TV Century 21

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TV Century 21
Otherwise called:	TV21, TV21 and Tornado, TV21 and Joe 90, TV21 and Valiant
Publisher:	City Magazines
Type:	Magazine
Release date:	23 January 1965

TV Century 21, better-known as TV21, and which, later in its publication history, temporarily merged with other publications to become 'TV21 and Tornado', TV21 and Joe 90 and ultimately TV21 and Valiant, was an English publication printing articles and tie-in comic strips to popular children's adventure series. It was published throughout the 1960s.

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 presented in the magazine, they were printed in black and white, and presented as "archival documents" or footage from a time machine.

DWU contents

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 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, as the Doctor (at that time played by William Hartnell) did not appear in these stories; concurrent with the publishing of The Daleks, the rights to the character were with Polystyle Publications, Ltd., the publishers of TV Comic. Polystyle created new recurring antagonists, the Trods, to replace the Daleks, who would ultimately be shown being exterminated by the actual Daleks in The Trodos Ambush when TV21's license expired and the Daleks were once again allowed to face Dr. Who in comics as they did on television. In the meantime, The Daleks instead revealed the early history of the Dalek Empire, starting with an origin story for the species and continuing with the Golden Emperor's first wars of conquest on the universe.

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 as well as the casts of Stingray or Fireball XL5, and were thus essentially early crossovers between the DWU and the Gerry Anderson universe.

In addition to Terry Nation's Daleks and Mechonoids, another licensed DWU concept was introduced to TV21 fiction, the planet Astra, 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 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.