Thoughts on UNIT (and Other) Dating

[jjpor]

Like, wouldn't it be nice if the Brigadier had taken Liz out to a nice restaurant for a meal and a few drinks? And then they could have gone back to his post-divorce bachelor pad to look at his etchings, because the Brig seems like the sort to have etchings.

Oh right, the other sort of UNIT dating

Comments

[akashasheiress]

I kind of like the fanon idea (which I think was suggested by someone online, but I can't for the life of me remember who) that Sarah Jane was a bit of a compulsive fibber in her youth. And that's not meant as a bashing at all because Sarah Jane's ''flaws'' are actually my favourite aspect of her characters.

Or we could just say it was all due to the Crack in Time but screw Moffat. ;D

[jjpor]

I quite like that. Or she was just "confused", as Harry might have suggested. I'm going to be using that excuse for quite a few characters, I fear, if and when I get into the UNIT dating proper.

Basically, the Brigadier left UNIT in 1976 according to Mawdryn Undead, so that's the latest possible date Sarah could have started travelling with Four (and revisited Earth briefly in Android Invasion and Seeds of Doom). Unless they spent years journeying in unseen adventures between jaunts back to Earth and Sarah, for some strange reason, kept count...??

And that's before we even get into the four year gap between Web of Fear and The Invasion (even though they both broadcast in 1968) and the "nearly a year" gap between Terror of the Autons and Mind of Evil (even though one started the week after the other ended). So, yeah, it's all a horrendous mess. ;D

[akashasheiress]

Maybe time travel just messes with humans that way? Just like it knocked out Ian and Barbara the first time they traveled in the TARDIS.*

Also, your mention of Liz/Brig/etchings reminds me that there should be more focus on the real UNIT dating controversy. Such as:

- Was the Brig still married when he was shagging Liz?**
- Did Yatesy have an affair with Benton or was he too busy pining away for Jo? Or why not both?

Add your own. :D

* I'm guessing One either made adjustments or they just gained their time travel legs.
** More importantly, is Prometheus's Elizabeth Shaw the descendant of their love-child? ;D

[lost_spook]

Was the Brig still married when he was shagging Liz?**
- Did Yatesy have an affair with Benton or was he too busy pining away for Jo? Or why not both?

Both excellent questions, getting to the true heart of UNIT dating, as far as I'm concerned. I suspect Yates didn't have an affair with Benton, or Benton wouldn't have been reduced to taking his sister dancing for entertainment. But who knows?

I sort of vaguely went with the Brigadier's marriage breaking down sort of simultaneously with the advent of UNIT causing problems, so sort of at the tail end/just divorcing. However, he was clearly having an affair with Doris while he was married. In Brighton. *shakes head at Brig*

[shannonsequitur]

[jjpor]

I think if she's about the same age as Jemma Redgrave who plays her, then she was born in the mid-60s (that's rather giving away my personal preference re UNIT dating, though!), so pre-Web of Fear. And that would be when the later-Brigadier was still married to his first wife, Fiona, who was kind of invented by Terrance Dicks when he was script editor but never seen or mentioned onscreen and then sort of got (non)canonised in the spinoff novels. Although I'm not sure the version of Kate in the novels is strictly the same character as the NuWho Kate. At least they acknowledged the name, though. ;)

[shannonsequitur]

[jjpor]

Here's some confirmation of the actual facts of the case, because as usual I was misremembering most of the fine detail:

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Fiona_Lethbridge-Stewart

[clocketpatch]

Unless Sarah-jane was a time traveller BEFORE she met the Doctor. I could definitelyvsee her being The Trickster's - just to drop a name - companion and thwn losing all memory of the event, because that's what the Trickster does. And now I have a bunny. Damn.

I lold about the book because yep... But it has a difderent cover! Was my first thought, and then your sentence. I'm just glad I'm not the only one.

[jjpor]

That's an interesting thought, actually. I'd like to see what you do with that bunny. ;)

All they had to do was make a mock-up book cover the same as the one in the original episode, but no... :D Also goes to show that visual clues are not necessarily wholly reliable in this sort of speculation.

[a_phoenixdragon]

I'm just inclined to say 'tis a Time Travel show, therefore subject to all foibles and @$#!ups have to do with said time-travel', but then...what do I know? LOL! I'm of the mind that all canon is canon at some point, even as those points were changed in the future AND the past.

But...new here. So. I'll be quiet now. *meep*

*hugs*

[jjpor]

That's actually a pretty respectable explanation, tbh - there are so many different parties going back in time and messing with history here that there could well be conflicting versions going on at different points. It's the only way to even try to explain Dalek history, for example. ;)

[lost_spook]

It's all the fault of Genesis of the Daleks, I expect. Or possibly the retro-active effects of the universe rebooting, or the Time War.

I get amused about the Remembrance thing, though. Ian and Barbara didn't need to go anywhere to have adventures and meet the Daleks! I haven't ficced on it as such (well, a tiny bit in the Public Eye crossover), but that's what all these things are, really, aren't they? Glorious fic-fodder!

[akashasheiress]

I say it wasn't Four's fault because, well, everyone blames him for not killing the Daleks and I end up feeling all protective. ;)

[jjpor]

He blew it! ;D

No, no he didn't - he wasn't going to be manipulated into doing the Time Lords' dirty work for them. The Doctor's better than that. I like to think, as you know, that Seven only took his decision after agonising about it long and hard. Café scene - key piece of the puzzle. ;)

[akashasheiress]

He probably did deliberate a lot, but a part of me also wants to think that he was furious about what the Daleks did to Romana (and to everyone else, but it would've been the most recent example). I shouldn't be attracted to that idea but... it's my weakness. ;D