Then Again: The Early Twenty-Third Century

 

 

The Eternal Present   Comic story, published 1972                                  Doctor: 3

Written by Dennis Hooper.

I assume that the millennia of Mar-Kom’s reign in New Britain take place in an instant, or 
a few instants, in the London of 2200 CE or thereabouts. Mar-Kom itself is located in St Paul’s Cathedral, in London.


Class Four Renegade   Illustrated short story, published 1983                Doctor: 5

featuring Tegan, Turlough

Written by the World Distributors Annual 1984 crew.

Informed guess Takes place on Melphis; self-dated the Twenty-Third century CE; Tellurians are travelling in interstellar space but are not yet well known.


Dreamstone Moon   Novel, published 1998                                Doctor: 8

featuring Sam

Written by Paul Leonard.

Takes place on Occam’s World and in the Mu Camelopides system, a few days before the beginning of Seeing I, which is dated 2202 CE.


Fear Itself   Novel, published 2005                                                      Doctor: 8

Featuring the remembered Fitz, Anji, with the Daleks, the Ice Warriors (informative mention)

Written by Nick Wallace.

Takes place on Mars and in the orbit of Jupiter; starts self-datedly at the end of the 22nd century CE, and concludes four years later.


The Guardians of Terror and The Rebirth of Corah   Comic story, published 2009

                                                                                                                        Doctor: 10

Written by Jason Loborik.

Informed guess Takes place on Corah, at a time of Tellurian interstellar exploration.


The Final Sanction   Novel, published 1999                                Doctor: 2

featuring the Ockorans, Jamie, Zoe

Written by Steve Lyons.

Takes place on Kalya and Ockora; self-dated 2204 CE.


Seeing I   Novel, published 1998                                                           Doctor: 8

Featuring Sam, the I, with the Time Lords (informative mention)

Written by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman.

Takes place on Ha’olam; concluding self-datedly in 2205 CE. The I are a quadrupedal, pacefaring species. Blum and Orman reveal Sam’s bisexuality by means of a single pronoun, midsentence, several dozen pages before it becomes relevant, which is a degree of indirection Gene Wolfe himself would have been proud of.


Ghost World   Comic story, published 2011                                                Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy, Rory

Written by Eddie Robson.

Informed guess Takes place on the Third Moon of Callicial, before Tellurian interstellar expansion outstrips the speed of light. Which happens surprisingly quickly.


The Electrodes   Comic story, published 1969                                         Doctor: 2

featuring Gillian, John

Written by an anonymous Polystyle writer.

Takes place on Earth; self-dated 2208 CE.


The Curator’s Egg   Audio drama, released 2018                                Doctor: 2

Featuring Polly, Ben

Written by Justin Richards.

Informed guess Takes place in a Dorset still unpopulated following the “the Dalek Invasion”, which I take to mean the events of Lucie Miller and To the Death.


The Janus Conjunction   Novel, published 1998                      Doctor: 8

Featuring Sam, with the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Veltrochni (informative mention)

Written by Trevor Baxendale.

Takes place in the Janus system; self-dated September, 2211 CE.


Coral Maze   Comic story, published 2013                                                  Doctor: 11

Featuring Clara

Written by Glenn Dakin.

Takes place Polypia 4; self-dated 2211 CE. Presumably, this is the fourth time Tellurian colonists have found a planet with coral all over it.


The Sommerton Fetch   Short story, published 2007                              Doctor: 3

featuring Jo, with Christmas (informative mention)

Written by Peter Anghelides.

Ends up in Shrewsbury; self-dated 2212 CE.


All Hands on Deck   Audio drama, released 2017                             Doctor: 8

Featuring Susan, with the Time Lords, the Daleks (informative mention)

Written by Eddie Robson.

Takes place in the buildings that were formally Coal Hill School; self-dated late October, the 2210s CE.  

 

Enemy Mine (1985) sees Earth conducting an interstellar war. It takes place over three years, ending in 2095. Again, this can be incorporated into Doctor Who narrative by making this a Galactic Standard date, placing it in 2215 CE.

 

Churchill’s Castle   Novel, published 2017                                   Doctor: 0

Featuring Erimem

Written by Beth Jones.

Informed guess Takes place in Tellurian space. Earth’s furthest interstellar colony is a hundred light years  distant from it, suggesting a time before   establishes a  revolution in faster-than light travel in the early 23rd century; I imagine this takes place before it.


The Meaning of Red   Audio short story, released 2020                         Doctor: 5

featuring Peri

Written by Rod Brown.

Arbitrary placement Takes place on Calleto.

 

Passengers (2016) is set on a sub lightspeed colony ship that arrives at its destination a hundred and twenty years after being launched. Now in Doctor Who narrative seems a reasonable time.


The Unwinding World   Audio drama, released 2015                      Doctor: 1

Featuring Barbara, Ian, Vicki

Written by Ian Potter.

Informed guess Takes place in Tellurian Space; Vicki thinks the technology is “old fashioned”.


The Cat Came Back   Illustrated short story, published 2006                  Doctor: 10

Featuring Rose

Written by Gareth Roberts.

Informed guess Takes place on and above Phostris; self-dated “only just after” Rose’s time. By Doctor  Who – The Twin Dilemma, Earth has inter-galactic travel, so it’s not unreasonable to place this story about here. This may be connected to the Doctor Who – The Leisure Hive revolution in FTL travel.


Spoilsport   Short story, published 2007                                                    Doctor: 3

featuring Jo

Written by Paul Finch.

Takes place in Prague; self-dated 2221 CE.


System Wipe   Novel, published 2011                                                Doctor: 11

Featuring Amy, Rory

Written by Oli Smith.

Takes place in Chicago, Ill and Oklahoma; self-dated 2222 CE. Earth has been depopulated, evidently briefly.


Will You Be the Master’s Valentine?   Online video drama, posted 2021  Doctor: 0

Featuring the Master

Written anonymously.

Takes place, for the Master, shortly before Faustian, in the Time Vortex.


Faustian   Audio drama, released 2021                                         Doctor: 0

Featuring the Master

Written by Robert Valentine.

Takes place in London; self-dated 2223 CE. Earth has rapidly been repopulated after being deserted in System Wipe.


Prey   Audio drama, released 2021                                                Doctor: 0

Featuring the Master, Vienna

Written by Robert Whitelock.

Takes place in and above London, immediately after Faustian. Vienna Salvatori is a time-travelling humanoid, or presumably Tellurian descent, and has presumably been sent to this location by time-active Daleks.


Vengeance   Audio drama, released 2021                                     Doctor: 0

Featuring the Daleks, the Master, Vienna

Written by Matt Fitton.

Takes place in and above London; after Prey and self-dated 2223 CE. These are time-active Daleks, unconnected with those on contemporary Skaro.


The Caves of Androzani   TV story, broadcast 1984

                                                                                                Doctors: 5, and 6 (glimpse)

featuring Peri

Written by Robert Holmes, script edited by Eric Saward.

Informed guess Takes place in the Sirius system, some decades after Tellurians have colonised it.

Why I Respectfully Disagree With Lance Parkin’s Dating

The ‘Krau’ and ‘Trau’ business suggests a time not far from Lucifer Rising, and the Sirius system seems fairly isolated, though there has been more than one wave of colonisation from Earth. This suggests a time before the revolution in faster-than-light travel mentioned in Doctor Who – The Leisure Hive.


The Year of Intelligent Tigers   Novel, published 2001      Doctor: 8

Featuring the remembered Fitz, Anji

Written by Kate Orman.

Takes place on Hitchemus; dated 2225 CE by Parkin in Ahistory.


The Sixth Doctor Sends a Letter   Charity short story, published 1998 Doctor: 6

featuring Peri

Written by Charles Daniels.

Informed guess Takes place on Digma Ego Seven; a reference to 22nd century vintage champagne suggests the early to mid twenty-third century CE.


Wetworld   Novel, published 2007                                                       Doctor: 10

Featuring Martha

Written by Mark Michalowski.

Takes place on Sunday; self-dated 2108. This seems altogether too early for an interstellar colony. However, I have the Galactic Standard calendar to fall back on, so I’m placing it in 2228 CE.


The Kchrusivour Gambit   Comic story, published 2011                         Doctor: 11

featuring Amy or an Amy ganger, Rory

Written by Christopher Cooper.

Informed guess Takes place on Earth; self-dated the 23rd century CE.


Frayed   Novella, published 2003                                                              Doctor: 1

featuring Susan

Written by Stephen Cole, as Tara Samms.

Takes place on Iwa; dated 2230 CE by Parkin in Ahistory.

The Fate Of The Earth, as time goes by

By this time, Earth had recovered from the Oil Wars (Suspension and Disbelief), which I take to be conflicts after the Dalek occupation, of the sort seen in Legacy of the Daleks and The More Things Change.


An Ideal World   Audio drama, released 2018                                Doctor: 1

Featuring Vicki, Steven

Written by Ian Potter.

Informed guess Takes place above T19. A slow, cryogenic colony ship has been sent there from Earth.


Masquerade   Audio drama, released 2014                                       Doctor: 5

Featuring Nyssa, Hannah

Written by Stephen Cole.

Informed guess Takes place in Tellurian space. Earth Central is experimenting with intergalactic travel, so after The Cat Came Back, but before Doctor Who – The Twin Dilemma.


Categorical Imperative   Short story, published 2004                                                                                                                                                    Doctors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

featuring Susan, Jo, Sarah Jane, Tegan, Peri, Ace, Charley, with Jamie (informative mention)

Written by Simon Guerrier.

Takes place on Earth, fifty-two years before a potentially apocalyptic war. I’m assuming this is the conflict that has wiped out most of the world’s human population by the time of Doctor Who – The Leisure Hive.


Nightmare of Eden   TV story, broadcast 1979                            Doctor: 4

featuring K9 II, Romana

Written by Bob Baker, script edited by Douglas Adams.

Takes place in Tellurian space; self-dated 2116.

Why I Respectfully Disagree With Lance Parkin’s Dating

This date seems far too early to me for interstellar tourist cruise ships. Consequently, I’m assuming the dates given in this story are Galactic Standard, and 2116 is actually 2236 CE.


The Ashes of Eden   Charity short story, published 2001                          Doctor: 4

featuring Romana

Written by Lorelei S Jordan.

Informed guess Takes place above Eden, not long after Nightmare of Eden.


The Changeling Years   Illustrated short story, published 1993              Doctor: 4

featuring Leela

Written by Gareth Roberts.

Informed guess Takes place in the Solar System; some time after 2217 CE. Earth is again heavily populated.


Mortal Thoughts   Short story, published 2004                                       Doctor: 6

featuring Mel

Written by Trevor Baxendale.

Takes place on Andron; self-dated shortly after 2235 CE.

They Were Chancing Their Arm

...calling the planet Andron and expecting a homicidal android not to turn up on it.

 

Most of Gene Wolfe’s stories are puzzles, and none more so than his novel The Fifth Head of Cerberus. Set on two planets of a stellar system ostensibly inhabited by the descendants of Tellurian settlers, most readers conclude that some or all of its characters are actually descended from the shape-changing extraterrestrials who originally inhabited one of the worlds. I would argue (from clues in the text) that there were no such creatures, and that they are folklore rooted in the oppression and massacre of one wave of settlers by another. In Doctor Who continuity however, we know that The Enemy and the Great Houses can render the barriers between fictionality and factuality fluid, so both things might be true. At this point, interstellar travel is difficult and, for those not exceptionally wealthy, time-consuming. I suggest this novel can be conveniently placed here, before Doctor Who – The Leisure Hive’s revolution in supra-light travel.

 

The Curse of the Daleks   Audio adaptation of a stage play, released 2008

                                                                                                                         Doctor: 0

featuring the Daleks

Adapted by Nicholas Briggs from a script by David Whitaker and Terry Nation.

Takes place on Skaro; self dated fifty years after “the defeat” of the Daleks, which I take to be in about 2190 CE, in Lucie Miller and To the Death.


Deimos and The Resurrection of Mars   Audio drama, released 2010

                                                                                                                        Doctor: 8

Featuring Mortimus, the Ice Warriors, Lucie, Tamsin

Written by Jonathan Morris.

Informed guess Takes place on Deimos, a moon of Mars; self-dated the twenty-third century CE.


The Shopping Trolleys of Doom   Short story, published 2008           Doctor: 7

Written by Caleb Woodbridge.

Informed guess Takes place on Earth. Culture is not too dissimilar to the 21st century, the world is widely populated and AIs are commonplace: my guess is the mid-twenty-third century CE.

 

The 2018 film Aniara, set on the titular Earth-Mars ferry, is set at a time when the Earth is again suffering catastrophic environmental degradation: plausibly the same that causes the evacuation of the planet described in System Wipe. The last time its passengers and crew are seen alive is twenty-four years after it left Earth.

 

Dreadnought   Comic story, published 1996                                             Doctor: 8

featuring the Cybermen, Stacy, with Norfolk (informative mention)

Written by Gary Russell.

Takes place in Tellurian space; self-dated 2246 CE. Stacy leaves linear time, being aboard the TARDIS when it dematerialises.


Shopping For Eternity   Short story, published 1997                              Doctor: 0

featuring the Forrester Family

Written by Gus Smith.

Informed guess Takes place on and near New Zion; self-dated the mid-Twenty-Third Century CE.

 

 

 

Total Stories Considered             4694

Proportion Written By Women 11%                                       

 

Top Docs

4                 395 stories                   

7                 369 stories 

3                 332 stories

8                 331 stories 

10               321 stories

11               314 stories 

5                 297 stories         

1                 281 stories 

6                 279 stories  

2                 254 stories         

12               146 stories

Unbound  109 stories

9                 81 stories  

13               66 stories           

War           47 stories                     

 

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

London                                                              1130 stories                

Regional England                                            797  stories        

UNIT                                                                  464 stories  

Alastair, Kate, Kadiatu, Lucy Weston and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                             451 stories  

The Time Lords                                               447 stories 

Continental Europe                                         415 stories 

North America                                                 408 stories  

The Daleks and Davros                                  282 stories

Wales                                                                  261 stories

The Master, including Missy                         256 stories

Torchwood                                                        252 stories  

Sarah Jane                                                        243 stories  

Ace                                                                      216 stories 

At Sea                                                                 214 stories  

The K9s                                                              210 stories 

Captain Jack                                                    201 stories

Amy and Rory                                                  188 stories 

Asia                                                                     184 stories

Christmas                                                          177 stories 

Romana                                                             177 stories Climber!

 

 

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                          2002 stories

The Noughties                                                  1213 stories       

The Nineties                                                      449 stories

The Twenties                                                     394 stories

The Eighties                                                      227 stories

The Seventies                                                    223 stories         

The Sixties                                                         116 stories

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

 

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2016                                                          276 stories

2018                                                          248 stories 

2020                                                          224 stories  

2017                                                           221 stories       

2015                                                          217 stories 

2008                                                          210 stories  

2019                                                          192 stories

2011                                                          192 stories Climber!   

2013                                                          191 stories  

2010                                                          188 stories

2009                                                          180 stories 

2021                                                          171 stories

2014                                                          147 stories  

2001                                                          144 stories  

2007                                                          142 stories 

2012                                                          131 stories  

2004                                                          125 stories Climber!  

2006                                                          125 stories 

2005                                                          115 stories

1993                                                          96 stories

                            

         

 

 

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                     1067

Proportion of Female Writers                17%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

Terrance Dicks                                       129 stories

James Goss                                              129 stories           

Justin Richards                                       122 stories 

Russell T Davies                                     117 stories  

Paul Magrs                                              94 stories  

Jonathan Morris                                    84 stories   Climber!   

Steven Moffat                                         83 stories  

Matt Fitton                                              67 stories  

John Dorney                                            65 stories  

Eddie Robson                                          64 stories  

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle                       60 stories           

Gareth Roberts                                       56 stories           

Robert Holmes                                        54 stories   Climber!             

David Whitaker                                      54 stories   Climber!   

Alan Barnes                                             53 stories  

Steve Lyons                                             53 stories   Climber!   

Eric Saward                                            50 stories  

Gary Russell                                            49 stories   Climber!

David Llewellyn                                      48 stories  

Guy Adams                                              47 stories=

Andrew Cartmel                                    47 stories=

Stephen Cole                                           47 stories= Re-entry

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