Brief Encounter Overview . " Brief Encounter " s mandate was to ask " What if ? " questions . Examples of stories resulting from asking these sorts of questions included : a pedestrian collision between Sarah Jane Smith and Dodo Chaplet , a chess match between the Celestial Toymaker and Fenric , and a wedding anniversary of the Brigadier and Doris Lethbridge - Stewart . A largely forgotten corner of the DWU . " Brief Encounter " s " what if ? " format was meant to challenge readers ' perceptions of the then - fledgling " " Doctor Who " universe " . At the time , original , professional " Doctor Who " prose fiction had only just begun to be published on a regular basis . However , its publication in the pages of a physical magazine posed obvious problems of access . As time went on , it was increasingly difficult for later writers to even " read " these vignettes — much less incorporate their content into later works . Some of the concepts were thus later contradicted . For instance , according to the " Brief Encounter " " Down to Earth " , Liz Shaw ' s first trip in the TARDIS was with the Fourth Doctor , who had deliberately found Liz to apologise for not saying goodbye to her . The later novel " The Wages of Sin " clearly states the Third Doctor did indeed give Liz a trip in the TARDIS with Jo Grant and that there would have been no need for the apology the Fourth Doctor offered in " Down to Earth " . Further frustrating the series ' long - term impact on DWU fiction was the fact that many of them were simply " whimsical " . Amongst the more imaginative ideas covered in the series were : Beyond anomalies of content are questions of style . It ' s not unusual to find " Brief Encounter " stories which were written in the . Though not completely unknown in other prose work , it ' s still generally rare to find stories in the DWU which give such a personal perspective . Even the Doctor occasionally narrated proceedings — as in " An Unfulfilled Dream " — which is almost never the case in longer - form prose material . Writers . The stories were quite often written by professional writers . They notably included the final work of television writer John Lucarotti and the first of Paul Cornell . On at least one occasion in 1991 , however , the series was the focus of a DWM competition , in which amateur writers were encouraged to submit their own " brief encounter " for possible publication . Andrew Cartmel , the Seventh Doctor ' s then - recently - disemployed script editor , judged the competition . He pronounced a Seventh Doctor / K9 story the winner of the under - 15 category and a poignant meeting between the Doctor and a six - year - old Katarina the winner of the all - age group . History of the format . The series began in DWM 167 with a very deliberate nod to the anniversary of " Doctor Who " : Since Issue 167 was the " November " 1990 edition , Brief Encounter launched with a story by John Lucarotti , someone who had written during the First Doctor ' s era . The one - page , illustrated story became the norm for the series as seen in the pages of " Doctor Who Magazine " , clearly distinguishing it from other , longer stories that the magazine occasionally published . Future instalments would stick to this format , or perhaps add a second page . The series would also travel to a few of the DWM specials and the first couple of editions of the " Doctor Who Yearbook " series . However , the series was over by July 1994 in " DWM " proper and it didn ' t extend past the DWMS Holiday 1992 special issue and the 1993 yearbook . Nevertheless , short stories by the same calibre of professional author continued in the " Yearbook " series well after " Brief Encounter " died . Therefore , some reference works have lumped stories in , say , the 1995 yearbook with the " Brief Encounter " series . Such grouping is unjustified . These later " Yearbook " stories never got the " Brief Encounter " masthead . Moreover , they were far longer than the typical entry in the series — often extending to five or six pages . They also used combinations of characters that would be expected from watching the television series ; they were just another adventure for a particular TARDIS crew . Indeed , short stories after the 1993 " Yearbook " had much more in common with stories in the annuals of the 21st century than they did with the " Brief Encounter " series .