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Brief Encounters
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DWM 167 - Brief Encounter: The Meeting by John Lucarotti 1st Doctor

Writer John Lucarotti encounters the first Doctor in a Parisian inn, where they briefly discuss the Time Lord's visit to France at the time of the Huguenot massacre. The Doctor slips away, but not before suggesting that his chronicler take a trip to Samarkhand.

Time-Placement: It's obviously set after The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, as the Doctor makes reference to that story. Otherwise it could be pretty much anywhere during the First Doctor's era.


  • Reprinted in the 1991 Yearbook

  • DWM 168 - Brief Encounter: An Incident Concerning the Continual Bombardment of the Phobos Colony by Paul Cornell Davros

    While the Daleks bombard a human colony into extinction, Davros takes time to discuss the situation with two formerly human slave drones. He is disappointed to realise that the genetic modifications he has made to them have removed the emotions that interested him, such as compassion and pity -- and is disgusted that they have retained emotions such as fear. Angered that he has created a set of imperfect "children," he orders them exterminated, but after it is done, there is a hint that perhaps he also regrets that his other "children", the Daleks, carry similar imperfections.

    Time-Placement: Since Davros is commanding these Daleks but still has "a wizened hand" in the story, this is clearly between Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks for him.

    DWM 169 - Brief Encounter: [Untitled] by David Bishop 7th Doctor, Ian and Barbara

    While Ace travels to London at the turn of the Millennium to look for Doc Martens, the Doctor goes in search of Ian Chesterton. He finds Ian, now an old man, bitter that place he has worked as a research scientist since the 1960s is closing down. The Doctor, while not revealing his identity, comforts Ian with the news that the King will be re-opening it soon. Returning home, Ian finds that Barbara has also been visited by a familiar stranger, who left a Coal Hill School tie.

    Time-Placement: For the Doctor, this story could be set anywhere between Dragonfire and Love and War. However as it shares several similar themes to Affirmative and A Time and a Place, I have chosen just before Love and War. For Ian and Barbara the story would seem to be set about 25 years after The Face of the Enemy

    DWM 171 - Brief Encounter: [Untitled] by Michael Bonner --

    Berenyi, a renegade Time Lord and freelance Designer -- someone who alters time when hired to do so -- oversees her latest project: arranging the assassination of JFK in Dallas, 1963.

    Time-Placement: No ties to any other story (although it appears to contradict Who Killed Kennedy).

    DWM 172 - Brief Encounter: A Victorian Interlude by Andy Lane Professor Litefoot, Jago, 5th Doctor

    Gordon Henry Jago and Professor Litefoot meet in a public house to nervously discuss their latest adventure; they have acquired a Gatling gun with which to exterminate the remaining giant rats in London's sewers. Both of them face the task with trepidation and wish that the Doctor was once again with them to face the dangers ahead, but realise that, in his absence, someone must deal with the creatures. On their way out, Litefoot bumps into a young man in cricketing gear, apologises, and departs.

    Time-Placement: Could be any time in the Fifth Doctor era.

    DWM 174 - Brief Encounter: Under Reykjavik by Warren Ellis Magnus Greel, Romana II, (Fourth Doctor)

    In the early years of his dictatorship, Magnus Greel is surprised by the sudden materialisation of the TARDIS in his bunker. The second Romana emerges; having attempted to conduct repairs while the Doctor slept, she has accidentally caused a major system fault, forcing the ship to materialise. Her casual comments give the paranoid Greel the idea that a time travel device might be the perfect escape route in the event of his subjects rebelling, but the TARDIS departs before he can commandeer it -- although not before Romana, recognising his name from the Doctor's stories, gives Greel the business card of an excellent plastic surgeon.

    Time-Placement: Nothing in the text to place this, but the illustration shows Romana in her outfit from Destiny of the Daleks, so presumably it's just after that tale.

    DWM 176 - Brief Encounter: Mistaken Identity by Gary Russell Lytton, Dirty Den, cast of EastEnders

    Lytton, waiting to meet a potential employee in an East End pub, briefly wonders if the barman is another stranded trooper off the Dalek ship, before realising that he merely bears a close resemblance to Kiston, the adjutant that Davros brainwashed. Tired of waiting and satisfied that he has not, in fact, met the barman before, Lytton departs.

    Time-Placement: Between Resurrection of the Daleks and Attack of the Cybermen for Lytton. And yes, this is probably the first Doctor Who / EastEnders cross-over, pre-dating Dimensions in Time by several years.

    DWM 178 - Brief Encounter: Affirmative by Daniel Read 7th Doctor, Leela and K9

    Upset by the consequences of his plans, the Doctor visits Gallifrey to observe K9, who has been missing the excitement of his time in the TARDIS. After watching from a distance, the Doctor finally stops to speak to K9. Feeling reassured his plan for Leela has been a success, he takes K9's name tag to remember him by, leaving quickly without alerting Leela to his presence.

    Time-Placement: The Seventh Doctor appears to be alone, and in need of reassurance that some of his plans have worked out as he intended. This would seem to suggest that it was set in the epilogue of Love and War, Deaths and other lives. "He'd been a long time in the Vortex, visited some worlds, drifted past others" {p.229}

    DWM 178 - Brief Encounter: An Unfulfilled Dream by Karen Dunn 7th Doctor (and Bernice?)

    Leaving his companion in the TARDIS after a night trying drinks from the replicator, the Doctor sets out alone into a small village in ancient Greece. Here he befriends a small girl who tells him that she is going into service in a nearby city to become the handmaiden to a priestess, because her family can no longer support her. After being given a glass of water by the girl's mother, the Doctor gives them a gold coin that will feed the family for a year. Only when she is leaving does the Doctor ask her name. When he finds out that it is Katarina -- the girl his first incarnation will encounter in Troy, and who is ultimately destined to die -- he leaves, depressed that once again he has failed to save the life of someone who trusted him. 

    Time-Placement: The Doctor talks about his companion's hangover after a night testing drinks from the TARDIS replicator. As Ace was not known for her alcoholism this would seem to suggest that the Doctor is referring to Bernice. As she is still experimenting with the drinks this would seem to suggest that it is one of her first trips. I have therefore positioned it between Transit and The Highest Science.

    DWM 181 - Brief Encounter: Echoes of Future Past by John Summerfield 1st Doctor, 7th Doctor

    The Doctor left Gallifrey with Susan in a stolen TARDIS, but had forgotten that "the TARDIS assaults the mind of anyone but its owner and his familiars." As a result, he lost his memory, and landed the TARDIS in London 1963 to recover. While walking one evening to pick up Susan from school, he encounters his seventh incarnation lurking in a dark street. The Seventh Doctor reveals that he has brought the Hand of Omega, and, claiming that the Hand knows what to do, leaves without revealing any details of his life to his bewildered younger self.

    Time-Placement: This obviously takes place just prior to Time and Relative for the first Doctor. However the Seventh Doctor's possession of the Hand of Omega is difficult to place. After the events of Remembrance of the Daleks he claims to have sent it back to Gallifrey, so this would suggest that the events take place prior to this story. [Events described here relating to the Doctors memory, Susan's presence in the TARDIS and the means by which the Hand of Omega gets to Earth are all openly contradicting the established story set out in Lungbarrow, a few years later. It would therefore be extremely difficult if not impossible to fit this story into the established Doctor Who canon.]

    DWM 184 - Brief Encounter: Duggan by Paul Ferry 7th Doctor and Ace

    On a rainy night, Duggan (now working as a private detective in London) is approached by the seventh Doctor and Ace. Despite his disbelief that this is the man he met in Paris, the bewildered Duggan eventually agrees to lend them Tube fare so they can return to the TARDIS.

    Time-Placement: For Duggan the events occur a long time after City of Death. For the Doctor the events could take place anywhere between Dragonfire and Love and War.

    DWM 184 - Who Discovered America? by John Lucarotti 1st Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara

    The TARDIS lands in Greenland in the year 1002 AD due to a leak in its plutonium battery. As the nearest plutonic rocks are in Labrador and Newfoundland, the Doctor enlists the aid of reluctant Viking Eric the Red to take them to the still-undiscovered America. Finding the rocks he needs in Newfoundland, and food for the return in what will later be Nova Scotia, the Doctor and his companions are then dismayed to learn that the Vikings plan to leave them behind as their first colonists in the new world. However, the Doctor convinces Eric the Red to take them back by claiming that he can command the tides and thus force the Vikings to stay behind with him -- and demonstrating his "power" on the incredibly high tides of the Bay of Fundy.

    Time-Placement: Likely in the gap between The Reign of Terror and Planet of Giants.

    DWM 185 - Brief Encounter: Ships by Jamie Woolley Dodo and Sarah Jane Smith

    Dodo is walking down the street after a visit to the shops. In between contemplating her love life with Bill and thinking of people at work, she questions her decision to leave the TARDIS. Deep in thought she collides with Sarah Jane Smith, scattering the contents of their bags on the road. When Dodo gets home, she finds she has picked up Sarah's diary and plans to return it anonymously the next morning. The two women never learn what they have in common.

    Time-Placement: The story for Sarah is set after The Hand of Fear and for Dodo after The War Machines. However the events described by Dodo about her daily life is at odds with the version of Dodo seen in Who Killed Kennedy, where she has suffered mental problems, possibly because of the events of The Man in the Velvet Mask.

    DWM 186 - Brief Encounter: Cathedral Heart by Paul Cornell 7th Doctor and Ace

    After the Doctor shouts at Ace for interrupting him in the lab, the TARDIS lands in Cheldon Bonniface. Running to Saul for comfort, Ace meets Emily Hutchings, who walks with her around the churchyard. Although Emily tries to persuade Ace to stay, the Doctor comes to apologize and Ace forgives him.

    Time-Placement: The fact that the Doctor is making a cube in the lab that Ace must not know about shows that the story is set just prior to Love and War.

    DWM 187 - Brief Encounter: A Romantic Evening by Alex Fowles The Brigadier and Doris

    On a winter's night, the Brigadier and Doris sit looking through their wedding photographs, only to find that the Seventh Doctor has changed the timeline to allow himself to be there.

    Time-Placement: Set not long after Battlefield.

    DWM 188 - Brief Encounter: The Useful Pile by Kate Orman 7th Doctor

    Having only recently regenerated, the seventh Doctor is going through his previous incarnation's jacket pockets, sorting out what he needs to transfer to his new clothes. Inevitably everything but a pocket mirror and a fluff-covered caramel end up in the "Useful Pile". Having avoided checking out his new appearance up till now, the Doctor braves his reflection, decides he will get used to it, and adds the pocket mirror to the Useful Pile too.

    Time-Placement: Set immediately after Time and the Rani.

    DWM 189 - Brief Encounter: Time, Love and TARDIS by Ron Plath 7th Doctor

    The Doctor's TARDIS and a newer model discuss the concept of Love between Time and TARDISes while the Doctor meets a robed Time Lord (from the CIA?) to discuss his future usefulness. Although he is offered the newer version, the Doctor decides to keep his type 40.

    Time-Placement: It could be set between any Seventh Doctor story.

    DWM 190 - Brief Encounter: A Visit to the Cinema by Vanessa Bishop 3rd Doctor

    On one of his rare days off from UNIT, the Doctor decides to spend a rainy afternoon at the cinema. Choosing two films of particular interest, both of which star Peter Cushing, he laughs at the story set on an alien planet whose inhabitants wear too much make-up. He finds the films amusing and cannot contain his outbursts, a problem which gains him the disapproval of the two elderly ladies sitting next to him.

    Time-Placement: As the Doctor mentions Jo the story must be set after Terror of the Autons, however the fact that he is stuck on Earth on his day off would suggest that it is set before The Three Doctors when he is again able to control the TARDIS himself. The films the Doctor sees at the cinema are Dr. Who and the Daleks and Dr. Who - Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.

    DWM 191 - Brief Encounter: Reunion by David Caroll 7th Doctor(?), Peri

    Twenty years after joining Yrcanos on Krontep, Queen Peri is visited by the Doctor, who wishes to apologise for abandoning her all those years ago. But Peri, bitter and still angry, informs him that she has long since moved on and that she has had better things to do than think about him in the time since. The Doctor reluctantly accepts her decision and departs.

    Time-Placement: The Doctor is described as small and old, which might mean it is the seventh persona near the end of his life (after Bad Therapy perhaps, with the Doctor travelling back to try and undo Peri's bitterness towards him in that novel?). Or it could be a future incarnation.

    DWM 192 - Brief Encounter: Games by Warwick Gray The Celestial Toymaker

    The Celestial Toymaker tracks an entity of pure evil (ka Aboo Fenran) to the place of his imprisonment. He has come with the intent of challenging him to a game. If the Toymaker wins, the entity becomes his toy; however, if the entity wins he gets to take over the Toymaker's body and flee his prison. They agree upon 4-dimensional chess, but after a long game the Toymaker is on the verge of losing. He thus grasps the concept that winning is not everything after all, plays to a stalemate and leaves the entity in its prison.

    Time-Placement: Set just after The Nightmare Fair.

    DWM 193 - Brief Encounter: Toy by Colin Varney Shardovan and the Portreeve

    Looking for some reassurance about his past, Shardovan unearths an old stuffed toy from when he was a boy. Following an uncomfortable encounter with the Portreeve, he is distracted when the hunters return. Although the toy has evoked memories, it still feels wrong, as though it has been purposely discoloured to appear older than it is.

    Time-Placement: The mental changes which Shardovan is undergoing and the inferred excitement of the hunters would seem to place the story only minutes before the Fifth Doctor's arrival in Castrovalva.

    DWM 194 - Brief Encounter: Tautology by Glenn Langford Professor Marius and K9 Mk1, Mk3 and an ancestor of Sarah Jane Smith

    Professor Marius is offered an old dog-shaped computer by his niece, Gloria. When he goes to collect it, he finds that it has been in her fiancé's family for generations. After examining the internal circuitry he realizes that it could not have been built in the 20th century. The professor, though, is travelling to Titan and he is forced to have K9 destroyed and his own dog Toby placed into a dog home. He does, however, manage to save the motherboard, and on Titan finds someone willing to help him construct a new computer unit based on the designs of the original, thereby creating a temporal paradox.

    Time-Placement: The major body of the story is set with Professor Marius just before he travelled to Titan in The Invisible Enemy. Sarah Jane Smith must have packed K9 Mk3 into a box at some point after Moving On.

    DWM 195 - Brief Encounter: In the Community by Paul Beardsley Ace

    Ace visits Judith Winters, the girl who was the Black Dalek, who for more than a quarter of a century has been living in a mental institution, scarred by her participation in galactic wars beyond her understanding.

    Time-Placement: Just after Remembrance of the Daleks.

    DWM 196 - Brief Encounter: The Stranger, The Writer, His Wife and the Mixed Metaphor by Graham Cox 4th Doctor

    The Doctor pays a visit to William Shakespeare and helps him draft Hamlet, as the playwright has sprained his wrist. While writing the play, he complains about the phrase "take arms against a sea of troubles," which he claims is a mixed metaphor. When Shakespeare's wife Anne comes down, however, he has gone. It is also revealed that on a previous visit Sarah Jane had complained about the sexism in The Taming of the Shrew and had suggested the character of Lady Macbeth.

    Time-Placement: The story is clearly based on the conversation in City of Death between the Doctor and the Countess. For the Doctor the story could be set after The Deadly Assassin. Since Sarah seemed surprised in Planet of Evil to learn that the Doctor had met Shakespeare, their encounter must be set somewhere between that story and The Hand of Fear.

    DWM 197 - Brief Encounter: A Time and a Place by Una McCormack 7th Doctor

    Trying to sort out his past, the Doctor visits Earth just after the Dalek wars with the intention of visiting Susan and David. While walking up a mountainside, he encounters Barbara, their daughter, who tells him her parents have gone away to find supplies in the North and left her to run the farm. The Doctor questions her about her mother and finds that Susan has settled down now and is happy with her life. Although Barbara expresses a desire to travel, the Doctor resists the temptation to take her with him, leaving only a pair of shoes for Susan.

    Time-Placement: The Doctor is travelling alone without a companion and is trying to atone for his past mistakes. I have therefore suggested that it takes place in the epilogue of Love and War: "He'd been a long time in the Vortex, visited some worlds, drifted past others" {p229} For Barbara this must be at least 16 years after the events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

    DWM 198 - Brief Encounter: Three Steps to the Left by Glenn Langford 7th Doctor

    The Seventh Doctor materializes in the Australian desert and advises a man whose car has overheated to take three steps to the left. Despite his belief that the Doctor is a mirage, he does so and narrowly avoids being killed by a piece of Skylab.

    Time-Placement: Anywhere between Dragonfire and Love and War.

    DWM 199 - Brief Encounter: Anti-Matter With Fries by Gareth Roberts 7th Doctor and Ace
    Omega

    While scouting Earth for Omega, the Ergon comes across Ace working in a fast-food chain. Assuming that this is one of her friends in a silly costume, she hands over a box of fries, which the Ergon takes back to the anti-matter universe for his master. Omega is upset that it does not have salt. Ace later tells this story to the Doctor, who is privately amused but does not explain himself to her.

    Time-Placement: For Omega, just before Arc of Infinity. For the Doctor anywhere between Dragonfire and Love and War.

    DWM 200 - Rennigan's Record by David Whitaker 1st Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara

    Joseph Rennigan, the sole survivor of an American space mission that crashed on Mars, records his fight for survival on the hostile red planet and how he was helped in his delirium by four people -- the Doctor, Chesterton, Barbara and Susan -- who showed him how to collect water from condensation and urged him to take care of his head injury. Knowing he's going to survive, and believing that his visitors were hallucinations, he prefers to delete his recording in case somebody else listening it, one day, may think he was mad.

    Time-Placement: Likely in the gap between The Reign of Terror and Planet of Giants.

    DWM 205 - Brief Encounter: Missing in Action by Tim Pieraccini Mike Yates

    Mike Yates has an interview with a father about why his son David Edmunds has been reported missing in action. He is placed in the awkward situation of not being able to tell David's grieving father and sister that David was disintegrated by an Ogron weapon.

    Time-Placement: The story is set just after Day of the Daleks.

    DWM 206 - Brief Encounter: One Minute Fourteen Seconds by Kate Orman 7th Doctor and Ace

    Shiir'ha'ash from Ra'ashpep visits Earth with the intention of providing technological assistance to help with problems such as the ozone layer and other terraforming projects. In return, the British government agrees to provide him with humans for food. During a live television interview with Jack and Gerry, however, the Doctor turns up and reveals the details of the agreement to the people in the studio. When Shiir'ha'ash finds out that it is not common practice for humans to eat one another, he transports back to his ship and leaves the solar system. Ace comments that the Doctor only took one minute, fourteen seconds to solve the situation and that this must have been a personal best. The TARDIS departs, leaving a British Cabinet minister in the awkward position of facing a live question and answer session about the government's dealings.

    Time-Placement: The story could be set anytime between Dragonfire and Love and War.

    DWM 208 - Brief Encounter: Front Line by Paul Smith 7th Doctor

    The Doctor pays a visit to a soldier in a trench in France during World War I and offers him the chance to travel the Universe. The Private, however, declines, claiming that he would know he had betrayed his king and country. The Doctor leaves, knowing that in the morning the German troops will advance as far as his trench.

    Time-Placement: As the Doctor is travelling alone I would again suggest a position in the period during the epilogue of Love and War. The Fifth Doctor makes a similar offer to a young soldier in Never Seen Cairo.

    DWM 210 - Brief Encounter: Down to Earth by David Jackson Liz Shaw, 4th Doctor

    Liz Shaw is attempting to have lunch in a London restaurant when a curly-haired man in a shapeless grey coat asks to join her and offers her a jelly baby. Thrown out of the establishment, the two of them wander along Charing Cross Road talking, until Liz suddenly realises who the stranger is when he berates her that there is more to life than lab work. She accepts his offer to finally go for a spin in the TARDIS.

    Time-Placement: Since the Doctor appears to be travelling alone and is wearing his grey coat, this probably fits in the gap between The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil. The Doctor appears to have forgotten Liz's trip in the TARDIS in The Wages of Sin, but he has regenerated since then after all.

    DWM 212 - Brief Encounter: Useless Things by David Carroll None

    Prince Genei leads an invasion of Earth and lands in a small isolated island, the United Kingdom, with the intention of establishing a powerbase. However, when he sees the familiar shape of a police telephone box, he reconsiders and the invasion fleet flies home. Only minutes after they have left, workmen come and take away the real police box, the last one to be removed in England.

    Time-Placement: N/A

    DWM 213 - Brief Encounter: The Gallery by Paul D. Smith 7th Doctor

    Visiting the most famous gallery the planet Earth ever produced, long after man appears to have abandoned the now dead planet, the Doctor accidentally knocks a statue of Atlas holding the World off of its pedestal. He tries to catch it, to at least salvage some of the pottery, but only ends up looking at the shattered and lifeless remains of the world on the floor. Then he looks up and stares out the window, at the equally shattered and lifeless remains of the real world that man has left behind.

    Time-Placement: The Doctor is alone and in an introspective mood, fitting with his travels during the epilogue of Love and War.

    DWM 214 - Brief Encounter: Roses by Robert Mammone 1st Doctor and Steven

    After the events of The Daleks' Masterplan, the Doctor decides to take Steven to rest in a rose garden in the distant regions of space. While Steven rests the Doctor once again contemplates his decision to leave Susan on Earth with David. As he decides that he made the right decision, a black pyramid comes tumbling over the horizon.

    Time-Placement: The events directly follow those of The Daleks' Master Plan and act as an introduction to the first Doctor's appearance in The Five Doctors (The fact that the Doctor is thinking about Susan's departure may be a reference to the William Hartnell introduction to the Five Doctors taken from his concluding speech in The Dalek Invasion of Earth).

    DWM Winter Special 1991 - Brief Encounter: Listening Watch by Dan Abnett Benton, Yates, The Brigadier, (Third Doctor)

    Benton and Yates share a couple of coffees and make small talk while on watch together, listening to the UNIT wavelength on the radio for any emergencies. It looks like it will be a quiet night at first, but then the Brigadier calls through to them, ordering them to bring men and supplies for the Doctor as yet another incident begins.

    Time-Placement: Since Yates is present this story would have to take place between Terror of the Autons and Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

    DWM Holiday Special 1992 - Brief Encounter: Girls' Night In by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry Jo, Sarah Jane, Liz Shaw, Tegan, Ace

    Jo Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Liz Shaw and Tegan Jovanka meet at Sarah's flat after the first two place an add in Time Out to attract the Doctor's former companions. They compare notes and realise that the Doctor has left a permanent impression on all their lives: Sarah still writes fiction about him, Jo married a man who reminded her of him, Liz misses the science she learned from him, and Tegan is scarred by the deaths she saw in his company. Just as the talk is turning to the fact that none of them seem able to form stable relationships now, Ace arrives.

    Time-Placement: Since Ace is described as she was prior to Deceit, but she is on contemporary Earth and knows the Doctor, this would have to be set prior to Love and War.

    DWM Holiday Special 1992 - Brief Encounter: Playtime by Vanessa Bishop Sarah Jane, Aunt Lavinia, Susan

    Brought to London by her Aunt Lavinia, seven-year-old Sarah Jane Smith slips away and goes nosing around in a nearby junkyard, where she spots a police box sitting in the corner. As she returns through the fog to her Aunt, she spots a car parking so that its occupants can observe another young girl slip into the same junkyard.

    Time-Placement: It's implied that this takes place during the events of An Unearthly Child.

    DWM Holiday Special 1992 - Brief Encounter: Fond Memories by Nicholas Courtney The Brigadier, Sarah Jane, Benton

    Running into each other in Geneva, Sarah Jane Smith and the Brigadier reminisce over old times. They go to a local hotel to have dinner together, only to discover that the evening's entertainment, a stand-up comedian, is none other than Benton. Delighted at this further coincidence, they are informed by Benton that they will be even more surprised when the next act, the magician, turns up...

    Time-Placement: No specific time-frame, after the Third Doctor era.

    Yearbook 1992 - Brief Encounter: Future Imperfect by Marc Platt 2nd Doctor, Jamie, Zoe, Gulliver / Goth, 3rd Doctor, Jo

    As the TARDIS reforms itself, the Doctor realises he has left his recorder in the Land of Fiction. He sends himself back in to retrieve it, encountering Gulliver again, but he swiftly recognises that Gulliver is in fact the Time Lord Goth, who works for the CIA. Before he can flee, Goth asks for his aid for the sake of the Time Lords, and the Doctor finds himself standing in the TARDIS once more, facing his next incarnation.

    Time-Placement: Explicitly set between The Mind Robber and The Three Doctors.

    Yearbook 1992 - Brief Encounter: Time on a Vine by John Lydecker 5th Doctor

    A young female executive is dying from exposure on an alien planet when the Doctor rescues her. He tells her that she has been deliberately snatched from her own time to prevent her from setting her company on a course that will, in two hundred years' time, change the course of an interspecies war. She travels with him for a year and a half before he manages to return her home, a tougher and more confident individual because of her time with him.

    Time-Placement: Since no other companion is mentioned as being with the Doctor, it's hard to place where this would go. The Doctor does tell the woman of former companions, including Tegan, so this could be after Resurrection of the Daleks, since it isn't explicitly stated that Turlough isn't "off camera" somewhere.

    Yearbook 1992 - Brief Encounter: The Deal by Colin Baker 6th Doctor, Mel

    The Doctor and Mel travel to Vertipax to meet Mosca Ragazzo, an entrepreneur who has been hired by the Vervaloochenen to check the pollution levels on Earth, amongst other planets. The Doctor has been planting crop circles on Earth to convince the Vervaloochenen that the lazy Mosca has been visiting the planet and doing his job, so that Mosca's employers will believe that Earth does not need cleaning up; after all, they would consider humanity to BE the pollution!

    Time-Placement: Clearly between Business Unusual and Time and the Rani.

    Yearbook 1993 - Brief Encounter: Cambridge Previsited by Karen Dunn 1st Doctor

    On a visit to Cambridge the Doctor arranges to meet Professor Chronotis. They walk around the university talking and Chronotis is able to avoid mentioning his encounter with the Doctor's 4th incarnation. Later that night the Doctor sneaks into Chronotis' room and exchanges a copy of Treasure Island for a copy of The Time Machine.

    Time-Placement: Could be anytime between 100,000 BC and The Tenth Planet. This visit is clearly set before the events in Shada for Chronotis. Buddy Holly is on the radio and the first Doctor tells the Professor he settled on Earth for a while "in a few years from now" -- suggesting this is the late 1950s. That would fit with the Doctor's previous visits mentioned in Shada, and the fact that the Professor mentions Sarah Jane ("How's the young journalist?") and hasn't read The Time Machine yet (but is reading it in Shada) mean this is before that adventure.

    Yearbook 1993 - Brief Encounter: Dream a Little Dream For Me by Nigel Robinson 2nd Doctor, 7th Doctor and Zoe

    After Zoe joins the TARDIS crew, the Doctor connects her mind to the TARDIS telepathic circuitry. Their minds prove to be incompatible, however, and Zoe goes into a coma. The Doctor takes her to stay with Dastari where she can receive special medical treatment. Jamie leaves the TARDIS to raise sheep in Yorkshire and the Doctor continues to travel for 23 years until Zoe comes out of her coma. As well as remembering details about her adventures with the Doctor, she also remembers about K9 and various other future events. The Second Doctor claims she must have dreamed them, but the Seventh Doctor shows up and encourages her to write all of her dreams down on his typewriter. Zoe promises and begins with the title The Dominators, Episode 1.

    Time-Placement: For the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe the events follow on from The Wheel in Space. Zoe is taken to see Dastari before the events in The Two Doctors. The Seventh Doctor's visit could be any place between Dragonfire and Love and War. The typewriter the Doctor gives Zoe is presumably the same one seen in The Mind Robber.

    Yearbook 1993 - Brief Encounter: Country of the Blind by Paul Cornell 3rd Doctor, Liz Shaw, the Brigadier and Mike Yates

    While soldiers try to paint the Doctor's lab, Liz reveals that she's had an offer to work at CERN, a new research facility, and has accepted. While the Doctor tries to stop the soldiers from smashing equipment, Liz sneaks off without even saying goodbye.

    Time-Placement: After The Devil Goblins of Neptune

    Yearbook 1993 - Brief Encounter: Farewells by Terrance Dicks 4th Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and K9

    While Sarah buries her cat Mog, the Doctor visits to apologise about the circumstances under which she left, and they say a proper farewell to one another.

    Time-Placement: For the Doctor this is presumably set just after The Deadly Assassin and for Sarah it is set at any point between K9 and Company and Moving On

    Yearbook 1993 - Brief Encounter: Encounter on Burnt Snake Flat by Marc Platt 5th Doctor and Tegan

    While travelling across her farm in Australia, Tegan encounters the Doctor, who tries to find out about her life. Tegan's father is ill after being bitten by a snake and Tegan fears that she has brought the Mara with her. The Doctor is eventually able to persuade her that the Mara is long gone, as he promised, and he leaves hoping she can have a normal life.

    Time-Placement: For the Fifth Doctor any time between Resurrection of the Daleks and The Caves of Androzani. For Tegan the events are set 3 years after Resurrection of the Daleks. (The fact that Tegan has begun to see her adventures with the Doctor as dreams fits in with the ideas in Good Companions)

    Yearbook 1993 - Brief Encounter: A Tourist Invasion by Colin Baker 6th Doctor and Mel

    The Oox and Knee were two civilizations who lived on the Eye of Orion.  For generations they had fought wars based simply on the pitch of their voices. The wars were brought to an end, however, when the Khee used a biotechnical loudspeaker that emitted a frequency fatal to the Oox, and the Oox invented a nerve gas that caused the Khee voicebox to expand, preventing them from breathing. Mutual genocide ensued.

    Meanwhile, the Doctor and Mel visit Tribolyca, a world whoose inhabitants cannot refuse hospitality to travellers and as a result are being exploited by Sekachos Bdella Travel Inc. The Doctor plants a giant sulphur bomb in the planet's springs, making the humans flee (the Tribolycanna having no sense of smell) and driving the company into bankruptcy.

    After this adventure, the Doctor and Mel visit the Eye of Orion, and, without realising, stand on the island where the Oox and Khee were exterminated.

    Time-Placement: Could be set anywhere between Business Unusual and Time and the Rani.

    Yearbook 1994 - Loop the Loup by Marc Platt 2nd Doctor

    The TARDIS has landed near Lake Garda in 3300 BC. Although the Doctor sees nothing of interest, the TARDIS is no longer willing to work and he is forced to dismantle the console. During his repairs, the Doctor hears a bleating noise and opens the door to find a wounded sheep. The sheep, obviously injured, enters the console room and gives birth in front of a bemused Doctor, who makes them comfortable and then heads into the Village. The village, though, is deserted, and after being attacked, the Doctor hides in a doorway before heading after a traveller. The man he has followed turns out to be Flinthair, a shepherd/hunter who was accused of being a wolf demon and killing his brother. As a result, he was cursed by the village wise man and vowed to track down and kill the demon. In order to persuade Flinthair of his innocence, the Doctor takes him to the TARDIS, only to find that both the sheep and her child have been brutally murdered. To the Doctor's surprise, Flinthair reveals his past before turning into a werewolf. In the course of the fight, the wolf jumps on the TARDIS rotor and sets the TARDIS going again, but in the process he absorbs a release of artron energy and is impaled on his own knife. The Doctor drags Flinthair's body up the mountainside with the intention of trapping his body in ice so that he can challenge the assumptions made about this time period by future generations. 

    Time-Placement: The Doctor is travelling alone, and this would seem to suggest that it is a season 6B story.

    Yearbook 1994 - Reconnaissance by Terrance Dicks 3rd Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier

    After an argument with Liz over her ability to calculate temporal equations, the Doctor goes with the Brigadier to meet a cabinet security committee who are responsible for UNIT's funding. While they are away, Liz is visited by the Master, who has just arrived on Earth. After she threatens to shoot him, the Master puts Liz into a hypnotic trance and she is forced to recount all of her adventures with the Doctor up to Inferno. The Master then leaves quietly, wiping her memory of their meeting. The Doctor and the Brigadier return from the meeting after securing a budget increase by threatening to release alien threats onto Earth. The Doctor apologises to Liz and the two go for a walk in the park. Using a child they meet as an analogy, Liz explains why she has to go back to her research, and although promising not to leave straight away, she does make a decision to leave soon.

    Time-Placement: Just after Inferno, with Liz's comments at the end giving room for the subsequent novels. The Master speculates about an alliance with the Autons (Terror of the Autons), and possibly looking for Silurians under the sea (The Sea Devils).

    Yearbook 1994 - The Changeling Years by Gareth Roberts 4th Doctor and Leela

    In the 23rd century, a group of scientists have gathered together volunteers from the deprived inner city areas to carry out research. The subjects signed a contract to undergo 3 years of medical tests for $7 million. The research involved the construction of a huge complex split into zones, with each simulating a period of Earth history. The complex was run by slaves from Prolix IV who had been brought to Earth initially to deal with the Portland riots of 2217. With their help, a group of sociologists set the program running for 14 years and collected data to sell to aliens that would explain their failure to invade Earth, while they all retired to the outer planets. While Leela begins a rebellion with a 20th-century housewife, the Doctor shuts down the mind-controlling devices, allowing the subjects to regain their memory. Despite Leela's protests, the Doctor insists they leave, taking with him a brain scan showing him to be insane.

    Time-Placement: As the story is with Leela but without K9, it must be set between The Face of Evil and The Invisible Enemy.

    Yearbook 1994 - Perfect Day by Mark Gatiss 5th Doctor and Tegan

    After taking the Gravis to Kolkokron, the Doctor plans to return to Frontios and pick up Turlough, but Tegan persuades him to let her see the destruction of Earth. Travelling to Africa, they meet Susha and Cuther, an old woman and a cripple who have been left on Earth to die. When the Arks left, they only took the best examples of Humanity with them in order to preserve the species. Leaving just before the end, the Doctor and Tegan watch the Earth's destruction on the TARDIS scanner.

    Time-Placement: Takes place within the last episode of Frontios.

    Yearbook 1994 - The More Things Change by Andy Lane 6th Doctor and Peri

    The Doctor and Peri set out on a mission to collect samples of plant life from the banks of the Potomac. On a visit just before the Dalek invasion they meet a woman and help her give birth. The child grows up in the area and comes to know the story of his own birth well. Despite the war he lives an affluent life and his father is able to support them through his dealings on the Black Market. But the boy romanticises about his past and the strangers at his birth. One day when he is taking a walk through the forest he sees the Doctor and Peri collecting samples and looking no older. He becomes disillusioned by their constant fighting, and less than a year later he joins the peaceforcers, a group set up to maintain order in a devastated world. After hearing of his father's death, he is given leave from his job to attend the recycling, where he is shocked to find that the area he had grown up in is now a bustling metropolis. While here, he sees the Doctor and Peri planting the plants they had taken in the gaps in the metal floor of the city. The Doctor being the romantic declares that he wishes to give Earth a taste of what it has destroyed. 10 years later, the man's mother commits suicide, and after being injured by a malfunctioning weapon he is pensioned out of the peaceforcers. He returns to his mother's flat, where he takes great pleasure in the garden the Doctor has planted and the knowledge that they will meet again. 

    Time-Placement: Anywhere between Attack of the Cybermen and The Trial of a Time Lord (Parts 5 to 8).

    Yearbook 1994 - Pulling Strings by Nigel Robinson 7th Doctor and Mel

    The Doctor and Mel arrive at Harrow Green in the 21st century, which the Doctor claims that it is one of the most haunted places in England. Using UNIT passes in one of Jo's old coats, they enter the nearby research base and discover Professor Clubman, a scientist who has devoted his life to the advancement of the tachyon accelerator. After tests with animals, Clubman believes that they can now send a human through. Doctor Berndt Lehmann has volunteered, but after the Doctor dissuades him with a lot of technobabble, Clubman uses the accelerator himself and is propelled back to 1693. Two hours later the compound explodes, but no one is killed as the Doctor had phoned up posing as an international terrorist 90 minutes earlier.

    The Doctor and Mel travel back to 1693, where they find Clubman. Although he had been able to take advantage of the temporal-spacial nexus in Harrow Green, he had left himself vulnerable to the Time/Space Vortex and is dying and hideously scarred. The Doctor gives him tablets to recover and then leaves, telling Mel that in two years time he will marry a girl named Martha and become Mel's twelve times great-grandfather.  

    Time-Placement: The story share many similarities with Special Weapons in tone and shows a Doctor who is manipulating his companion's timeline. However it is more likely the events of Special Weapons that influence her decision to leave. I would therefore place this story after The Fires of Vulcan.

    Yearbook 1995 - Urrozdinee by Mark Gatiss 1st Doctor and Susan

    The Doctor and Susan arrive sometime in the Earth's future in the remains of a ruined city dominated by a strange fairy-tale castle. Confused by the wide range of disparate building styles from all parts of the world, they set out to explore. Meanwhile, the Eminence, ruler of the city, is meeting with his Minister for Poverty to discuss the mood of the people in advance of a coming election, unaware that the man he is confiding in has hired Dutch assassins to murder him.

    Arriving at the castle gates, the travellers are confronted by the villainous Minister, who lets slip his plans to take over the city following the assassination. Elsewhere, the Eminence decides not to wear his robes of office while addressing the people, as he feels it harkens back to the bad times. Escaping from the guards that the Minister has handed them over to, the Doctor and Susan escape on the city's monorail back to the TARDIS. The Minister makes his final mistake when he prematurely tries on the Eminence's robes of office, only to be gunned down by the very killers he himself hired, a fatal case of mistaken identity. Meanwhile the TARDIS departs, revealing as it does the fading poster of a cartoon mouse in front of what was once a magical kingdom.

    Time-Placement: There are no signs of Ian or Barbara; this is before they have joined the crew. Susan says that they have landed on Earth "again" suggesting this is the latest of many on our planet. Upon leaving, the Doctor says that he and Susan will "put down some roots" for a while, implying that the next stop may be the one in 1963 Totter's Lane as told in Time and Relative.

    Yearbook 1995 - Briefly Noted by Justin Richards 2nd Doctor, Jamie and Zoe

    The Doctor is bemoaning the loss of his recorder, which he suspects he might have left in... Cromer? He lands the TARDIS on Amber Station, once a thriving spaceport, but now dying as supply ships keep mysteriously breaking up before reaching it. The three travellers seek out a music shop. Jamie wants to acquire some bagpipes, but much to his dismay and the Doctor's delight it turns out that particular instrument has been consigned to the history books. When the Doctor then asks for "a real musical instrument," the shopowner initially hopes the Time Lord is asking about his establishment's pride and joy, a genuine Stradivarius violin, and is crushed when he discovers that is not the case. The three friends depart the shop amidst a torrent of abuse.

    The Doctor takes Jamie and Zoe to the station's salvage bay to root through the remains of the last destroyed ship, hoping to find what is left of the music shop's last consignment, and perhaps a recorder. While the Doctor searches, and observes that the cargo vessel seems to have been destroyed by a sonic disruptor, his companions stumble across the culprits themselves, preparing their hidden weapon for its next destructive job. One of the villains covers them with a blaster, while the other readies the sonic emitter for action, when a high-pitched wailing sounds through the hold. The Doctor has located a new instrument at last! Unfortunately for the crooks, the emitter registers the squealing tune as a malfunction and switches into a self-diagnostic mode. As they panic because this will show up on the station's internal sensors and alert the on-board security forces, James uses the distraction to seize their blaster and overpower them. After handing the criminals over to the arriving militia, the travellers depart.

    Time-Placement: Soon after The Three Doctors, given the Doctor's dwindling recollection of where his recorder went. Presumably, therefore, this takes place some time after the Brief Encounter Future Imperfect.

    Yearbook 1995 - The Hungry Bomb by Gareth Roberts 3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane

    The Doctor and Sarah land on Florana in the year 5968, just as the Chelonian Empire is giving up its warmongering ways and signing a peace treaty with humanity. While the Doctor, mistaken for a delegate, attends the treaty dinner, Sarah goes sunbathing and overhears a couple of Chelonians discuss how one of them has poisoned the Emperor's food. The renegade turtle has fed him a chemical that will enhance his appetite beyond measure before igniting his stomach bile and turning him into a living bomb.

    At the banquet, the Emperor is on his seventeenth course, while the other diners, bound by etiquette, struggle to keep up with him. While Sarah argues with the guards to be let in to warn everyone, the Doctor spots the problem when steam begins to pour out of the Emperor's shell. He subdues the now insanely ravenous ruler with Venusian Aikido and turns an explosion into an eruption by pouring a bucket of water down the Emperor's mouth. After changing his now ruined shirt, the Doctor decides he has had enough of Florana, and he and Sarah depart for Earth.

    Time-Placement: The Doctor entices Sarah to travel with him at the end of Invasion of the Dinosaurs by promising her a trip to Florana. They are trying to get there in Death to the Daleks, so I would place this after that story. By The Monster of Peladon, the next televised story, Sarah is wanting to return home.

    Yearbook 1995 - Rescue by David Rodan Cyrian, The Rani

    The Cybermen pursue a stranded traveller, Cyrian, across the rocky landscape of the planet DV Acrol 8. Finally cornering him, they prepare to destroy him, only to be attacked and eliminated themselves by a craft disguised as a stone monolith. The wounded man is taken on board the vessel by its owner, the Rani, to become her travelling companion.

    Time-Placement: Prior to Dimensions in Time, as this is the Rani meeting her companion from that story. Some time after The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind, as the Rani has either regained the TARDIS stolen from her in that story (a sequel to Time and the Rani) or obtained a new one.

    Yearbook 1995 - The Beast Inside by Daniel Blythe 4th Doctor and Romana II

    The Doctor lands at night in a park somewhere on Earth, having detected Khapsis energy in the vicinity. While he is explaining to Romana that Khapsis energy is a living thing, they meet Rodney Barton, the park-keeper, who informs them that a beast has driven people out of the park after dark. While the Doctor talks to Rodney, Romana unlocks the park gates with a sonic screwdriver. The Doctor soon realises that Rodney, and every other living thing in the park -- now including Romana -- has been absorbed and mimicked by the energy being. He tricks it into trying to absorb and copy his scarf, which has a small piece of dwarf star alloy sown into the end of it. Attempting to duplicate the incredibly dense material forces it to concentrate its entire form in one place, releasing all the trapped life forms within it, and temporarily traps it. Once the Doctor and Romana have checked that the real Rodney is okay, they set off to deposit the creature somewhere lifeless before it recovers enough to escape.

    Time-Placement: Set shortly before The Leisure Hive. The Doctor is in his burgundy outfit, and Romana's observations suggest that he has only just started to wear it. Also, since he is still in his previous outfit in The Well-Mannered War, that story must be prior to this one.

    Yearbook 1995 - One Last Try by Steve Lyons 5th Doctor and Turlough

    A time-travelling assassin returns to the future, some two thousand years after he has shot and mortally wounded a man called Professor Mallet in front of the Doctor. As Mallet lies dying, bemoaning his fate, the Doctor pursues the killer in the TARDIS. He and Turlough arrive to find themselves in the war-torn remains of Paramount City, the same place they just left, and are pinned down by laser fire from their quarry. They are rescued by the mercenary Maxore, whom they discover was hired to prevent Mallet's assassination and cryogenically frozen so that he would be alive in the future where the killer came from. In fact, he was preserved next to the remains of Professor Mallet, whom the Doctor observes was obsessed with his own mortality.

    At that point the assassin once again attacks, and while Maxore takes him on in combat, Turlough and the Doctor flee, only to run into a physical duplicate of the young Trion. Confronting both the mercenary and the assassin, who unmasks to reveal the features of Mallet, the Doctor takes them both back to the cryogenic chamber. Mallet explains that he now desires death, as, unable to die, he has watched his entire race and planet pass away around him; hence his attempts to change the past. The Doctor utilises a medical psi-scanner to wipe his mind, causing him to turn into a mass of purple liquid -- his true form. It seems that the real Mallet died when his cryo-pod failed, and that the planet's new native life form is very adaptive and capable of mimicking humans, up to and including their memories. The creature actually believed it was the Professor. Promising to return Maxore to his own time, the Doctor instead jumps him with the psi-scanner when his back is turned, causing him to revert to a mass of purple goo as well; there were two corpses in the cryo-pods. As the Doctor and Turlough depart, the creature makes another attempt to mimic its new template: the Doctor himself.

    Time-Placement: Set between Resurrection of the Daleks and Planet of Fire. No clue as to where it fits in relation to the Big Finish audios and the novels Lords of the Storm and Imperial Moon.

    Yearbook 1995 - Work is Hell by Simon Messingham 6th Doctor and Peri

    Lieutenant Kops leads a squad of soldiers into no-persons land to retrieve a plasma annihilator. Caught in an ambush, Kops and his last surviving trooper are about to be killed by the enemy when the TARDIS materialises. The leader of the enemy troops, Roberts, is about to execute the Doctor when a siren goes off and all the soldiers stop what they are doing. It turns out that it is the end of the working day, and that the war, which is being fought purely to stimulate the economy, will resume where it has left off the next morning. Until then, there is no enmity between either side; indeed, the sides seem to have been chosen at random purely to accommodate a war to use up the excess population. Determined to put a stop to this madness, the Doctor berates the two squad leaders, Kops and Roberts, to agitate their respective managements for better equipment than the run-down stuff they are currently using, and to strike until their demands are met. While the two men are enthusing on the idea, the Doctor and Peri slip away, the Time Lord telling his worried companion that he is sure that the negotiations with the management will run on for years, by which time both sides should have come to their senses.

    Time-Placement: Could be almost anytime between The Twin Dilemma and Trial of a Time Lord, Parts 5-8. However the outfit Peri is described as wearing is similar to the one she wears in Vengeance on Varos, so shortly after that story seems likely.

    Yearbook 1995 - It's Only a Game by Andy Lane 7th Doctor and Ace

    The TARDIS lands in the toilets of a small cafe on Rebeeka VI.  Explaining to Ace that he has come here to procure a vase that is the first step in a masterplan that will eventually cause the downfall of the Sontarans, the Doctor leads his companion into the cafe proper. Discovering they have landed in the middle of a civil war, the Doctor leaves a disgruntled Ace in the cafe while he braves the fighting to get to the market where he can purchase his vase. Very soon she is enticed into playing a domino-like game with one of the locals, only to discover that the loser of each game is taken outside and shot.  While the Doctor trades his cream jacket for the vase he wanted, Ace wins her game with the covert assistance of one of the locals. Reunited shortly thereafter, the Doctor speculates that it was time for him to change his jacket anyway, perhaps to a brown one; Ace however, is more interested to know if the Doctor remembered to lock the TARDIS door, since the ship did block off access to the cafe's lavatories...

    Time-Placement: The TARDIS seems to have just left Segonax, which places the story immediately after The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, and the Doctor plans to head to Earth in the 1990s next, implying that their next stop will be Battlefield. The latter reference is sufficiently vague, however, to allow other adventures to be fitted in after this story and before Battlefield.

    Source: James Taylor and Stuart Vandal
     
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