Talk:United Nations Intelligence Taskforce

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Contents 1 UNIT Dating 1.1 Note from Mawdryn Undead 1.2 Draft 2 The Doctor's relations with UNIT 3 Logo to feature? 4 Reverts of 5 January 2006 5 UNIT files 6 Merging the dating back in 7 Move 8 United Nations unhappy with U.N.I.T.?

[edit] UNIT Dating

This is left here for historic note as the notes I used before writing the section on the page itself. Timrollpickering 03:16, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to add a bit on UNIT dating, inspired by a note on the Mawdryn Undead page, but given the controversies on it, feel it best to start drafting the section here. Below is what the Undead page says - feel free to start rewriting it. Timrollpickering 14:39, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Note from Mawdryn Undead

Mawdryn Undead has the unfortunate distinction of contributing to one of the biggest and most widely discussed contradictions in the Doctor Who universe: the "UNIT dating issue." The UNIT stories of the late Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, and early Tom Baker eras, while broadcast from 1969 to about 1976, were supposedly intended by the production team of the time to take place in the "near future." In one specific instance, in the serial Pyramids of Mars, Sarah Jane Smith specifically says she's "from 1980." However other serials place the UNIT stories even later than that, whilst some untransmitted lines indicated the stories had a contemporary setting. Following Pyramids of Mars, the Brigadier was still an active member of UNIT as of 1980. However, when Tegan and Nyssa arrive on Earth, it's 1977 - the Queen's Jubilee - and the Brigadier, recently retired, has just begun teaching at the school. Fans who seek a way to resolve this difference are split. Some believe the dates of Mawdryn Undead should be ignored because of the greater number of UNIT stories that posited the existence of UNIT in the late 1970s and early 1980s, even if few of those stories mentioned dates directly or depended on those dates for anything. Others believe that the Mawdryn dates should remain canonical, either because the story was produced and broadcast later (and therefore overrides what was already established) or because the changing of the date would render Tegan's discovery nonsensical. Arguments on both sides of the discussion have become passionate, although some people, perhaps more than would admit, choose their position based as much on their estimation of Doctor Who in the 1980s as a whole as on the merits of the relevant arguments. Perhaps the main reason for the dating problem arose from the fact that the story was written without the character of the Brigadier in mind at all - see point 5 below.

[edit] Draft

And here's the start of a draft on this:

The exact years in which UNIT operates are never made precisely clear and there has been much confusion and debate on this subject. No television story actually featuring UNIT gives a clear date onscreen. Several other stories offer dates, but they have a habit of contradicting one another, whilst a whole host of unused dialogue and scenes, internal production memos, books by the contemporary creative teams and other media have all combined to confuse the matter further. It is not even clear when the contemporary production team intended the stories to be set as different contributions on different occasions confuse one another.

The following precise, or near precise, dates are established in dialogue:

• In the 1968 story The Web of Fear it is said that 1935 was "over forty years ago", thus making it at least 1975. In the sequel, The Invasion, the first story to feature UNIT, it is said that the events of the earlier story took place "about four years ago", making it 1979 at the earliest. This would place the UNIT stories featuring the Third Doctor and the Fourth Doctor in the 1980s.
• In the 1975 story Pyramids of Mars, the Doctor's companion Sarah-Jane states "I come from 1980". This would place the Third and Fourth Doctor UNIT stories in the late 1970s.
• In the 1981 spin-off K9 & Company Sarah-Jane has been back on Earth for some years, with the Doctor having left a present for her in 1978. This would place the relevant UNIT stories in the mid 1970s at the very latest.
• In the 1982 story Time-Flight, which has a contemporary setting, the Doctor wonders if Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has become a General by now, implying that it is several years since his time in UNIT.
• In the 1983 story Mawdryn Undead it is established that Lethbridge-Stewart retired in 1976 (and was not promoted to a General) and worked at a British public school from 1977 until 1983. Both the 1977 and 1983 timezones are shown, with the former featuring the celebrations for the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
• In the 1989 story Battlefield the Brigadier has now retired completely and the Doctor tells his companion Ace (from the late 1980s) that they are "a few years in your future".

In addition to this there are many other clues that just confuse the picture.

• Some stories feature calendars but this can contradict one another The Green Death features two, one which says the story is set in February in a leap year when February 29 falls on a Sunday (1972 is the only one in the 1960s-1990s) but another says April.
• Politics wise the stories offer a very different picture from the time when they were transmitted. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is called "Jeremy" in 1973's The Green Death (intended to be Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe who never attained that position) and is a woman in 1975's Terror of the Zygons. (In the much later Battlefield the monarch is a King.) The United Nations is more interventionist than its 1970s real-life counterpart, whilst the Cold War at times is on the verge of turning into World War III in some of the earlier stories, but by Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Robot it is over. Mao Tse Tung is however alive at the time of 1971's The Mind of Evil and in real life he died in 1976.
• With a few exceptions, none of the stories attempt to predict future fashions or technology, except when it is central to the plot. The result is that the stories feel very strongly like the 1970s.
• On the occasions that money is mentioned, most amounts given correspond to those in use at the time, such as 2p for a phonecall in 1976's The Seeds of Doom, even though in real life the United Kingdom adopted decimal currency in 1971 and was subject to significant inflation.
• The technology displayed on occasion is significantly more advanced than its real life counterparts. The United Kingdom has a fully functioning space programme that is able to send missions to Mars and Jupiter. Laser guns are in development in 1974's Robot and then used by UNIT in The Seeds of Doom. Many of the science establishments seen are engaged in extremely advanced research.
• The BBC has a third channel, BBC 3, in 1971's The Dæmons. In real life the BBC at the time of writing has only two terrestrial channels, with the digital BBC3 have only been launched at the end of the 1990s.

Published books, contemporary interviews and behind the scenes documents all point to a degree of uncertainty amongst the production team as well. For example:

• In a pair of 1969 interviews then producer Derrick Sherwin and newly cast Doctor Jon Pertwee told the press that the series (and thus the UNIT stories) would be set in a near future time when things such as space stations would become reality, with Pertwee confirming this would be in the 1980s.
• An unused line in the rushes of 1971's The Claws of Axos clearly dates the story to the early 1970s. By this time Sherwin had moved on as producer.
• The 1972 book [[The Making of Doctor Who, written by then-Script Editor Terrance Dicks and regular write Malcolm Hulke, dates the 1970 story Spearhead from Space to 1970. However the second edition of 1976 (rewritten by Dicks alone, after he had stepped down as Script Editor) does not specify a date.
• The 1974 novelisation of The Sea Devils, also by Hulke, refers to North Sea Oil starting to be exploited in 1978, indicating an early 1980s setting for the story.
• The 1981 Writers' Guide for the proposed series of K9 & Company stated that Sarah's travels with the Doctor (i.e. from The Time Warrior to The Hand of Fear) took place between 1973 and 1976.
• The 1983 story Mawdryn Undead was originally written with a different former companion in mind and much has been made of how this generated the UNIT dating "mistake", though other early 1980s stories and the above mentioned guide support Mawdryn Undead 's dating of the story.

The 1990s original novels the New Adventures and the Missing Adventures took the view the stories were set some time in or around the 1970s and left it down to individual authors to decide on dates. This resulted in a number of contradictions - for example the events of The Invasion have been variously dated to the late 1960s, mid 1970s and late 1970s.

The debate continues...

More to come.

[edit] The Doctor's relations with UNIT

I would like to add a section describing the Doctor's rather rocky relationship with UNIT. Thoughts? Uncle Mikey 19:02, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Logo to feature?

Currently we have the older, round logo as the main, 'featured' symbol at the top of the article. Having seen that the Battlefield winged logo is the current one, as of The Christmas Invasion, might that be a better one to move to the top spot?

Thoughts? Radagast 06:06, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know... I kind of like the retro look of the old insignia being up there. :) --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 06:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I much prefer the old insignia myself. --Doctortoc 20:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverts of 5 January 2006

Let me explain why I reverted these edits. In turn:

1) The Intrusion Counter Measures Group and Rachel Jensen belonging to the British Rocket Group were not mentioned in the television episodes, but is information taken from the David Bishop book "Who Killed Kennedy". This is, like all non-television sources, of unclear canonicity, and of even more dubious canonicity because of the nature of Bishop's book, which is from an outsider's perspective trying to delve into UNIT's history - even the protagonist isn't certain how reliable his information is.

2) The Downtime information is not related to UNIT, but to the Brigadier, and is already covered in the Downtime (Doctor Who) entry as well as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

3) The ICIS was controlled by a fascist leadership, but it in itself was not created as a fascist group, so that characterisation is not entirely accurate.

Please discuss if you disagree, but do not replace that information again until a consensus is reached. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 04:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The Who Killed Kennedy stuff ought to be included somewhere, I should think. There are good resources at [1] and [2], if anyone is so inclined.--Sean|Black 05:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Both the Intrusion Counter Measures Group and Rachel Jensen's association with the British Rocket Group are first referred to in Ben Aaronovitch's novelisation of "Remembrance of the Daleks", and have been referred to in a number of later books (though "Devil Goblins from Neptune" suggests that "Bernard" is Bernard Traynor, not Bernard Quatermass). Good point on both Downtime and ICIS. Put those down to inexperience with the way wiki works. I'll be more thorough in future :-) --Doctortoc 20:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

UNIT is a fictional creation. The article should stop trying so hard to construct a coherent and logical history of the organisation from disparate sources, but rather detail what different stories said about the organisation. Bondegezou 11:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] UNIT files

The disclaimer in the appendix states:

"The fictional nature of the UNIT Files section of the site means that I can't really point you to where the information I'm relating comes to and, in a lot of cases I've made up details like the cover stories for events and suggestions about "what really happened". However, for your enjoyment I've stepped out of the fiction for this one page, to tell you where in the vast universe of Doctor Who fiction it all comes from. Incidentally, for almost all of the TV stories up until the end of 1972, I have taken details (particularly regarding cover-ups) from Who Killed Kennedy." (my emphasis)

Then he goes on to cite what sources he has, including "Who Killed Kennedy". So it's a combination of him taking the television sources, adding his own stuff to fill in the blanks from that. That's speculation. No place in an encylopedic article, but he can do it on his own website. "Made up" isn't wrong, but it sounds juvenile compared to speculation, which means the exact same thing. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 13:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

As the author of said site, I thought I'd step in to clarify this. The speculation on the UNIT files part of the site extends only to the bits trying to "explain away" what really happened, all the rest of the info is a distillation of information from the TV series, books, and audio (OK, so as I write this, audio content is still absent, but it will be there eventually...). Unfortunately the inclusion of speculation is a problem with the format of that part of the site - a result of the perspective it's written from. Other sections of the Whoniverse try to either minimise or explicitly mark speculation and so are much more useful as source material for Wikipedia. Bouncelot 20:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging the dating back in

• The page on UNIT dating was originally part of this article but moved to its own as it was growing to the point where it was taking up most of this article. This article is better focused on the organisation itself, not problems of chronology. Timrollpickering 11:35, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
• 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. (copied over from Talk:UNIT dating controversy) --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 12:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move

Would it be at all sensible to move this to UNIT (Doctor Who) given the request of the United Nations to be disassociated with this? Morwen - Talk 16:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

They haven't requested it of us, have they? --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 16:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

No, but it ocurred to me to suggest considering it anyway: UNIT is actually what I meant as that's a redirect to here already. If other people think that there's no need, fair enough. Morwen - Talk 16:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

We don't really know exactly what the UN objected to, apart from what Davies told us in DWM. Even if they don't want the BBC to use the name "United Nations Intelligence Taskforce" in future, that was the name of the fictional organization from 1968 to 2005. Changing the name of the article seems a bit like revisionist history to me. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United Nations unhappy with U.N.I.T.?

In an interview in Doctor Who Magazine #360 (August 2005), new series executive producer Russell T. Davies explained that the United Nations were no longer happy to be associated with the organisation, and its full name could not now be used. However, the "UNIT" and "UN" abbreviations can be used, as long as it is not explained what the letters stand for.

This really should be noted along this article (quoting off of the Doctor Who tie-in websites).. But I have a question: how come? DrWho42 05:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, it is. Second last paragraph under History. No further explanation was given, as far as I can tell. Perhaps the UN weren't comfortable being associated with a science fiction television series and a organization that fights aliens. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 05:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)