What’s more significant for these posts, however, is that, like The Edge of Destruction, it doesn’t fit with the usual format. So, as with that story, this is going to be a placeholder post rather than something more detailed. Largely because there isn’t much detail to go into.
Friday, 8 August 2025
Settings: The Celestial Toyroom
Thursday, 24 July 2025
Settings: The Ark and Refusis
Where & When
The first part of the story is set ten million years in the future, on a vast spaceship travelling between the stars. The second half takes place on the planet Refusis II, seven centuries after the first. This is apparently a very long way from Earth, perhaps not even in our galaxy, although we don’t have any specifics.
Friday, 11 July 2025
Settings: The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre
Where & When
For the first time, we return to a previous setting for a full-length story: Paris. As with The Reign of Terror, it’s built around a real-world historical event, so we can state the date precisely: it takes place between the 20th and 24th of August 1572.
Friday, 27 June 2025
Settings: Giza (The Daleks' Master Plan, Pt 2)
Where & When
Before returning to Kembel for the conclusion of the story, the protagonists make short stops at various locations on 20th-century Earth before arriving on the planet Tigus. This is uninhabited, leaving the date both irrelevant and impossible to determine. The main setting of this half of the story, however, is Ancient Egypt. This section is set in the Giza pyramid complex at an unspecified date in the early 26th century BC.
Friday, 13 June 2025
Settings: Desperus (The Daleks' Master Plan, Pt 1)
The Daleks’ Master Plan is the longest Doctor Who serial that everyone can agree is a Doctor Who serial. Unfortunately, nine of its twelve episodes are missing, and the whole thing is too large to have been animated yet, so it remains less familiar than many of its counterparts. It’s epic in scope, and those who have experienced it in some unofficial reconstructed form generally rate it as one of the best Hartnell stories. On the other hand, because that epic nature leads to it visiting so many different worlds and time periods, it, like The Chase, is going to have to be split into two for the purposes of this blog. This post covers episodes one to six.
Where & When
The story starts on the planet Kembel, shortly after the events of Mission to the Unknown. The protagonists escape, not in the TARDIS, but a spaceship, and spend a short time on the nearby world of Desperus before heading off towards Earth, and then arriving on Mira, a more distant planet. The date is revealed to be the year 4000, which, as I noted in an earlier post, is probably during, or slightly before, the early years of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire (the one that enslaved the Ood).
Friday, 30 May 2025
Settings: The Fall of Troy (The Myth Makers)
Where & When
The story is based around the end of the Trojan War, as depicted in Homer’s Iliad, rather than as it would have been in real history. Troy, also known as Ilium, did exist, lying just south of the western entrance to the Dardanelles Strait in what is now Turkey. Based on archaeological evidence, the most likely date for the War is around 1180 BC, although, judging from the few surviving stills, the look of the story borrowed more from the Ancient Greece of at least four centuries after that.
Friday, 16 May 2025
Settings: Kembel (Mission to the Unknown)
Mission to the Unknown is an unusual episode. It’s a single 25-minute tale, and thus the shortest regularly broadcast Doctor Who story. Moreover, it does not feature any of the regular cast, functioning instead as a prolonged ‘cold open’ for the next-but-one serial. For this reason, it’s often either skipped or dealt with briefly in written accounts of the Hartnell stories. For the purposes of this blog, however, The Daleks' Master Plan has plenty to cover as it is, leaving this post free to look at Kembel.
Where & When
The story is explicitly set in the year 4000, on the planet Kembel. This is an unclaimed world not directly controlled or claimed by any external power. The date is notably later than that of any of the earlier Hartnell serials, and The Daleks' Master Plan refers to the fact that technology has advanced since the time of the latter half of The Chase. Later stories will place it as (probably) happening during the early years of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire, which reaches its height a little over a century later.
Friday, 2 May 2025
Settings: Galaxy 4
Where & When
The story is set on an unnamed and uninhabited planet in the eponymous galaxy. Since there is no connection with humanity’s history, there is no way to date the story in any known calendar. If, as seems to be the case, it’s set before humans have reached the galaxy in question, it’s probably (judging from later stories) earlier than the mid-fourth millennium, but that’s all we can say, and all that we need to.
Friday, 18 April 2025
Settings: 1066 and All That (The Time Meddler)
The Chase was originally intended as the second season finale, and that’s apparent from watching it. This, however, means that The Time Meddler feels a little like a season opener, even though it takes the finale slot. It’s another episode where opinions tend to differ between older and younger fans, with the former holding it up as a particularly strong episode and the latter often finding it more middling.
What can’t be denied, though, is that it’s a significant story in the ongoing development of the series. Most notably, perhaps, it’s the first of what fans refer to as ‘pseudo-historicals’ – stories set in the past that nonetheless have science fiction elements other than the presence of the time travellers themselves. Later, that will usually be the presence of monsters, but here, it’s arguably more low-key. It’s also much closer to the sort of story that time travel RPGs tend to focus on… and not just because it’s set at a particularly memorable moment in history.
Friday, 6 December 2024
Settings: Mechanus (The Chase)
The Chase is structured in three two-episode segments. First, there is the section on Aridius, then a couple of largely comedic episodes based on the chase itself, and then a final show-down with the Daleks. Thus, while this post will largely focus on that finale, it will also cover the “spooky” comedy of episode four.
When I started this series, I stated that updates would be very irregular. It hasn’t turned out that way, but the time has now come when my schedule requires me to take a break and concluding with a serial that feels like a season finale (even if it isn’t one) is as good a place as any. I have every intention of returning in the new year and moving on to season three, but the dates are uncertain.
Where & When
The closing segment of the story is set on the planet Mechanus, close to, or just beyond, the edge of human-inhabited space. There is no indication of the date in the story, and the tie-in media have come up with various interpretations ranging from the 22nd to the 36th century. The more popular assumption, however, seems to be that it’s in the mid-third millennium, somewhere between the settings of The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Rescue. This is the sort of question that would have to be answered in a game (since we do interact with people from Earth) but here, I’ll just note that various options exist.
Friday, 22 November 2024
Settings: Aridius (The Chase)
As with An Unearthly Child, the differing settings means that my coverage of this story will be split into two posts. This one covers the first three episodes, focussing on the alien world where it all starts off.
Friday, 8 November 2024
Settings: The Space Museum on Xeros
Where & When
The story is set on the planet Xeros, within the interstellar Morok Empire. No date is given for the story, but it clearly takes place later than The Dalek Invasion of Earth because of the design of the Dalek seen in the museum. Although it’s not obvious that the Moroks are also specifically aware of humans, we can at least say that the story is not set so far ahead that the exhibit has obviously degraded. This probably places it a few centuries into our future and, fitting with this, the tie-in media have tended to select dates towards the end of the third millennium.
Friday, 25 October 2024
Settings: The Third Crusade
Where & When
The story is set in 1191 in and around the port city of Jaffa. It is based, albeit loosely, around a real historical event that occurred in autumn of that year. Since the details are changed, and the timeline greatly compressed, it’s difficult to narrow down an exact date, but we’re likely in either October or November. Shorter than the previous historicals, the story takes place over the course of just two days.
Friday, 11 October 2024
Settings: Vortis, the Web Planet
Where & When
The story is set on the planet Vortis, which is specifically stated to be in a galaxy beyond our own. In the final episode, the Animus talks about humans as if it knows what they are, and where they come from, which implies a far future setting when humanity has at least reached beyond our own galaxy. However, there is no way to be more precise than this, and it’s also possible from the context that it has only recently gained this information from its prisoners (it’s trying to read their minds at the time) so we can’t even be confident of that much. Not that it’s likely to matter in most games.
Friday, 27 September 2024
Settings: First Century Rome
Where & When
As with The Reign of Terror, the story includes a real-world historical event, making it possible to date it precisely. The bulk of the story runs from 10th to the 18th July in the year AD 64, although the characters have been in Italy for “four or five weeks” when it starts, and there is a gap of a few days at the end before they leave. Most of the action takes place in Rome, although there are some scenes set in other nearby parts of Italy.
Friday, 13 September 2024
Settings: Dido (The Rescue)
The Rescue is a brief story that functions primarily as the introduction to a new companion and arguably doesn’t do much more when taken in isolation. As a result, it’s generally regarded as a middling episode, neither especially weak nor particularly praised, although some reviewers don’t appreciate the minimal nature of the plot – or, perhaps, the basic joke about classic Doctor Who aliens all looking like men in cheap rubber costumes. On the other hand, it was originally proposed as a story in its own right, and, even if it’s slight, it can still work as a scenario outside of the ‘introduction’ theme.
Where & When
The story is set in the year 2493… or at least, that’s when Vicki says she left Earth, and it’s hard to imagine that more than a few months have passed since. It takes place on the planet Dido, a world that is within the bounds of human space at the time, but that the authorities on Earth have never bothered to explore.
Friday, 30 August 2024
Settings: Dalek Invasion of Earth
The Dalek Invasion of Earth has a significant place in the ongoing development of the series. It’s the first returning “monster”, the first companion departure, and the first story to feature more than a few moments of outdoor filming. The latter gives it a less claustrophobic feel than many prior serials and gives a potentially large canvas on which to draw for gaming, aided by the fact that it’s also the first story to be set on Earth in the future. It’s almost universally cited as one of the better stories of the Hartnell era, sometimes even the best overall. And, in this instance, the setting also happens to be one that lends itself well to gaming.
Where & When
The exact date is never given in the story, but we do see an old 2164 calendar, so it’s no earlier than that. While there is some wiggle room depending on exactly how old the calendar is, based on a line in a later story, fan consensus generally takes the year as being 2167. The story is initially set in London and later moves to Bedfordshire.
Friday, 16 August 2024
Settings: Planet of Giants
Where & When
The story takes place entirely inside one mid-sized house and its accompanying garden. It’s set in England during the 1960s, but it’s hard to be more precise about the location than that. The date is intended to be “contemporary” but that doesn’t necessarily mean 1964 and fans have suggested possibilities ranging from ’63 (the year for which the Doctor was aiming) to the “near future” of ’69. From our 21st-century perspective, it hardly matters.
Friday, 2 August 2024
Settings: The Reign of Terror
Where & When
The story takes place in, and just outside, Paris during the eponymous Reign of Terror. For the first time in a historical story, we can place the date exactly because it includes a known event from real-world history. Specifically, it takes place over a six-day period concluding on 28th July 1794.
Friday, 19 July 2024
Settings: The Sense-Sphere
Where & When
The story takes place on, and in orbit around, a planet somewhat strangely named the Sense-Sphere. This is at least in the same galaxy as Earth, but beyond the area of space governed/inhabited by humans at whatever the date may be. Maitland states that that is the 28th century but doesn’t give any more precise figure. If one has to pick a specific year, 2764, eight centuries after the broadcast date, is as good as any. Since it is the first story to be explicitly set in the future, rather than on an alien planet with no apparent connection to Earth, the date had, at the time, no larger context of future history to be placed in – it might as well be plucked from thin air.