[1308] TW: “Shrouded”. Jack is here seen at Ianto’s funeral; in TW: The House of the Dead, he tells Ianto’s ghost that he wasn’t because he “had to leave”.
[1309] TW: Miracle Day. This occurs prior to TW: Long Time Dead (p238).
[1310] Dating “Don’t Step on the Grass” (IDW DW Vol, 1 #9-12) - Martha is now married and Magambo tells the Doctor that “Torchwood’s gone”, indicating that the story occurs after TW: Children of Earth. Denise Riley is cited as Home Secretary and Brian Green is said to be Prime Minister - offices they might well continue with for some time after Children of Earth. Martha here accepts the “Sontaran job” on which she and Mickey are working when we next see them in The End of Time (TV). Events in “Don’t Step on the Grass” continue in “Old Friend” and “Final Sacrifice”.
[1311] “Nine months” before TW: The Men Who Sold the World.
[1312] Dating SJA: The Day of the Clown (SJA 2.2) - Luke opens the story by reading an email from Maria dated to “9th October”, but as Rani’s mum says that it’s a Monday, he must have received the email a few days prior (9th October was a Friday in 2009), had a busy weekend and wasn’t able to read it until the following Monday. The Ealing Echo reports upon the disappearance “yesterday” of the victim in the opening credits, so the story begins on the 11th and takes place over two days, ending on the 13th. Luke has school records from the “past year”. Park Vale here gains a headmaster, and seems to have been without one since the Slitheen killed Haresh’s predecessor in SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen.
[1313] According to Clyde in SJA: The Day of the Clown. It’s the sort of statement to make a fan chronologer go rushing to his/her notebook, so here goes: 1. the Bane (SJA: Invasion of the Bane); 2. the Slitheen (SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen); 3. the Gorgon (SJA: Eye of the Gorgon); 4. Kudlak (SJA: Warriors of Kudlak); 5. the Trickster (SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?); 6. the Keratin (SJA: The Glittering Storm); 7. Ravage (SJA: The Thirteenth Stone); 8. the Slitheen again (SJA: The Lost Boy); and 9. the Sontarans (SJA: The Last Sontaran). The Verron soothsayer referred to in SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? and Journey’s End might count. We also know from Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? that Sarah defeated the Patriarchs of the Tin Vagabond, quite probably after besting the Gorgon (although it’s possible that she did this on her own, without the kids’ help). Sarah and Luke had a role in the defeat of the Daleks (The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End)... which would make twelve, and not force us to fancifully imagine that Sarah and company were somehow involved the 456 affair in Torchwood: Children of Earth.
[1314] Dating SJA: The Nightmare Man (SJA 4.1) - We see this in flashback; a caption says that the main events of the story occur set “a year” later. Rani’s inclusion, however, means that it’s after SJA: The Day of the Clown (so, it hasn’t actually been a full year; it’s more like eleven months). K9 appears in the flashback, even though he hasn’t yet been released from his black-hole-containment duties (SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic), so he must have briefly been let out to deal with this crisis.
[1315] Dating Forever Autumn (NSA #16) - No year is given, but the book was released in 2007 and seems contemporary. The story opens on Friday afternoon - the day before Halloween (p9) - and continues to next day, which fits the real-world calendar of 2009 but not any other year (to draw arbitrary boundaries) from 2006 to 2012.
[1316] Dating SJA: The Time Capsule and SJA: The Ghost House (SJA audiobooks #3-4) - The audios were released together on 13th November 2008, between the broadcasts of SJA: The Mark of the Berserker and SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith. However, Luke is said to be 14 in The Time Capsule, so it’s before he “turns 15” in SJA: Secret of the Stars (and where The Time Capsule goes, Ghost House might as well go also). That fits with Sarah Jane’s claim in The Time Capsule that the Chandras moved in “so recently” (SJA: The Day of the Clown).
Two bits of discontinuity exist in The Time Capsule: Luke says that he’s only lived “for a year”, when it’s only been a couple of months since SJA: Invasion of the Bane. Also, Rani wears some glasses that Sarah Jane says “made her look older than her 15 years” - which has to be taken as a mistake, as all the on-screen evidence indicates Rani didn’t meet Sarah Jane and company until she was 16. Clyde, at least, is correctly said to be 15.
[1317] Dating TW: Long Time Dead (TW novel #16) - The dating evidence is a bit contradictory. It’s said (p17) that the Department started combing through the ruins of the Hub “barely a month” after its destruction (in September 2009, TW: Children of Earth), and that it’s now “three weeks” into that undertaking - meaning it’s currently on or about early November 2009. The Department believes that Gwen is still pregnant, and Jack appears in the final act, presumably before his departure from Earth (in March 2010, Children of Earth again). However, it’s said that Suzie has been dead for “years”, and that it’s been “so many years ago” since she created a bank account in 2007. Most specific of all, Suzie looks at the date on a note saying when a toilet was last cleaned and concludes “She’d been dead for three years?” (p30), which should mean that it’s now 2010, not 2009. It’s something of a coin toss as to which evidence should take precedence, but the timeline of the Department salvaging the Hub seems a bit harder to set aside.
[1318] Dating SJA: Secrets of the Stars (SJA 2.3) - The article reporting on the mass hypnosis event in The Ealing Echo at story’s end is a bit difficult to make out, but seems to be datelined “November 7”. Sarah and friends first go to see Trueman’s show on a “Friday night”, and the mass-hypnosis event occurs the next day. In 2009, 7th November was indeed a Saturday - unfortunately, the first paragraph of The Ealing Echo story reads, “the world was coming to [unreadable word] yesterday”, suggesting that the world was spellbound on “Saturday, 6th November”, and that this is yet-another instance of the calendar in a Doctor Who-related TV story being off from that of the real world. It’s a puzzler as to how news services in this story are reporting on the “hypnosis” event when Trueman has seemingly usurped every TV broadcast.
[1319] SJA: Secrets of the Stars. The date that Luke and Sarah pick for his “birthday” would seem to be 7th November - the same as the dateline listed on the The Ealing Echo that appears in the same scene - although this isn’t expressly said, and so they might be having the discussion on 8th November or shortly thereafter. Either way, they must take this opportunity to advance his “age” - Luke is “14” before this, but is “15” in SJA: The Gift. This means, however, that Luke has spent about 15 months (the time since SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen) being “14”, and that Sarah somehow forgot to inch up his age (or throw him a birthday party, for that matter).
[1320] They first meet at least “a month” before SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith. While Sarah’s life is extremely busy in this period, dealing with one crisis or another, it is hardly beyond the realm of all possibility that she could meet a man while shopping in a shoe store.
[1321] Dating SJA: The Mark of the Berserker (SJA 2.4) - Paul Langer refers to “those Dalek things”, so it’s set after The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End. Clyde’s mother specifies that the story opens on a “Friday night”. As SJA: Secret of the Stars and SJA: Enemy of the Bane seem to respectively take place the first and third weeks in November, The Mark of the Berserker by logical extension can only start on the Friday in-between the two, i.e. 13th November, and continue to the next day.
[1322] Dating SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith (SJA 2.5) - The events of SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? were “last year”. The action begins on an afternoon and continues to the next day, when Rani says, “Mum, it’s a Saturday”. Given the need to accommodate SJA: The Mark of the Berserker occupying the only weekend available between 7th and 21st November, and the next story occurring on 21st and 22nd November, The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith has to unfold the two days beforehand (see the dating notes on SJA: Enemy of the Bane).
[1323] Dating SJA: Enemy of the Bane (SJA 2.6) - Miss Wormwood w
rites the date “20-11-200[?] ” on the cheque that she gives to Gita Chandra, with the last digit being a squiggle, probably either an “8” or a “9”. Either way, the third digit is a zero (so it’s before 2010), and the date of 20th November is very legible.
The story opens with Rani’s mum Gita working late on Saturday night to accommodate Mrs Wormwood’s order; the action continues the next morning when Rani and Haresh realise that Gita has gone missing (because Wormwood abducts her to get Sarah’s attention). In 2009, 20th November was actually a Friday, not a Saturday, although it’s plausible to think that Wormwood wrote the cheque the day beforehand as preparation for her scheme. That said, with the previous Series 2 stories occupying the other weekends in November, the cheque can only have direct relevance if SJA: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith and Enemy of the Bane occur in rapid succession over a three-day period. Such a scenario is more believable than it might seem - as Sarah is only summoned to look into Gita’s disappearance the morning after it happens, her group at least has the comfort of dinner and a night’s sleep after The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith before dealing with this newest dilemma. In the course of her adventuring, Sarah has surely had to cope with a lot worse.
[1324] SJA: Enemy of the Bane, and suggested by mention of “homeworld security” (The Sontaran Stratagem).
[1325] Dating SJA: From Raxacoricofallapatorius With Love (2009 Comic Relief special) - This five-minute special aired between Series 2 and 3, and fits comfortably there. K9 briefly appears, presumably leaving his duties around the black hole for a few minutes. The very last image is of K9 wearing the Comic Relief red nose, but this isn’t any more of a continuity violation than William Hartnell wishing everyone a merry Christmas at the end of The Daleks’ Masterplan episode seven - an episode that virtually everyone regards as canon.
[1326] Dating The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 3 (SJA: Prisoner of the Judoon, 3.1; SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic, 3.2; SJA: Monster Hunt, webcomic #1; SJA: The White Wolf, audiobook #5; SJA: The Shadow People, audiobook #6; SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, 3.3) - The transition of The Sarah Jane Adventures from being a show set one year ahead of broadcast (per all Doctor Who-related television after Aliens of London) and set at time of broadcast (starting with Planet of the Dead) means that Sarah Jane Series 2, 3 and 4 are condensed into about fifteen months of time. Series 2 (still a year ahead of broadcast) seems to begin in late August 2009 and to end on or around 20th November, 2009. By Series 4, the series has resumed a time-of-broadcast approach, opening in September 2010 and ending relatively close to 23rd November, 2010. (See the individual story entries for how those dates were derived.)
Series 3, then, fills the gap between the two. Where Sarah and Luke are concerned, their encounter with the tenth Doctor in SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith occurs prior to their final meet-up with him in The End of Time (TV) - the result being that Series 3 has to be broken in half, the first three stories occurring in 2009 and the rest occurring in 2010. It’s tempting to gain some flexibility on this by thinking that the dying tenth Doctor could have slipped through time a bit and met Sarah and Luke at virtually any point - as he does when he meets Captain Jack in the space bar - but Luke’s phone conversation with Clyde (“That was the maddest Christmas ever!”, followed by a reference that almost certainly denotes the whole world turning into the Master) suggests that The End of Time (TV) has very recently happened.
Everyone is wearing clothing that’s more or less commensurate with colder weather.
[1327] Sarah is already aware of the Judoon, although we’ve never seen her meet them before now. The embargo on the Judoon visiting Earth isn’t mentioned when they appear in the fifth Doctor sequence in “The Forgotten”. It’s said to be a Sunday, which could (in accordance with when Series 2 concludes) mean that it’s now 29th November, or early December (the 6th, for instance).
[1328] SJA: The Vault of Secrets
[1329] Dating SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic (SJA 3.2) - Sam was born in 1994 and is now “15”. It’s specified as being a Saturday. Presuming the comment about Maria aiding “the government” can be taken at face value, it’s not entirely clear if this means the US or the UK government.
[1330] Dating SJA: Monster Hunt (SJA webcomic #1) - The webcomic was released in 2009, and involves Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde and Rani (so it’s after SJA: The Day of the Clown). K9’s appearance in the final panel suggests that it’s after SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic, although one does have to wonder why he isn’t seen helping against the Krulius.
[1331] Dating SJA: The White Wolf and SJA: The Shadow People (SJA audiobooks #5-6) - The audios were released together on 8th October, 2009, prior to the debut of The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 3. In The White Wolf, Sarah makes mention of encountering the Judoon (Prisoner of the Judoon), and Luke has memories of the “past few years”, even though it’s only been about sixteen months since Invasion of the Bane. It’s “close” to exam time, suggesting that it’s a bit later in the school year. With that in mind, these two stories have, a little arbitrarily, been placed after SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic. Eddison Clough claims that “nearly forty years” of his life are missing - it’s actually been thirty-two (1972-2004), which again proves that characters in the Doctor Who universe do round their sums, and not every statement can be taken literally.
In The Shadow People, Sarah specifies that it’s a Saturday. Given that SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic also occurs on a Saturday, that two weeks and five days elapse during SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane, and that Sarah’s wedding doesn’t seem to occur in tandem with Christmas or Boxing Day, the most likely scenario is that The Shadow People occurs on 5th December (the only Saturday remaining following SJA: Enemy of the Bane). However, it could also be case that these audiobook stories happen within the two-and-a-half-week period that elapses during The Wedding of Sarah Jane.
Events from SJS: Ghost Town are mentioned in The Shadow People, providing a bit of cross-pollination between the Big Finish and BBC Sarah Jane audio series.
[1332] Dating SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith (SJA 3.3) - Rani says, in response to Sarah making up a flimsy story and sneaking off (to meet Peter), “It’s the fifth time she’s done this in a month.” This has commonly been interpreted to mean that nothing strange has happened to Sarah and her friends in the last month - but it doesn’t, it merely denotes the frequency with which Sarah has offered a lame excuse and dashed off somewhere on her own, so all sorts of adventures could easily have occurred in the interim. Events in this story play out over two weeks and five days, with the wedding itself falling on a Saturday. No matter how one orders SJA: The Mad Woman in the Attic, SJA: The White Wolf and SJA: The Shadow People, at least two Saturdays have passed since SJA: Enemy of the Bane, so it’s definitely December. As previously mentioned, for Sarah and Luke, this story has to end before The End of Time (TV). The Doctor’s outfit suggests that for him, these events happen between Planet of the Dead and The Waters of Mars.
[1333] Dating The Slitheen Excursion (NSA #32) - No year is given - but again, for the Doctor, this story is set between Planet of the Dead and The Waters of Mars.
[1334] Dating “The Big, Blue Box” (IDW Doctor Who Annual 2010) - The story seems to have a contemporary setting.
[1335] Dating “Old Friend” (IDW Doctor Who Annual 2010) - Barnaby lives at a “twenty-first century rest home”, and there’s nothing to suggest it’s not a contemporary setting. The story continues in “Final Sacrifice”.
[1336] Dating Blue Forgotten Planet (BF #126) - The few sane people on Earth - the ones who take a Viyran vaccine that counteracts the madness afflicting humanity - can’t remember the year, and the dating clues are very piecemeal.
It’s said that two billion have perished owing to the madness - presuming that this is true, the story cannot take place before mankind’s numbers are that high. Additionally, a crater is attributed to an oil refinery exploding, narrowing the possibilities to mankind’s oil-producing period. Lastly,
the Viyrans, as time travellers, cannot be blind as to mankind’s eventual expansion beyond Earth - so the fact that they believe they can wipe out virus No. 9007/41 (which exists in every human) by treating the people on Earth alone suggests that mankind’s space age hasn’t happened yet. Related to this, it’s implied that Charley’s travelling with a past version of the Doctor has destabilised history, so the entire derailment of mankind’s future - colony planets, Earth Empire, everything - may have actually occurred before the Doctor steps in and fixes things.
Taking all of that into account, the best placement for Blue Forgotten Planet is, funnily enough, the modern day. The story saw release in September 2009 - not only does that work as well as anything, it actually avoids any conflict with the new-series adventures happening in the same window. The only real alternative is 1930 - the year that the Doctor and Mila were travelling to, but it seems that the TARDIS missed that mark. Anyway, the survivors all talk like modern-day individuals, not people from the 30s.
It’s commonly accepted that Mila, not Charley, dies at the end of this story; the final scene between “Charley” and the Doctor is reasonably ambiguous on this point, although the story‘s epilogue seems to suggest that the genuine article has survived. The fact that Big Finish has considered doing Charley solo adventures might also suggest that the real Charley lived.
[1337] Dating Hornets’ Nest (BBC fourth Doctor audios; The Stuff of Nightmares, #1.1; The Dead Shoes, #1.2; The Circus of Doom, #1.3; A Sting in the Tale, #1.4; Hive of Horror, #1.5) - The story was released in 2009, and there’s nothing to suggest it doesn’t have a contemporary setting. It’s “the twenty-first century” and the existence of aliens is common knowledge. Mike says in the opening narration of Hornets’ Nest: The Stuff of Nightmares that it’s “the day after the winter solstice - the twenty-second of December”. The Doctor relates his story the next day. It is “quite some time” since Mike’s UNIT days, which were in “the seventies”; Hornets’ Nest: Hive of Horror says that Mike’s tenure with UNIT was “three decades” and “thirty years” ago. It’s “seventy years” since Mrs Wibbsey’s time according to Hornets’ Nest: The Dead Shoes (so, circa 2002).
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