Then: The Late Nineteen Fifties

  

Not Forgotten   Audio short story, released 2020                                    Doctor: 6

Featuring Peri

Written by Benjamin Holland-Smith

Informed guess Takes place in New York, NY; self-dated the nineteen-fifties CE.

 

The Dying Days establishes Bernard Quatermass as a figure of Doctor Who narrative: but which? In its totality, especially the Martian stuff, it’s not easily compatible, and the professor has been played by seven different actors. And there’s no reason to suppose him a Time Lord. I’m plumping for Brian Donleavy: the 1955 film The Quatermass Experiment has a distinctly Second War in Heaven feel and ties in to The Annotated Autopsy of Agent A’s information that The Enemy infected members of the British Rocket Group.

 

Ouroboros   Short story, published 2013                                                    Doctor: 0

Featuring Iris Wildthyme

Written by Neil Chester.

Informed guess Takes place in regional England; “over forty years” after 1913 CE.


Locked In   Short story, published 2019                                                     Doctor: 0

Featuring Lethbridge-Stewart, Grace technology

Written by Sarah Groenewegen.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK; self-dated 1955 CE.


The Quiz Book of Dinosaurs   Quiz book, published 1982           Doctor: 5

featuring Nyssa, Tegan

Written by Michael Holt.

Takes place variously, including Ireland, Scotland and regional England; the latest confirmed date is June, 1955 CE.


Summer Falls: Introduction   Short story, published 2013                Doctor: 0

Featuring Amy, Rory, Clara +

Written by James Goss.

Informed guess Takes place on the shores of Lake Erie, on the border of the USA and Canada. The action happens before Amy writes the introduction to the second edition of Summer Falls, first published in 1954.


Madam, I’m   Audio drama, released 2021                                   Doctor: 0

Featuring Torchwood

Written by James Goss.

Informed guess Takes place in London, after Goodbye. Piccadilly and implicitly in 1955 CE.


Losing the Audience   Short story, published 2008                                Doctor: 1

featuring Susan

Written by Mat Coward.

Takes place in London; self-dated late 1955 CE.


Rosa   TV story, broadcast 2018                                                                 Doctor: 13

Featuring Graham, Ryan, Yaz

Written by Marjorie Blackman and Chris Chibnall.

Takes place in Montgomery, Ala; self-dated December 1955 CE.


The Earwig Archipelago   Short story, published 2006              Doctor: Unbound 6

Featuring William/Isaac

Written by Matthew Sweet

Informed guess Takes place in somewhere very like Albania, soon after the twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Although Vumm spends two years in prison, when he emerges, his father is listening to an edition of The Archers that sounds contemporaneous to the story’s publication in 2006 CE; it is reasonable to assume that the Planet of the Earwigs takes some twenty-five years to orbit its primary. Some of the events of this story are, or should be, negated by DS al Fine.


The Web of Terror   Short story, published 2011                                      Doctor: 0

Featuring Iris Wildthyme

Written by Iain McLaughlin.

Takes place in Nevada; self-dated May 1956 CE.


Dear John   Short story, published 2006                                                    Doctor: 8

featuring Edward Grainger, Gemma, Samson

Written by John Davies.

Takes place in the UK; self-dated June, 1956 CE. Gemma and Samson Griffin are Tellurians born over a human lifespan after 1956 CE.


The Revenants   Audio drama, released 2012                                      Doctor: 1

Featuring Barbara, Ian

Written by Ian Potter.

Takes place in Orkney, a Scottish archipelago to the north of Albion; self-dated summer 1956 CE.


The Twittering of Sparrows   Audio drama, released 2012           Doctor: 0

Featuring Dorian Gray

Written by Gary Russell.

Informed guess Takes place in Singapore; self-dated 1956 CE.


The Bonfires of the Vanities   Audio drama, released 2017         Doctor: 1

Featuring Polly, Ben

Written by Una McCormack.

Informed guess Takes place in Lewes, Sussex; self-dated a Bonfire Night in the late 1950s CE.


The Vardan Invasion of Mirth   Audio drama, released 2019     Doctor: 1

Featuring Steven, the Vardans

Written by Paul Morris and Ian Atkins.

Informed guess Takes place in a Vardan Mediasphere, orbiting Saturn; self-dated 1956 CE.


An Ordinary Life   Audio drama, released 2014                            Doctor: 1

Featuring Steven, Sara

Written by Matt Fitton.

Takes place in London; dated November 1956 CE by blogger_who.

 

Brian Donleavy’s second outing as Bernard Quatermass was in Quatermass 2 (1957), set in mid-March.

 

Swamp of Horrors (1957) - Viewing Notes   Short story, published 2008       Doctor: 6

featuring Mel

Written by Michael Rees.

Informed guess Takes place in Louisiana, sort of self-dated 1957 CE.


Defining Patterns   Short story, published 2008                                     Doctor: 6

Featuring UNIT

Written by Ian Farrington.

Takes place in London; self-dated September 1957 CE.


Prelude: First Frontier   Illustrated short story, published 1994            Doctor: 2

featuring Jamie, and Zoe, Ace (informative mention)

Written by David A McIntee.

Takes place in Korea and New Mexico, ending shortly before First Frontier.


First Frontier   Novel, published 1994          Doctors: 7, with 4 (informative mention)

featuring the Master, Ace, Benny, with the Time Lords, the Veltrochni, the Nestene Consciousness (informative mention)

Written by David A McIntee.

Takes place mostly in New Mexico; self-dated October 1957 CE.


Parasite   Audio drama, released 2020                                                 Doctor: 0

Featuring Torchwood

Written by James Goss.

Informed guess Takes place in London, after Madam I’m.


Talented Witches   Short story, published 2012                                      Doctor: 0

Featuring Iris Wildthyme

Written by Paul Magrs.

Informed guess Takes place in regional England and London; indeterminately in time, but Effie talks of her childhood, which I am guessing is around now.


Dreamland   Animated story, broadcast 2009                                      Doctor: 10

Written by Phil Ford.

Informed guess Takes place in Nevada; self-dated 1958 CE.


Cambridge Previsited   Illustrated short story, published 1992              Doctor: 1

featuring the Time Lords

Written by Karen Dunn.

Informed guess Takes place in Cambridge; self-dated 1958 CE.


The Garden of Storms   Audio drama, released 2020                      Doctor: 5

Featuring Leela, Grace technology, with the Time Lords (informative mention)

Written by Simon Guerrier.

Arbitrary placement Takes place in the Garden of Storms.

 

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (2007) brings Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s alternative world, with its marginal connections to Doctor Who narrative, forward to 1958

 

Ashenden   Audio drama, released 2021                                    Doctor: 0

Featuring Torchwood

Written by James Goss.

Informed guess Takes place in London and on the Sussex coast, after Parasite.


Doctor Crocus and the Pages of Fear   Charity short story, published 2020

Doctor: Unbound

Written by Paul Driscoll.

Informed guess Takes place in the UK; after Lonnie Donegan’s first chart success in 1956 CE, but before the ban on the import of US comics in 1959 CE.


Tuesday   Comic story, published 2011                                                        Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy, Rory

Written by Dan McDaid.

Informed guess Takes place in and above London; self-dated 1958 CE.


Bad Therapy   Novel, published 1996                                                 Doctor: 7

featuring Peri, Chris

Written by Matthew Jones.

Takes place in London; self-dated October 1958 CE. At some stage after this Peri returned through time and space to Krontep in the twenty-fourth century (The Age of Chaos), probably by agency of the Doctor, for some reason.


Callahuanca   Short story, published 2005                                                Doctor: 4

Written by Richard Salter.

Takes place in Peru; the latest date given is Christmas, 1958 CE.

 

The clockminder Moses in The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) has the power to slow or freeze time, which he puts to the service of naive protagonist Norville Barnes, and the janitor Aloysius is his enemy, seeking to facilitate Barnes’s suicide. This seems like a minor, cultural front in the Second War in Heaven. It concludes in the new year of 1959.

 

The Upper Deck   Comic story, published 2011                                         Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy, Rory

Written by Eddie Robson.

Takes place in London; self-dated 1959 CE: probably January or February, as The Goon Show is being recorded.


Hillbilly Heavens   Short story, published 2018                                       Doctor: 0

Featuring Iris Wildthyme

Written by Brad Wolfe.

Takes place in Sevierville, TN; self-dated 1959 CE. I’m assuming that it’s after January so that Dolly Parton was thirteen: the behaviour of her date is no doubt culturally plausible for the time and place.


Delta and the Bannermen   TV Story, broadcast 1987           Doctor: 7

featuring Mel

Written by Malcolm Kohll, script edited by Andrew Cartmel.

Takes place in Wales; self-dated 1959 CE, evidently summer.


Slip Away   Short story, published 2012                                                      Doctor: 0

Featuring Iris Wildthyme

Written by Scott Liddell.

Takes place in New Jersey, in sight of Coney Island on the far side of Lower New York Bay; self-dated 1959 CE, probably summer.


The Five Dimensional Man   Audio short story, released 2011              Doctor: 2

Featuring Zoe, Jamie

Written by Kate Orman.

Takes place in the USA; self-dated October 1959 CE.


Madness On the M1!   Comic story, published 2010                                 Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy

Written by Oli Smith.

Takes place in the north Midlands; self-dated 1959 CE. It would have to be November or December, after the opening of the M1 motorway.


Loving the Alien   Novel, published 2003                                      Doctor: 7

featuring Ace, and the Cybermen (informative mention)

Written by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry.

Takes place in London and regional England; self-dated December 1959 CE.

 

 

 

 

Total Stories Considered             4304

Proportion Written By Women 11%                                       

 

Top Docs

4                 374 stories                   

7                 333 stories 

3                 316 stories

8                 294 stories 

10               294 stories  

11               291 stories            

5                 270 stories         

6                 253 stories  

1                 251 stories  

2                 224 stories         

12               136 stories

Unbound  97 stories  

9                 79 stories  

13               63 stories           

War           46 stories                     

 

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

London                                                              1038 stories                

Regional England                                            754  stories        

The Time Lords                                               427 stories 

Alastair, Kate, Kadiatu, Lucy Weston and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                             420 stories 

UNIT                                                                  412 stories

Continental Europe                                         383 stories 

North America                                                 380 stories  

Wales                                                                  259 stories

Torchwood                                                        250 stories  

The Master, including Missy                         243 stories  

The Daleks and Davros                                  236 stories 

Sarah Jane                                                        235 stories  

Captain Jack                                                    200 stories

Ace                                                                      199 stories 

At Sea                                                                 185 stories

Asia                                                                     174 stories  Climber!

The K9s                                                              174 stories 

Amy and Rory                                                  171 stories  Climber!

Romana                                                             170 stories  

Christmas                                                          168 stories

 

 

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                          1855 stories

The Noughties                                                  1097 stories       

The Nineties                                                      404 stories

The Twenties                                                     352 stories

The Seventies                                                    220 stories         

The Eighties                                                      215 stories

The Sixties                                                         91 stories

(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde and William Hope Hodgson)                                                                                       70 stories  

 

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2016                                                          265 stories

2018                                                          229 stories 

2020                                                          211 stories   

2017                                                           208 stories

2015                                                          205 stories 

2008                                                          194 stories  

2011                                                          182 stories Climber!

2019                                                          181 stories

2013                                                          177 stories

2009                                                          167 stories 

2021                                                          160 stories

2010                                                          151 stories

2014                                                          134 stories Climber!

2001                                                          133 stories

2007                                                          124 stories 

2012                                                          121 stories         

2006                                                          117 stories

2005                                                          103 stories Climber!

2004                                                          102 stories

1993                                                          86 stories                     

         

 

 

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                     1012

Proportion of Female Writers               17%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

Terrance Dicks                                       128 stories  

James Goss                                              125 stories

Justin Richards                                       118 stories 

Russell T Davies                                     115 stories  

Paul Magrs                                              90 stories  

Steven Moffat                                         80 stories  

Jonathan Morris                                    77 stories  

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle                       60 stories           

John Dorney                                            57 stories           

Eddie Robson                                          57 stories   Climber!   

Matt Fitton                                              56 stories  

Gareth Roberts                                       53 stories            

Robert Holmes                                        52 stories  

Alan Barnes                                             51 stories  

Eric Saward                                            48 stories           

David Llewellyn                                      47 stories

Steve Lyons                                             47 stories  

Gary Russell                                            46 stories  

Andrew Cartmel                                    45 stories  

Guy Adams                                              42 stories

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