Talk:UNIT dating controversy

"Futuristic" technology in The Invasion
Just a note, in "The Invasion" some 'advanced' technology can be seen, suggesting it's the near future. For instance the villain has a videophone in his office, videophones being something "we'll all have in a few years time" for about 50 years now. Also his company has made loads of money developing tiny hand-held pocket radios (can get 'em in Tesco for a pound now, but if Life On Mars is anything to go by not actually around in the 70's), but then he is also in league with the Cybermen so may have been using thier advanced technology. The photographer woman (can't remember her name) wears a dress which to me suggests "70's", but then i wasnt around in the 60's or 70's so i can't say for sure. That and the 60's writers couldn't have possibly predicted 70's fashions anyway. Also the UNIT agents drive Jaguar mk2's, in the 60's these would have been expensive and luxorious, but by the 70's they where old bangers used for getaway cars, which actually makes the secret agents seem "more sinister" to anybody watching the serial now who has seen The Sweeney XD 82.153.230.138 15:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

A tax disc?
A tax disc seen on a vehicle has the expiry date of June 30, 1999.

Isn't this only in the novelisation? Timrollpickering 12:32, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Hmm. You know, now that you mention it, my memory of that is a bit hazy. I'll remove it until I can get confirmation one way or another. Unless you have Battlefield on hand to watch... -khaosworks 12:42, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry my copy is many miles from me! Timrollpickering 07:36, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

UNIT website
I won't move this without checking, but is there any sign that this is anything more than publicity and thus really belongs in the (confusingly titled) "Production notes" along with similar stuff? Timrollpickering 23:35, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I put it under Contradictory Clues for want of a better location - tell you what, I'll rename Production notes to Off-screen evidence and chuck it there. --khaosworks 23:55, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

New who

 * "No television story actually featuring UNIT gives a clear date onscreen."

Apart from the new series, that is, which is pretty firmly dated in 2006 ;) Morwen - Talk 08:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Erm where does it explicitly say it is 2006? The references seem vague "You've been away a year" and the like. Timrollpickering 10:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * On-screen evidence: Rose was last seen, according to her missing persons poster, on March 6, 2005. She's been away twelve months, so that's circa March, 2006. Six months later is Boom Town, that brings us to about September 2006. Christmas Invasion still has Big Ben being rebuilt, so that is more plausibly December 2006. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 12:06, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * As "thetoymaker" pointed out in the forum at Outpost Gallifrey:

Mickey was very ambiguous saying "THIS year" but I've done a little looking.

''Jackie says her official biography states she's the same age as Cuba Gooding Jnr who was born in 1968. That would make her 39 in 2007.''

(Obviously we are in a paralel universe so there is an argument for their Cuba to be born in a different year.)

And Jackie IS the kind of girl who would say she was 21 if she thought she could get away with it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.9.50 (talk) 16:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

All this does tie up with 'Rose' set in 2005, 'Aliens of London' in 2006, 'Christmas Invasion' at christmas 2006 and 'School Reunion' 2007.
 * I just copied his/her post because there's no way I could have explained it better. Ravenswood 22:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Merger
If you look at the history of the two articles, you'll see that the UNIT dating controversy was originally part of the main UNIT article, but got spun off primarily because it became apparent the scope of it involved such a different subject matter from an article about UNIT - the organisation - itself. A discussion of the dating controversy seemed out of place, especially as it was in itself an evidence gathering exercise. Based on this, of course, I am naturally opposed to a merger. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 10:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * (I'm copying this over to Talk:United Nations Intelligence Taskforce — any further comments should be directed there.) --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 12:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrong book?
From the article:

''In McIntee's Bullet Time, Sarah comments to the Seventh Doctor about her uncertainty as to when she travelled with him. The Doctor replies that some "time slippage" occurred and that it was his fault, but does not elaborate further.''

I haven't read Bullet Time, but I have read that exchange and it was between SJS and the Eighth Doctor in Inty. Is Miles recapitulating McIntee's idea, or is it a misattribution? --Bth 19:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

PS I love that the pedia has an article on this.


 * Thanks for catching that. It's a misattribution, I think (unfortunately I can't confirm it entirely, because I don't have Bullet Time handy, but I do know it appears in Interference. If my memory didn't play me false and it did appear in BT, then McIntee was repeating Miles's idea, BT being released 2 years after Interference. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 22:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

what

I've a copy of Bullet Time, skimmed through:

> p152: SJ joined UNIT staff 1978, worked four years assisting the Doctor.

> p159: Sarah is 48 years old, book takes place in 1997.

There are limited conversations between SJ and the Doctor, at least where SJ knows who he is, and I can't find the "time slippage" bit. Feel free to reference the other two facts, though.

Article title ("Controversy")
In regard to title of this article and of the Doctor Who story title controversy, I really think the word "controversy" is far too fraught with meaning for what is essently a dispute among a fandom. How about we rename it UNIT dating debate? -Jonathan D. Parshall 05:54, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. -- Beardo 00:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It depends on whether or not you consider the incredibly charged nature of UNIT chronology conversations, limited as they may be in fandom, to be less deserving of the term "controversy" or not. Is it just a matter of scale? --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 00:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I must add that dating is a bit inappropiate and could be misinterpreted as "Dating" as in to date others.

Perhaps "Inconsistancy" would be a better word because there is no perfect way to resolve the discrepencies. Perhaps a couple of different timelines could be shown side by side. Or perhaps some mention of different ideas people have had. (My favourite is that an older Lethbridge-Stewart became trapped in the past and was retired to a remote location to keep him away from his younger self.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.150.177.249 (talk) 09:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Four calendars in The Green Death, plus "I'm from 1980"
Under "Contradictory clues" we find a description of two calendars in the tenth season serial The Green Death, one showing "a leap year when February 29 falls on a Sunday (1976 is the only one in the 1960s-1990s) but another says April." Excuse me? The former can be as described only if the far left hand column is Fridays (the thing can't be seen clearly enough to be actually read), which would be a unique calendar in my 50+ years of life. British writers/Who fans Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping, in their book Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide (Virgin Books, 1996), flatly state, no ifs ands or buts, that the day in question is a Tuesday, which is exactly how these American eyes see it, and they add the only such "relevant February" is 1972. They mention no other calendar in this story, and I have never noticed one--and mind you, once their book got me looking at the episodes from such a perspective, I found a number of things they missed. So I beg the person(s) responsible for this passage to please defend the Sunday reading of the one and to specify the location of the other. Thank you.

Relevant to the overall article here, Cornell, ''et. al.'s U.N.I.T. dating arguments, putting each story within a few months one way or the other of original transmission, are in general quite persuasive to an open mind, the main exception being their dealing with Sarah Jane's "I'm from 1980," (Pyramids of Mars) versus the Brigadier's 1976 retirement (Mawdryn Undead''), which is in effect to throw up their arms and say, "Hell, we don't know!" This has, however, been explained on a Who site, called "Who's Dr. Who" if memory serves, the specifics of web address as well as the late creator's and current administrator's identities are not easily at hand at the moment (I'll retrieve and post that data here as soon as feasible). But here is the explanation. At the end of Terror of the Zygons, we see the fourth Doctor promise to return Sarah straight to London, but as the next story shows, he doesn't make it. What we don't see, according to this theory, is what happens after that story. He then does get her back, travels alone, then picks her up from 1980, her journalistic career having advanced somewhat in the interim. The next two U.N.I.T. stories, Android Invasion and Seeds of Doom, take place from Sarah's perspective in the recent past while a younger version of her is working in London and she knows it, hence she unhesitatingly enters the TARDIS with the Doctor at the finish of each, in clear opposition to her earlier attitude. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Ted Watson 20:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC) Here's the info on the "1980" explanation: the late Allen Robinson initiated the site and presumably concocted the theory, and Louise Lobinski maintains the pages. The name is indeed "Who's Dr. Who?" and here's a link directly to the specific bit under discussion:. Ted W.


 * It's an interesting theory, and it sounds like it works pretty well. As fan speculation, though, we can't include it on the page. --Brian Olsen 05:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Good point. I got myself somewhat out of proper discussion there, initially from trying to justify the Discontinuity Guide as a valid information source to challenge the Green Death/calendars passage. My apologies. Now if someone could tell me if that should be rewritten. Please. Ted Watson 21:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * To be honest, I'm not too clear on the whole Green Death calendar thing, in terms of what's being discussed. But I don't see why the Discontinuity Guide shouldn't be a perfectly valid reference, as long as it's properly cited. --Brian Olsen 21:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The last of that line of footnotes at the end of the article's first paragraph is indeed a link to an online posting of the U.N.I.T--dating sidebar/essay (or at least most of it) from the Discontinuity Guide. That note doesn't appear to be new either, judging from an admittedly quick check of the "History" listings, so I really didn't need to establish the book's credibility. On the other hand, concerning your original criticism, further thinking leads me to retract backing down from the "1980" explanation, as the topic of this particular article, indicated by its opening paragraph, is fan speculation. Besides, Cornell, Day, & Topping's book is as much fan speculation as Robinson's site, the only real differences being that one was released to the public as a completed book while the other as an incomplete web site (that is, covering the entire original series run vs. slightly more than half of it, and venues, which admittedly means that Cornell, Day, & Topping got paid while Robinson didn't). Can't understand why Robinson seemed completely unaware of the gross continuity problems with the depiction of the second Doctor's status in The Two Doctors, which does work against his credibility. That is an argument against accepting his conclusions that is fair. Ted Watson 21:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The 'April calendar' is in Chapter 8 (2nd chapter of episode 2) and states Thursday 5 April (could only be 1973). It is a big wooden thing and is on the wall, above the desk of the welshman who was also in Spearhead from Space (it can be seen more clearly in the DVD Special Feature; Picture Gallery). But I'm afraid while searching for this calendar, I have found a third and a fourth. The third is in chapter 8 as-well and is seen behind the spectacled chap, sitting at his desk. On the wall behind and above him to the right is an odd assortment of round white pegs on a white board. Of the bottom 12, May is highlighted! It is very hard to see the 3 letter abbreviations on each peg and pausing your DVD doesn't help (playing it is better). What is easier to read is the 7 pegs above which state the days 25-31. Above these and out of shot must be 3 rows of 8 (days 1-24). The fourth is in chapter 22, when Yates is on the phone to the Brig. On the wall to the right, when the shot pans to the security guard, there is a similar calendar, stating Sunday 28 April (1974). Basically we're not supposed to be finding all these dates! I think the best bet is May 1974, which would allow Jeremy (Thorpe, of the Liberal party) to win the February 1974 UK general election. --AGB 9:35, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for finding all those calendars. Also, that's a good point about when the election of "Jeremy" would have had to have happened, I presume. As an American, I could not have worked that one out, but I certainly concede that such things overrule calendars in the background. Thanks again. -- Ted Watson (talk) 22:40, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It would be a tricky one with such future speculation. One slightly more realistic possibility for "Prime Minister Jeremy" is that if the Liberals had formed a coalition in the mid 1970s then Thorpe would probably have been Deputy Prime Minister in practice, if not in name as well. And if the sitting PM died or had to resign immediately then Thorpe would be the natural person to appoint as an interim PM whilst the majority party in the coalition elected a new leader. This is indeed how both Earle Page and John McEwen became Prime Minister of Australia despite being the leader of a smaller party. (Arthur Fadden was more complicated as the larger party was involved in strong infighting and he was chosen by a joint meeting of the Coalition parties as a more substantive PM, something unlikely in either the Conservatives or Labour in the 1970s.) Timrollpickering (talk) 23:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)


 * That wouldn't have happened. The interim Prime Minister would be the deputy leader of the major party in the coalition - not the leader of the junior party. In any case Thorpe's Liberals only won 14 seats in parliament in February 74, less even than the Ulster Unionists. Heath offered him the role of Home Secretary in a coalition, but after consultation he declined. The writers of the story cannot have known any of this, however, as it was still in their future - as indeed was Thorpe's 1976 resignation as Liberal leader after being accused of hiring a hit man to murder his former male lover. TharkunColl (talk) 09:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The Ulster Unionists had only 7 seats - the unified coalition of three Unionist parties only 11 between them. As for interim PMs this is somewhat specualtive becuase we haven't had a PM die in office since 1865 and the last time the PM resigned for personal reasons was in Law in 1923 when the Monarch just appointed a successor directly and did not wait for a leadership election - in those days the nearest the Conservatives had was a meeting that ratified whoever had already emerged. Also the Conservatives don't always have an identified deputy leader and didn't have one between Maudling's resignation in 1972 and Whitelaw's appointment in 1975. Similarly the Labour Deputy Leader hasn't always been in government - George Brown wasn't between 1968 and 1970, similarly Edward Short was deputy leader for the first few months of Callaghan's premiership but not in government, whilst Geoffrey Howe was Deputy Prime Minister between 1989 & 1990, but Lord Whitelaw was still deputy leader of the party.


 * Much of this is thus in the hands of theory, but I don't see it as unreasonable to suggest that if the Prime Minister of a coalition government were to suddenly die then the Queen might choose to appoint the Deputy Prime Minister as an interim PM whilst the majority party sorted out who the new leader was. It is very awkward for a party in government to suddenly have a leadership election thrust upon it, especially one that could require an all member ballot of the membership in the country, and the monarch would not want to be seen to prejudging the outcome or giving one candidate an inherent advantage. A similar basis exists in the Labour Party rules which now state that if the leadership suddenly falls vacant while the party is in office then the Cabinet and NEC will appoint an interim successor whilst a leadership election is held, bypassing the Deputy Leader (who could, of course, stand for the leadership). Again they're trying to avoid a situation where the party is basically asked to either rubber stamp or depose a sitting PM, neither of which is particularly good for political and market stability.


 * Lest anyone raises Bernard Ingham's famous comment that "Deputy PM doesn't mean you succeed if the PM is run over by a bus", remember the context in which it was made. In a reshuffle of the Cabinet, Geoffrey Howe had been moved from the Foreign Office and part of the "deal" to get him to just accept another post (Leader of the House of Commons - a demotion) and not resign and cause trouble was to give him the title of Deputy Prime Minister. Ingham - often considered "the real Deputy Prime Minister" in some quarters - was no doubt expressing the frustrations of No 10 that this title had had to be given. A better comparison is with the Lab-Lib Dem coalitions in the Scottish Executive where the Lib Dem Scottish leader became Deputy First Minister and routinely acted as First Minister when the successive Labour leaders fell ill/died/resigned. Timrollpickering (talk) 15:25, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Stories that began without UNIT links
I'm wondering if the notes on how Ambassadors and Mawdryn began would be better off in the production section. Also whilst Ambassadors may have began with a different setting, when it was made (1969) weren't NASA predicting to have a man on Mars by 1980? This doesn't make the technology seem so advanced considering what Sherwin and Pertwee were saying in the media. Timrollpickering 02:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * "[In 1969] weren't NASA predicting to have a man on Mars by 1980?" Not in the memory of this American who grew up not far from Houston, TX, where NASA was HQ'ed by that time, and who watched all the "space shots" on TV most interestedly. Ted Watson 21:26, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Wiki OR- time slippage
I'm not intending to put this into the article, but someone mentioned "time slippage". Perhaps this was due to the Time Lords' punishment of the Doctor in "The War Games" or something that the Doctor did in Season 6(b) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Whoviangeekdude (talk • contribs).

Four to Doomsday supposed "near precise" dating
Using the Four to Doomsday dates as evidence for dating the UNIT stories in my opinion has no place in this article. The heading says "precise or near precise" and the wishy washy timeline proffered and the Doctor's speculation about if the Brig was a General now (combined with the even more dubious assertion that that implies a large passage of time) means it is next to useless as a point in the debate. Mmm commentaries (talk) 05:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I wonder whether we actually need an entire article on this subject. Why can't we just say, in the article on UNIT, "as with many features of Doctor Who, correspondence with the real world is vague, there is no clear indication of the dates of events, and those clues that do exist tend to be inconsistent with one another." And a couple examples would do, references by the various sources in this article.


 * Obviously it's simply pointless to try to establish a consistent timeframe for a body of works by different authors who obviously felt no pressing need to adhere to such standards. The reason it's so difficult to establish when the UNIT stories took place is obvious: they are completely fictional events.  They never took place at all. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 13:21, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I do believe you're missing the point. Moreover, while the original series was rather.. inconsistent with dates given the nature of the program, the revived series has tried hard to establish dates whenever possible. It should also be pointed out that since the novels and various expanded universe materials quite often contradict themselves and aren't even considered official canon material (whatever the fans think), that perhaps we shouldn't even use them as proper gauging for when UNIT's stories take place. While I would so love to hear an official explanation, the Doctor's "back in the 70's.. or was it the 80's?" line or "wibbley wobbley timey whimey" are about as much as we'll get. Time Travel is tricky business at the best of times, and whatever else may be, the series has decided the original UNIT stories took place ages ago, and we should be content with the knowledge that the newer stories are at least following a chronological designation.--Dakmordian (talk) 08:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

BBC Three.
The fact that BBC 3 was not launched until 2003 is not a contradictory clue imho. Stuff in our world doesn't count, else you could say Harriet Jones being PM in 2006 was a continuity error. No. We live in a parallel universe! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whoviangeekdude (talk • contribs) 16:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, but using that as an excuse to justify anything one wants takes the fun out of it. Cornell, Day & Topping's Discontinuity Guide took great pains to avoid that&mdash;and then the latter two wrote a "Past Doctor" novel, Devil Goblins from Neptune, in which they arbitrarily and with no impact whatsoever on their plot described a different history for the Beatles than we know and a few other such variations on real-world events. Makes me wonder just how much imput into the former book those two actually had. After all, "Season 6B" is often attributed solely to Cornell. Ted Watson (talk) 20:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think we can imagine that Doctor Who is a parallel universe to ours and therefore what year BBC Three was set up in, does not matter. Perhaps in the Doctor Who universe it was set up in the year of the episodes broadcast. I just hope they remember in the new series that BBC Three has been broadcasting for over 30 years, although it hasn't.--°wɧoɳɪvɛʀsɜ 00:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Category renaming
Please go to Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_April_27 where there is a debate and vote on renaming Category:United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Type 40 (talk) 14:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Continuity announcement Invasion Episode 1
The original off air recordings of episode 1 of The Invasion (the only surviving archive material of that episode) begin with the announcer stating the doctor travels to the year 1975. I can quote this word for word if necessary and or post an audio clip, but I'd need to dig it out. I believe this was also printed in the Radio Times. While it's an on air quote just before the theme music I'm not sure if it counts as a primary source, as it's not repeated on screen by any of the cast.

What is interesting is it is only one of two dates explicitly stated by the BBC, bookend the Classic Unit era, this quote and Sarah Jane saying "I'm from 1980" in the Pyramids of Mars that takes place just after the last Unit story Terror of the Zygons.

Gives a nice 5 year period for the bulk of the UNIT stories to occur in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frrostie (talk • contribs) 21:10, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

DVD documentary
I don't have the time to add/cite this source now (new baby!) but there's a 9-minute documentary on the UNIT dating controversy on the Day of the Daleks DVD, which could be used to source many of the statements in this article (and perhaps remove the OR tag). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:48, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

details of merge
I personally still think this is deletion worthy. But I'll abide by the consensus to merge. I'd lean to merging as little as possible. That's not just because of the lack of encyclopedic content here, but also because the section at United_Nations_Intelligence_Taskforce is far better written and sourced than anything else in here. I'll work with anyone who in good faith wants to respect the consensus from the AFD, and enhance the main UNIT article without violating other policies and guidelines. I'll wait around for a bit for input, and then we'll go ahead and carry out the merge as per the consensus. (And, of course, there's nothing to stop someone from revisiting the edit history here and merging further content to the UNIT article afterwards.) Shooterwalker (talk) 23:16, 11 September 2012 (UTC)