B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (170 page)

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” version 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.

[
522
] Dating
Logopolis
(18.7) - The date is first stated in
Four to Doomsday
, and is the same day that the first episode was broadcast. This is the first on-screen use of the term “chameleon circuit”.
The TARDIS Logs
set the
Logopolis
sequence in “4950”. It’s never stated if the other CVEs are ever restored, although it’s possible that reviving the Cassiopeia CVE opened the others.

[
523
] Dating
Castrovalva
(19.1) - This story immediately follows
Logopolis
.

[
524
] Dating
Four to Doomsday
(19.2) - The Doctor establishes that he has returned Tegan to the right point in time “16.15 hours” on “February 28th 1981”, the day episode one of
Logopolis
was broadcast.

[
525
]
TW: First Born

[
526
]
Project: Destiny

[
527
] Dating
Nuclear Time
(NSA #40) - The day is repeatedly given.

[
528
]
The King of Terror
. In
Castrovalva
, the newly-regenerated/confused fifth Doctor seemed to allude to an incident that involved the Brigadier and the Ice Warriors. In
The Dying Days
, the Brigadier says he never met the Ice Warriors, so this couldn’t have involved him.