Then Again: The Third Milliaeon

 

This is approximately as far in the future as the emergence of Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, and Bonobos was in the past.

 

Doctor Who - The Mysterious Planet   Novelisation of a TV story, published 1988                                                                                                                           Doctor: 6

featuring the Time Lords, Peri, the Valeyard, Glitz

Adapted by Terrance Dicks from a script by Robert Holmes, edited by Eric Saward.

Takes place on space station Zenobia, but pivotally on Ravolox; the Doctor says it is two million years after Peri’s time. Ravolox turns out to be Earth (the TARDIS has once again landed on the site of London), and the Time Lords have moved the Solar System two light years from where it should be. It has been suggested that this is not very far if they wanted to hide it. If I take your purse off the table and put it on top of your wardrobe, however, I won’t have moved it very far but you’ll still have difficulty finding it unless you thought that was something I might do. Anybody turning up in an interstellar spaceship to where the Solar System should have been will have no idea where to look for it. If they turned up again two years later, they might notice that amongst the millions of stars visible around them there was one that shouldn’t be there, but as they will know that there is no longer anything there, why would they be turning up two years later anyway? Astronomers in, say, the Alpha Centauri system would presumably be forewarned  to expect Sol to disappear from their sky up to four years later, but it would appear in its new position between two years after and two years before, depending on the direction relative to Alpha Centauri in which it had been moved. There would be no reason to link this new star to Sol unless you were expecting someone to move it about, as it is unlikely you would.


The Mondas Touch   Short story, published 2017                                                Doctor: 12

Featuring the Cybermen

Written by Richard Dinnick.              

Informed guess Takes place on Catrigan Nova. The Cybermen seen are similar to those in Nightmare in Silver, so I’m not putting them too far away in time.


The Ordeals of Demeter   Comic story, published 1965                                     Doctor: 1

featuring Gillian, John

Illustrated ?and written by Bill Mevin.

Informed guess Takes place on Demeter. The symbol “D” may be a coincidence, but suggests Tellurian descent for the Demeterans.


Good Old Days   Comic story, published 2009                                                     Doctor: 10

Featuring Heather

Written by Simon Guerrier.

Arbitrary placement Takes place in an old people’s home in space.


The Destroyers   Short story, published 2004                                                      Doctor: 4

featuring Leela

Written by Steve Lyons.

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


Tik, Tak, Snick, Snack   Short story, published 2017                                           Doctor: 0

Featuring Iris Wildthyme, with regional England (informative mention)

Written by Jenna Burtenshaw.

Arbitrary placement Takes place on Tevan Two.


Nightmare in Silver   TV story, broadcast 2013                                             Doctor: 11

Featuring the Cybermen, Clara

Written by Neil Gaiman, script supervised by Steven Moffat.

Informed guess Takes place a considerable distance in the furture: Tellurian space extends over galaxies and is subject to imperial authority, and the Cybermen have evolved into a similarly intergalactic power, considered so dangerous that a planetary scorched-earth policy has been adopted against them.


The Green, the Bad and the Ugly   Comic story, published 2007                     Doctor: 10

Featuring Martha

Written by Martin Day.

Arbitrary placement Takes place on Maught.

 

Doris Piserchia’s 1976 novel A Billion Days of Earth is set on the Earth, about three-quarters of the way through the third milliaeon (you can do the arithmetic yourself). Doctor Who Narrative can actually bear quite a lot of spectacular events on Earth between Doctor Who - The Mysterious Planet and The Ark.

 

The Sleeping Beast   Illustrated short story, published 1977         Doctors: 4, 2 (glimpse)

featuring Sarah Jane

Written by the World Distributors Annual 1978 crew.

Arbitrary placement Takes place on an unnamed planet.

 

 

 

 

Total Stories Considered             6145

Proportion Written By Women 10%                                       

 

Top Docs

4                 532 stories                   

7                 516 stories 

10               443 stories 

11               440 stories 

8                 415 stories 

6                 386 stories

3                 384 stories 

5                 370 stories         

1                 353 stories 

2                 334 stories         

12               187 stories

Unbound  131 stories

9                 93 stories  

13               83 stories           

War           48 stories                     

 

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

London                                                              1171 stories                

Regional England                                            832 stories

The Time Lords                                               544 stories

The Daleks and Davros                                  502 stories 

UNIT                                                                  469 stories  

Alastair, Kate, Kadiatu, Lucy Weston and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                         464 stories  

Continental Europe                                         442 stories 

North America                                                 435 stories  

Benny                                                                 319 stories

The Master, including Missy                         294 stories

Ace                                                                      285 stories

Sarah Jane                                                        285 stories  Climber! 

The K9s                                                              266 stories 

Amy and Rory                                                  264 stories 

Wales                                                                  261 stories

Torchwood                                                        256 stories  

At Sea                                                                 234 stories

Peri                                                                     222 stories 

Jamie                                                                  211 stories 

Christmas                                                          210 stories

 

 

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                          2476 stories

The Noughties                                                  1652 stories       

The Nineties                                                      631 stories  

The Twenties                                                     501 stories   

The Eighties                                                      325 stories   

The Seventies                                                    288 stories         

The Sixties                                                         202 stories

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

 

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2016                                                          313 stories 

2018                                                          310 stories

2020                                                          291 stories  

2008                                                          273 stories  

2015                                                          272 stories 

2017                                                           251 stories       

2011                                                          241 stories 

2010                                                          238 stories  Climber! 

2013                                                          238 stories 

2009                                                          237 stories 

2019                                                          226 stories 

2007                                                          219 stories 

2021                                                          212 stories 

2014                                                          209 stories 

2001                                                          184 stories  

2012                                                          183 stories  

2006                                                          166 stories

2004                                                          157 stories

2005                                                          142 stories

2003                                                          124 stories  

                            

         

 

 

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                     1168

Proportion of Female Writers               17%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

Justin Richards                                       160 stories

James Goss                                              155 stories 

Terrance Dicks                                       148 stories

Russell T Davies                                     125 stories  

Jonathan Morris                                    118 stories 

Steven Moffat                                         105 stories

Eddie Robson                                          103 stories                   

Paul Magrs                                              97 stories  

Terry Nation                                           90 stories  

Matt Fitton                                              89 stories  

Nicholas Briggs                                       88 stories 

John Dorney                                            85 stories 

Simon Guerrier                                       83 stories  Climber!

David Whitaker                                      83 stories           

Steve Lyons                                             74 stories 

Gareth Roberts                                       69 stories  

Guy Adams                                              68 stories  

Alan Barnes                                             68 stories  

Trevor Baxendale                                  68 stories  

Eric Saward                                            66 stories  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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