B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (173 page)

[
633
]
TW: The Men Who Sold the World
, presumably in reference to the Iran-Contra affair of the mid-80s.

[
634
]
Borrowed Time
. It’s “about 1985, just a year before the Big Bang changed the regulation of the London stock market” (on 27th October, 1986).

[
635
]
Animal
, extrapolating from Raine’s birth year of 1967 (
Thin Ice
).

[
636
] Dating “Skywatch-7” (
DWM
#58,
DWM Winter Special 1981
) - The date is given in the caption running across the top of the first page.

[
637
]
TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts

[
638
]
The Hollow Men
. Hatch is “fourteen” (p79) when this occurs.

[
639
]
Return of the Living Dad
and
Father Time
. The space shuttle is never mentioned in a television story, and
The Tenth Planet
depicts an international space programme of a far greater extent than the real 1986.

[
640
] “Black Destiny”

[
641
]
Wooden Heart
, although
The Torchwood Archives
says she was born on 14th September, 1984. Freema Agyeman was born on 20th March, 1979.

[
642
]
TW: A Day in the Death

[
643
]
TW: The Twilight Streets

[
644
]
TW:
“The Legacy of Torchwood One!”

[
645
] “Four hundred and fifty years” after 1536, i.e. 1986, according to
Recorded Time and Other Stories
: “Recorded Time”. Mind you, the Doctor doesn’t say that his coat was fashionable
on Earth
.

[
646
] Dating
Harry Sullivan’s War
(
The Companions of Doctor Who
#2) - It is “ten years” since Harry left UNIT, and so placing this story is subject to UNIT dating. It’s clearly set in the mid-nineteen eighties.

[
647
] Dating
The Nightmare Fair
(BF LS #1.1) - The story was written for Season 23, and intended for broadcast in 1986. It’s “about a hundred years” after
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
. 1778 was “over two hundred years ago”.

[
648
] Dating “Time Bomb” (
DWM
#114-116) - The caption reads “Earthdate 1986”. The dinosaur men are not Silurians.

[
649
] Dating
The Tenth Planet
(4.2) - A calendar gives the date as “December 1986”. This is the clearest example so far of real life catching up with “futuristic” events described the series, but in
Attack of the Cybermen
(broadcast in 1985), the date of “1986” for this story was reaffirmed.
Radio Times
and publicity material at the time gave the date as “the late 1980s”, as did the second edition of
The Making of Doctor Who
. The draft script set the date as “2000 AD”, as did Gerry Davis’ novelisation. (The book followed a draft of the story rather than the broadcast version, as the draft included more scenes with the Doctor.)

The Making of Doctor Who
(first edition) also used the “2000” date. The first two editions of
The Programme Guide
set the range as “1975-80”. This confused the American
Doctor Who
comic, which decided that
The Tenth Planet
must precede
The Invasion
and both were set in “the 1980s”. John Peel’s novelisation of
The Power of the Daleks
set the preceding story in “the 1990s”.

[
650
]
The First Wave

[
651
]
The Tenth Planet
,
The Power of the Daleks
. The term “regeneration” isn’t used until
Planet of the Spiders
.

[
652
]
Original Sin

[
653
]
Iceberg

[
654
]
Human Resources

[
655
] “Ten years” before
Battlefield.

[
656
]
Dragonfire
establishes much of Ace’s background, with further details given in
Battlefield
and
The Curse of Fenric
. She first returns to Perivale in
Survival
.

The tie-in stories offer more detail. The timestorm was in 1987 according to
Timewyrm: Revelation
(p70) and
Independence Day
(she saw
Withnail and I
a few days before the timestorm occurred). She’s from 1986 in
White Darkness
(p130) and
First Frontier
(p45).
Crime of the Century
establishes that Ace left Earth before Black Monday (19th October, 1987), and
Thin Ice
establishes that she doesn’t know about such late-80s political elements as
glasnost
.

[
657
]
Matrix

[
658
] During
The Crystal Bucephalus.

[
659
] The short stories “Mondas Passing” (from
Short Trips
, 1998) and “That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking For a Dress” (from
Short Trips: Past Tense
2004). Both are outside the boundaries of this guidebook, but are referenced here because it’s relevant to Polly and Ben’s status in
The Five Companions
.

[
660
]
The Also People

[
661
]
Death and Diplomacy.
Jason was “nearly 13” when Lucy was “nine” (p150).

[
662
] “Two years” before
Business Unusual.

[
663
]
Mad Dogs and Englishmen

[
664
]
TW: First Born

[
665
]
SJA: The Glittering Storm

[
666
]
The Eight Truths
,
Worldwide Web.

[
667
]
The Room with No Doors

[
668
] This date is given in the Writers’ Guide and in an article written by Russell T. Davies in the
2006 Doctor Who Annual
. However, Rose is “19” according to the Doctor in
The Unquiet Dead
and
Army of Ghosts
, when she really ought to be 18. It’s said in
Rise of the Cybermen
that Rose was “six months” when her father died, which would fit her written birthday of 27th April and the dating of
Father’s Day
to 7th November.

[
669
] According to Kathy’s tombstone as seen in
Blink
. Her handwritten letter to Sally seems to be dated “7th February, 1987”.

[
670
]
Crime of the Century

[
671
]
Benny: Nobody’s Children

[
672
] Dating
Damaged Goods
(NA #55) - The date “17 July 1987” is given (p8).

[
673
] Dating
Father’s Day
(X1.8) - The date is given. The Reapers are not named on screen, but are named as such in the script.

[
674
] The Powell Estate is cited in episodes such as
Aliens of London
and
Tooth and Claw.
Victor Kennedy specifies Rose and Jackie’s address as “Bucknall House, No. 48” in
Love & Monsters
. The full address, with the post code, appeared in the
Doctor Who Annual 2006.

[
675
]
The Dying Days
(p94).

[
676
]
Sky Pirates!
(p334).

[
677
]
TW: Miracle Day
. He’s born in 1912 and dies age 76, presuming the file on his adopted alias can be trusted.

[
678
] Dating
The Company of Friends
: “Izzy’s Story” (BF #123c) - The Doctor tells Izzy that they’ve arrived at “The village of Stockbridge, relative date: Friday, the 8th of April, 1988.”

[
679
]
J&L: Swan Song

[
680
]
Brave New Town

[
681
]
SJA: Death of the Doctor
. Date unknown, but actor Finn Jones, who played Santiago, was born in 1988.

[
682
]
Army of Ghosts
. Construction of the building began in 1988.

[
683
] Twenty years before the Doctor kills the Captain, as related in
The Eyeless
.

[
684
] Dating
Silver Nemesis
(25.3) - The first scene is set, according to the caption slide, in “South America, 22nd November 1988”. The Doctor’s alarm goes off the next day - although it is a beautiful sunny day.

[
685
]
Option Lock

[
686
] “Eighteen years” before
Red Dawn
.

[
687
]
SJA: Wraith World
. This happened “back in the 80s”, but also “twenty years” before 2010.

[
688
] Amy is repeatedly said to be seven when she meets the Doctor in
The Eleventh Hour
, set in Easter 1996. “Forever Dreaming” names her birth year as “1989”, so she was evidently born before Easter. Her middle name is given in
The Beast Below
.

[
689
] Mel first appeared on television in
Terror of the Vervoids
, but the events of her joining the Doctor were shown in
Business Unusual.

Mel’s First Adventure

The Writers’ Guide for Season 23 suggested that Mel joined the Doctor after an encounter with the Master, and this is echoed in the Missing Adventure
Millennial Rites
(p83). This appears to be contradicted by
The Ultimate Foe
when Mel fails to recognise the renegade Time Lord, but
Business Unusual
establishes that Mel didn’t actually meet the Master on that occasion. The Writers’ Guide also suggested that Mel had been travelling with the Doctor for “three months”. It is entirely possible that Mel started her travels with the Doctor at the end of
The Ultimate Foe
, negating the need for a “first adventure”, but this idea is riddled with paradoxes (i.e.: she is from her own future and would have memories of her first few adventures before she arrived).