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Tardis
Timeline for 1989
20th century | 1980s

1983 • 1984 • 1985 • 1986 • 1987 • 1988 • 1990 • 1991 • 1992 • 1993 • 1994 • 1995
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History of the Doctor Who Universe

July

October

Unknown dates

Behind the scenes

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

  • 20 - DWN: Doctor Who - The Chase is first published. Written by John Peel, The Chase was the first of a series of Dalek story novelisations by Peel that were commissioned after Target Books reached an agreement with Terry Nation that would allow his remaining Dalek stories to be adapted as novels. (Prior to this, DW: The Chase, and other Nation-penned Dalek episodes, were expected to remain in limbo, novelisation-wise). Around the time of this book's release, it's announced that a similar agreement had been reached with Eric Saward regarding his two Daleks serials, but ultimately these two stories were never adapted.

August

September

October

November

December

  • 06 - DW: Survival Episode 3 is first broadcast. The 26th season finale ultimately proves to be the final episode of the original series, and the last weekly episode to be broadcast until 2005. Final use of the Keff McCulloch theme music arrangement, while the current series logo would continue to be used for merchandise and books until 1996 and it and a version of the 1987 opening credits sequence would be used again in the 1993 special DW: Dimensions in Time. Final 25-minute episode produced (although The Sarah Jane Adventures revives the format in 2007. Although producer John Nathan-Turner later says he was aware the series was going off the air, and Sophie Aldred, in the documentary Thirty Years in the TARDIS says she was told it was cancelled, the BBC does not make any cancellation announcement, and it is widely assumed by fans, and hoped, that a 27th season would air in 1990. Final regular-series appearance of Sophie Aldred and Anthony Ainley (though both would reprise their characters in later productions not directly considered part of continuity.
  • 12 - Howard Lang, who played Horg in DW: An Unearthly Child, dies.
  • 21 - DW: Doctor Who - The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is first published. The title of this release ends up being ironic, as it becomes the first Target Books novelisation to be published after the de facto end of the original 1963-89 series.
  • The Doctor Who: The Scripts release of DW: The Daleks is first published. The next release in this series would not occur until 1992.

Unknown dates

  • Pioneer Books publishes the second edition of The Doctor and the Enterprise by Jean Airey. An unauthorised crossover between Doctor Who, Star Trek and The Wizard of Oz, the book had previously been published in a small-press edition in 1982; this new version edits out most overt references to Star Trek character names.
  • First edition of the four-track EP, Doctor Who: Variations on a Theme released in 12-inch vinyl, standard CD and as an unusual square-shaped CD. This release features unique rearrangements of the Doctor Who theme by Mark Ayres, Dominic Glynn and Keff McCulloch that had been created for various Doctor Who Appreciation Society conventions in the 1980s. One of these, the "Latin Version", would later be adopted by BBC Video as the theme for its "Years" series of video retrospectives.
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