#this is the UNIT dating controversy

[moreaugriffins]

[grandadtwelve]

“UNIT DATING” CONTROVERSY

UNIT “DATING” CONTROVERSY

[blue-ish-sky]

Someone put this in the tags of my last post and I just couldn't help myself

Clean version under the cut incase anyone else wants to share their "unit dating controversy" ships

[gallifreywhere]

(73 Yards novelisation)

[achromaticbox]

UNIT dating controversy (jo thinks she is dating mike yates, he is gay and clueless)

[jimmyandthegiraffes]

Thinking about how Mike must have met the doctor and the brig just after spearhead from space since he was tasked with cleanup, but also that vengeance of the stones must also have taken place right after spearhead which is really funny because it’s like. Mike gets into UNIT by getting kidnapped and tortured by aliens, sees some pretty wild shit after having thought UNIT was maybe a bit silly the way Liz did at first too, still wants to join UNIT afterwards, and then is immediately put on cleanup duty.

Mike in the early 70s*, surrounded by disintegrated plastic, mounds of paperwork, and a list of phone calls to angry government types as long as his arm: this is not what I signed up for :/

But also it means that Mike and Liz could conceivably have met and in fact probably did. Im of the opinion that unit is really not a large organisation and they probably ran into each other a lot

[becks-fizz]

[rowanthestrange]

Wait. The Doctor was UNIT’s first Scientific Adviser. And now they’re on number 56???

That’s what she said, right?

That’s a rate of more than one a year, is Kate eating them???

[micahdotgov]

omg he WAS at the club

[ace-whovian-neuroscientist]

it has taken nearly a year for me to figure this out

the unit dating controversy isn't a polycule ship with nearly everyone in the third doctor era?

[moreaugriffins]

Hey!

I am working on something to do with UNIT and I wanna know -

because the UNIT Dating Controversy is very much a real thing, and i love it, and i love hearing when people think og UNIT era was founded. every opinion is right, and every opinion is wrong. it's such a mess

[sandymybeloved]

An Incomplete Guide to UNIT dating

im not going to delete the post, but this is wrong, i trusted tardis wiki without corroborating anything, but did check on the details more recently and some of them are wrong, namely the calendars in the green death and sarah's unit pass in robot

Main sources: The UNIT dating controversy article on TARDIS wiki, and this article about UNIT dating in Survivors of the Flux

Image Description under the cut

[A timeline from 1958-2007 labelled with events pertaining to UNIT as follows:

1958: "Survivors of the Flux (2021): We see UNIT forming, the date on screen is 1958"

1966: "Carnival of Monsters (1973): Jo says 1926 is about 40 years earlier than her own time, placing UNIT somewhere in the 60s. We can dismiss this as some combination of bad maths and a very loose approximation"

1967: "Survivors of the Flux (2021): Scene showing the early UNIT years. In a voice cameo we hear Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. He is stated to be a Corporal, a much lower rank than that of Colonel, which he holds in pre-UNIT story, The Web of Fear (1968), meaning the Brigadier would have to be demoted by nearly a dozen ranks on joining UNIT, then promoted to Brigadier by The Invasion (1968)"

1968: "The Sound of Drums (2007): We are told the first contact policy that places UNIT in control was established in 1968, implying UNIT already existed by then"

1970: "Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970): We see pre-decimalisation currency being used. Britain adopted decimalised currency in 1971"

1972: "The Green Death (1973): We see a calendar, it shows us it is February in a leap year, with the 29th on a Sunday, from the 60s to the 90s this can only be 1972. The calendar is potentially out of date by up to a year (in fact another calendar in the story tells us it is April"

1974: "SJA: Whatever happened to Sarah-Jane (2007) + Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974): In the former, we see Sarah-Jane as a 13 year old in 1964. In the latter, Sarah-Jane says she is 23, placing that story in 1974"

1974: "Planet of the Spiders (1974): Sarah-Jane has a UNIT pass dated 4th April 1974. This also places Robot (1974&75) in 1974"

1974: "Robot (1974&75): We see Bessie’s Road tax expires in 1975"

1975: "The Web of Fear (1968): It is stated the events of The Web of Fear take place over 40 years after The Abominable Snowmen which was set in 1935, setting The Web of Fear in 1975 at the earliest. Lethbridge-Stewart makes his first appearance on the show as a colonel in the conventional military. It is assumed UNIT is formed due to the events of this story"

1976: "Mawdryn Undead (1983): The Brigadier is said to have retired from UNIT in 1976 to become a teacher. We are also told Benton left UNIT in 1979"

1978: The Invasion (1968): a photo from a security camera is timestamped 1978"

1978: "K9 and Company (1981): Lavina tells Sarah-Jane that the crate containing K9 arrived in 1978. Sarah-Jane has been back on Earth for some time at this point"

1979: "The Invasion (1968): UNIT’s first appearance in the show. Lethbridge-Stewart has been recently promoted to Brigadier, he says he last met the Doctor 4 years ago, making it 1979 at the earliest. This is also Benton’s first appearance"

1980: "Pyramids of Mars (1975): Sarah-Jane says she is from 1980. This implies The Android Invasion (1975) (as well as other stories featuring both Sarah-Jane and UNIT) is also set around then. Although unseen, during the story the Brigadier is in Geneva and still working for UNIT"

1984: "The Android Invasion (1975): A calendar shows the date is Friday the 6th of July, this is potentially 1973, 79 or 84. Although this calendar does not show the true date and is potentially misleading. We are also told there was a manned mission that made it as far a Jupiter two years before, further implying the story is set in the future to 1975"

1992: "Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) & Robot (1974&75): The Cold War is apparently over. In reality this happened in December 1991"

1997: "Battlefield (1989): Set in 1997, the Brigadier is now fully retired. He also mentions the King, which would place the story after 2022"

1999: "The Ambassadors of Death (1970): Benton says the distress signal SOS was done away with years ago. In reality, SOS was replaced as the standard distress signal in 1999. Britain also has a 7th manned mission to Mars, further implying the story is set in the future relative to 1970"

2003: "The Daemons (1971): we are told the BBC has a third channel, BBC3. In reality BBC3 was launched in 2003"

/end ID]

[xomby]

GUYS I REMADE THE UNIT DISCORD 😋 idk how many of you were in the first one years ago but please feel free to join if you’re into unit era classic who!!

[thevalleyisjolly]

It's very funny to me whenever people complain about continuity or changes to the "canon" in Doctor Who because there's the whole UNIT dating controversy, which is hilarious peak long-running TV series with multiple writers shenanigans, and which still has not and probably never will be definitively resolved.

[paulgadzikowski]

Further fact about UNIT timelines: in the comics Richard Nixon tried to nuke Britain. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. Time is not my strong suit.

Not on my bingo card

[gallifreywhere]

UNIT dating controversy crowd where u at? I'm reading The Self-Made Man by Mark Griffiths and the Brig is still in charge in 1984.

(he doesn't appear in the story, he just covers up the mess and hires the nice cop Four & Romana helped)