Is It Possible...

[MDS]

Some people have been bringing up the headline on the newspaper Amy was
reading about the Detroit Lions winning the Super Bowl and then
speculating that perhaps this story was taking place in an alternate
universe.

Okay, so here's my imagination running a bit wild.

Back in Victory of the Daleks, the Doctor was baffled as to why Amy
didn't remember the Daleks, as in The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. What
if everything from The Eleventh Hour on has been taking place in an
alternate universe, and this will finally come out during the 50th
anniversary specials?


--
MDS (Mister Doctor Sir)

[solar penguin]

MDS wrote:
> Some people have been bringing up the headline on the newspaper Amy was
> reading about the Detroit Lions winning the Super Bowl and then
> speculating that perhaps this story was taking place in an alternate
> universe.
>

_All_ Doctor Who takes place in an alternate universe. Or were there
really manned Marsprobe landings in the 1970s?

[Fett]

I'm willing to bet that the Detroit Lions have never won the Super Bowl in ANY reality.

[MDS]

LOL

[James Boe]

On 01 Oct 2012, An tSin Gorm <chine...@yahoo.com> burbled, glooped,
and managed to scrawl:

> So the 50th anniversary will open with Amy in the shower and Rory
> realising it was all just an alternate reality?

/Bugs Bunny voice ON/
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Could be, Doc. Could be!
/Bugs Bunny voice OFF/

--
"There will be moments when
all goes well; do not be
alarmed. They will pass."
--- Jules Reynard

[The Doctor]

In article <XnsA0F5E095E79D...@94.75.214.90>,

Doubt!
--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
God,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
http://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k
USA petition to dissolve the Republic and vote to disoolve it in November 2012

[The Coca Cola Kid]

On Sunday, September 30, 2012 5:58:52 AM UTC-5, solar penguin wrote:

> _All_ Doctor Who takes place in an alternate universe. Or were there
> really manned Marsprobe landings in the 1970s?

Can you prove that there were not?

.

[The Doctor]

In article <ff122df1-8506-44c9...@googlegroups.com>,

Can you prove Man landed on the Moon in 1969?

[The Doctor]

In article <chine.bleu-BE404...@news.eternal-september.org>,

Where's all the China Blue food? <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>In article <ff122df1-8506-44c9...@googlegroups.com>,
> The Coca Cola Kid <thecoca...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

>The UNIT stories didn't take place in the 1970s but the 2020s.
>
>[The post expires 31 December 2019, after which the UNIT stories will take place
>in the 2070s.]
>
>--
>My name is Indigo Montoya. \\ Annoying Usenet one post at a time.
>You flamed my father. \' At least I can stay in character.
>Prepare to be spanked. // When you look into the void,
>Stop posting that! `/ the void looks into you, and fulfills you.

Pyramid of Mars SJSmith states that she is from 1980.

[The Doctor]

In article <chine.bleu-0646A...@news.eternal-september.org>,

Where's all the China Blue food? <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>In article <k6n1qp$sdt$1...@gallifrey.nk.ca>,

> doc...@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca (The Doctor) wrote:
>
>> In article <ff122df1-8506-44c9...@googlegroups.com>,
>> The Coca Cola Kid <thecoca...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On Sunday, September 30, 2012 5:58:52 AM UTC-5, solar penguin wrote:
>> >
>> >> _All_ Doctor Who takes place in an alternate universe. Or were there
>> >> really manned Marsprobe landings in the 1970s?
>> >
>> >Can you prove that there were not?
>> >
>> >.
>>
>> Can you prove Man landed on the Moon in 1969?
>

>Yes, we hosted them in our facilities there.
>

Facilities?

[The Coca Cola Kid]

"The Doctor" wrote in message news:k6n1qp$sdt$1...@gallifrey.nk.ca...

>Can you prove Man landed on the Moon in 1969?

It would be easier to prove that, than it would be to prove that there were
*not* secret manned space missions to and beyond the Moon, after the Apollo
missions ended.
In any case, there is canonical Doctor Who evidence, to support that
Man landed on the Moon, in 1969.

[Your Name]

In article <k6nf41$d7g$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, "The Coca Cola Kid"

Hey, I'd happily pay for The Doctor and Brian to go to the Moon to see the
bits left behind (rover vehicle, landing stages, etc.) ... as long as
they're only given 10 minutes of oxygen on landing and nobody pays for
them to come back again. :-)

[Brian]

An tSin Gorm <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> In article <506822...@RADW.USENET>, MDS <M...@RADW.USENET> wrote:
>

> So the 50th anniversary will open with Amy in the shower and Rory realising it
> was all just an alternate reality?

Reminds me of how they did this in Dallas.

--
Regards Brian

[brilton]

Er, I think that was the point.

[jack....@gmail.com]

On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 23:36:21 +0000 (UTC), doc...@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca
(The Doctor) wrote:

>In article <chine.bleu-BE404...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>Where's all the China Blue food? <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>In article <ff122df1-8506-44c9...@googlegroups.com>,
>> The Coca Cola Kid <thecoca...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sunday, September 30, 2012 5:58:52 AM UTC-5, solar penguin wrote:
>>>
>>> > _All_ Doctor Who takes place in an alternate universe. Or were there
>>> > really manned Marsprobe landings in the 1970s?
>>>
>>> Can you prove that there were not?
>>
>>The UNIT stories didn't take place in the 1970s but the 2020s.
>>
>>[The post expires 31 December 2019, after which the UNIT stories will take place
>>in the 2070s.]
>>
>

>Pyramid of Mars SJSmith states that she is from 1980.

... but did she add, "most recently," under her breath?

(That's an old joke from "Mork & Mindy". Mork shrinks down to a
microverse, and tells the leader he comes from another world, "Well,
two other worlds, but it's a long story." So many places it could be
inserted into Doctor Who.)

--
-Jack

[solar penguin]

The Coca Cola Kid wrote:

> "The Doctor" wrote in message news:k6n1qp$sdt$1...@gallifrey.nk.ca...
>
> >Can you prove Man landed on the Moon in 1969?
>
> It would be easier to prove that, than it would be to prove that there were
> *not* secret manned space missions to and beyond the Moon, after the Apollo
> missions ended.

But the Marsprobe missions weren't secret. They were supposedly
broadcast live on national TV.

[solar penguin]

The Doctor wrote:
> In article <chine.bleu-BE404...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Where's all the China Blue food? <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >The UNIT stories didn't take place in the 1970s but the 2020s.
> >
> >[The post expires 31 December 2019, after which the UNIT stories will take place
> >in the 2070s.]
> >
>

> Pyramid of Mars SJSmith states that she is from 1980.
> --

Which doesn't fit very well with The Invasion supposedly taking place
in 1979. Or with Jo Grant claiming to come from the mid-sixties in
Carnival Of Monsters.

Fortunately fandom wasn't organised enough to notice any of these
discrepancies back then.

[The Doctor]

In article <k6nf41$d7g$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

The Coca Cola Kid <thecoca...@gmail.com> wrote:

Or you can point your telescope to where the men landed on the moon.

[The Doctor]

In article <f27821d5-27d9-40f7...@y8g2000yqy.googlegroups.com>,

10/10 .

[The Doctor]

In article <7ed0755f-71ce-4ba3...@4g2000yql.googlegroups.com>,

Invasion ? 1975 .

[solar penguin]

The Doctor wrote:
> In article <7ed0755f-71ce-4ba3...@4g2000yql.googlegroups.com>,
> solar penguin <solar....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >The Doctor wrote:
> >> In article <chine.bleu-BE404...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> >> Where's all the China Blue food? <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >The UNIT stories didn't take place in the 1970s but the 2020s.
> >> >
> >> >[The post expires 31 December 2019, after which the UNIT stories will take place
> >> >in the 2070s.]
> >> >
> >>
> >> Pyramid of Mars SJSmith states that she is from 1980.
> >> --
> >
> >Which doesn't fit very well with The Invasion supposedly taking place
> >in 1979. Or with Jo Grant claiming to come from the mid-sixties in
> >Carnival Of Monsters.
> >
> >Fortunately fandom wasn't organised enough to notice any of these
> >discrepancies back then.
>
> Invasion ? 1975 .
> --

No. The Web Of Fear claimed to be 1975 (40 years after 1935) and The
Invasion was set 4 years after that. Work it out for yourself.

[The Doctor]

In article <06d03687-bce1-42c7...@k6g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>,

Then Web of Fear is 1971

[solar penguin]

Only if you ignore the date actually given in The Web Of Fear itself.
That's the problem.

But, as I said, fandom wasn't organised enough to notice any of those
discrepancies back then, so the BBC could get away with it.

[The Doctor]

In article <k6ootg$v1q$1...@dont-email.me>,

Even read the Time Line DWM gave DW?

[solar penguin]

No. I've read many different time-lines and chronologies (and even
tried creating one myself once) but I've not read that one. Why do you
ask? What makes that one better than the others for you?

[Mike Hall]

Knots Landing ignored the retcon and minimised crossovers after that.
This could mean Torchwood episodes with Amy and Rory, and come to think
of it, there is no reason why Amy & Rory couldn't live alongside a New
York-based Torchwood - a place where the organisation could effortlessly
hide from the Doctor!

The Doctor obviously didn't wipe knowledge of his existence from Earth
as Miss Stewart knows who he is!


Mike Hall

[The Doctor]

In article <k6opd8$2fo$1...@dont-email.me>,

That was from the late 80s early 90s.

[solar penguin]

No, I didn't read DWM then. I only read it for a few years in the
mid-1990s.

What did this particular chronology say? And who wrote it?

[Your Name]

In article <1765046626373271615....@free.teranews.com>,

In "Dallas" the character woke up in the shower with the entire last
season or so being just a dream.

"St. Elsewhere" turned out to be inside a snowglobe, making the entire
show basically a dream.

The Star Trek shows "The Next Generation", "Deep Space Nine", and
"Voyager" all had the holodeck where whole episodes (or even multi-part
episodes) were basically a dream.

[The Doctor]

In article <k6pakm$411$1...@dont-email.me>,

I will hve to dig out those issues.

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

The Doctor wrote:

>>> That was from the late 80s early 90s.

>>No, I didn't read DWM then. I only read it for a few years in the
>>mid-1990s.

>>What did this particular chronology say? And who wrote it?

> I will hve to dig out those issues.

I have the 1991 DWM Winter Special which was devoted to UNIT. The key
chronology is on pages 28-29:

(1926 The Abominable Snowmen)
(1967 Fury from the Deep)
1971 The Web of Fear
1975 The Invasion, Speahead from Space, Doctor Who and the Silurians, The
Ambassadors of Death, Inferno
1976 Terror of the Autons, The Mind of Evil, The Claws of Acos, The Daemons,
Day of the Daleks
1977 The Sea Devils, The Time Monster
1979 The Green Death
1980 The Time Warrior, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Robot, Terror of the
Zygons, The Android Invasion, The Seeds of Doom
1981 Mawdryn Undead (with the earlier timezone allocated to Charles &
Diana's wedding in 1981), The Hand of Fear
1983 The Five Doctors (at least the Brigadier/Troughton Doctor scene)
1991 Battlefield

Not all stories are listed but the absentees tend to be ones where the
public didn't see anything outside UNIT HQ.

Other articles in the special conform to these dates, as does an article in
the following year's Sarah Jane special.

Basically they took "I'm from 1980" in Pyramids of Mars as gospel and
*possibly* also the 1975 date for the Invasion from the first episode's
continuity announcement and the contemporary Radio Times *. Conversely they
seem to have been ignorant of the dating in the Web of Fear that adds up to
1975 and just about everybody seemed to have overlooked the Carnival dating
until the mid 2000s. They trued to retcon Mawdryn Undead into 1981/1983.

* Remember that even into the early 1990s it was difficult for even the
bigger name fans to access either clear audio tapes of the 1960s episodes
and/or camera scripts, let alone perform the necessary maths, so I'm
guessing that nobody had actually noticed that UNIT dating was frankly a
mess years before Mawdryn Undead. (Another example of it not being noticed
is the infamous Jan Vincent-Rudzki review of the Deadly Assassin when he
takes a more general swipe at some of the perceived continuity errors in
other stories such as pre-Hartnell Doctors in the Brain of Morbius, but
doesn't take a shot at "I'm fom 1980".) Some fans may also have been
reliant on synopses drawn up with help from the Radio Times - again this was
the tail end of the era when for at least some fans going to the British
(Newspaper) Library and looking at the back copies was significantly easier
for research (and a side-effect was many an episode guide repeated
differences between the RT listing and the actual episodes' credits) so that
1975 date would have carried more weight then than now.

--
My blog: http://adf.ly/4hi4c

[The Coca Cola Kid]

On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 7:12:41 AM UTC-5, solar penguin wrote:
> But the Marsprobe missions weren't secret. They were supposedly
> broadcast live on national TV.

'Supposedly' is the key word here. Whenever there is a cover up, if the guilty party can not get rid of those trying to expose them, they infiltrate them and subvert their stories with proveably false information to discredit them.
It is just like the X-files, which at first was very subversive and challenging to authority and commonly held beliefs in society, and then someone stepped in and told them to put the emphasis on the silly, so that too many people would not start taking it seriously.

[The Coca Cola Kid]

Sarah Jane Smith saying that she is from 1980 in 'Pyramids of Mars' makes perfect sense, when you consider the fact that 'Robot' clearly implies that it is taking place after Thatcher has been elected prime minister.
Now, there is a can of worms for you. :-)

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

The Coca Cola Kid wrote:

If you're basing it on Prime Ministers, explain "Jeremy" in the Green
Death...

And actually you're thinking of Terror of the Zygons. In Robot the
implication is that Edward Heath is still leading the Conservatives -
although you have to freezeframe the DVD to read the newspaper cutting to
spot that. But in the Ark in Space Harry's comment about a woman at the top
in the future implies that back home the UK hasn't yet had that (and he
hasn't heard of Golda Meir).

[The Doctor]

In article <afb9h4...@mid.individual.net>,

Pyramids of MArs SJSmith: " I am from 1980"

[The Doctor]

In article <fb43ff93-bedd-4282...@googlegroups.com>,

The Coca Cola Kid <thecoca...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Sarah Jane Smith saying that she is from 1980 in 'Pyramids of Mars' makes perfect sense, when you consider the fact that 'Robot' clearly implies that it is taking place after Thatcher has been elected prime minister.
> Now, there is a can of worms for you. :-)

IIRC The Brigadier does say Madame PM.

[solar penguin]

Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

> The Doctor wrote:
>
> >>> That was from the late 80s early 90s.
>
> >>No, I didn't read DWM then. I only read it for a few years in the
> >>mid-1990s.
> >>
> >>What did this particular chronology say? And who wrote it?
>
> > I will hve to dig out those issues.
>
> I have the 1991 DWM Winter Special which was devoted to UNIT. The key
> chronology is on pages 28-29:
>

(*snip*)

>
> Basically they took "I'm from 1980" in Pyramids of Mars as gospel and
> *possibly* also the 1975 date for the Invasion from the first episode's
> continuity announcement and the contemporary Radio Times *. Conversely they
> seem to have been ignorant of the dating in the Web of Fear that adds up to
> 1975 and just about everybody seemed to have overlooked the Carnival dating
> until the mid 2000s. They trued to retcon Mawdryn Undead into 1981/1983.
>
> * Remember that even into the early 1990s it was difficult for even the
> bigger name fans to access either clear audio tapes of the 1960s episodes
> and/or camera scripts, let alone perform the necessary maths, so I'm
> guessing that nobody had actually noticed that UNIT dating was frankly a
> mess years before Mawdryn Undead.

Thanks. That pretty much fits in with what I was saying with Mawdryn
Undead being the first time fandom was organised enough to notice
discrepancies and continuity errors in UNIT dating.

[The Doctor]

In article <94e8cf10-0971-418b...@j10g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,

That happened because Ian Chesterton and AGL-S was
supposed to be the Maths instructor.

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

The Doctorwrote:

>>Thanks. That pretty much fits in with what I was saying with Mawdryn
>>Undead being the first time fandom was organised enough to notice
>>discrepancies and continuity errors in UNIT dating.

> That happened because Ian Chesterton and AGL-S was
> supposed to be the Maths instructor.

Possibly but Time-Flight has a contemporary setting and the Doctor wondering
if the Lethbridge-Stewart's been made a General by now suggesting it's been
several years since they worked together in UNIT. And in K9 & Company the
Doctor left K9 for Sarah in 1978, presumably after he'd put her back on
Earth. Although it didn't hit the screen, the writers' guide for the series
dated Sarah's travels to 1973-1976. So well before the Brigadier was added
to Mawdryn the production office were assuming the UNIT stories were
contemporary.

[Monsieur Tabernac]

I just like the explanation given in "The Sontaran Stratagem" where to
Doctor says (paraphrasing): "I used to work with UNIT in the
seventies. Or was it the eighties? I can never remember..."

[The Doctor]

In article <afclv5...@mid.individual.net>,

JN-T screwed that one up.

[The Doctor]

In article <slrnk92qv...@pjr.no-ip.org>,
Peter J Ross <peadar...@gmx.com> wrote:
>In rec.arts.drwho on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 05:19:00 -0700 (PDT), solar

>penguin <solar....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The Doctor wrote:
>>> In article <chine.bleu-BE404...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>>> Where's all the China Blue food? <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >The UNIT stories didn't take place in the 1970s but the 2020s.
>>> >
>>> >[The post expires 31 December 2019, after which the UNIT stories will take place
>>> >in the 2070s.]
>>> >
>>>
>>> Pyramid of Mars SJSmith states that she is from 1980.
>>> --
>>
>> Which doesn't fit very well with The Invasion supposedly taking place
>> in 1979.
>

>Citation, please.

>
>> Or with Jo Grant claiming to come from the mid-sixties in
>> Carnival Of Monsters.
>

>Citation, please.

>
>> Fortunately fandom wasn't organised enough to notice any of these
>> discrepancies back then.
>

>Unfortunately, the "fans" weren't shot as soon as they became
>noticeable.
>
>
>
>--
>PJR :-) | οἵη περ φύλλων γενεὴ, τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν.
> | φύλλα τὰ μέν τ' ἄνεμος χαμάδις χέει, ἄλλα δέ θ' ὕλη
> | τηλεθόωσα φύει, ἔαρος δ' ἐπιγίγνεται ὥρη·
> | ὣς ἀνδρῶν γενεὴ ἡ μὲν φύει ἡ δ' ἀπολήγει. (Homer)
>

Well there is Pyramids of MArs.

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

The Doctor wrote:

>>Possibly but Time-Flight has a contemporary setting and the Doctor
>>wondering
>>if the Lethbridge-Stewart's been made a General by now suggesting it's
>>been
>>several years since they worked together in UNIT. And in K9 & Company the
>>Doctor left K9 for Sarah in 1978, presumably after he'd put her back on
>>Earth. Although it didn't hit the screen, the writers' guide for the
>>series
>>dated Sarah's travels to 1973-1976. So well before the Brigadier was added
>>to Mawdryn the production office were assuming the UNIT stories were
>>contemporary.

> JN-T screwed that one up.

Why JNT as opposed to Saward? Or the unofficial continuity advisor?

(No, scratch that last one. Doubtlessly he'll claim to have bombarded JNT
with requests to get it "right" [sic] but no such evidence of requests can
be found.)

And going further back you can find evidence that even Letts and Dicks were
assuming contemporary - there's a line in a recorded but not transmitted
scene in Claws of Axos which dates it to the early 1970s whilst the first
edition of the Making of Doctor Who dates Spearhead to 1970. So even if JNT
had personally read the thousands upon thousands of pages of camera scripts
of stories featuring UNIT (a bit of overkill IMHO) he'd have come away with
contemporary to broadcast.

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

Monsieur Tabernac wrote:

> I just like the explanation given in "The Sontaran Stratagem" where to
> Doctor says (paraphrasing): "I used to work with UNIT in the
> seventies. Or was it the eighties? I can never remember..."

The tie-in UNIT website did similar. I guess the modern show is trying to
avoid both wading into such messes when there's no real need to and/or
adding to fan debates because some fans will take a modern pronouncement as
"the-official-BBC-position-therefore-we-win-the-end" but others will
reasonably question whether latter day production teams have the authority
to overwrite their predecessors.

[The Coca Cola Kid]

On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 9:56:32 PM UTC-5, Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

>If you're basing it on Prime Ministers, explain "Jeremy" in the Green
>Death...

The official explanation is that that was a 'production joke'. It was always the intention that the UNIT stories were supposed to take place in the 'near future', and it was likely the intention was that it was supposed to take place during the next prime minister, whom they were hoping would be Jeremy Thorpe.

>actually you're thinking of Terror of the Zygons. In Robot the
>implication is that Edward Heath is still leading the Conservatives -

>But in Ark in Space Harry's comment about a woman at the top

>in the future implies that back home the UK hasn't yet had that

You are correct ... I was thinking of Terror of the Zygons. So, we can surmise that Thatcher was just recently elected, and Harry had quite a shock when he found out about it. (Assuming that he was not just being facetious with Sarah, which he probably was.)

[The Doctor]

In article <afdq73...@mid.individual.net>,

Even saw or read Pyramids of Mars?

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

The Doctor wrote:

>>Why JNT as opposed to Saward? Or the unofficial continuity advisor?

>>(No, scratch that last one. Doubtlessly he'll claim to have bombarded JNT
>>with requests to get it "right" [sic] but no such evidence of requests can
>>be found.)

>>And going further back you can find evidence that even Letts and Dicks
>>were
>>assuming contemporary - there's a line in a recorded but not transmitted
>>scene in Claws of Axos which dates it to the early 1970s whilst the first
>>edition of the Making of Doctor Who dates Spearhead to 1970. So even if
>>JNT
>>had personally read the thousands upon thousands of pages of camera
>>scripts
>>of stories featuring UNIT (a bit of overkill IMHO) he'd have come away
>>with
>>contemporary to broadcast.

> Even saw or read Pyramids of Mars?

Yes both, though I'm not sure if the novelisation mentions this. But it's
odd to hinge all the UNIT dating on a story that doesn't actually feature
any of the UNIT characters or to expect it to have been noticed by later
teams.

[The Doctor]

In article <aff2s5...@mid.individual.net>,

SJSmith makes mention of 1980.

[solar penguin]

Yes, but as we've already pointed out, that mention doesn't fit with
what went before. Or what came after. In fact, it doesn't fit with
anything at all.

So why keep going on about it? What is its significance?

[solar penguin]

Peter J Ross wrote:

> In rec.arts.drwho on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 05:19:00 -0700 (PDT), solar
> penguin <solar....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The Doctor wrote:
> >>
> >> Pyramid of Mars SJSmith states that she is from 1980.
> >> --
> >
> > Which doesn't fit very well with The Invasion supposedly taking place
> > in 1979.
>
> Citation, please.

Already explained in my other post.

>
> > Or with Jo Grant claiming to come from the mid-sixties in
> > Carnival Of Monsters.
>
> Citation, please.
>

Part one, scene 8.

[solar penguin]

Peter J Ross wrote:

> In rec.arts.drwho on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:47:05 -0700 (PDT), solar

> penguin <solar....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The Doctor wrote:

> >> In article <7ed0755f-71ce-4ba3...@4g2000yql.googlegroups.com>,

> >> solar penguin <solar....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >The Doctor wrote:

> >> >> In article <chine.bleu-BE404...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> >> >> Where's all the China Blue food? <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> >> >
> >> >> >The UNIT stories didn't take place in the 1970s but the 2020s.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >[The post expires 31 December 2019, after which the UNIT stories will take place
> >> >> >in the 2070s.]
> >> >> >
> >> >>

> >> >> Pyramid of Mars SJSmith states that she is from 1980.
> >> >> --
> >> >
> >> >Which doesn't fit very well with The Invasion supposedly taking place

> >> >in 1979. Or with Jo Grant claiming to come from the mid-sixties in
> >> >Carnival Of Monsters.
> >> >

> >> >Fortunately fandom wasn't organised enough to notice any of these
> >> >discrepancies back then.
> >>

> >> Invasion ? 1975 .
> >> --
> >
> > No. The Web Of Fear claimed to be 1975 (40 years after 1935)
>

> I think you mean that a character in the story said something you
> choose to believe and agree with.

Just the opposite. I don't agree with it at all. Personally I choose
to believe in contemporary UNIT dating.

But it _is_ a fact that the characters said it, and we can't just
ignore facts, otherwise these debates become even more meaningless
than usual.

>
> > and The Invasion was set 4 years after that.
>

> Citation?
>

Episode two, scene 8.

> > Work it out for yourself.
>

> Why not work out for *your*self that the makers of our favourite TV
> show weren't continuity-obsessed wankers. Well, not before the show's
> terminal decline, anyway.
>

That's pretty much what I meant about fandom becoming organised. I
just expressed it more tactfully.

[Stephen Wilson]

"solar penguin" <solar....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:3af7717a-5431-4503...@y6g2000vbb.googlegroups.com...

I always thought that the idea was for it to remain somewhat ambigous, but
stories featuring UNIT were generally thought to be set a year or 2 ahead of
the year the stories were actually filmed.

[The Doctor]

In article <e1ddfa83-c3a1-439e...@k21g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,

We go by what is said.

[The Coca Cola Kid]

"solar penguin" wrote in message
news:e1ddfa83-c3a1-439e...@k21g2000vbj.googlegroups.com...

>The Doctor wrote:
>> SJSmith makes mention of 1980.
>

>Yes, but as we've already pointed out, that mention doesn't fit with
>what went before. Or what came after. In fact, it doesn't fit with
>anything at all.

In fact, it does fit, since a female prime minister had just recently been
elected in Terror of the Zygons, as I pointed out earlier.
(And, before anyone says that 'but Doctor Who does not take place in
the same universe as ours', the whole point of sci-fi drama is that it is
supposed to make you suspend your disbelief and buy into that universe,
which it can not do when it is constantly niggling you with the proposition
that it is set on Earth, but not YOUR Earth.)

[solar penguin]

The Coca Cola Kid wrote:

> "solar penguin" wrote in message
> news:e1ddfa83-c3a1-439e...@k21g2000vbj.googlegroups.com...
>
> >The Doctor wrote:
> >> SJSmith makes mention of 1980.
> >
> >Yes, but as we've already pointed out, that mention doesn't fit with
> >what went before. Or what came after. In fact, it doesn't fit with
> >anything at all.
>
> In fact, it does fit, since a female prime minister had just recently been
> elected in Terror of the Zygons, as I pointed out earlier.

All we know for certain is that the Brigadier seems to call the PM
"Ma'am". It could be a male PM called "Jeremy Marm", or something
like that.

> (And, before anyone says that 'but Doctor Who does not take place in
> the same universe as ours', the whole point of sci-fi drama is that it is
> supposed to make you suspend your disbelief and buy into that universe,
> which it can not do when it is constantly niggling you with the proposition
> that it is set on Earth, but not YOUR Earth.)

It's a bit late for that. Bear in mind that this debate started when
I said that Ambassadors Of Death was proof that DW takes place in an
alternative universe.

That's why I've not been using _any_ real-world dating evidence (e.g.
the lack of the Victoria Line in The Web Of Fear, pre-decimal currency
in Spearhead From Space and DW And The Silurians, etc.) but simply
sticking to actual on-screen dates.

[The Coca Cola Kid]

"solar penguin" wrote in message

news:d8267cec-5d57-4db9...@b12g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...

>It's a bit late for that. Bear in mind that this debate started when
>I said that Ambassadors Of Death was proof that DW takes place in an
>alternative universe.

It does not have to be all or nothing. Unless you are starting from the
premise that it all takes place in an alternative universe, (in which case,
there is no need for 'proof'), the evidence that you cited from 'Ambassadors
of Death' equally suggests that 'Ambassadors of Death' takes place in an
alternative universe, or perhaps merely that that scene in question does.
Alternatively ... the aspects of that scene can be written off as
'unreliable narration'. Of course, that is not really desirable, especially
when that was not the original 'in-story' intention. However, it is already
inevitable, when you are dealing with a 'shared universe', in which there
are different story tellers, (or, occasionally, the same story teller!), who
do not agree on how events occurred.
When it comes to stories that are supposed to be set in in the near
future, I think that we can assume that the writers and production team were
either deliberately kept 'out of the loop' about certain details, or told to
change them, in order to avoid temporal paradoxes, as well as so as to not
arouse too much suspicion.

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

Stephen Wilson wrote:

> I always thought that the idea was for it to remain somewhat ambigous, but
> stories featuring UNIT were generally thought to be set a year or 2 ahead
> of the year the stories were actually filmed.

That one was the (1991 published) Terrestrial Index's solution to try to
match up the UNIT dating problem but I think the only time anything
suggesting that particular gap in the 1970s was a Countdown comic strip
"Timebenders" where the Doctor is based in either 1971 or 1972 depending on
the part.

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

The Doctor wrote:

>>> >> Even saw or read Pyramids of Mars?

>>> >Yes both, though I'm not sure if the novelisation mentions this. But
>>> >it's
>>> >odd to hinge all the UNIT dating on a story that doesn't actually
>>> >feature
>>> >any of the UNIT characters or to expect it to have been noticed by
>>> >later
>>> >teams.

>>> SJSmith makes mention of 1980.

>>Yes, but as we've already pointed out, that mention doesn't fit with
>>what went before. Or what came after. In fact, it doesn't fit with
>>anything at all.

>>So why keep going on about it? What is its significance?

> We go by what is said.

Yes but it contradicts everything else that was said in the programme which
dates the UNIT stories to either the 1980s, the 1960s or the early 1970s.
Going outside the episodes themselves there's a couple of external sources
for the Invasion which support it (the continuity announcement and the Radio
Times piece) but there's a whole host of other external sources that
disagree with it in both directons - everything from Jon Pertwee's 1969
press interview that dated his stories to the 1980s to the Making of Doctor
Who (first edition) which dated the stories to contemporary broadcast.

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

The Coca Cola Kid wrote:

> >If you're basing it on Prime Ministers, explain "Jeremy" in the Green
> >Death...

> The official explanation is that that was a 'production joke'. It was
> always
> the intention that the UNIT stories were supposed to take place in the
> 'near
> future',

I disagree about the "always" bit - I'm not persuaded that this was a
particularly strong intention by Dicks and Letts as what actually got out in
the Pertwee era tended to point to a contemporary setting. This is even more
so if you look at the non-broadcast stuff which was approved, and sometimes
written, by the production office. They may have been aware of the generic
"near future" setting convention for science fiction but not much beyond
that. Other than the Invasion and Battlefield there were no real attempts
made to even predict the culture of the future.

> and it was likely the intention was that it was supposed to take place
> during the next prime minister, whom they were hoping would be Jeremy
> Thorpe.

Then they were either extreme optimists or Liberal Party propagandists. How
many people in 1972/3 seriously expected the Liberals to win the next
election?

[The Doctor]

In article <agcgip...@mid.individual.net>,

There you go. Flame JN-T for the mixup.

--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
God,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!

http://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k Lest We Forget 11 NOv 2012

[The Doctor]

In article <agcgjh...@mid.individual.net>,

Liberals could win an election if the people saw how extreme the Labour and
Conservative PArties are.

[The Coca Cola Kid]

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in message
news:agcgjh...@mid.individual.net...

>I disagree about the "always" bit - I'm not persuaded that this was a
>particularly strong intention by Dicks and Letts as what actually got out
>in the Pertwee era tended to point to a contemporary setting.

Yes, I should probably have said 'originally', rather than 'always'. I do
not have a reference guide in front of me, but I remember that Season Seven
stories were also approached with the idea that they were set in the near
future, with more advanced technology.

>Then they were either extreme optimists or Liberal Party propagandists.

Would either be surprising?

>How many people in 1972/3 seriously expected the Liberals to win
>the next election?

That is why it was 'joke'. :-)

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

The Doctor wrote:

>>> and it was likely the intention was that it was supposed to take place
>>> during the next prime minister, whom they were hoping would be Jeremy
>>> Thorpe.

>>Then they were either extreme optimists or Liberal Party propagandists.
>>How
>>many people in 1972/3 seriously expected the Liberals to win the next
>>election?

> Liberals could win an election if the people saw how extreme the Labour
> and
> Conservative PArties are.

Supporters of just about every political party believe they would win an
election if only the electorate realised how terrible the other parties are
and came to the revelation of how their preferred party's pet issues are the
top political priorities.

Anyway at the moment people are instead seeing what a load of crap the Lib
Dems are but the dogs can sleep easy in their kennels.

[The Doctor]

In article <agqs7p...@mid.individual.net>,

I wonder if Clegg would be leader in the next election.

--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
God,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!

http://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k Merry Christmas 2012 and Happy New Year 2013

[TB]

10/29/12

In article <chine.bleu-BE404...@news.eternal-september.org>,
Where's all the China Blue food? <chine...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>In article <ff122df1-8506-44c9...@googlegroups.com>,
> The Coca Cola Kid <thecoca...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sunday, September 30, 2012 5:58:52 AM UTC-5, solar penguin wrote:
>>
>> > _All_ Doctor Who takes place in an alternate universe. Or were there
>> > really manned Marsprobe landings in the 1970s?
>>
>> Can you prove that there were not?

>
>The UNIT stories didn't take place in the 1970s but the 2020s.

But I don't recall seeing the cell phones that are common in the early 21st century!

>
>[The post expires 31 December 2019, after which the UNIT stories will take place
>in the 2070s.]

Less than four years left to this post!

[The Doctor]

In article <742c5bec-ea82-4ae0...@googlegroups.com>,

Note Pyramids of MArs.
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca

God,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!

http://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism
A good government puts criminals in fear; a bad one, the law abiding. -unknown