United States--1986

• 1 February 1986: New Jersey Network is the first to screen the package of five surviving Patrick Troughton stories:

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PATRICK TROUGHTON

The War Games - Omnibus end of part one "To be continued" caption

Five stories, 30 episodes (also in "movie length" omnibus editions):

TT	The Dominators	5
UU	The Mind Robber	5
WW	The Krotons	4
XX	The Seeds of Death	6
ZZ	The War Games	10

- It has been reported (refer DWB issue 43, dated May 1987) that the Hartnell to Troughton regeneration sequence from The Tenth Planet was edited onto the end of The War Machines and the start of The Dominators, although no off-air copies of such broadcasts are known to exist, which suggests it was not true.

- In its omnibus form, The War Games is issued as a two-parter (episodes one to five, six to ten), with a "To Be Continued...." caption overlay at the cliffhanger to part five.

• 1986: The NJN documentary Doctor Who's Who's Who screens.
• 15 March 1986: The Tom Baker "movies" commence on a number of Armed Forces Network stations on military bases in the Pacific and in Germany.
• By May 1986, the BBC buys all the shares in Lionheart Television Inc. The BBC had owned only 2%, the other 98% split 50/50 between Western World TV and Public Media Inc. Lionheart was clearing a profit of US$1million per year.

• 8 May 1986: Setting off from Washington DC, with Peter Davison and BBC 1 Controller, Michael Grade in attendance, the Doctor Who USA Tour begins its two-year, multi-city tour (two cities per week). It is hoped that all 185+ markets where Doctor Who is screened across America will be visited. (See the full coverage on our dedicated page.)

The Inheritors of Time

• May 1986: Although advertised as opening this month, the stage-play The Inheritors of Time is cancelled due to various copyright issues.
• In DWM issue #114 (July 1986), Canadian fan Gavin Campbell wrote that his TV station (or the Canadian distributor) had been retitling the stories: a compilation of The Sontaran Experiment became "The Hunter", The Hand of Fear became "Eldrad Must Live", and even more confusingly, The Sun Makers became "The Underworld".
  • We can be certain that Campbell was not watching TVO, which was the only Canadian broadcaster airing Doctor Who at that time, as that station did not screen omnibus editions, and it never aired The Sun Makers. If there is any truth in Campbell's claim, then it's far more likely that these retitled compilations were coming from one of the many US PBS stations that could be received by Canadians living close to the US border... The question is, which one? (Prairie Public Television, perhaps?)
  • It's possible that Campbell saw these other "titles" printed in TV listings rather than something that was shown on-screen; were these simply snappy plot descriptions or synopses which he misread as being titles?

• August 1986: After 23 issues, the US Marvel comic is cancelled due to falling sales.

• August to December 1986: Ballantine Books publishes US editions of the six Make Your Own Adventure books that had been published by Severn House in the UK, re-branding them as Find Your Fate books. New covers are painted by Gail Bennett. They retail for $2.50.

• 1986: The North American Doctor Who Appreciation Society (NADWAS) winds up.