B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  [420] Divided Loyalties (p46). Lord Lucan, a British peer, disappeared 8th November, 1974 - the day after Sandra Rivett, his children’s nanny, was murdered. He was never found, and has been a source of speculation ever since.

  [421] P.R.O.B.E.: Unnatural Selection

  [422] The One Doctor. This may be a reference to The Invasion.

  [423] “Eight years” before Return of the Living Dad.

  [424] TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts, in which Mary gives the month and year of Tosh’s birth and Tosh doesn’t correct her. Otherwise, though, there’s conflicting evidence as to when Tosh was born. Torchwood: The Official Magazine Yearbook (2008) and her on-screen personnel file in TW: Exit Wounds both say she was born 18th September, 1981. The Torchwood Archives says she was born on the same day, but in 1975. Internet sources, almost appropriately given the confusion around her character, seem split down the middle as to whether actress Naoko Mori was born in 1971 or 1975, but seem to agree that her birthday is 19th November.

  [425] Nuclear Time

  [426] TW: Children of Earth

  [427] TW: The Dead Line

  [428] TW: Trace Memory

  [429] Hexagora, going by Tegan being born in 1960.

  [430] Dating Fury from the Deep (5.6) - It is clear that this story is set in the near future. There is a Europe-wide energy policy and videophones are in use. It’s tempting, in fact, to see this as being set in the same near future as the early UNIT stories. Although Robson, the refinery controller, talks of “tuppence ha’penny tinpot ideas”, this is clearly a figure of speech rather than an indication that the story is set in the era of predecimal currency.

  The Programme Guide always assumed that the story was contemporary. The TARDIS Logs set the story in “2074”, the same year it suggested for The Wheel in Space. In Downtime, Victoria has been in the twentieth century for “ten years” by 1984 (p41).

  The quotation is the Doctor reassuring Jamie about Victoria’s new home in The Wheel in Space.

  [431] Blue Box

  [432] “The Lunar Strangers”. Jackson says she’s been in “the service forty years”.

  [433] The Reaping. Rocky Horror debuted on 14th August, 1975.

  [434] Return of the Living Dad

  [435] Timewyrm: Revelation

  [436] Minuet in Hell. This claim is either hyperbole on the Order’s part or extremely short-lived, as Goth Opera (set in 1993) has between three to four hundred vampires active in Britain alone.

  [437] TW: The Sin Eaters

  [438] Father Time

  [439] “Over twenty years” before The Dying Days.

  [440] The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories: “Special Features”

  [441] Dating The Forbidden Time (BF CC #5.9) - It’s “thirty-five years” before 2011.

  [442] Dating Vampire Science (EDA #2) - It’s “1976” (p3).

  [443] Dating Demon Quest: Starfall (BBC fourth Doctor audio #2.4) - Buddy’s opening narration says it’s “July”, “1976”. He later says the meteorite lands on the “12th”.

  [444] TW: The Dead Line

  [445] TW: Children of Earth

  [446] Torchwood.org.uk, elaborating on TW: From Out of the Rain. Jabberwocky debuted in the United Kingdom on 28th March, 1977.

  [447] Blue Box. This is contradicted by Synthespians™, which states that Peri’s father died in 1979 and her mother remarried after that.

  [448] TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts

  [449] “Two years” before City of Death.

  [450] Mission: Impractical

  [451] Day of the Moon. Sir David Frost, a British media personality, conducted a series of seminal interviews with Nixon (later adapted as a play and a movie starring Michael Sheen and Frank Langella) in 1977.

  [452] Nuclear Time (p75). Colonel Redvers remarks that it’s “only been... a week” since Star Wars came out; in the real world, it was only two days, as A New Hope saw release on 25th May.

  [453] Dating Mawdryn Undead (20.3) - The earlier part of the story takes place during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee - various events to commemorate this started as early as February, and culminated in June. It’s repeatedly said that Tegan and Nyssa have arrived “six years” before the story’s modern-day component, set in 1983.

  [454] Dating Image of the Fendahl (15.3) - According to Ma Tyler, it is “Lammas Eve” (31st July) at the end of episode three. There’s nothing to suggest it’s not set the year of broadcast. “Hartman”, a character spoken to over the phone, is pretty obviously not Yvonne Hartman of Torchwood (Army of Ghosts/Doomsday).

  [455] Timewyrm: Revelation (p13).

  [456] Seven years before Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma.

  [457] Dating “The Nightmare Game” (DWM #330-332) - The year is given.

  [458] The Left-Handed Hummingbird (p23).

  [459] Terror Firma. Presuming this doesn’t instead refer to the Las Vegas nightclub of the same name, the infamous disco operated from 1977-1986.

  [460] Iris: Enter Wildthyme

  [461] Benny: Beige Planet Mars. Option Lock, which entails some nuclear gamesmanship in the late twentieth century, makes no mention of this protocol.

  [462] “Nearly forty years” before Iris: Iris and the Celestial Omnibus: “The Deadly Flap” (set in 2008), and possibly a more definitive break-up after Iris: The Land of Wonder.

  [463] Iris: Iris and the Celestial Omnibus: “The Deadly Flap”

  [464] Benny: The Diet of Worms. The date isn’t specified, but Cartland lived 1901 to 2000.

  [465] Dating The Pirate Planet (16.2) - The Doctor says that the population of Earth is “billions and billions”, possibly suggesting a contemporary setting. First Frontier implies the same.

  [466] Dating The Stones of Blood (16.3) - There is no indication what year the story is set, but it is clearly contemporary.

  [467] The Armageddon Factor

  [468] Shada

  [469] “Seven years” before Attack of the Cybermen.

  [470] Dating Mad Dogs and Englishmen (EDA #52) - The date is given.

  [471] Among Jack’s Torchwood agents, Gwen’s birthday is the most uniformly referenced - it’s the same in TW: Children of Earth, The Torchwood Archives and Torchwood: The Official Magazine Yearbook (2008). A photo of Gwen in TW: Miracle Day bears the caption “1978”, presumably for the same reason. Her passport in Miracle Day says that she was born 11th December, 1974, but she’s using an alias, so it’s presumably fake.

  [472] Four years before Relative Dementias.

  [473] Iris: The Devil in Ms. Wildthyme

  [474] TW: Risk Assessment

  [475] Dating City of Death (17.2) - The Doctor says that this isn’t a vintage year, “it is 1979 actually, more of a table wine, shall we say”. A poster says there’s an exhibition on from Janiver - Mai, and the blossoms on the tree would suggest it was towards the end of that period.

  Mona Lisas

  The Mona Lisa in the Louvre (a fake from City of Death onward, and presumably the one featured in SJA: Mona Lisa’s Revenge) is destroyed by the Martian asteroid in 2086 (Transit). Multiple Mona Lisas are seen a UNIT archive in “The Age of Ice” (set in 2010). The Monk owns a Mona Lisa that may or may not be destroyed in To the Death (circa 2190). “Art Attack!” shows a Mona Lisa as still around in a thousand years time. In The Art of Destruction, the Doctor saves a Mona Lisa in the fifty-first century. Rory smashes a Mona Lisa over a robot’s head in the undateable The Girl Who Waited.

  [476] A Level Five World

  This is first mentioned by Romana in City of Death. Earth is similarly a Level Five world in many New Who stories, including Voyage of the Damned, Partners in Crime, The Eleventh Hour and SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen. Earth is a Level Three planet in The Good, the Bad and the Alien, set in 1861. In Ferril’s Folly, set circa 2011, the first Romana repeatedly (and oddly) names Earth as a Level Four world.

  [477] Dust Breeding. This implies that the Doctor went back in time and nicked the original Mona Lisa before the fire in Scaroth’s house could
destroy it.

  [478] Peri and the Piscon Paradox

  [479] Synthespians™. This contradicts Blue Box, which said Peri’s mother remarried when Peri was ten (in 1976). It’s possible, if a little messy, to reconcile the two accounts by suggesting Peri’s mother married three times. The Reaping confirms her father’s name was Paul.

  [480] Turlough says they last went into the vault “three years, nine months and seventeen days, give or take”, before Kiss of Death.

  [481] Tooth and Claw (TV)

  [482] Izzy was born on the cover date of the first issue of Doctor Who Weekly (a fact established in “TV Action”). That date wasn’t the day the magazine was published - magazine dates are when newsagents are meant to take them off the shelves. Details on her being adopted were mentioned in “End Game” (DWM).

  [483] The Zygon Who Fell to Earth

  [484] Dating “The Iron Legion” (DWW #1-8) - The Doctor lands on contemporary Earth and makes topical references to inflation and the fuel crisis, suggesting the story is set around the year it was published (1979).

  The Eternal War has “lasted through the millennia”. The Doctor surmises they have “conquered the entire galaxy” (a sentiment echoed by a later caption) and refers to them as the Galactic Roman Empire. Ironicus says “now that Rome has gone on to conquer all dimensions” when offering sacrifices from our universe, but it’s later clarified that the process has just started - these are “the first sacrifices from other dimensions”.

  It’s unclear what year it is on the alternate Earth, or how long the Malevilus have been there. The Malevilus don’t have time travel, at least not in a form as advanced as the TARDIS; this implies that if time runs at the same rate between dimensions, it’s also 1979 there. However, Ironicus says it’s the “year MMMXXI R.I”., with R.I. standing for Regency of Ironicus. That suggests it’s 3021 years since the Regency started, but 1979 is only 2732 years after the founding of Rome (and when measuring the year, that was the start date Romans used), suggesting it’s the future.

  Adolphus, though, appears to be a normal young boy - one who looks about eight years old. He seems shocked by Magog’s true appearance, and there’s no indication that Adolphus is a Malevilus or half-Malevilus himself. This may mean that Magog killed his real mother, or that he’s preventing him from growing up (or both), but this isn’t ever mentioned.

  Roman technology is an odd mix of twentieth century technology such as tanks, television, zeppelins with advanced robots, bionics, dimension ducts, air-cars, metal eating “bact guns”, robophants (robot war elephants) and interstellar travel. The Malevilus have presumably supplied most of the advanced technology. Robots have been around “centuries”, and it would seem - although it’s never explicitly stated - that the Malevilus built them, so have been around at least that long, too.

  The story doesn’t reconcile these statements. It doesn’t explicitly say (or rule out) that it’s the Malevilus who’ve prevented Rome from falling. If that was the case, it would mean they’ve been around at least fifteen hundred years.

  The Doctor refers to Magog as “him”, so his natural form is male. We see all five Malevilus “statues” apparently come to life with Juno in the room, even though Juno is Magog in disguise. Later we learn that Magog can be in more than one place at once. In “The Mark of Mandragora”, we see Magog still in the TARDIS in the seventh Doctor’s era, being eaten away by the Mandragora Helix.

  The Doctor has heard of the Ectoslime and the Malevilus - who in turn have heard of the Time Lords - and kronkburgers are mentioned in The Long Game, so it would seem they all exist in our universe. The Doctor knows about a strict boarding school run by Lukronian Vorks on the ice planet of Cryos IV on the edge of the galaxy, perhaps indicating it also exists in our universe.

  [485] Tooth and Claw (TV)

  [486] Project Twilight

  [487] Iris: Enter Wildthyme

  [488] “Your Destiny Awaits”. No date is given. The Doctor’s alias of “Lt. Addison” has a Moonlighting feel about it, suggesting that it’s the 1980s.

  [489] Dating Pyramids of Mars (13.3) - The year is stated several times by both the Doctor and Sarah (including the Doctor’s comment, “1980, Sarah, if you want to get off”). The Doctor’s actions prevent this timeline from coming to pass.

  [490] Dating “Yonder... the Yeti” (DWW #31-34) - When Bruce mentions the Yeti attack in the 1920s, the Lama replies “many things have changed in the last sixty years”, so the story - published in 1980 - is set in the 1980s.

  [491] Nuclear Time (p89).

  [492] Per his personnel file in TW: Exit Wounds and a reference in TW: Pack Animals (p139), but there’s confusion about this. It’s said in TW: Dead Man Walking that Owen is 27, but as that story cannot conceivably occur before February 2008, he should really be 28. To muddy the waters even further, TW: SkyPoint, set after Dead Man Walking, seems to suggest that Owen is only 26 (p45). Torchwood: The Official Magazine Yearbook (2008) also gives Owen’s birthday as “14/02/80”, but The Torchwood Archives says he was born on the same day in 1982. Actor Burn Gorman was born in 1st September, 1974.

  [493] Nuclear Time (p89).

  [494] TW: Miracle Day

  [495] Dating “The Star Beast” (DWW #19-26) - It’s a contemporary setting, and the story was first published in the 80s. “Star Beast II” is set “fifteen years” later in “1995”.

  [496] Dating “The Collector” (DWM #46) - It is Sharon’s native time.

  [497] Dating The Leisure Hive (18.1) - It isn’t clear when the TARDIS lands on Brighton beach. In Fisher’s novelisation it is clearly contemporary, although the opening chapter of the novel is set in June - which would contradict Romana’s on-screen exasperation that the Doctor has got “the season wrong”. The Terrestrial Index and The TARDIS Logs both suggested a date of “1934”, although why is unclear. The date doesn’t appear in the script or any BBC documentation.

  [498] “Twenty years” before Millennial Rites (p216), and “five years” after he gets the circuit (p4).

  [499] History 101. In real life, assassination attempts were made on John Paul’s life in May 1981 and May 1982.

  [500] The Tomorrow Windows

  [501] Alien Bodies (p177-178), with the date re-confirmed in Revolution Man (p191).

  [502] Alien Bodies (p177-178). Sam’s original timeline is that of a dark-haired drug-user, but events in Unnatural History cancel out this history and create the blonde-haired version that becomes the Doctor’s companion.

  [503] Dating The City of the Dead (EDA #49) - “That was in 1980” (p66).

  [504] The Dying Days, referring to the aliens seen in The Ambassadors of Death.

  [505] Apollo 23. The quantum displacement system is possibly plundered alien technology, because in the thirty years to follow this story, the Americans never develop more than just the one working unit.

  [506] Dating The Fires of Vulcan (BF #12) - It is “the year 1980”.

  [507] Dating Shada (17.6 and BF BBCi #2) - The TARDIS was “confused” by May Week being in June, so it landed in October. No year is given, but the story has a contemporary setting, and Chris Parsons graduated in 1978.

  Which Shada, if Any, is Canon?

  The TV version of Shada was never completed, following an industrial dispute during filming. A couple of clips were later used in The Five Doctors to show the fourth Doctor and Romana being taken out of their timestream. In 1992, the Shada footage that had been filmed was released on video, with special effects, music and a linking narration by Tom Baker. The clips that were included in The Five Doctors were re-jigged for the 1995 “Special Edition” release of that story. Finally, in 2003, the story was remade in its entirety as a webcast with Paul McGann as the lead character and Lalla Ward reprising her role as Romana. A new introduction scene was included to help explain the eighth Doctor and Romana’s sudden interest in these events. Big Finish later released the McGann version on CD.

  Which of these - if any - is the “canonical” vers
ion of events? All things being equal, the Doctor Who TV series trumps all other formats, but in this case, the actual completion of the Paul McGann story - as opposed to the abandoned TV version - makes the webcast hard to ignore. Also, the alteration of the fourth Doctor/Romana clips in the different versions of The Five Doctors makes it harder and harder to reconcile them against the TV Shada itself.

  A growing theory now holds that Borusa’s time-scooping of the fourth Doctor and Romana derailed their adventure and they simply departed after the punting, with the eighth Doctor and Romana later returning to complete the task. The webcast, in fact, suggests that the eighth Doctor is plugging a gap in history by performing the duties that his fourth self would have done.

  [508] Dating TW: Trace Memory (TW novel #5) - Toshiko is currently five (p71); her birth in this chronology is dated to 1975.

  [509] TW: Children of Earth

  [510] Dating Meglos (18.2) - Unless the Gaztaks can time travel, this story is set in the late twentieth century. The Earthling wears an early 1980s business suit. The TARDIS Logs offered a date of “1988”, Timelink says “1983”.

  [511] Dating Father Time (EDA #41) - The only date given is “the early 1980s”. At the beginning of the book, Debbie is looking forward to a television schedule that is the evening that Meglos episode one was shown, 27th September, 1980.

  [512] Salvation

  [513] Eye of Heaven

  [514] The Left-Handed Hummingbird

  [515] Downtime

  [516] Divided Loyalties

  [517] Primeval

  [518] She’s “26” in TW: Cyberwoman, set in 2007.

  [519] Dating The Keeper of Traken (18.6) - Traken is destroyed in the subsequent story, Logopolis, so The Keeper of Traken can’t occur after this time, although The TARDIS Logs suggested a date of “4950 AD”. Melkur arrived on Traken “many years” before. The script specifies that Kassia is 18 at the time, the same age as Nyssa when the Doctor first meets her.

  [520] Cold Fusion

  [521] Four to Doomsday. The Doctor mentions the visit during his attempt to convince Tegan that the Urbankan ship might be Heathrow.