This is the post for discussing Season 19 (Peter Davison Season 1) and all the stories set within and around this season. How does this season work? Do all the stories shoehorned in help, hurt or not effect how you view the TV season.
TV Stories: Castrovalva, Four to Doomsday, Kinda, The Visitation, Black Orchid, Earthshock and Time-Flight.
Season 19 is one of my favourite runs of Doctor Who going. Some say the TARDIS is too crowded but I love this team and I see it as a dysfunctional family, the Doctor filling a somewhat parental role as he’s always trying to wrangle Tegan, Nyssa and Adric together.
You get a lot of variety with the team, two of the companions aren’t even human! Yet the companions all have the loss of family - and in Adric and Nyssa’s case, their homes - connecting them and that’s something I wish the show tapped into more, but I appreciate that there are at least references throughout. Really some of my favourite the show has had!
Castrovalva is also one of the best Doctor introductions and would be my goto suggestion for a new fan if it weren’t for the story following directly on from Logopolis. Kinda is another favourite that I also don’t feel quite right recommending because one of the companions is written out of it! Earthshock is great but wouldn’t have the same impact to somebody who’s just been introduced to Adric, but The Visitation would make a great entry point!
The elephants in the room are Black Orchid and Time-Flight for me though. Black Orchid at least works taken as more of a hangout story for the team and Time-Flight isn’t quite as bad as people say but any goodwill is sapped by Kalid.
Overall a joyous run with one of the best TARDIS teams though!
This year’s run of The Fifth Doctor Adventures over at Big Finish is set during Season 19 too! I’ve been very excited about that, more stories with the full group makes me happy and especially now that the Fifth Doctor audios are kinda in a golden age imo?
Really enjoyed The Dream Team on the whole so I’m very excited for The Great Beyond, the cover art for it is stunning and it makes me so glad I started getting the CDs with the switch to box sets.
Either earlier this year or late last year, I thought I’d try to go through the Fifth Doctor era in (as best as I could) an in-universe chronological order (with TV, audios and novels). I got through Four to Doomsday, and for Cold Fusion, I listened to the Big Finish adaptation because I couldn’t get a hold of the novel. Psychodrome is a very interesting story that gives the TARDIS crew the bonding that the show never gave them but they desparately needed. Part of me wants to get back into that, but I’ve so much else I want to consume too.
The Forty saga from Big Finish complicates the order a bit. There’s a bit of jumping around. From the Doctor’s perspective all three stories take place directly after Four to Doomsday, but he’s being sent through his whole timeline, with the events of:
But this is only from the perspective of the cast, and the last story is a little more complicated for reasons hard to explain without giving plot elements away, and it’s absolutely a story I could not recommend going into blind more.
So really, it’s up to you where you include them in this marathon if at all.
Oh, I’ve listened to Forty. Yeah, placement is wierd on those.
Recently found this glorious spreadsheet in the quest to compile my own (rapidly growing) dr who spreadsheet to keep track of everything I listen/read/watch etc. which helps place pretty much all of Five’s stories in roughly chronological order, with some added stats as a bonus. As a spreadsheet and data nerd, I’m in love.
Also thought it’d help with trying to see where/how the expanded stories fit in around the TV episodes.
Peri having a higher percentage than Adric is throwing me. Get that boy in more expanded media stories asap.
IKR!! I may be extremely biased (latched onto Adric as an 8yo and never recovered) but he rly should be in more stories!!
Also like. Part of what made Five’s sacrifice in Caves of Androzani so impactful was that they barely knew each other and yet he gave her that one vial without hesitation, leading to regeneration.
But on the flip side, Peri travelling longer with 5 helps make it more understandable why she stayed with 6, in spite of his attempt to kill her and general abrasiveness. He’s no longer a guy she barely knows. He’s her friend who she doesn’t want to abandon. So I suppose it’s an even trade off.
Yeah fair point! Plus IRL it’s mainly that Nicola Bryant has been with Big Finish doing audios longer than Matthew Waterhouse, who also lived in the US for a while.
So The Great Beyond huh
So are next year’s. That said, I wouldn’t mind a new Fifth Doctor companion or more solo Turlough.
So, I’m going to work out a sort of timeline in this thread if people want an easy reference for this season. (I might also try doing a chronological run of this season this coming year, but I’m not promising anything.) Be aware that I’m only counting everything that occurs between Castrovalva and Time-Flight. Everything between Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity is a separate “Between Seasons” Expanded Season.
Season 19 Timeline Post #1 (with timeline placement explanations below the list):
Castrovalva (TV Story)
Cold Fusion (VMA Novel/BF - Novel Adaptation)
Four to Doomsday (TV Story)
Kinda (TV Story)
The Visitation (TV Story)
Divided Loyalties (PDA Novel)
Black Orchid (TV Story)
Earthshock (TV Story)
Time-Flight (TV Story)
So we start with the TV stories from this season. These are the only definitive canon! Everything else is nebulous, both in terms of whether they should count AND in where to place them. Personally, I try to count everything as canon (as much as Doctor Who has one) and try to place them chronological as much as possible.
Next, we’ll add in the novels. There are two set in this season: Cold Fusion and Divided Loyalties. As per the blurb on the back of the books, Cold Fusion “takes place between the television stories CASTROVALVA and FOUR TO DOOMSDAY” and Divided Loyalties “takes place after the TV story THE VISITATION”. And because Cold Fusion was adapted by Big Finish, it gets placed alongside the original novel.
Note: There will be more Timeline Posts to follow. I will copy and add to the list itself in those, but only add notes for the new additions or clarifying notes for where potential conflicts arise.
Season 19 Timeline Post #2 (with timeline placement explanations below the list) :
Castrovalva (TV Story)
Psychodrome (BF - Boxset)
Cold Fusion (VMA Novel/BF - Novel Adaptation)
The Ingenious Gentleman Adric of Alzarius (BF - Short Trip)
Four to Doomsday (TV Story)
Kinda (TV Story)
Sock Pig (BF - Short Trip)
The Visitation (TV Story)
Divided Loyalties (PDA Novel)
Black Orchid (TV Story)
The Toy (BF - Short Trip)
Iterations of I (BF - Boxset)
Earthshock (TV Story)
Time-Flight (TV Story)
So we’re adding the audios now, starting with the original Fifth Doctor Boxset (that was Matthew Waterhouse’s Big Finish debut). The first story is set very soon after Castrovalva, with the wiki stating it’s " Set two days after Logopolis, and shortly after Castrovalva." and that Cold Fusion is " Set three days after Logopolis.". The second story of the boxset is set close to Earthshock as “The Doctor has “finally gotten around to” reading the Black Orchid book”. Eyespider agrees with these placements (though with slight variation in the surrounding stories).
The next story we’re adding is a Short originally released solely to online subscribers of The Complete History magazine, alongside issues #4 and #5 of the magazine, that was later released as a Short Trip Rarity, The Toy. It appears that it takes place late in the season with the wiki placing just before Iterations of I and eyespider placing it just after. I’m putting it before so the Iterations can lead into Earthshock.
Finally (for this post), we’re adding the other two Season 19 placed audio Short Trips. Sock Pig (from Short Trips Volume 2) is set “between Kinda and The Visitation , according to authorial intent” according to wiki (based on a Twitter post that has a broken link. The other (Ingenious Gentlemen) is early in the season as the Doctor still has the Sonic. Both timelines seem to agree on the rough placement of these stories.
Here’s my s19 timeline (barring comics and short stories), also based on the TARDIS wiki, Eyespider, as well as Bradley’s Basement. It’l be interesting to see how yours compares once you’ve added more audios
The Dream Team (box set) annoys me so badly in the sense that they’re placed in the wrong chronological order. The Merfolk Murders is explicitly set after the events of Black Orchid but Dream Team (story) can only be before The Visitation because the Doctor still has his sonic screwdriver. So if you’re going for timeline order you have to listen to the second story of a set and come back to the first later on.
It is such small potatoes in the grand scheme of things but it kinda niggles me.
