On Mawdryn’s ship, the Brigadier came into contact with his older self and triggered the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. This left the younger Brigadier with some memory loss - the fifth Doctor and his companions left him on Earth to continue teaching.
c 1977 (30th-31st July) - Image of the Fendahl [454]
The fourth Doctor and Leela encountered the Fendahl at Fetchborough, a village on the edge of a time fissure. A team of scientists under Professor Fendelman were attempting to probe the far past using a time scanner, but this had only succeeded in activating the dormant Fendahl skull. Fetch Priory was destroyed in an implosion. The Doctor defeated the Fendahl, and took the skull with the intent of throwing it into a supernova.
In 1977, the seventh Doctor landed in Lewisham in an attempt to track the Timewyrm. [455] On Trion, the dictator Rehctaht emerged as the most tyrannical ruler in the planet’s history. She would rule for seven years, and butcher the Clansmen. She founded the colony of New Trion primarily as a slave labour force, but conflict between Trion colonies in the East and the West diverted her attention. New Trion functioned independently, if inefficiently. [456]
1977 - “The Nightmare Game” [457]
The eighth Doctor discovered that the alien Shakespeare Brothers were behind Delchester United’s recent bad run.
1978
On 21st February, 1978, electrical workers uncovered the sacrificial stone at the base of the Great Temple in Mexico City. [458] The eighth Doctor, Samson and Gemma visited Studio 54. [459] Panda arranged to have Iris scraped off the floor of Studio 54. [460]
From the Carter-Brezhnev era, it became standard policy to lodge missile command codes into the hearts of people beloved to the persons authorised to launch nuclear strikes. It was hoped - as approving a missile strike would now necessitate the loved one’s death - that those entrusted with such weaponry would consider and re-consider the humanity and consequences of their actions. [461]
Iris Wildthyme stopped working for the South Kensington branch [462] of The Ministry of Incursions and Other Alien Wonders (MIAOW), thinking them too nefarious. [463] The romance novelist Barbara Cartland bought extra-terrestrial stationery from a seemingly ordinary shop near Charing Cross: McZygon of the Strand. [464]
c 1978 - The Pirate Planet [465]
Zanak’s career as the Pirate Planet - a hollowed out world that teleported around other planets and mined out their riches - was brought to an abrupt end when the fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 helped to bring about the destruction of its engines and the death of its Captain and Queen Xanxia. Zanak settled in a peaceful area of space.
c 1978 - The Stones of Blood [466]
The fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 helped defeat Cessair of Diplos, who had escaped from her prison ship in hyperspace and been hiding on Earth for four thousand years. She was found guilty by two justice machines - the Megara - of impersonating a deity, theft and misuse of the Seal of Diplos, murder, and removing silicon lifeforms from the planet Ogros in contravention of article 7594 of the Galactic Charter. She was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment.
Around this time, the Time Lord Drax spent ten years in Brixton Prison. [467] Chris Parsons graduated in 1978. [468] Work was done on the sewers under Fleet Street. [469]
1978 - Mad Dogs and Englishmen [470]
The eighth Doctor dropped Anji off in Hollywood, where she met embittered special effects man Ron von Arnim. The Doctor went to 1942 and returned with Noel Coward - and the news that von Arnim was being manipulated to create a movie about poodles by director John Fuchas. The Doctor tied Fuchas to a chair, headed off to Dogworld, and forgot to go back, so Fuchas died. This prevented the movie being made, and saved the day.
Gwen Cooper of Torchwood was born in Swansea on 16th August, 1978, to Mary and Geraint Wyn Cooper. [471]
The Tulkan Empire failed to annex the Annarene homeworld. In response, the Annarene erased the deposed Tulk War Council’s memories. An Annarene named Sooal, dying from a genetic disease, spirited the amnesiac council away in a spaceship. Sooal hoped to restore the Council’s memories and gain the command codes needed to open a Tulk stasis chamber, which contained a metabolic stabiliser. He established the Graystairs elderly care facility in Muirbridge, Scotland, to conduct genetics research. On Annarene, the ruling Protectorate favoured pacifism, but a hawk-like faction desired a return to warfare. [472]
Followers of the demon Asmedaj summoned their master in December 1978, but the youthful Jane Fonda-esque version of Iris Wildthyme infiltrated the group, chanted the wrong words and tore Asmedaj’s body apart. Iris celebrated her triumph with two hitchhikers named Doug. A part of Asmedaj’s mind hosted itself in Iris’ brain as she fell asleep while watching The Wizard of Oz. One of Asmedaj’s followers, Marwick, tried to heal his master by implanting Asmedaj’s body parts in several newborn children - including Iris’ future companion Tom. [473]
When not on assignment for Torchwood, Jack Harkness tried his hand working in life insurance and at a burger bar on Bondi Beach. The fourth revival of Agnes Havisham from cryo-sleep entailed an escapade with Jack at a roller discotheque in Sweden, the late 1970s, when a lethal space plague turned people into the undead. Jack went to an Abba concert while he was in Sweden, as he expected that he could get a ticket from either Agnetha or Bjorn. [474]
1979 (spring) - City of Death [475]
Scaroth’s plan to alter history - which would have saved his race but doomed humanity - was reaching its culmination. With the help of the foremost temporal scientist of the day, Professor Theodore Nikolai Kerensky, Scaroth produced a device capable of shifting the whole world back in time four hundred million years.
To finance the plan, Scaroth was selling off his art collection, flooding the market with lost masterpieces. This failed to raise enough money, and he arranged for the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in Paris. One of Scaroth’s other selves had commissioned six more Mona Lisas from Leonardo da Vinci in 1505, and Scaroth intended to sell all seven copies to private buyers. Each would think they were purchasing the stolen Mona Lisa.
Scaroth succeeded in travelling back in time four hundred million years, but the fourth Doctor, Romana and the investigator Duggan followed in the TARDIS and stopped his plans. Upon his return to 1979, Scaroth died when a fire started in his laboratory. Only one Mona Lisa copy - with “This is a Fake” scribbled in felt tip on the canvas, detectable to any x-ray - survived the fire. It was returned to the Louvre.
Earth was now classified as a Level Five planet. [476]
The Doctor came to possess a Mona Lisa that didn’t have the words “This is a Fake” in felt tip. [477]
Peri and her father went hunting together. Her grandmother went senile, forgot everyone but her teddy bear, and took to acting like Marlene Dietrich. [478] Peri’s father Paul drowned underneath a capsized boat in 1979. Her mother, Janine, remarried soon afterwards. [479]
Turlough and a girl named Deela were childhood friends, then shared a teenage infatuation - they weren’t related by blood, but belonged to the same Clan. He found the dimensional vault last used by his great-grandfather, and changed the security key so it would only grant him and Deela access. [480]
The Doctor assisted in bringing Skylab down to Earth and it “nearly cost him a thumb”. [481] Izzy, a companion of the eighth Doctor, was born on 12th October, 1979. She never knew her parents, and was adopted by Les and Sandra Sinclair. Because of her uncertain parentage, she chose to call herself “Izzy Somebody”. [482]
By 1979, the Zygon Hagoth had acquired the corpse and body print of the folk singer Trevor. In Trevor’s form, Hagoth attended the Kendal Folk Festival and met Patricia Ryder, the future aunt of Lucie Miller. “Trevor” and Patricia were married that same year - she knew he was extra-terrestrial, deeming him her “great big hunk of Zygon”. [483]
c 1979 - “The Iron Legion” [484]
The fourth Doctor landed on Earth just as it was attacked by robots resembling ancient Roman soldiers...
= In another
dimension, Rome never fell. Rome’s robot legions, led by the eagle-headed Ironicus, fought the Eternal War across a thousand planets and by now had conquered the entire galaxy. The attack on our dimension represented the first strike in Rome’s attempt to conquer the whole of creation.
Rome itself was a vast futuristic city full of alien and human citizens, slaves and robots. Citizens enjoyed themselves watching gladiator fights between aliens and bionic humans at the Hyp-Arena, and car races at the Circus Maximus. Both events were televised. Rome had contact with many alien planets, including the home of the Ectoslime and the Kronks in the Crab Nebula. The Kronks had fought Zarks in the Hyp-Arena, and were also turned into kronkburgers.
The child Adolphus Caesar - “Master of the Solar System and the Galaxy Beyond” - was now Emperor, with Ironicus serving as regent. The Doctor realised that Juno, the Adolphus’ mother, was actually an alien. Following them to the Temple of the Gods, the Doctor recognised the building as a spacecraft, and the “gods” as the five Malevilus - Babiyon, Abiss, Epok, Nekros and Magog, a form of anti-life. They had given the Romans advanced technology to aid their goal of the conquest of all creation.
With the help of the bionic gladiator Morris and the ancient robot Vesuvius, the Doctor started a revolt. He unleashed the Bestarius (who were genetically engineered warriors), and confronted Juno, who revealled herself to be Magog. The Doctor tricked Magog into the TARDIS by promising to share its secrets, then trapped him in a pocket dimension. The other Malevilus tried to launch their ship, but Magog had drained its power and it crashed, killing them. Vesuvius was installed as Emperor by popular decree.
The tenth Doctor planned to take Rose to an Ian Dury concert on 21st November, 1979. [485]
The Nineteen Eighties
In the 1980s, the vampires Amelia Doory and Reggie Mead gained enough resources to start up a blood farm. They traded blood with other victims of the Forge in exchange for vampire DNA. [486] In the same decade, Iris stopped the mermaid Magda from using her siren song to blow up a nuclear power plant. Magda reformed and later came to work for MIAOW. [487] The eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory and Kevin the Tyrannosaur investigated a crime in Los Angeles, posing as members of the LAPD. [488]
(=) 1980 - Pyramids of Mars [489]
The fourth Doctor took Sarah to an alternate version of 1980, to show her what would happen if they left England in 1911 before defeating Sutekh. Earth was a devastated wasteland.
c 1980 - “Yonder... the Yeti” [490]
A small expedition to Tibet went looking for the Yeti. They visited a local monk Lama Gampo, but the creatures attacked them, and the Great Intelligence possessed one of the expedition members. The Yeti had flying vehicles and web guns, and the Intelligence planned to launch a new conquest of Earth. Lama Gampo, whose father’s uncle fought the Yeti sixty years before, rescued the party and summoned the real Yeti before destroying the power transfuser that linked the Intelligence to Earth. He then hypnotised the surviving expedition members to maintain his secrets.
The android Isley killed an assassination target in Cuba on 3rd February, 1980 - and then, owing to her overly sensitive programming, killed fifty potential witnesses. [491]
Owen Harper of Torchwood was born 14th February, 1980. [492]
The US military decided on 28th February, 1980, that Albert Gilroy’s killer androids had become too uncontrollable, and made preparations to destroy them - with a nuclear bomb, in violation of the Limited Test Ban Treaty - in the fake Colorado city of Appletown. Colonel Redvers told Gilroy that the Reagan Administration believed that the detonation would have the added benefit of pushing Cold War tensions to America’s advantage. [493]
With foreign investment rare in Argentina, the American CIA began tracking contract-intensive money there in 1980. [494]
1980 - “The Star Beast” [495]
The peaceful Meeps became warlike when Black Sun radiation affected their planet. The Wrarth Galaxy Star Council created the Wrarth Warriors, amalgams of their five strongest races, to defeat them. The Meep armada was destroyed at the Battle of Yarras, but their leader, Beep the Meep, escaped.
An alien ship crashed at a steel mill in Blackcastle, a city in the north of England. The government denied it was a UFO, and UNIT troops were sent to secure the site. Two schoolchildren, Fudge and Sharon, discovered the survivor - the immensely cute Beep the Meep, who was being pursued by the monstrous Wrarth Warriors. The fourth Doctor and K9 landed on the Wrarth Warrior ship. The aliens immobilised the Doctor and planted a bomb inside him, sending him down to Earth, knowing he would locate the Meep.
The Meep used mind control to enslave humans to rebuild his ship, and planned to make a star jump while still on Earth - an act that would have hideous consequences. The Meep activated the black sun drive, sucking Blackcastle into a black hole, but the effects were temporary because the Doctor sabotaged the stardrive. Stuck in Earth orbit, the Meep was arrested and sent for trial. Sharon joined the Doctor on his adventures.
c 1980 - “The Collector” [496]
The fourth Doctor and Sharon returned to Blackcastle after many adventures, but were immediately snatched up by a teleport-beam and rematerialised on a base in the asteroid belt. This was the home of Varan Tak from Oskerion, who had been capturing specimens from Earth for two thousand years. His ship had been damaged for that long, and he was waiting for his distress signal to arrive at his home planet. His only companionship during this exile was the ship’s computer, who had built a robot form for herself. She was preventing Varan Tak from teleporting to Earth, but the Doctor destroyed the security precautions.
(=) Varan Tak beamed to Earth... only to die because he couldn’t tolerate the pollution levels. The computer destroyed K9 in revenge.
The Doctor used the TARDIS to manipulate the ship’s time stasis fields and changed history, destroying the teleporter and saving Varan Tak and K9. The Doctor, Sharon and K9 left Varan Tak and the computer in peace.
c 1980 - The Leisure Hive [497]
The fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 briefly landed on Brighton beach, but the Doctor had got the season wrong, and they soon left for Argolis.
Ashley Chapel experimented with the micromonolithic circuit and made contact with Saraquazel, a being from the universe that exists after our own. [498] One of Sabbath’s agents tried and failed to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1980. [499] @ The eighth Doctor defeated the Voord in Penge during the nineteen-eighties. [500]
Samantha Angeline Jones, a companion of the eighth Doctor, was born on 15th April, 1980. [501]
(=) She was born dark-haired, her mother a social worker and her father a doctor. She would grow up to become a vegetarian, and have scar marks on her arms from injecting diamorphine. She would end up living in a bedsit near King’s Cross.
She was born blonde-haired, her mother a social worker and her father a doctor. She would grow up to become a vegetarian, and have no scar marks on her arm. She would meet the Doctor while attending school in 1997. [502]
1980 (30th April) - The City of the Dead [503]
The eighth Doctor arrived from the early twenty-first century to investigate a bone charm. Louisiana resident Alain Auguste Delesormes tried to summon a water elemental, but most of his family died when their home was flooded. The Doctor saved a young boy from the calamity, failing to realise that he was the water elemental in human form.
Delesormes’ son, also named Alain, survived and was put into foster care in Vermont. He grew up to become police investigator Jonas Rust, and sought to continue his father’s work. The water elemental’s mother came to search for her son and was bound into a human body. She became the wife of New Orleans resident Vernon Flood, unable to escape her fleshy prison.
On 3rd June, 1980, the alien Ambassadors completed their survey of the solar system and left. No further contact with humanity was made. [504] America used its secretive Apollo programme to establish Base Diana on the dark side of the moon. Apollos 18 to 21 set up the base, and the final flight - Apollo
22, in June 1980 - ferried the equipment for a quantum displacement system. From that point, a teleport link existed between Base Diana and a command centre, Base Hibiscus, in the Texas desert. [505]
1980 - The Fires of Vulcan [506]
The archaeologist Scalini excavated a police box from the ruins of Pompeii. The seventh Doctor and Mel were inside, and exited the ship when no-one was looking. Captain Muriel Frost of UNIT called in the fifth Doctor to investigate.
c 1980 (October) - Shada [507]
Answering a distress signal from Professor Chronotis, the fourth Doctor and Romana arrived in Cambridge. They discovered that the geneticist Skagra had taken The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, the key to the Time Lord prison planet of Shada, and ended his scheme to mentally dominate the universe.
or ...
c 1980 (October) - The Five Doctors / Shada
Borusa attempted to abduct the fourth Doctor (and possibly Romana) while they were punting in Cambridge. The abduction failed, and they were caught in a time eddy. This averted their visit to Chronotis, but the eighth Doctor and Romana later arrived and stopped Skagra as scheduled.
1980 - TW: Trace Memory [508]
A five-year-old Toshiko Sato was very pleased when her father returned to Osaka for the Tenjin Festival. The next day, she briefly met the time-hopping Michael Bellini and the Vondrax pursuing him.
John Frobisher joined the civil service in 1980. Bridget Spears worked with him for six months; it would be another ten years before he requested that she work in his office. [509]
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