Dalios. No contradiction between this story’s account of the Chronovores’ origin and that given in The Quantum Archangel need concern us, partly because life is too short to worry about Craig Hinton’s continuity, but mostly because the Chronovores exist outside time, and so have an apparently paradoxical relationship to causality.

The Beast of Babylon   Short story, published 2013                     Doctor: 9

Featuring Rose, Mickey (glimpse)

Written by Charlie Higson.

Takes place in Babylon. Modern scholarship places Hammurabi’s reign during the early eighteenth century BCE.

Petrified   Comic story, published 2014                                          Doctor: 12

Featuring Clara

Written by Andrew Cartmel.

Informed guess  Takes place partly in ancient Egypt.

The Prodigal Returns   Comic story, published 2016                  Doctor: 0

Featuring the Cybermen, the Earth Reptiles

Written by Alan Barnes.

Informed guess Takes place on Mondas, the later section after the rise of the Cybermen (not to be confused with The Rise of the Cybermen).

The Time Monster   TV story, broadcast 1972                  Doctor: 3

featuring the Master, Atlantis, Lethbridge-Stewart, UNIT, Benton, Yates, Jo, the Chronovores

Written by Robert Sloman, script edited by Terrance Dicks.

Takes place partly on Theros, up to the seismic activity caused by Kronos; also in Cambridge. The Doctor dates the destruction of Theros/Atlantis as 3500 years before his exile on Earth.

The Slitheen Excursion   Novel, published 2009         Doctor: 10

Featuring the Raxacorricofallapatorians, with the Osirans (informative mention)

Written by Simon Guerrier.

Takes place in Athens; pivotally self-dated 1500 BCE.

The Eye of Horus   Audio drama, released 2015                     Doctor: 7

Featuring the Osirians, Ace, Benny

Written by James Goss.

Takes place in Egypt, no later than 1458 BCE.

The Coming of the Queen    Novel, published 2005 Doctor: 5 (glimpse)

featuring Erimem, and Peri (glimpse)

Written by Iain McLauglin and Claire Bartlett.

Takes place in Egypt, immediately before The Eye of the Scorpion.

Echoes   Short story, published 2016                                               Doctor: 0

Featuring Erimem

Written by Iain McLaughlin.

Takes place in Erimem’s head, but she remembers the events of this time.

The Eye of the Scorpion   Audio drama, released 2001           Doctor: 5

featuring Peri, Erimem

Written by Iain McLaughlin.

Takes place in Egypt; the Doctor’s estimate is 1400 BCE. Erimem leaves linear time, being aboard the TARDIS when it dematerialises.

Out Among the Stars   Short story, published 2018                     Doctor: 0

Featuring Erimem

Written by Claire Bartlett.

Takes place in Egypt, shortly after The Eye of the Scorpion.

 

The Olympians from Deadly Reunion seem to start interacting with the inhabitants of Greece and elsewhere at this point. Nathaniel Hawthorne provided my own literary introduction to them, as it happens, in A Wonder Book For Boys and Girls (1851) and Tanglewood Tales (1853). Robert Graves’s Greek Gods and Heroes (1960) is another narrative overview.   

 

Island of the Sirens   Illustrated short story, published 2008     Doctor: 10

Featuring Donna

Written by Keith Temple,

Takes place near and on Capri, an island off the west coast of Italy; implicitly a few years before The Evil Little Mother and the Tragic Old Bat.

The Evil Little Mother and the Tragic Old Bat   Short story, published 2005                                                                                                                                              Doctor: 0

Featuring Iris Wildthyme

Written by Jonathan Blum.

Takes place partly in Corinth, a city in Greece, a few generations before The Myth Makers.

The Phoenicians   Audio drama, released 2019                 Doctor: 1

Featuring Susan, Barbara, Ian

Written by Marc Platt.

Informative guess Takes place in Tyre. Elissa ends up founding Carthage, an event modern historians place in the late ninth century CE…but in this chronology, the city needs to be there for Aeneas, and Vicki, to arrive in it following The Myth Makers. I’m assuming the Phoenicians got there a few centuries earlier (and I’m assuming Elissa and Dido are different people, subsequently conjoined by folklore).

The King of Golden Death   Illustrated short story, published 1967      Doctor: 2

featuring Polly, Ben

Written by the World Distributors Annual 1968 crew.

Takes place in Egypt; historically, not long after the death of Tut-Ankh-Amun.

 

Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen’s 1970 novel The God Beneath the Sea tells the story of the Olympians from the birth of Hephaestus to shortly before the Trojan War.

 

An Unfulfilled Dream   Illustrated short story, published 1991   Doctor: 7

Featuring Katarina, with (probably) Benny (informative mention)

Written by Karen Dunn.

Takes place near Troy, a city of northwest Anatolia, self-dated approximately 1240 BCE.

The Myth Makers   TV story, broadcast 1965                     Doctor: 1

featuring Vicki, Steven, Katarina, with Greece (informative mention)

Written by Donald Cotton, script edited by Donald Tosh.

Takes place during the fall of Troy, less than twenty years after An Unfulfilled Dream. Katarina leaves linear time, being aboard the TARDIS when it dematerialises.

The Myth Makers (As Sung By Sundry Other Bards Than Homer)                                                                                                Charity drabble, published 1993       Doctor: 1

featuring Katarina

Written by Geoffrey Arthur.

Takes place simultaneously with The Myth Makers and in the same location.

Calliope, the Muse of Epic Poetry and Rhetoric: Katarina in the Underworld

                                                                                Short story, published 2003  Doctor: 1

featuring Katarina

Written by Steve Lyons.

Takes place in the Underworld, shortly after Katarina’s death; presumably, not long after Katarina’s departure.

Apocrypha Bipedium   Short story, published 2003                   Doctor: 8

featuring Vicki, the William Shakespeare thing, Charley, with the Time Lords, Mortimus, the Rani (informative mention)

Written by Ian Potter.

Takes place in Anatolia, some weeks after The Myth Makers.

Doctor Who - The Myth Makers   Novelisation of a TV story, published 1985                                                                                                                            Doctor: 1

featuring Vicki, Steven, Katarina, with Greece, Transtemporal Alexandria (informative mention)

Adapted by Donald Cotton from his own script, edited by Donald Tosh.

Takes place in the ruins of Troy, some decades after The Myth Makers; Homer, a youngish man at the fall of Troy (as Cyclops), is now an old man.

Alexandria was a port on the coast of Egypt.

In the Stars   Comic story, published 2010                                     Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy

Written by Moray Laing.

Takes place in Babylon; self-dated 905 BCE.

Galaxy Four   TV story, broadcast 1965                                   Doctor: 1

featuring Vicki, Steven

Written by William Emms, script-edited by Donald Tosh.

Takes place on an unnamed planet; dated by The TARDIS Log (Doctor Who Magazine 75-83) as 800 BCE.

Doctor Who and the Mytex Power   Charity short story, published 2016      Doctor: 5

Featuring Nyssa, Tegan

Written by Stephen Cole.

Arbitrary placement Takes place on the planet of the Lurchoids.

The Power of Thoueris   Comic story, published 2003               Doctor: 8

Featuring the Osirians

Written by Scott Gray

Informed guess Takes place in Egypt; self-dated “quite a while ago” but “a few thousand years” after 5000 BCE.

Walking to Babylon   Novel, published 1998                  Doctor: 0

featuring Benny, the Worldsphere, with the Time Lords (glimpse)

Written by Kate Orman.

Takes place principally in Babylon; self-dated 570 BCE.

Two Words   Charity drabble, published 1993                                Doctor: 1, I suggest

Written by John Wiles.

I assume that this story refers to the Doctor’s becoming the traditional Chinese figure of the philosopher Lao Tsu, writer or at least inspiration of the Tao Te Ching and a major forerunner of Taoism, as mentioned in Iceberg.

The Pythagoras Problem   Short story, published 2019             Doctor: 13

Featuring Graham, Ryan, Yaz

Written by Trevor Baxendale.

Takes place in Italy; self-dated 500 BCE.

 

Latro, the protagonist of Gene Wolfe’s 1986 novel Soldier of the Mist and its 1989 sequel Soldier of Arete, interacts extensively with the Olympians following the Battle of Platea in 479 BCE. In a third volume, Soldier of Sidon, he does the same with the Egyptian pantheon, which the Osirians make more problematic for Doctor Who narrative.

 

Island of the Cyclopes   Comic story, published 2012                 Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy or an Amy ganger, Rory

Written by Steve Lyons.

Takes place on an island off the coast of Greece; self-dated “two and a half thousand years” before Amy and Rory’s time.

Sarah Jane and the Temple of Eyes   Short story, published 2018    Doctor: 4

Featuring Sarah Jane

Written by Jacqueline Rayner.

Informed guess Takes place in Rome, perhaps early in the days of the Republic.

The Oracle of Delphi   Audio drama, released 2006            Doctor: 0

Featuring Benny

Written by Scott Handcock.

Takes place in Greece; self-dated 430 BCE.

Helmstone   Audio story, released 2017                                        Doctor: 1

Featuring Steven

Written by Tony Jones.

Arbitrary placement Takes place in Nothome, a generation starship, in space.

Mask of Tragedy   Audio drama, released 2014                 Doctor: 7

Featuring Ace, Hex

Written by James Goss.

Takes place in Athens; self-dated 421 CE.

Thalia, the Muse of Comedy: The Brain of Socrates   Short story, published 2003                                                                                                                                    Doctor: 4

featuring Leela

Written by Gareth Roberts.

Takes place in classical Athens. Historically, this could be about a dozen years around 410 BCE.

The Chains of Olympus   Comic story, published 2012               Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy or an Amy ganger, Rory

Written by Scott Gray.

Takes place in Athens, self-dated 410 BCE.

The Spindle of Necessity   Short story, published 2008            Doctor: 6

Written by Allyn Gibson.

Takes place on and above Earth; self-dated between the death of Socrates and Plato’s return to Athens.

Rain Gods   Video story, released 2013                                          Doctor: 11

Featuring River Song

Written by Neil Gaiman.

Arbitrary placement Takes place on the planet of the rain gods.

Campaign   Charity novel, published 2000                                Doctor: 1

featuring Susan, Barbara, Ian, and Gillian, John (glimpse), with Egypt and west Asia (informative mention)

Written by Jim Mortimore.

Historically, Alexander the Great died in 322 BCE; this story’s fluid timeline circles this event.

Farewell, Great Macedon   Unproduced TV script, published 2009  Doctor: 1

featuring Susan, Barbara, Ian

Written by Moris Farhi.

Takes place in Babylon; self-dated 322 BCE.

The Book of Shadows   Short story, published 1994                   Doctor: 1

featuring Barbara, Ian, Transtemporal Alexandria

Written by Jim Mortimore.

Time becomes pretty fluid in this story, as the Library of Alexandria becomes transtemporal, used by people from its past and presumably future. (The Doctor rescues Homer from the fire that destroys it, over a millennium after his time in Doctor Who – The Myth Makers). The rogue Time Lord Astrolabus, not the most reliable of witnesses, claims to have been heavily involved in it. What presumably remains the same is the TARDIS’s arrival, shortly after Alexander’s death.

The Night Harvest   Short story, published 2020                         Doctor: 0

Featuring the Master

Written by Beverly Sanford.

Arbitrary placement Takes place on an unnamed planet inhabited by humanoids.

Voyager   Comic story, published 1984                                           Doctor: 6

featuring Transtemporal Alexandria, Frobisher, with the Time Lords (informative mention)

Written by Steve Parkhouse.

Informed guess Takes place in Antarctica, and probably elsewhere, some time after the fall of Transtemporal Alexandria.

Return of the Queen   Novelisation of an audio drama, published 2018

                                                                                                              Doctor: 0

Featuring Erimem

Adapted from her own script by Claire Bartlett.

Takes place in Alexandria; self-dated 276 BCE.

Hall of the Ten Thousand   Audio story, released 2019             Doctor: 8

Featuring Charley

Written by Jaine Fenn.

Arbitrary placement Takes place in an art gallery, orbiting an unnamed planet.

Auld Mortality   Audio drama, released 2003                         Doctor: Unbound 1

featuring Unbound Time Lords, Unbound Susan, with Carthage (informative mention)

Written by Marc Platt.

Potentially takes place partly in the Alps, self-dated 218 BCE.

The Emperor of Eternity   Audio drama, released 2010     Doctor: 2

Featuring Jamie, Victoria

Written by Nigel Robinson.

Takes place in China; self-dated 210 BCE.

The Immortal Emperor   Comic story, published 2008              Doctor: 10

Featuring Donna

Written by Jonathan Morris.

Takes place in China, soon after The Emperor of Eternity.

Luna Romana   Audio drama, released 2014                       Doctor: 4

Featuring the Time Lords, Romana, with K9 II, Grace technology (informative mention)

Written by Matt Fitton.

Takes place partly in Rome, around the beginning of the second century BCE.

Minus Seven Wonders   Comic story, published 2007                Doctor: 10

Featuring Martha

Written by Moray Laing.

Informed guess Takes place variously around the Eastern Mediterranean, including Greece and Egypt .The latest date is implicitly the disappearance of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, after 280 BCE but before their destruction in the first century BCE.

The Spice Route   Comic story, published 2016                            Doctor: 12

Written by Jason Quinn.

Arbitrary placement Takes place on Lahn.

100 BC   Audio drama, released 2007                                              Doctor: 6

featuring Evelyn

Written by Jacqueline Rayner.

Takes place in Rome; self-dated 101 BCE.

The Water Thief   Novella, published 2012                              Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy, Rory

Written by Jacqueline Rayner.

Takes place in Egypt, partially self-dated approximately 100 BCE.

The Slave War   Short story, published 2008                                Doctor: 2

featuring Polly, Ben, Jamie

Written by Una McCormack.

Takes place in southern Italy; ending self-datedly in 70 BCE.

Tartarus   Audio drama, released 2019                                     Doctor: 5

Featuring Nyssa, Tegan, Marc

Written by David Llewellyn.

Takes place in Cumae, on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy; self-dated 63 BCE.

Marc is a Tellurian, born around 90 BCE. It is during this story that he leaves linear time, being aboard the TARDIS when it dematerialises.

The Best of Days   Short story, published 2008                            Doctor: 7

featuring Ace, with Christmas (informative mention)

Written by David Cromarty.

Takes place in Rome; self-dated December, 57 BCE.

Living History   Audio drama, released 2016                           Doctor: 11

Featuring the Daleks, Winston Churchill

Written by Justin Richards.

Takes place in southern Britain; self-dated 55 BCE. The Dalek featured seems to be a Last Great Time War era Dalek, which may explain why its vessel causes a post-Last Great Time War TARDIS to go out of phase. Winston Churchill leaves linear time in this story, being aboard the TARDIS when it dematerialises.

Crossing the Rubicon   Comic story, published 2018                  Doctor: 7

Featuring the Master, Ace

Written by Richard Dinnick.

Takes place in northern Italy; self-dated 49 BCE.

From Ian’s Diary   Short story, published 1993                             Doctor: 1

featuring Ian

Written by David Whitaker.

Takes place in Rome. Historically, Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE

Golden Slumbers   Comic story, published 2011                           Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy, Rory, with Rome, Egypt (informative mention)

Written by Eddie Robson.

Takes place in the Eastern Mediterranean; self-dated 39 BCE.

The Last Pharoah   Novel, published 2015                        Doctor: 0

Featuring Erimem

Written by Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett.

Takes place partly in Actium, Greece; self-dated 31 BCE. Also in London.

State of Change   Novel, published 1994                            Doctor: 6

featuring the Rani, Peri, with Egypt (glimpse) and the Master, Rome, western Asia (informative mention)

Written by Christopher Bulis.

Takes place on Terra Nova; self-dated 10 BCE.

Rome   Short story, published 2005                                                 Doctor: 5

featuring Tegan, Turlogh

Written by Marcus Flavin.

Takes place in Rome during the reign of the emperor Augustus. The implication is that the nova visible in the night sky is the star of the Nativity.

 

 

 

Total Stories Considered               3125

Proportion Written By Women    11%                                        

 

Top Docs

4                 283 stories                   

3                 279 stories

7                 245 stories         

8                 219 stories                   

10               213 stories

11               200 stories         

5                 190 stories                   

6                 171 stories         

1                 168 stories           Climber!

2                 166 stories         

12               99 stories  

Unbound   81 stories  

9                 56 stories  

13               48 stories           

War            45 stories                     

 

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

London                                                                640 stories         

Regional England                                               497 stories

UNIT                                                                    401 stories

Alastair, Kate, Kadiatu, Lucy Weston and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                   392 stories

The Time Lords                                                  390 stories  

Wales                                                                  244 stories

North America                                                   240 stories   

Torchwood                                                         233 stories  

The Daleks and Davros                                     208 stories   

Sarah Jane                                                          207 stories  

The Master, including Missy                            200 stories   

Captain Jack                                                       188 stories

Continental Europe                                           165 stories   Climber!  

The K9s                                                               159 stories  

Romana                                                               150 stories  

Ace                                                                      149 stories  

Jo                                                                         133 stories   

Christmas                                                            131 stories   

Iris Wildthyme                                                   116 stories    Climber!

Benton                                                                116 stories  

 

 

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                           1302 stories

The Noughties                                                    776 stories                   

The Nineties                                                       316 stories

The Twenties                                                     272 stories

The Seventies                                                    197 stories         

The Eighties                                                        191 stories

The Sixties                                                          71 stories  

 

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2016                                                          194 stories

2018                                                          170 stories 

2017                                                           158 stories

2020                                                          158 stories

2008                                                          147 stories  

2015                                                          142 stories 

2019                                                          134 stories   Climber!  

2021                                                          133 stories   

2011                                                          124 stories  

2013                                                          120 stories   

2009                                                          115 stories

2010                                                          111 stories

2001                                                          99 stories  

2007                                                          93 stories

2012                                                          75 stories   Climber!

1993                                                          74 stories   Climber!

2006                                                          73 stories  

2014                                                          73 stories

2005                                                          69 stories            

2004                                                          65 stories     

  

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                  880

Proportion of Female Writers            16%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

Terrance Dicks                                          116 stories  

Russell T Davies                                       104 stories

James Goss                                               84 stories           

Paul Magrs                                                68 stories  

Steven Moffat                                          59 stories           

Justin Richards                                         52 stories                     

John Dorney                                             45 stories                     

Robert Holmes                                         45 stories            

Matt Fitton                                               43 stories   Climber!    

Gareth Roberts                                        43 stories   Climber!

Eric Saward                                               43 stories  

Eddie Robson                                            42 stories                     

Gary Russell                                              40 stories  

Jonathan Morris                                      37 stories  

Andrew Cartmel                                      36 stories   Climber!

Alan Barnes                                              35 stories   Climber!

? John Canning                                         35 stories  

Steve Lyons                                               34 stories   Climber!    

Guy Adams                                               33 stories=

David Llewellyn                                       33 stories=          

David Whitaker                                        33 stories=