B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  Also at story’s end, the “accident and emergency” board behind Thomas Milligan says it’s October. This raises the possibility that the Doctor and Martha stay in London for a few months after the Master’s defeat, even if nothing else supports or denies the notion.

  [1200] Last of the Time Lords, The End of Time (TV).

  [1201] The End of Time (TV)

  [1202] Dating “The Widow’s Curse” (DWM #395-398) - The female Sycorax have been trying to learn what became of their men (The Christmas Invasion) for “two years”.

  [1203] The Doll of Death. Jo says in the framing material that it’s “thirty-five years on” from the flashback story, which is set between Seasons 8 and 9 (broadcast in 1971 and 1972). The audio was released on October 2008, either suggesting that writer Marc Platt favours the UNIT stories taking place a bit in the future, or just that Jo is rounding a little. Mention is made in The Magician’s Oath (the framing sequence of which occurs a week after this story) of “Sir Alistair” (as Lethbridge-Stewart is called in The Poison Sky), also suggesting that it’s contemporary.

  [1204] Mike shows up to have dinner with Jo at the end of The Doll of Death; the framing sequence of The Magician’s Oath opens a week afterwards.

  [1205] The Doll of Death

  [1206] The Magician’s Oath, also mentioned in The Sontaran Stratagem.

  [1207] Dating Torchwood Series 2 - While it’s customary in this phase of Doctor Who to place stories a year ahead of broadcast, this would seem to be an exception. The new season opens with Jack returning to his Torchwood team after Last of the Time Lords; notably, he seems to go home under his own power (it’s questionable if the Doctor even could give Jack a lift in the TARDIS if he wanted, after the way the Ship reacted in Utopia), so no time displacement is involved, and Series 2 presumably opens in the space of time it takes Jack to mop up any lingering details concerning the Master’s tenure as prime minister and return to Cardiff. The mood at Torchwood is such that Jack has been absent for some months at least, but nothing suggests that he’s been away anything as long as a year (everyone is still actively pining for Jack, in fact), which supports the notion that the modern-day component of Utopia occurs a few months before the Doctor and Martha first meet in Smith and Jones.

  Torchwood script editor Gary Russell confirms that timeline for Series 2 was calibrated to begin in 2008 and end the following year - that is supported in that save for the last two episodes (TW: Fragments and TW: Exit Wounds), the dating clues throughout Series 2 all concur with a dating of 2008. See the individual entries for more.

  [1208] Dating TW: “The Legacy of Torchwood One!” (TWM #1) - The story saw release between TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and TW: Sleeper.

  [1209] Dating TW: To the Last Man (TW 2.3) - “Friday the 20th” is circled on Tosh’s calendar, and is also seen on Jack’s calendar. In 2008, such a day only occurred in June - which neatly fits with Last of the Time Lords occurring in the same month, and Jack returning to the Hub shortly afterwards. Tommy, who was frozen in 1918, is said to have been at the Hub for “ninety years”. Tosh says that she’s known Tommy for “four years”, which is consistent with her having been a member of Torchwood for “three years” in TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts, and “five years” in TW: Fragments. Tommy has been revived on an annual basis but doesn’t know Gwen, so less than a year has passed since TW: Everything Changes.

  [1210] Dating TW: Something in the Water (TW novel #4) - Tosh mentions (p31) the Rift’s “recent time shift with 1918” (TW: To the Last Man), but Rhys doesn’t yet know (p30) Torchwood’s true purpose (TW: Meat). The Time Traveller’s Almanac says that Strepto is one of the twenty-seven planets the Daleks abducted to build their reality bomb (The Stolen Earth).

  [1211] Dating TW: Trace Memory (TW novel #5) - The year is given (p23), and it’s twice said that it’s “fifty-five years” after 1953. It’s a Sunday (p13, p232).

  [1212] It’s possible that the “star whale” is related to the “space whale” seen in The Beast Below.

  [1213] Dating TW: Everyone Says Hello (TW audiobook #2), TW: In the Shadows (TW audiobook #3), TW: “Rift War” (TWM #4-13), TW: “Shrouded” (TWM #21-22) - In all of these stories, Rhys knows Torchwood’s true purpose (so, it’s after TW: Meat), but Owen hasn’t “died” (so, it’s before TW: Reset). Everyone Says Hello (cited on its blurb as occurring in Series 2) was released on 4th February, 2008, between the broadcasts of TW: Meat and TW: Adam, and nestles between the two stories easily enough. One oddity is that Gwen and Rhys seem to spend six weeks in “Rift War” caring for a giant Zansi infant; fortunately, the continuity in this phase of Series 2 is pliable enough that such a duration of time might well elapse between the TV episodes.

  Ianto’s statements establish that In the Shadows happens on a Friday; Mariwyn establishes that “Shrouded” occurs two days before a “Wednesday”, but the story then continues an unspecified number of days later.

  [1214] Dating TW: Adam (TW 2.5) - Torchwood believes that Adam has been working alongside them for “three years”, and his doctored personnel file says he was recruited on “07/05/05”.

  [1215] Dating TW: “Rift War” (TWM #4-13) - Owen hasn’t yet kicked the bucket, but “three weeks straight” have passed since Torchwood had any engagement with the Sanctified.

  [1216] Dating TW: The Twilight Streets (TW novel #6) - Once again, placement is determined because Rhys knows about Torchwood but Owen still isn’t dead yet. Moreover, it’s “twenty-two months, eight days and about nine hours” (p76) since Jack last met Margaret Slitheen’s secretary Idris Hopper - an encounter that happened “a month” (p81) after Boom Town, in October 2006. So, it’s now August 2008. The year is loosely confirmed in that it’s “nearly one hundred thirty years” after Queen Victoria established Torchwood (p103).

  [1217] Dating TW: Reset and TW: Dead Man Walking (TW 2.6-2.7) - A glitch exists in that Owen says that one of Copley’s victims, Meredith Roberts, is 45, but both the man’s driver’s license and Tosh’s computer search says he was born “11-01-1962”. It’s impossible to think that this story occurs prior to 11th January, and yet that would only amount to it being 2007.

  [1218] Dating TW: A Day in the Death (TW 2.8) - Three days have passed since the previous episode.

  [1219] “Two years” before TW: The Men Who Sold the World.

  [1220] Dating SJA: Invasion of the Bane (SJA 1.1) - It’s at least “eighteen months” since School Reunion, as that’s how long Sarah has had her new K9. Maria’s dad says that she’s going to “start school next week”, presumably in September (as with the 2010 school year starting on 6th September in SJA: The Nightmare Man). Maria’s clock says “11 1”, but she starts a new school “next week” and it’s light at 6 pm, so we can only assume it’s showing the wrong date, possibly because it was unplugged during the move.

  A small oddity is that Sarah says in SJA: Sky that Luke was “born” as a 13 year old, yet he’s “14” just a week afterwards in SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen. It’s possible, however, that she initially designated him as 13, then shortly thereafter decided he was “14” (and had Mr Smith alter Luke’s documents accordingly) to accommodate his entering school at a slightly higher level.

  [1221] SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?

  [1222] Dating “A Perfect World” (BF #113b) - The year is specified, and coincides with the story’s release in October 2008.

  [1223] Dating SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen (SJA 1.2) - The Slitheen refer to the events of Smith and Jones. It’s the start of a school year, so the story begins on a Monday and continues onto Tuesday.

  [1224] SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?

  [1225] Dating SJA: Eye of the Gorgon (SJA 1.3) - No specific dates are given. In The Mind Robber, the Doctor was convinced that Medusa could not exist. Sarah also presents herself as “Victoria Beckham” in SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith.

  [1226] Sarah tells the Trickster, in SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, “Never mind the Bane, what about the Slit
heen? And the Gorgons? And the Patriarchs of the Tin Vagabond? I stopped them all from taking over the Earth.” There’s some leeway as to when she fought the Patriarchs, and it’s not even clear as to whether she did so with the teenagers or on her own, but it seems reasonable to presume that she’s naming her recent adversaries in order. The Doctor referred to the Church of the Tin Vagabond as worshippers of the Beast in The Satan Pit. Sarah seems to have made a return to fighting satanists, as she did in K9 and Company: A Girl’s Best Friend and also the K9 Annual.

  [1227] SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?. If this means that the Trickster somehow averted the Gorgon from coming to Earth in the first place (which isn’t said), then the “Andrea Yates” timeline must be devoid of the Medusa mythos.

  [1228] Dating SJA: Warriors of Kudlak (SJA 1.4) - It’s a Tuesday, but children aren’t at school, so it may be half term. No human astronaut has set foot on Mars by this time, which directly contradicts The Ambassadors of Death and The Dying Days.

  [1229] SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?

  [1230] Dating TW: Something Borrowed (TW 2.9) - The story opens on a Friday night at Gwen’s bachelorette party, and the wedding occurs the next day. Given everyone’s dress and the ease with which they can go outdoors, it’s a warm month.

  [1231] Dating TW: SkyPoint (TW novel #8) - Gwen and Rhys have been married “a little over two weeks now” (p1, p13), and have just returned from their honeymoon of “ten days in Cuba” (p1). More time than that seems to pass between TW: Something Borrowed and TW: From Out of the Rain, so SkyPoint appears to fall between the two. The month is September (p85).

  [1232] Dating TW: From Out of the Rain (TW 2.10) - Enough time has passed since TW: Something Borrowed that Gwen has gone on her honeymoon and returned. Everyone is now wearing jackets, suggesting that it’s a bit later in the year.

  [1233] Dating “Hotel Historia” (DWM #394) - The month and year are given.

  [1234] “The Crimson Hand”

  [1235] Dating Brave New Town (BF BBC7 #2.3) - The exact date is given.

  [1236] Dating TW: Adrift (TW 2.11) - Further establishing that it’s 2008, Rift-abductee Jonah Bevan was born 15th February, 1993, and is now 15. Also, a flier says that the first meeting of Searchlight - a missing persons support group - is slated for Monday the 27th; in 2008, such a day only occurred in October. The story’s epilogue takes place one week later, presumably in early November. Entertainingly, a handwritten note says that another abductee, Bahri Agon, was born on the fictional date of “30/2/83”.

  [1237] Dating TW: Pack Animals (TW novel #7) - The back cover mentions “Halloween is a day of fun and frights”, and yet the action occurs on a “freezing Saturday... in November” (p57) that falls after a bit of Halloween festivities (p51). In 2008, the day after Halloween was a Saturday, so the story presumably takes place on 1st November. Regrettably, the book is at odds with the continuity of Series 2 - Owen is already dead (p75, so it’s after TW: A Day in the Death), and Gwen and Rhys are still making preparations for their wedding (so it’s before TW: Something Borrowed), but a placement anywhere in November (hard to avoid, as the month is expressly stated) would have Pack Animals occurring after or roughly concurrent with TW: Adrift, which manifestly occurs after Gwen and Rhys’ nuptials. To judge from the prologue, Gareth murders his first victim on the Saturday before Halloween.

  [1238] Dating TW: “Jetsam” (TWM #3) - The comic saw release between TW: Adrift and TW: Fragments. It’s specified as being “a wet Tuesday morning”.

  [1239] “The other week” according to SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane Smith? Sarah and Captain Jack use the warp star against the Daleks in Journey’s End, and it’s presumably still aboard the Crucible when it’s destroyed.

  [1240] Dating SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? (SJA 1.5) - Andrea says she has been dead “forty years” and she’s the same age as Sarah Jane, who was born in 1951. It’s later established that Andrea died in 1964, so it was actually forty-four years earlier. It’s still 2008, as Clyde says in SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith, set in 2009, that they first fought the Trickster “last year”. The Trickster makes his move on the Doctor in Turn Left.

  [1241] Dating SJA: The Glittering Storm and SJA: The Thirteenth Stone (SJA audiobooks #1-2) - The stories take place during The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 1, and saw release simultaneous to Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? episode two.

  [1242] Dating SJA: The Lost Boy (SJA 1.6) - It’s straight after SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?. The news report about “Ashley Stafford” (i.e. Luke) says that his family hasn’t seen him in “five months”, which is presumably how long has passed since SJA: Invasion of the Bane. If that were literally true, however, The Lost Boy would have to take place at the absolute end of 2008, or possibly even in the early part of 2009 (not impossible, but the seasonal weather seems all wrong for that). One possibility is that Sarah and her friends, upon hearing the report, presume that “Ashley” was taken by the Bane and experimented upon for some weeks prior to Luke’s “activation” in Invasion of the Bane. Supporting this idea, everything that’s happened to Sarah and her friends since is said to have happened in the “past few months”. Maria, who was 13 in Invasion of the Bane, is now 14. A guard says that it’s a Saturday.

  [1243] The month and year are specified. Barbra’s arrival is seen in Iris: Iris and the Celestial Omnibus: “The Deadly Flap”. Barbra relates her arrival in the twenty-first century in Iris: Enter Wildthyme.

  [1244] Dating The Raincloud Man (BF #116) - Charley says that The Condemned took place “earlier in the year”. The Raincloud Man saw release in January 2009, but Menzies specifies that “it’s Christmas” - presumably denoting the season rather than the actual day, as an awful lot of people are out doing Christmas shopping - which suggests a dating of December 2008.

  [1245] Dating “The Stockbridge Child” (DWM #403-405) - The Doctor says that it’s the “early twenty-first century”, and “mid-December”. A banner in Stockbridge reads, “Aurelia Winter Festival, ‘08”. In real life, Bonnybridge fancies itself as “the UFO capital” of Scotland.

  [1246] The Vengeance of Morbius; see the dating notes for Death in Blackpool.

  [1247] Dating Death in Blackpool (BF BBC7 #4.1) - It’s said to be Christmas Eve, but there’s confusion as to the actual year. The back cover says it’s “Christmas 2009”, which mirrors the intent of the writer, Alan Barnes. However, within the story itself, the Doctor tells Hagoth that it’s “2008”, and nothing in this or any other Lucie Miller story contradicts that assertion.

  Additionally, Death in Blackpool takes place concurrent to Lucie returning home for six months at the end of The Vengeance of Morbius - an audio that saw release in 2008. For anyone listening at the time, it would’ve been reasonable to presume that Lucie had returned to either A) her native year of 2006, or B) the year simultaneous to the story’s release (2008). Certainly, there’s no evidence to make the listener intuitively think that Lucie had gone home in what was, at the time, the future - which makes a dating of 2008 a bit more aesthetically pleasing than that of 2009.

  Luckily, as Death in Blackpool takes place on Christmas Eve and Voyage of the Damned happens on Christmas Day itself, there’s no need to explain why nobody in the audio story is distracted by news coverage of a cruise ship plummeting from space toward Buckingham Palace. Either way, Lucie - who meets the Doctor in 2006 - has done a remarkable job at keeping her family from realising that she’s been gallivanting off in time and space for two or three years.

  [1248] Dating Voyage of the Damned (X4.0) - Wilf spells out that The Christmas Invasion happened “Christmas before last”, The Runaway Bride occurred “last year”.

  [1249] As inferred from The Stolen Earth.

  [1250] Dating Turn Left (X4.11) - This is the alternative version of Voyage of the Damned. In that story, the Doctor believed that all life on Earth would be wiped out when the Titanic hit, although it’s not quite as severe here. London is presumably no
t evacuated in the alternate timeline (as it was in the original) because the Doctor wasn’t around to phone in a warning.

  [1251] “The Screams of Death”. She puts her lock-picking to use in such stories as The Beast Below.

  [1252] Events in 2009 include the “present day” sequences of Doctor Who Series 4; the last two episodes of Torchwood Series 2; Planet of the Dead; the “interim” (i.e. post-Series 2) Torchwood novels, audios and comics featuring Jack, Gwen and Ianto; Torchwood Series 3 (a.k.a. TW: Children of Earth); The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 2; the first half of The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 3; the BBC fourth Doctor audio series Hornets’ Nest and The End of Time (TV).

  [1253] “Two years” before SJA: The Curse of Clyde Langer.

  [1254] “Three months” before TW: Bay of the Dead.

  [1255] “Four years” before Autonomy.

  [1256] The year before “The Age of Ice”.

  [1257] The year before The Lodger (TV).

  [1258] The Eyeless. “They’d only just finished rebuilding” Big Ben, so this is after The Christmas Invasion.

  [1259] The background to The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky. A car with an ATMOS sticker is seen in Partners in Crime, so at least some distribution of ATMOS occurs beforehand.

  [1260] First mentioned in Partners in Crime, explained in The Stolen Earth.

  [1261] Dating Peri and the Piscon Paradox (BF CC #5.8) - “It’s definitely Earth, Los Angeles, 2009 AD”, the Doctor says, in agreement with the blurb.

  [1262] Dating The Sontaran Games (Quick Reads #4) - This has a contemporary or very near-future setting, although no year is specified.

  [1263] Dating TW: “The Return of the Vostok” (TW webcomic #1) - The opening caption says, “Cardiff, March”. The year isn’t specified, but the story was released in February 2009, and - owing to Owen and Tosh’s presence - occurs before the Series 2 finale.