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[767] “Twelve years” prior to 2008, according to Iris: Iris and the Celestial Omnibus: “The Deadly Flap”.
[768] “Fifteen years” before Ferril’s Folly.
[769] Who Killed Kennedy. It is “nearly twenty-five years” (p274) after Cleary’s return to the 1970s, and is subject to UNIT dating. This novel presumes that the UNIT stories occurred around the time of broadcast, and the date of Stevens’ departure is given (p271).
[770] TW: Miracle Day
[771] Dating Night Thoughts (BF #79) - It is “ten years” before the story’s present-day component. An audio statement from Maude, recorded shortly before her suicide, is dated 12th January.
[772] Dating Touched by an Angel (NSA #47) - The exact day is given (p91).
[773] Dating Benny: The End of the World (Benny audio #8.4) - Jason was born in 1983 and is “nearly 13” when he leaves home. A conversation between Jason and Benny in Death and Diplomacy detailed Jason and Lucy’s physical abuse, in a scene that’s here dramatised for audio.
[774] Death and Diplomacy
[775] The Big Bang
[776] Dating Interference (EDA #25-26) - The date is “1996” (p8, p29). This means that Sam actually arrives back on Earth a bit before her younger self leaves in the TARDIS.
[777] The backstory to The Eleventh Hour, given in The Big Bang.
[778] Dating The Eleventh Hour (X5.1) - Amelia says that it’s “Easter” in her prayer to Santa. The year isn’t stated, but it’s twelve years before the Doctor sees Amy again, then a further two years before her wedding day, which is stated to be in 2010.
[779] Dating The Big Bang (X5.13) - The action picks up from Amelia waiting in The Eleventh Hour.
[780] Let’s Kill Hitler. This has to be shortly after Amelia’s first meeting with the Doctor in The Eleventh Hour.
[781] The Eleventh Hour
[782] Dating The Big Bang (X5.13) - It’s “1894 years later” than 102 AD, and the older Amy confirms it’s “1996”.
[783] The Hounds of Artemis; Vortis first appears in The Web Planet. This was true in one story, the apocryphal Doctor Who Annual 1965 story “The Lair of Zarbi Supremo”, set circa 1996.
[784] TW: Adam
[785] Army of Ghosts, TW: Fragments, with the years given in The Torchwood Archives.
[786] Dating P.R.O.B.E.: Unnatural Selection and P.R.O.B.E.: The Ghosts of Winterborne (P.R.O.B.E. films #3-4) - As with the rest of the P.R.O.B.E. series, the stories seem contemporary - in these last two cases, with their release in 1996. In Unnatural Selection, events in 1975 are repeatedly said to be “twenty years ago” and “over twenty years ago”. The body of Alfred’s first victim was found “in early hours of July the 8th”, so Unnatural Selection would seem to occur in August at the earliest. In The Ghosts of Winterborne, enough time has passed that headmaster Gavin Purcell has been tried and convicted for his culpability in events in The Devil of Winterborne. The Ghosts of Winterborne has Andrew, a student at Winterborne, returning there after a leave of absence - possibly suggesting that it’s the start of the new term.
[787] Dating The Chase (2.8) - The Doctor claims that as “this house is exactly what you would expect in a nightmare”, suspecting that the TARDIS and the Dalek time machine have landed “in a world of dreams” that “exists in the dark recesses of the human mind”. Viewers later find out the truth - the TARDIS has simply landed in a theme park. A sign proclaims that it is the “Festival of Ghana 1996”. The “Tower of London” quote is Ian’s description of what he has just seen. Quite why Peking would cancel an exhibition in Ghana is not explained.
[788] Original Sin. Vaughn’s memories are, by his own admission, corrupted and he seems to be a year out.
[789] Interference
[790] Something Inside. The year is unspecified, although there’s nothing to say it isn’t the discontinued Ghana celebration mentioned in The Chase.
[791] Dating The Sands of Time (MA #22) - The date is given (p117).
[792] At the start of Return of the Living Dad (p15).
[793] Bad Therapy. The exact year isn’t given.
[794] Dating “End Game” and “Oblivion” (DWM #244-247, 323-328) - “End Game” takes place “six days to Christmas”, and the day of Izzy’s return (the same as when she left) is given as “December 19th, 1996” in “Oblivion”. We learn in “TV Action” that Izzy was born on 12th October, 1979, and she’s “17” in a couple of the strips. “The Company of Thieves” establishes that Izzy is short for Isabelle.
[795] The Sontaran Stratagem. The Doctor says that Rattigan is only “18”, but he’s either estimating or belittling him, as Rattigan’s on screen biography says he attended local primary school from 1990 to 1992 - suggesting that, like the actor who played him (Ryan Sampson), Rattigan was born in 1985.
[796] Benny: The Vampire Curse: “The Badblood Diaries”, with an obvious reference to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
[797] “The Mark of Mandragora”
[798] Minuet in Hell
[799] Ghosts of India
[800] Dating Bullet Time (PDA #45) - The date of April 1997 is given (p15). Sarah Jane visits Bangkok just prior to this in March (p7). Britain turned over Hong Kong to China on 1st July, 1997. The report of Sarah Jane’s demise in this novel is largely unsubstantiated and hails from Ryder’s unreliable point-of-view. Sometime Never suggests the ambiguity of her death owes to the Council of Eight’s machinations. Sarah clearly survives, as evidenced in School Reunion, The Sarah Jane Adventures and several of the books (including System Shock, Millennium Shock, Christmas on a Rational Planet, Interference and The Shadow in the Glass). Bullet Time never names the stranded aliens, but they would appear to be the Tzun from McIntee’s First Frontier. The Cortez Project head, General Kyle, is possibly Marianne Kyle from The Face of the Enemy.
[801] Dating The Rapture (BF #36) - Ace reckons it is “ten years” after she left Earth.
[802] Dating Battlefield (26.1) - The Doctor tells Ace that they are “a few years in your future”. Sergeant Zbrigniev is apparently in his mid-thirties, served in UNIT while the Doctor was present, and appears to have first-hand recollection of two of the Doctor’s regenerations. Even if we assume that Zbrigniev is older than he looks (say, forty), and was very young when he joined UNIT, Spearhead from Space must have taken place in the mid-seventies. (The earliest Zbrigniev could be in the regular army is age 16, but he’d almost certainly need a couple more years before seeing active service, especially with an elite organisation like UNIT.)
The Battlefield novelisation by Marc Platt, based on notes by story author Ben Aaronovitch, sets the story in “the late 1990s” (p15). Ace later notices that Peter Warmsley’s tax disc expires on “30.6.99” (p30). The Terrestrial Index set the story in “1992” and The TARDIS Special chose 1991 - perhaps they misheard the Doctor’s line as “two years in your future”. In a document for Virgin Publishing dated 23rd March, 1995, concerning “Future History Continuity”, Ben Aaronovitch perhaps settled the matter when he stated that Battlefield is set “c.1997”. The Dying Days is set after this story.
The Doctor is apparently surprised to learn that Lethbridge-Stewart married Doris - in this story, The King of Terror and The Spectre of Lanyon Moor.
The Future of the United Nations
By Battlefield, UNIT is a truly multinational organisation with British, Czechoslovakian and Polish troops serving side by side. UNIT appear in the New Adventures The Pit, Head Games and Happy Endings, and the UN is referred to in Cat’s Cradle: Warhead. In The Enemy of the World, nations have been grouped together into Zones. The governing body of the world is the United Zones, or the World Zones Authority, headed by a General Assembly.
The United Nations still exists at the time of the Thousand Day War referred to in the New Adventure Transit. Gradually, though, national barriers break down and a World Government runs the planet. Where this leaves the UN is unclear, although it appears that the United Nations survives or is reformed at some time far in the futur
e. In Mission to the Unknown, Lowry’s ship is the “UN Deep Space Force Group 1”, and has the United Nations symbol and a Union Jack on the hull.
[803] Benny: Present Danger: “The Empire Variations”
[804] Dating The Dying Days (NA #61) - The date is given at the start of the story and on the back cover. 6th May is the date that Virgin’s license to publish Doctor Who books officially ended. Lethbridge-Stewart was cited as a General in Head Games.
[805] “The Mark of Mandragora” - a reference to “Invaders from Gantac” and Battlefield.
[806] Dating The Many Hands (NSA #24) - The year is given.
[807] Dating The Eight Doctors (EDA #1) - The date is given. Technically, Sam returns home in Interference before her younger self leaves with the Doctor.
[808] Dating Vampire Science (EDA #2) - The date is given (p25).
[809] Dating Genocide (EDA #3) - The time seems concurrent with the book’s publication in 1997. On page 147, Jo wonders if even “twentieth-century hospitals” will be capable of curing an illness that Julie contracts. Jo and Cliff are separated, and while it’s not expressly said that they’re divorced - they live near each other, and remain friendly enough that Cliff gave Jo a present on the first anniversary after he left her - Jo is using her maiden name of Grant, having been formerly known as Jo Jones. Matthew would appear to be Jo and Cliff’s only child, contradicting the shedload of offspring they have in SJA: Death of the Doctor.
[810] Dating Auton (Auton film #1) - The story was released in 1997, and seems contemporary. Lockwood says that the Nestenes are using “a bit of slurry” left over from a body they tried to create “decades ago” - presumably a reference to Spearhead from Space.
[811] “Ten years” before Army of Ghosts.
[812] Also “ten years” before Army of Ghosts, and elaborating on the super-weapon used in The Christmas Invasion.
[813] Wonderland
[814] Dating The Pit (NA #12) - The Doctor and the poet William Blake travel to the 1990s, apparently after the Doctor has met Brigadier Bambera in Battlefield.
[815] Dating Infinite Requiem (NA #36) - It is “1997”.
[816] “A couple of years” before “Plastic Millennium”.
[817] The Shadow in the Glass
[818] The Dying Days, first mentioned in Christmas on a Rational Planet.
The Monarchy
Different stories say different things about who is the British monarch around the turn of the millennium. Lethbridge-Stewart refers to the King in Battlefield, which is set in the late twentieth century. Happy Endings specifies that King Charles ruled at the turn of the millennium. There is a King when Mariah Learman seizes power in The Time of the Daleks, and by the time of Trading Futures. In Revenge of the Judoon, the tenth Doctor forecasts the reigns of Charles III and Queen Camilla, and King William V.
However, Queen Elizabeth II still reigns in Head Games (set in 2001) and Voyage of the Damned (set in 2008). Christmas on a Rational Planet refers to the “Recoronation”, apparently implying that Elizabeth II abdicated in favour of Charles, but - for reasons we can only speculate on - was restored to the throne soon afterwards. The Dying Days (set just after Battlefield) offers a different reason for the Recoronation: the Queen was usurped by the Ice Warrior Xznaal.
In the Doctor Who universe, there’s a Princess Mary who’s 19 at time Rags is set (p158). While it isn’t stated, she’s clearly a senior royal and by birth, so the obvious inference is that she’s the Queen’s daughter.
[819] Dating Touched by an Angel (NSA #47) - The exact day is given (p95).
[820] Christmas on a Rational Planet. “Morley” is presumably the same as the “Paul” whom Sarah is dating but not married to in Interference, set two years previous in 1996. If so, there’s no evidence that Sarah and Paul were married for long. When asked by Alan Jackson if she’s ever been married (in SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen), Sarah replies “No, never found time” - which might suggest that their marriage was annulled, that Sarah means she “never found time to commit to a relationship of wedlock”, or that she’s withholding the entire truth from Alan (whom she’s just met and has no reason to be all that forthcoming with) or some combination of all of those options. If Sarah and Paul’s marriage fizzled out quickly, it could owe to what Sarah implies in SJA: Invasion of the Bane - that there was “only ever one man for me [i.e. the Doctor] . After him, nothing compared...” - even if she comes to reevaluate that position while under supernatural influence (SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith).
[821] Touched by an Angel
[822] Iceberg
[823] In Transit, there’s a history book called Thatcher: The Wilderness Years.
[824] Timewyrm: Revelation
[825] Escape Velocity
[826] TW: Miracle Day
[827] “Twenty years” before SJA: The Lost Boy. Despite the similar name, no overt connection has been made between the Pharos Institute and the Pharos Project seen in Logopolis.
[828] “Ten years” before SJA: Warriors of Kudlak.
[829] “Ten years” before the linking material in The Story of Martha. As the Drast are defeated during the year of time that’s erased in Last of the Time Lords, it’s unclear what ended their plans in the actual history.
[830] Per Alex Hopkins’ report on Torchwood.org.uk.
[831] Dating System Shock (MA #11) - When asked, a barman, Rod, informs the Doctor that this is “1998”. The Doctor goes on to tell Sarah that in that particular year, “nothing of interest happened as far as I remember”. It is “twenty odd years” after Sarah’s time, and she muses that a “greying, mid-forties” future version of herself is alive in 1998, which the epilogue confirms.
[832] Cosgrove has “not left his desk in London for nearly twenty years” before Trading Futures.
[833] Dating Option Lock (EDA #8) - It’s “present day England” according to the blurb.
American Presidents in the Doctor Who Universe
As with British political history, Doctor Who presents a version of American politics that’s a mix of historical fact and whimsy. Interference lists the recent American Presidents as Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Dering (Option Lock, around 1998), Springsteen (Eternity Weeps, 2003) and Norris (Cat’s Cradle: Warhead, circa 2007 or 2009). Death Comes to Time has George W Bush as President, and stories including Trading Futures and Unregenerate! mention features of his presidency such as the War on Terror and the Iraq War. President Arthur Winters appears in The Sound of Drums, set in June 2008, but he’s assassinated. Obama is president in The End of Time (TV), which occurs at Christmas 2009, and in The Forgotten Army (p129), set in 2010.
A discrepancy is that in SJA: The Secrets of the Stars (set at November 2009), the president is hypnotised because he’s a Cancer - in real life, Obama was born 4th August and is a Leo. (Possibly, the news report of “the president” walking out of the White House is simply wrong.) Norris doesn’t fit the bill of being a Cancer either; he was born 10th March. Funnily enough, George W. Bush was born 6th July, and has the correct astrological symbol.
Bad Wolf mentions President Schwarzenegger (at present, Arnold is barred from the US presidency since he wasn’t born an American citizen). Trading Futures has President Mather in charge around 2015.
It is a little tricky to juggle the aforementioned presidents without inferring any impeachments or assassinations. Still, assuming the same fixed terms, elections would take place in, and be won by:
1996: Dering (meaning Clinton was a single termer in the Doctor Who universe.)
2000: Springsteen
2004: George W Bush (another single termer in the Doctor Who universe - this time missing the first term he had historically. This would set Death Comes to Time a couple of years after it was released, but that’s certainly not ruled out by the story. The reference in Neverland claiming the “wrong man became President” was meant to refer to Bush winning in 2000, which might be relevant - if highly ambiguous - in this context.)
Win
ters, then Norris, or vice-versa (US presidential elections are always held in November, so Winters being president in June 2008 would seem to indicate - unless one discards Death Comes to Time entirely, in which case Bush was probably never president and Winters was elected in 2004 - that Bush failed to complete his entire term. It’s tempting to think that Norris takes office following Winters’ death in June 2008, as the dating for Cat’s Cradle: Warhead is probably flexible enough to accommodate that. In which case, Norris only serves for a few months until the 2008 election. This is somewhat cleaner than thinking that Norris followed Bush and that Winters - somehow - followed Norris, which would result in another unnamed person being president after Winters is killed.
(Winters’ statement in The Sound of Drums that he’s “president elect” must be his way of telling the Toclafane “I’m the elected representative of my people” - a US politician would never use this term in such a fashion, as Americans use the term “president elect” to indicate someone who’s won a presidential election but has not yet taken office. The US Constitution dictates that a president elect can only exist between early November and the following January - anyone who becomes president via the death, incapacitation, resignation or Congressional ousting of the sitting president would immediately take office.)
2008: Obama (wins the November 2008 election as he did in real life. At time of writing, and barring further appearances by Obama on screen, the extreme social and economic upheaval seen in TW: Miracle Day in 2011 - including the cratering of the economy and the construction of mass incinerators for the near-dead - calls into question whether any sitting president could win reelection the next year, which might result in Obama being a single-termer.)
2012: Mather
2016 or 2020: Schwarzenegger (he’d be 69 or 73 on taking office.)
Their party affiliation can perhaps be inferred - if Dering beats Clinton (rather than, say, Clinton stepping aside or being impeached), he’s a Republican. The real-life Springsteen is a Democrat. Winters is almost doubtlessly a Republican, as his portrayal in The Sound of Drums marks him as a conservative. The real-life Chuck Norris is a Republican. Obama is a Democrat. Mather served in Bush’s Cabinet, so he’s likely a Republican (only on very rare occasions will a Cabinet member hail from a different party, although it happened under Clinton and Obama). We might assume that Schwarzenegger wouldn’t stand against a fellow Republican, so Mather serves two terms.