Doctor Who Annual 1986

Overview

 * Release Number 20
 * Publisher World Distributors
 * Released in September 1985
 * Priced £3.25
 * Format Hardback 64 pages
 * Featured Doctor: The Sixth Doctor
 * Featured Companions: Peri
 * Featured Enemies: The Master

Text Stories

 * ''The Fellowship of Quan
 * ''Time Wake
 * ''Interface
 * ''Beauty and the Beast
 * ''Retribution
 * ''Davarrk's Experiment
 * ''The Radio Waves

Comic strip story

 * None

Features

 * `Behind the Scenes at Doctor Who: Make-Up` interview with Dorka Nieradzik by Brenda Aspley

Puzzles

 * None

Additional Notes

 * Unusually at the expense of new content this annual featured three full page colour publicity shots of the Sixth Doctor taken at his costume launch (showing him with the TARDIS, fishing and with a multicoloured umbrella).
 * The author of five of the prose stories (Interface, Davarrk's Experiment, The Fellowship of Quan, Time Wake and Retribution) was John D White, who loved the annuals as a kid and, when he was older, knew he wanted to write for them.
 * This was to be the last of the regular World Distributor published Annuals.
 * Both John Nathan-Turner and the publishers World Distributors for various reasons had becoming increasingly frustrated with each other, along with the shows 18 month hiatus (resulting in no new Who on television) and, a reported decline in sales the previous year, the decision was reached that the license to publish the Doctor Who Annual was not renewed.
 * World Distributors did however publish a further bumper sized volume (entitled Doctor Who Special: Journey Through Time), which featured reprinted pages from previous Annuals and The Amazing World  of Doctor Who book. This was similar to their earlier  Adventures in Time and Space volume.
 * It was to be many years before there was another Doctor Who annual, though it was not published by World Distributors.
 * For five of the in-between years (1991-1995) Marvel UK (publishers of Doctor Who Magazine) published a regular Doctor Who Yearbook which followed a similar format to the annuals, offering a mix of text stories, comic strip stories and features. These were significantly different from annuals in one respect, however:  they did not review the year in question.  Instead, they offered a mix of stories from every Doctor's era.