[1396] Dating The Big Bang (X5.13) - The date of the wedding (“26/6/2010”) is established first in Flesh and Stone, and mirrors the broadcast of The Big Bang on the same day.
[1397] The Doctor speculates in A Good Man Goes to War that this happened on Amy and Rory’s wedding night (in The Big Bang), but there’s reason to doubt this (see the Cracks in Time sidebar); the conception could have happened while they were travelling together in Series 5, or at any point between The Big Bang and the Doctor dropping Amy and Rory on Earth (prior to The Impossible Astronaut). Whatever the case, nine months must pass in Amy’s personal timeframe before she starts to give birth at the end of The Rebel Flesh.
[1398] Dating SJA: The Nightmare Man (SJA 4.1) - A calendar in Luke’s room prominently says “September 2010” and is in accordance with the real-world calendar. The story counts down the four days marked on the calendar, from the 6th (when Luke starts packing) to the 10th (when he departs for Oxford).
[1399] Dating SJA: Wraith World (SJA audiobook #7) - The story effectively begins on the day of Wilkinson’s bookstore signing, on “Monday, 13th September” (an actual Monday in 2010) and events pick up “two days later”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t sit well with the established continuity of The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 4. Luke left for Oxford (in SJA: The Nightmare Man) the week prior to 13th September, so it’s strange that he’d suddenly be back at home, without explanation, the very next Monday - and also a month later, in this story’s epilogue - given how little he otherwise visits Sarah in the TV show. But, Rani’s inclusion means that Wraith World cannot be bumped back to the previous year, as she didn’t meet Sarah and friends until early October 2009 - which, again, would conflict with the 13th September dating. Whatever the case, Sarah’s comment that she was “just like [Rani] when I was 15” has to be taken as a generalisation, as Rani should be 16 if this story occurs in 2009, 17 if it’s 2010.
[1400] The month prior to SJA: Defending Bannerman Road.
[1401] Dating SJA: The Vault of Secrets (SJA 4.2) - No specific date is given, although it’s said to be “almost forty years” since 1972. The “ancient and deadly civilisation” is likely the Osirians, as a pyramid a la Pyramids of Mars is briefly glimpsed on Mars on Mr Smith’s monitor. The Alliance of Shades was introduced in Dreamland (DW).
[1402] Demon Quest: The Relics of Time
[1403] Dating SJA: Death of the Doctor (SJA 4.3) - No specific date is given, although Sarah comments that the Doctor “came back” about four years ago. (This is presumably a reference to his coming back into her life in School Reunion, although it’s only been three years since that story. In a pinch, if one squints really hard, by “came back” Sarah might mean the Doctor’s greater involvement in human affairs per Series 1.) The Doctor says it’s been “forty years” since Jo left UNIT. Santiago mentions that he hasn’t seen his mother in “six months”, and hasn’t gotten together with all of his family “since about February” - but since he might have seen his mother after that, it can’t automatically be said that it’s now August.
Sarah here recalls her final meeting with the tenth Doctor in The End of Time (TV). The Doctor has left Amy and Rory on a honeymoon planet, so this is almost certainly set between The Big Bang and A Christmas Carol in his timeline.
Aside from Jo, the fates of the companions as given in this story broadly match (or, at least, don’t grievously contradict) what has been established in the tie-in series. The non-televised stories seem, at the very least, to inform this story. A number of the books established that Ian and Barbara married and became professors (eg: Goth Opera). The rumours that Sarah mentions - that Ian and Barbara have “never aged since the 60s” - might indeed just be rumours, as the Big Finish audios (The Five Companions especially) have consistently rendered Ian as an older man, roughly concurrent with William Russell’s real age.
Sarah here implies (but doesn’t outright say) that Harry Sullivan has died - he’s cited as being alive in UNIT: The Wasting (likely set in spring 2005), and Sarah tries to have her annual meet-up with Harry (although he fails to show) in SJS: Buried Secrets, set in the same year. He’s also said to be alive in 2015 in Damaged Goods (also by Russell T Davies). This being Doctor Who, it’s possible that there’s an extended stretch where Sarah thinks that Harry is dead, but he’s actually been kidnapped by (say) space weasels, and that he later returns home. (Either way, this would explain why Harry never visits Sarah in her own series.) Liz Shaw apparently died in Eternity Weeps, set in 2003... but in that book, as with Death of the Doctor, she was working on a moonbase. (See the Did Liz Shaw Die in 2003? sidebar.)
The “Dorothy” that Sarah mentions might be Dodo, but the initials of Dorothy’s charity imply otherwise. Ace’s fate is convoluted, to say the least, but if we want to invoke the books, it’s possible she saw the dystopian near-future of Cat’s Cradle: Warhead and decided to try to avert it. Or, it’s possible that her leading A Charitable Earth owes to her being undercover/on assignment for the Doctor, and is only temporary.
The biggest contradiction is Jo’s fate (married mother of seven, grandmother of twleve), which is far more cheerful here than her status in Genocide (divorced mother of just one child). While it’s easy enough to imagine that she and Cliff later remarried, there is, with the best of will, no good way to reconcile the differing accounts of their children.
[1404] Dating SJA: Return of the Krulius/SJA: Defending Bannerman Road (SJA webcomic #2-3) - The action seems to take place after Luke departs for Oxford, as he’s absent save for a highly posed group shot in the very last panel. The Krulius has a picture of Sarah standing next to the Matt Smith Doctor, implying it’s after SJA: Death of the Doctor.
[1405] Dating SJA: The Empty Planet (SJA 4.4) - No specific date is given, although it’s said to be a school night. Clyde and Rani were “grounded” in SJA: Prisoner of the Judoon.
[1406] Dating SJA: Deadly Download (SJA audiobook #8) - The audio was made available for download on 4th November, 2010, between the broadcasts of SJA: The Empty Planet and SJA: Lost in Time. (The CD was released 15th November, 2010.) Sarah opens the story with, “It all began one cold November afternoon”, and plays some Christmas songs, albeit “a bit prematurely”.
[1407] Dating SJA: Lost in Time (SJA 4.5) - The date appears on a newspaper; in 2010, 23rd November was indeed a Tuesday. Rani says at one point, “I’m only 17”. George Woods was 13 when Clyde met him on 7th June, 1941, and has now aged seventy years - which is feasible if his birthday is 8th June or later.
[1408] Dating SJA: Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith (SJA 4.6) - No specific date is given. The population of Earth is “six billion”. Sarah here orders Mr Smith to distribute the cover story that the whole of humanity thought that a meteor was coming toward them as part of a 3D-game promotion, but it’s such a ludicrous tale even by Doctor Who standards, it’s hard to see it gaining any traction.
[1409] Dating Demon Quest: The Relics of Time (BBC fourth Doctor audio #2.1) - The Hornets’ Nest series was “last year”, it is “next Christmas”, and the Doctor has had “a year’s absence” from Nest Cottage. It’s three days before Christmas.
[1410] Demon Quest: Sepulchre
[1411] Demon Quest: Sepulchre
[1412] Dating Demon Quest: The Demon of Paris (BBC fourth Doctor audio #2.2) - According to Mrs Wibbsey, “We arrived on the day we left, December the 23rd”.
[1413] Dating Demon Quest: A Shard of Ice (BBC fourth Doctor audio #2.3) - The Doctor and Mike return the same day as they left.
[1414] Dating Find and Replace (BF CC #4.3) - It’s repeatedly said that it’s Christmas Eve, and the back cover blurb specifies the year as 2010. Adding to the debate of whether the public of this era knows about the existence of extra-terrestrials or not, Jo fakes surprise upon learning that Huxley is an alien.
[1415] Dating Demon Quest: Starfall (BBC fourth Doctor audio #2.4) - The Doctor and Yates return soon after they left.
[1416] Dating Demon Quest: Sepulchre (BBC fourth Doc
tor audio #2.5) - The final sequence takes place on Christmas Eve. The sequences on Sepulchre explicitly take place in “a different time” and are undatable, but have been included here for clarity.
[1417] Dating Serpent Crest: Tsar Wars and Aladdin Time (BBC fourth Doctor audios #3.1, #3.3) - The story picks up directly after the robots charged into Nest Cottage on Christmas Eve, at the end of Demon Quest: Sepulchre.
[1418] Events in 2011 include The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 5, many (but not all) of the “present day” sequences of Doctor Who Series 6, and Torchwood Series 4 (a.k.a. TW: Miracle Day).
[1419] Fear Her. Chloe’s father died the previous year.
[1420] No Man’s Land
[1421] TW: Miracle Day. This is presumably part of the Three Families’ efforts to exploit the Miracle.
[1422] A Good Man Goes to War. Wonder had his first hit, age 13, in 1963. The Doctor could have recruited him at any point in the many decades to come; linking it to the present day seems reasonable.
[1423] Dalek
[1424] Benny: Another Girl, Another Planet
[1425] Relative Dimensions. The year isn’t stated, but the idea seems to be that Lucie is back her home turf, so it’s probably the January after she started travelling with the Monk. The Doctor uses a debit card linked to an account with his “untouched” UNIT salary, further suggesting that it’s the modern day.
[1426] Dating The Crimes of Thomas Brewster (BF #143) - The story seems contemporary and was released in January 2011; Evelyn concurs with this at the start of The Feast of Axos, claiming that The Crimes of Thomas Brewster took place in “2011”. However, in Tales from the Vault - seemingly set in 2011 - Captain Ruth Matheson says the Terravore incident was “last year”. Patricia Menzies mentions meeting the Doctor “a couple of years ago”, and while she could be referring to The Condemned (set in February 2008), it’s more likely she means The Raincloud Man (set in December 2008), so she could be rounding up a little.
[1427] Dating The Forbidden Time (BF CC #5.9) - The Doctor tells Polly that the Vist seek to capture an eight-year span of time from “2011 to 2019”, and the Vist’s message is presumably triggered at the start of it - also in accordance with the audio coming out in 2011.
[1428] Dating “Ripper’s Curse” (IDW DW Vol. 2 #2-4) - The date is given in a caption. Amy and Rory are married, but there’s no indication that Amy is pregnant, suggesting that this is part of the adventures they experience between A Christmas Carol and their returning to Leadworth prior to The Impossible Astronaut.
[1429] Dating Jago & Litefoot: Swan Song (J&L #3.3) - The setting seems contemporary; J&L: Chronoclasm specifies the year as “2011”. Very strangely, Payne at one point says that in Victorian times, the New Regency was located adjacent to where his laboratory will be in “several thousand years”. (This can’t mean Earth in the future, as Payne isn’t human and conducted his work near a black star.) No mention is made of the Miracle from TW: Miracle Day, so events in this story likely resolve beforehand.
[1430] Dating The Sentinels of the New Dawn (BF CC #5.10) - This framing sequence is probably contemporary with the audio’s release in 2011.
[1431] Dating Ferril’s Folly (BF CC 5.11) - The audio was released in May 2011, and the blurb says it occurs on “Earth in the present day”. There’s little to support or rule against this, save that Millicent Ferril was a NASA astronaut fifteen years ago.
[1432] Dating Tales from the Vault (BF CC 6.1) - The audio came out in July 2011. Sato remarks that some items in the Vault have labels such as “Do not open until the year 2011”, and the revived Kalicarache says, “What year is this... 2011”. It’s “about ten years” after the story’s 2002 component. Mucking things up slightly is that Matheson says the Terravore incident in The Crimes of Thomas Brewster was “last year” (see the dating notes on that story).
[1433] Dating Heart of Stone (BBC children’s 2-in-1 #2) - The story seems contemporary, especially in its allusions to NASA, and was released in 2011. For the Doctor, Amy and Rory, it appears to occur during their travels together between Series 5 and 6.
[1434] Dating The Witch from the Well (BF #154) - It’s “twenty-first century Earth”, and “three and a half centuries” since the witch scare at Tranchard’s Fell in the seventeenth century. Without any other evidence, the story is probably contemporary with its release in 2011.
[1435] Dating “Down to Earth” (IDW DW Annual 2011) - The setting appears contemporary. A World War II fighter plane is considered “old”, but not so old that it’s unlikely that it could still fly.
[1436] Dating “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” (DWM #432) - The year is given, and repeated in “The Child of Time” (DWM).
[1437] “The Child of Time” (DWM). One of the downsides of Chiyoko cancelling out her own existence is that the Hawkshaw residents are, presumably, made to remain on Earth as senior citizens.
[1438] Amy and Rory first part company with the Doctor at some point after A Christmas Carol, and it’s “two months” before they see him again in The Impossible Astronaut.
[1439] As revealled in The Almost People. It’s not clear when Amy’s abduction/replacement happens, but it’s far more likely to have happened when she and Rory are living on Earth and away from the Doctor’s protection (so, between A Christmas Carol and The Impossible Astronaut). It’s alternatively possible that the switch happened in the three months between The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon in 1969, but that would more awkwardly require the Silence to be nipping in and out of their own timeline, when (setting aside that River does this sort of thing all the time) there’s no evidence otherwise that they’re doing so.
[1440] Dating SJA: Sky (SJA 5.1) - The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 5 was broadcast from 3rd to 18th October, 2011, but what few dating clues are provided suggests that it actually takes place sooner than that, in spring of the same year. As SJA: The Curse of Clyde Langer appears to occur in early April (see the dating notes on that story), and also says that Sky came to Earth (in Sky) “barely a month” beforehand, Sky itself must take place in early March. Supporting that timeframe, Rani’s mum says in Sky that Rani is “17” - we know from cross-referencing SJA: Secrets of the Stars and SJA: Lost in Time that Rani is an Aries born in 1993, so if she’s still 17, then Sky cannot occur any later than the second-to-last day of Aries, 19th April. (If it were 20th April, and Rani’s birthday were the same day, Gita would almost certainly have mentioned it instead of just saying, “She’s 17”.) The scenery isn’t entirely in keeping with early March - the trees have leaves, and Sky is amazed at all the green plants (flowers included) growing in Sarah’s driveway - but otherwise it’s not so warm and sunny as to evoke the onset of summer. In fact, it’s noticeably windy and overcast.
Myers’ name is spelled “the alien way”, but we’re never told what that means, exactly, so it’s rendered here as it appears in the credits.
[1441] Dating SJA: The Curse of Clyde Langer (SJA 5.2) - Sarah is reading The Ealing Echo as Clyde visits her the morning after the curse on him activates, and while the newspaper’s dateline is unreadable, the top headline on the back page - presumably the sports section - says “... For Cricket’s First Day”. The 2011 English cricket season commenced on 2nd April (a mid to late April start is typical, but the seasons began much earlier than the norm in 2010 and 2011). That fits very well with SJA: Sky not being able to occur later than the end of Aries (20th April; see the dating notes on that story), and Sarah Jane’s statement in The Curse of Clyde Langer that “barely a month” has passed since Sky.
The passage of time within The Curse of Clyde Langer, however, is a bit trickier to pin down. At first blush, it would appear that a total of two nights and three days (the first and last of which are school days) elapse, but Ellie’s comment to Clyde at the start of episode two - that she first saw him “the other day” (back when he first visited the museum, after the rain of fish) - might suggest that more time than that passes. If so, and presuming for the mome
nt that Sarah is seen reading (for whatever reason) an older edition of The Ealing Echo, a framework for this story can be derived... the rain of fish happens on 1st April, and Sarah and her friends visit the Museum (leading to Clyde getting the splinter) on the same day; the 2nd April edition of The Ealing Echo leads with the story “Fish Flingers” and also contains a preview (not an after-the-fact account) of “Cricket’s First Day”; the curse on Clyde’s name fully activates the night of 3rd April, when he signs his name to some artwork (this means that a day passes between the scenes of Clyde and his mother settling down to dinner and him going to bed, which isn’t intuitive but works); Clyde is ostracised after visiting Sarah the morning of 4th April, when she’s going through some articles from the 2nd April Ealing Echo (possibly just because she failed to read it over the weekend); night passes between episodes one and two, and events conclude no earlier than 5th April. (Possibly even later than that, depending on how long Clyde is forced to live on the streets.)
[1442] Dating SJA: The Man Who Never Was (SJA 5.3) - There’s no indication of how much time has passed since SJA: The Curse of Clyde Langer. The SerfBoard launch date is given as “the 15th”; as it’s not a school day and 15th April was a Friday in 2011, the best fit (if the real-world calendar holds any sway here) is Sunday, 15th May. It’s also a bit symmetrical to think that The Man Who Never Was takes place at the end of the school year - this could in fact be the reason why Luke is home from Oxford, although it isn’t said.
[1443] Dating SJA: Children of Steel and SJA: Judgement Day (SJA audios #9-10) - The final (to date) Sarah Jane Adventures audios occur at some unspecified point after Sky’s introduction (SJA: Sky). The audios were released after Series 5 had finished broadcasting, so it’s entirely possible that they follow on from the final TV story, SJA: The Man Who Never Was. Both of the audios occur on a Saturday, and so must take place at least a week apart. Judgement Day provides further evidence that Series 5 occurs earlier in the year than when it aired (in October 2011) - Sarah is said to “step out of the house, and into the spring sunshine”, and it’s established that SJA: Judgement of the Judoon was “many months ago”, SJA: Vault of Secrets (set circa October 2010) was “a few months ago”. One oddity - because there hasn’t been quite enough done to confuse the issue of when the humanity learns about the existence of extra-terrestrials, oh no - is that Sarah Jane wins over the Veritas partly by convincing them that humanity is “not ready for the truth” that aliens are real, in defiance of the public surely having figured it out by now.
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