[522] Dating Logopolis (18.7) - The date is first stated in Four to Doomsday, and is the same day that the first episode was broadcast. This is the first on-screen use of the term “chameleon circuit”. The TARDIS Logs set the Logopolis sequence in “4950”. It’s never stated if the other CVEs are ever restored, although it’s possible that reviving the Cassiopeia CVE opened the others.
[523] Dating Castrovalva (19.1) - This story immediately follows Logopolis.
[524] Dating Four to Doomsday (19.2) - The Doctor establishes that he has returned Tegan to the right point in time “16.15 hours” on “February 28th 1981”, the day episode one of Logopolis was broadcast.
[525] TW: First Born
[526] Project: Destiny
[527] Dating Nuclear Time (NSA #40) - The day is repeatedly given.
[528] The King of Terror. In Castrovalva, the newly-regenerated/confused fifth Doctor seemed to allude to an incident that involved the Brigadier and the Ice Warriors. In The Dying Days, the Brigadier says he never met the Ice Warriors, so this couldn’t have involved him.
[529] The King of Terror
[530] The Gallifrey Chronicles
[531] Dating The Hollows of Time (BF LS #1.4) - It’s “the early 1980s”, “a year or two” in Peri’s past. In the original conceptualisation of this story, Stream was to be unmasked as the Master; in the actual audio, he’s just (if you can call it that) a genius with robotic helpers, hypnotism, knowledge of the Doctor’s previous encounter with the Tractators and the ability to pilot the TARDIS.
[532] Dating K9 and Company (18.7-A) - Sarah arrives in Moreton Harwood on “December the 18th”, and later tells K9 that it is “1981”. The other dates are given in dialogue. This story is part of the UNIT timeframe, but real life has overtaken Sarah’s “I’m from 1980” comment in Pyramids of Mars.
[533] Dating Blue Box (PDA #59) - Presuming one can believe Peters’ account, the story opens “two days before Christmas 1981” (p10). Peters visits Swan in the Bainbridge Hospital in late 1982 (p5).
[534] TW: The Undertaker’s Gift
[535] “Ten years” before Iris: Enter Wildthyme.
[536] Dating Time-Flight (18.7) - The date isn’t specified beyond Tegan’s “this is the 1980s”. There’s no indication that it’s the exact day Tegan left in Logopolis (or that it isn’t). There’s snow on the ground, which there wasn’t in Logopolis, but which doesn’t rule out it being February.
[537] The King’s Demons
[538] Arc of Infinity
[539] Night Thoughts. The Falklands War lasted from 2nd April to 14th June, 1982.
[540] Six hundred thirty days before The Reaping, which opens on 24th September, 1984.
[541] Dating Relative Dementias (PDA #49) - The date is given (p40).
[542] Only Human
[543] “Two years” after the first part of Father Time, “three years” before the second (p114).
[544] Return of the Living Dad
[545] Dating Living Legend (BF promo #4, DWM #337) - The date is given, Track 1.
[546] The Also People. This would be between 1982 and 1988.
[547] Business Unusual
[548] The Song of the Megaptera. Slayer was founded in 1981, and Peri saw them prior to her meeting the Doctor in 1984.
[549] The Reaping
[550] Either “twenty-five years” (according to Turvey and a local named Angela Wisher, who could be generalising a little) or “twenty-three Christmases” (according to the product blurb) before Cuddlesome.
[551] For almost the entire run of the fifth Doctor’s DWM adventures, he was based in Stockbridge. The reason for this was finally given in “4-Dimensional Vistas”. The stories have a contemporary setting. While they started publication in 1982, the Doctor in “Lunar Lagoon” assumes it is 1983 - the only time a year is specified.
As for where these stories take place in relation to the fifth Doctor’s television adventures, the Big Finish audios featuring Stockbridge (especially Circular Time: “Autumn”, Castle of Fear and The Eternal Summer) establish that the Doctor is already acquainted with Stockbridge, Sir Justin (“The Tides of Time”) and Max Edison (“The Stars Fell on Stockbridge”) during the time he is travelling with Nyssa alone (between Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity). Even this, however, means that he must have dropped her (and possibly Adric and Tegan too, if he first visited Stockbridge during Season 19) off somewhere and picked them up again. In ”The Tides of Time”, the Doctor says that deference is shown on Gallifrey to his “honorary title” of president (The Invasion of Time). The DWM stories with Gus, however, possibly happen later in the fifth Doctor’s lifetime, as his sixth incarnation is still hunting for the person that had Gus killed, suggesting it happened more recently.
[552] “Fugitive”
[553] Dating “The Tides of Time” (DWM #61-67) - Time is disturbed during this story, and strictly speaking the events take place in a cul-de-sac of time created by Melanicus, and which is destroyed at the end.
The year the story starts is not specified, but the first part features the discordant note and specifies that the Doctor’s cricket game on contemporary Earth is taking place “at that precise moment”. “Forty years before”, the village green was a sandbagged army training army, so clearly that was during the Second World War. The story was published in 1982. In “Lunar Lagoon”, the Doctor had thought he was in “1983”, perhaps suggesting that’s the year the Stockbridge adventures take place.
The story spells “Event Synthesizer” in both its American and British (“Synthesiser”) form in different installments. Stockbridge isn’t named until the following story. The mysterious woman the Doctor sees in the dreamscape is never identified - the dress she wears resembles a jumpsuit Zoe wore in The Wheel in Space. In retrospect - and completely coincidentally - she resembles the first incarnation of Patience, seen in a similar flashback in Cold Fusion.
[554] Dating “The Deal” (DWM #53) - No date is given, other than stating that the story takes place during the Millenium Wars. DWM consistently misspelt “millennium” with one “n”. This is not the same as the Millennium War in The Quantum Archangel.
[555] Dating “Stars Fell on Stockbridge” (DWM #68-69) - No year is given, but it’s a contemporary setting, and the Doctor is still based in Stockbridge, as he was in “The Tides of Time”.
[556] Dating “The Stockbridge Horror” (DWM #70-75) - Once again, it’s a contemporary setting.
[557] Dating Arc of Infinity (20.1) - There is no indication of the year. It is some time after Time-Flight, and before The Awakening.
[558] Omega
[559] As mentioned by Turlough in Frontios, although the universe isn’t yet twenty billion years old at this point.
[560] Damaged Goods
[561] SJA: Death of the Doctor
[562] Army of Death
[563] Dating Hexagora (BF LS #3.2) - The story occurs between Arc of Infinity and Snakedance (and directly after The Elite), during Tegan’s native time on Earth.
[564] Mawdryn Undead, Planet of Fire.
[565] Kiss of Death
[566] Dating Mawdryn Undead (20.3) - The Doctor says “if these readings are correct, its 1983 on Earth”, and the date is reaffirmed a number of times afterwards.
Turlough first appears in Mawdryn Undead, but his origins are revealled in Planet of Fire. According to the initial Character Outline, Turlough was “20” on his first appearance, which makes him a couple of years too old to be at Brendon School - this was almost certainly written when the plan was to introduce the character in The Song of the Space Whale by Pat Mills, a story that was delayed, then rejected. Mark Strickson was 22 when he began playing Turlough.
Turlough’s pact with the Black Guardian ends in the undatable Enlightenment.
[567] Dating Kiss of Death (BF #147) - The story occurs between Mawdryn Undead and the reforms on Trion that enable Turlough to return home (Planet of Fire).
[568] Dating Rat Trap (BF #148) - It’s “June the 9th,
1983”, general election day in the United Kingdom.
[569] Dating Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma (The Companions of Doctor Who #1) - As Turlough’s actions eliminate Rehctaht, this presumably (and paradoxically) causes the very political reform that allows his younger self to return home to Trion in Planet of Fire.
[570] Dating The Five Doctors (20.1) - The Brigadier recognises Tegan, so he must be kidnapped by Borusa after the second half of Mawdryn Undead in 1983. It is specified that he is attending a UNIT reunion (perhaps one he initiated once his memories returned?), but this isn’t the occasion of his retirement. Sarah is kidnapped around the same time, certainly after K9 and Company.
[571] Business Unusual
[572] “Last year” according to Heart of TARDIS (p41).
[573] Dating “4-Dimensional Vistas” (DWM #78-83) - This story marks the end of the Doctor’s vigil on Earth. In “Lunar Lagoon”, the Doctor thought he was in “1983”.
[574] Ghost Light. Marc Platt’s novelisation specifies that Gabriel Chase is burnt down in August 1983. Ace’s social worker is referred to in Survival.
[575] “Eight months” before Return of the Living Dad.
[576] Return of the Living Dad (p53). While in 1983, Jason says he was “born this year”. In Death and Diplomacy (set circa 2011), Jason must be rounding when he says, “I’m thirty years old, near enough” (p196).
[577] Interference (p296).
[578] Dating “City of Devils” (DWM Holiday Special 1992) - The date is given in the opening caption.
[579] Dating Heart of TARDIS (PDA #32) - It’s July (p117), “fifteen years” after 1968 (p246).
[580] TW: Fragments, and confirmed in The Torchwood Archives, although Torchwood: The Official Magazine Yearbook (2008) says he was born 2nd December, 1982.
[581] Burning Heart (p102).
[582] “Thirty years” before Autonomy.
[583] Dating Return of the Living Dad (NA #53) - It’s “10 December 1983” (p34).
[584] Benny: Life During Wartime, Benny: Death to the Daleks.
[585] According to the CIA files in TW: Miracle Day. 24th October is named as a Saturday; in 1983, it was actually a Monday.
[586] Remembrance of the Daleks. Had someone from 1963 discovered Ace’s ghetto blaster, this would have occurred “twenty years too early”.
[587] Touched by an Angel. He’s 37 in October 2011, so was born in either 1983 or 1984.
[588] The Hollow Men
[589] Father’s Day. No precise dating is given, but it’s before Rose’s birth in 1986.
[590] The Reaping
[591] The Runaway Bride. The Thames Barrier was constructed from 1974 to 1984.
[592] “Eighteen years” before SJS: Comeback.
[593] FP: The Book of the War
[594] TW: Miracle Day
[595] Dating The Awakening (21.2) - The Doctor assures Tegan that “it is 1984”, despite Will Chandler’s clothing. As Tegan is the Queen of the May, it is presumably May Day.
[596] The Hollow Men
[597] Dating “The Forgotten” (IDW DW mini-series #2) - Tegan is wearing her outfit from Frontios/Resurrection of the Daleks. This may well be set after The Awakening, when we know the Doctor and his companions stayed on Earth for a while.
[598] Dating Resurrection of the Daleks (21.3) - The Doctor says it is “1984 - Earth”. We never hear of the Duplicates again. In terms of this timeline, the Daleks are from 4590.
[599] The Gathering. The “Verney” of Verney Feeds presumably refers to Tegan’s grandfather from The Awakening.
[600] Dating Planet of Fire (21.5) - Peri says she is due back at college in “the fall”, which is “three months” away. There is nothing to suggest that the story isn’t set in the year it was broadcast (1984). It can’t take place before 1983, otherwise Turlough would return home while his past self was still in exile (Mawdryn Undead). In Timelash, the Doctor threatens to take Peri back to “1985”. The back cover of The Reaping specifies that Peri first met the Doctor on 9th May, 1984. Peri and the Piscon Paradox says that Peri first met the Doctor “twenty-five years” prior to 2009.
Peri’s step-father says they were on the island of Lanzarote, which is where filming took place. Yet Lanzarote was not on any ancient Greek trading routes, unlike the island in the story.
[601] Peri and the Piscon Paradox
[602] “Final Sacrifice”. There’s no indication of how much time, for Turlough, has passed since Planet of Fire. It’s possible that they visit him on the alt-Trion he relocates to in Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma.
[603] Three months before The Reaping, set in September 1984.
[604] Dating “Urban Myths” (BF #95b) - The story takes place at an Earth restaurant (probably in Hungary, owing to mention of the invention of goulash), but the dating is unknown. The only real clue is that a restaurant has operated at the location “since the time of the Hapsburgs”, ruling out anything beyond the mid-twenty-second century (when the Dalek Invasion would undoubtedly interrupt service). The choice of dating this story to 1984 - contemporary with the fifth Doctor and Peri’s adventures on TV - is arbitrary. It could also be concurrent with the release of “Urban Myths” in 2007.
[605] Dating Downtime (MA #18) - This is “1984” (p22).
[606] Dating The Reaping (BF #86) - The date is given. Miami Vice is touted as a new show, and it debuted on 16th September, 1984, about a week before The Reaping begins.
[607] The Gathering
[608] Dating The Zygon Who Fell to Earth (BF BBC7 #2.6) - The date is given. The Doctor’s mention of “another lot” of nineteenth-century Zygons “down south” is probably a reference to The Bodysnatchers.
[609] Dating Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma (The Companions of Doctor Who #1) - The story opens some months after Turlough has left the TARDIS. According to p193, it is relative Trion date 17,883 when Turlough arrives on Trion.
[610] Time and the Rani
[611] “Seven years” before Cat’s Cradle: Witch Mark (p25).
[612] “Twenty-three years” before The Runaway Bride.
[613] Dating “The Fires Down Below” (DWM #64) - A caption says it is “1984”.
[614] Dating TimeH: The Winning Side (TimeH #1) - “1984” is printed on the cover, and Honoré and Emily find a “four year old” (p45) newspaper dated “2 March 1980” (p35).
[615] Dating Attack of the Cybermen (22.1) - Mondas’ attack is in “1986”, which the hired gun Griffiths confirms is “next year”.
[616] Dating The Two Doctors (22.3) - The story is contemporary, but there is no indication exactly which year it takes place.
[617] This occurs in an unrecorded adventure before “Kane’s Story”, and we don’t learn why she left.
[618] Dating “Kane’s Story” (DWM #104) - A caption says it’s “1985”.
Peri Leaves and Causes Continuity Problems, Take One
When Peri joined the sixth Doctor and Frobisher’s adventures in the comic strip, it created a mild continuity headache. While we never saw her leave, she rejoins in “Kane’s Story” when the Doctor and Frobisher pick her up in New York. She’s settled down and just quit (another) job there, and it’s not even established whether she recognises Frobisher.
So far, so simple. We know from The Trial of a Time Lord that there are big gaps in the sixth Doctor’s recorded adventures. So, at some point after Revelation of the Daleks, Peri leaves the Doctor, who goes on to meet Frobisher in “The Shape Shifter” before meeting up with his old companion again. No matter how one plays the cards here (or invokes the multiple Peris established in Peri and the Piscon Paradox), Peri must meet Frobisher for the first time in “Kane’s Story”. She’s then present until the end of the sixth Doctor’s DWM run in “The World Shapers”, which then leads into The Trial of a Time Lord and her televised departure. This is even supported by the way Peri switches, during the course of the comic strip, from wearing her Season 22 leotards to her more tailored look of Season 23.
&nbs
p; In Planet of Fire, Peri said she would travel with the Doctor for “three months”. This line was forgotten about on television, but perhaps she was true to her word and left the Doctor as planned. This could still be after Revelation of the Daleks - although Attack of the Cybermen and Timelash both have the “present day” as 1985, not 1984.
[619] Specified by Torlakh as “eighteen friggin years” prior to Zygon: When Being You Isn’t Enough. Torlakh’s plan is basically identical to that of the Zygons in The Zygon Who Fell to Earth.
[620] Damaged Goods
[621] Business Unusual (p244).
[622] The Gallifrey Chronicles
[623] “About fifteen years” before Excelis Rising.
[624] The Left-Handed Hummingbird (p261).
[625] “Two years” after Return of the Living Dad (p98).
[626] Invasion of the Cat-People (p46). This matches the Tarot deck’s real-world release in 1985. Kuykendall died in 1998.
[627] “About a year ago” (p129) and “last year” (p115) according to Father Time (p129).
[628] When Ace was “14” (p89) according to Timewyrm: Revelation. Chess is the son of Ian and Barbara (the “Chess” moniker is apparently short for “Chesterton”).
[629] Interference (Book Two, p157).
[630] The Left-Handed Hummingbird (p100).
[631] Mad Dogs and Englishmen (p23).
[632] Dating Father Time (EDA #41) - The date is never specified beyond “the mid-eighties” and there are a couple of (deliberate) references to keep the dating vague, such as one to Guns N’ Roses. It is “five years” after part one of the story.
[633] TW: The Men Who Sold the World, presumably in reference to the Iran-Contra affair of the mid-80s.
[634] Borrowed Time. It’s “about 1985, just a year before the Big Bang changed the regulation of the London stock market” (on 27th October, 1986).
[635] Animal, extrapolating from Raine’s birth year of 1967 (Thin Ice).
[636] Dating “Skywatch-7” (DWM #58, DWM Winter Special 1981) - The date is given in the caption running across the top of the first page.
[637] TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts
[638] The Hollow Men. Hatch is “fourteen” (p79) when this occurs.
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