Forum:The web of fear

Hi, I have a question: When is The Web of Fear actually set? Because The abominable snowmen is set in 1935, but professor Travers says that he hasn't seen the TARDIS crew in 40 years? making the year 1975, and that doesn't fit in with the UNIT years really. Could Travers have meant 30/33 years?

Joe.kearney 11:22, August 11, 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at the entry under UNIT Dating Controversy. Boblipton 11:29, August 11, 2011 (UTC)


 * The UNIT dating controversy page may help.
 * Travers says that the events of Snowmen took place over 40 years ago, Victoria says that it was at leas 1935. So as you sat Joe.kearney at least 1975, however in Downtime it states that The Web of Fear took place "some 25 years before in 1968". (All this according to the notes in AHistory.
 * Also to note, No Future which takes place in 1976 is set late in the UNIT era (after The Green Death) which would mean that The Web of Fear has to take place several years prior.
 * All this is to say that it's complicated, as it's not specifically stated you have to take other sources to let you work it out and the more sources you use and how determined you are to make it fit in...the less likely it is to fit in with everything else. So, it takes place sometime in the 1970s...probably. --Tangerineduel / talk 15:05, August 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * It's also worth noting that nearly ever time the Doctor refers to a UNIT-era event in the new series (and in the EDAs), he makes a joke about it being "some time in the 70s… or was it the 80s?" The writers know it's a big mess, and figure it's best to just have fun with the controversy, because trying to resolve it either way would lead to continuity problems. Which means there really is no answer. It might even mean that in-universe, the Doctor knows about the problem and deals with it the same way as the out-of-universe writers, to avoid having to figure out and explain some complicated wibbly-wobbly (although there are plenty of other ways you could interpret it, given all the amnesia and history-changing that's happened since the UNIT era). --173.228.85.118 19:50, August 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * It's also worth noting that nearly ever time the Doctor refers to a UNIT-era event in the new series (and in the EDAs), he makes a joke about it being "some time in the 70s… or was it the 80s?" The writers know it's a big mess, and figure it's best to just have fun with the controversy, because trying to resolve it either way would lead to continuity problems. Which means there really is no answer. It might even mean that in-universe, the Doctor knows about the problem and deals with it the same way as the out-of-universe writers, to avoid having to figure out and explain some complicated wibbly-wobbly (although there are plenty of other ways you could interpret it, given all the amnesia and history-changing that's happened since the UNIT era). --173.228.85.118 19:50, August 11, 2011 (UTC)