TV Century 21

TV Century 21, also known as TV21, was an English publication printing articles and tie-in comic strips to popular children's adventure series. It was published from 1965 through 1971.

Until January 1968, each issue of TV21 was formatted so as to pass itself off as a news magazine printed exactly one hundred years in the future. Although some stories taking place in the 20th century were included, they were presented as "archival documents" or footage from a time machine, and printed in black and white,

Background

In accordance with its format, TV21 was written with the intent that all the stories and articles printed within describe a single fictional future history of the solar system. Although it mainly featured comic strip stories based on the puppet television creations of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, the first 104 TV21 issues also subsumed several elements of the Doctor Who universe into this "merged canon", licensed not from the BBC but from individual rightsholders Terry Nation and David Whitaker.

The most famous consequence of this was The Daleks (later reprinted as The Dalek Chronicles), a comic serial written by David Whitaker. It constituted one of the earliest licensed Doctor Who spin-offs, despite the Doctor did not appear in these stories.

Concurrent with the publishing of The Daleks, the rights to the character of “Dr. Who” were acquired by Polystyle Publications, Ltd., with a regular strip first appearing in TV Comic from November 1964. Aware of the popularity of the Daleks, Polystyle created new recurring antagonists, the Trods, to fill the role of recurring “robotic” foes. Later, Polystyle would briefly negotiate to use the Daleks after TV21’s licence with Terry Nation expired; in The Trodos Ambush, the Daleks were seen to exterminate their comic strip rivals.

Taking its own path from the source material, TV21's The Daleks revealed the early history of the Dalek Empire, starting with an origin story for the species and continuing through the Golden Emperor's first wars of conquest on the universe until the start of Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.^[1]

In addition to Terry Nation's Daleks and Mechanoids, another licensed DWU concept was introduced to TV21 fiction: the planet Astra, which had been created by David Whitaker in TV: The Rescue as part of the background of new companion Vicki Pallister. Astra was referenced in The Daleks and became central to further crossovers with other Anderson-based TV21 strips.

Two further unique interactions occurred between TV21 and the Doctor Who universe. The first came when Issue 28 of the magazine tied in with the release of Dr. Who and the Daleks, the first Peter Cushing feature film, by presenting a cover story and a special Lady Penelope short story which both referenced the film as existing in-universe; The Story of the Film, a short prose adaptation of the movie itself; and a parody, Film Star Wins Oscar—Misses Premier!, featuring "Doctor Da and the Humanies".

Secondly, TV21 released a special record containing the audio story The Daleks, which was based on an episode of the TV serial The Chase with new narration by frequent Dalek voice actor David Graham.

Post-Daleks

Following the conclusion of the Dalek strips in January 1967, TV21 continued to evolve, moving away from the “future newspaper” format once it began to feature the adventures of new Anderson series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

TV21 initially proved to be the dominant title in a series of mergers with several other less-successful weekly titles from the same publisher. TV21 subsumed TV Tornado in 1968, briefly becoming known as TV21 and TV Tornado; the following year it absorbed “sister publication” Joe 90 to become TV21 and Joe 90 for 37 issues. In 1971, by which time the comic had dropped the rights to any Anderson-based content, the comic was itself merged into boys-targeted adventure comic Valiant; the only notable strip from TV21 to survive this merger was based on Star Trek. Valiant, in turn, was absorbed into Battle Picture Weekly in 1976, which subsequently merged into Eagle in 1988. Eagle ultimately ended in 1994.

DWU contents

Cover stories

Main article: TV Century 21 cover stories

Due to its "newspaper from the future" framing device, instead of a conventional magazine cover, the cover of the publication contained prose fiction in the shape of a newspaper front-page article. These prose stories usually tied into the narratives of the ongoing comic serials; as such, many of them featured the Daleks alongside content from the Stingray and Fireball XL5 strips, essentially serving as early crossovers between the DWU and the Gerry Anderson universe.

The Daleks

Main article: The Daleks (series)

Fireball XL5

Main article: Fireball XL5 (series)

Thunderbirds

Main article: Thunderbirds (series)

Stingray

Main article: Stingray (series)

Burke's Law

Main article: Burke's Law (series)

21

Main article: 21 (series)

Dateline

Main article: Dateline (series)

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons

Main article: Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons

Supercar

Main article: Supercar (series)

No Supercar stories crossover with the DWU, although it has crossed over in other works published in the magazine.

Front Page

Main article: Front Page (series)

Then and Now

Main article: Then and Now (series)

TV21 Stop Press

Main article: TV21 Stop Press

Cosmic Capers

Main article: Cosmic Capers

Other stories

Footnotes