B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (189 page)

[
1197
] Dating
The Sound of Drums
(X3.12) - The Doctor, Martha and Jack arrive back from the future “four days” after
Smith and Jones,
the following morning when the Toclafane are unveiled. Constitutionally, there wouldn’t be an existing Cabinet, as the Master would have had to appoint one before killing its members.

Vote Saxon

There are apparent inconsistencies concerning the rise and election of Harold Saxon.

The facts are laid out as follows: Harriet Jones is deposed as Prime Minister after
The Christmas Invasion
(set in Christmas 2006). The Abzorbaloff in
Love & Monsters
holds a paper with the headline “Saxon Leads Polls with 64 per cent” (this occurs before
Doomsday
, as Jackie Tyler is still living on “our” Earth). Mr Saxon rises in prominence after ordering the shooting down of the Racnoss ship in
The Runaway Bride
(Christmas 2007, and explicitly after
Doomsday
). In
TW: Captain Jack Harkness
(set sometime after Christmas, as
TW: Out of Time
ends on 24th December), there’s a Vote Saxon poster in front of the disused Ritz dance hall. The “contemporary” stories in
Doctor Who
Series 3 (
Smith and Jones
,
The Lazarus Experiment
, a sequence in
42
,
The Sound of Drums
) all take place in the same week, with a General Election the day before
The Sound of Drums
. We’re told it’s eighteen months since
The Christmas Invasion
in
The Sound of Drums
(so it’s June 2008).

The problems are:

1. The Vote Saxon poster outside the Ritz suggests that
TW: Captain Jack Harkness
is set during the General Election campaign that elects Saxon, but the episode itself seems to be set soon after Christmas 2007, not June 2008. We can probably discount this problem pretty easily - the Vote Saxon poster doesn’t have to be part of the General Election campaign, it could have appeared quickly in the wake of the events of
The Runaway Bride
, as the start of the momentum that sees Saxon elected six months later.

2. Saxon is ahead in the polls (
Love & Monsters
) before he comes to prominence (after
The Runaway Bride
). The “poll” Saxon leads in late 2007 can’t be one for the General Election of June 2008, as British election campaigns only take four to six weeks. This is harder to explain, but it is possible…

Following
The Christmas Invasion
, it’s a turbulent time in British politics, as stated in
The Sound of Drums
. What we’re told in the series actually would lead to political problems - Harriet Jones’ party won a landslide victory, but confidence in Jones evaporates overnight. Under the British constitution, there’s no obligation for either Jones to hold a general election, or for there to be a general election if her party deposed her as leader… unless the government lost a vote of no confidence, and in practice no party with a “landslide” majority could lose such a vote.
The Christmas Invasion
implies that Jones resigns or is deposed soon after. Her party won an election largely because of her, and holds a massive Commons majority, but she’s no longer in charge. Whoever took part is at least third choice to lead the party (after the former Prime Minister who was assassinated by the Slitheen in
Aliens of London
, and Jones), and would almost certainly start out as a lame duck. We should probably note that this instability, exploited by the Master in Series 3, is actually instigated by the Doctor when he deposes Harriet Jones in
The Christmas Invasion
.

In this situation, people would be looking for alternative leaders, and papers would be running polls. Saxon becomes the Minister of Defence at some point in 2007, the www.votesaxon.co.uk website has him as a published novelist (the novel is called
Kiss Me, Kill Me
) and he’s married to the daughter of a Lord - so he’s clearly a public figure before
The Runaway Bride
. The Racnoss attack, and his handling of it, must be the last piece that makes his succession inevitable.

So the poll in
Love & Monsters
is almost certainly speculative, and perhaps even the first time most people had heard of Mr Saxon. It’s also very probably been placed there by Saxon himself.

[
1198
] Dating
The Story of Martha
(NSA #28a) - The book contains four of the many stories (“The Weeping”, “Breathing Space”, “The Frozen Wastes” and “Star-Crossed”) that Martha relates in her travels across the globe, with linking material that details, among other things, her involvement in thwarting the Drast.

[
1199
] Dating
Last of the Time Lords
(X3.13) - Time is reversed to 08:02, just before the Toclafane appeared in great numbers. This means Saxon is still elected and kills his Cabinet and (as is explicitly stated) President Winters is still assassinated. The last detail is something of a glitch, as all of the Toclafane’s actions (Winters’ death included) should have been temporally erased. Another problem is that the Doctor, Martha and Jack should still be known as “public enemies number one, two and three” despite the historical reversal (as is the case in
The Sound of Drums
), yet they’re later seen casually chatting in public with no fear of arrest.

Also at story’s end, the “accident and emergency” board behind Thomas Milligan says it’s October. This raises the possibility that the Doctor and Martha stay in London for a few months after the Master’s defeat, even if nothing else supports or denies the notion.

[
1200
]
Last of the Time Lords, The End of Time
(TV).

[
1201
]
The End of Time
(TV)

[
1202
] Dating “The Widow’s Curse” (
DWM
#395-398) - The female Sycorax have been trying to learn what became of their men (
The Christmas Invasion
) for “two years”.

[
1203
]
The Doll of Death
. Jo says in the framing material that it’s “thirty-five years on” from the flashback story, which is set between Seasons 8 and 9 (broadcast in 1971 and 1972). The audio was released on October 2008, either suggesting that writer Marc Platt favours the UNIT stories taking place a bit in the future, or just that Jo is rounding a little. Mention is made in
The Magician’s Oath
(the framing sequence of which occurs a week after this story) of “Sir Alistair” (as Lethbridge-Stewart is called in
The Poison Sky
), also suggesting that it’s contemporary.

[
1204
] Mike shows up to have dinner with Jo at the end of
The Doll of Death
; the framing sequence of
The Magician’s Oath
opens a week afterwards.

[
1205
]
The Doll of Death

[
1206
]
The Magician’s Oath
, also mentioned in
The Sontaran Stratagem.

[
1207
] Dating
Torchwood
Series 2 - While it’s customary in this phase of
Doctor Who
to place stories a year ahead of broadcast, this would seem to be an exception. The new season opens with Jack returning to his Torchwood team after
Last of the Time Lords
; notably, he seems to go home under his own power (it’s questionable if the Doctor even could give Jack a lift in the TARDIS if he wanted, after the way the Ship reacted in
Utopia
), so no time displacement is involved, and Series 2 presumably opens in the space of time it takes Jack to mop up any lingering details concerning the Master’s tenure as prime minister and return to Cardiff. The mood at Torchwood is such that Jack has been absent for some months at least, but nothing suggests that he’s been away anything as long as a year (everyone is still actively pining for Jack, in fact), which supports the notion that the modern-day component of
Utopia
occurs a few months before the Doctor and Martha first meet in
Smith and Jones
.

Torchwood
script editor Gary Russell confirms that timeline for Series 2 was calibrated to begin in 2008 and end the following year - that is supported in that save for the last two episodes (
TW: Fragments
and
TW: Exit Wounds
), the dating clues throughout Series 2 all concur with a dating of 2008. See the individual entries for more.

[
1208
] Dating
TW:
“The Legacy of Torchwood One!” (
TWM
#1) - The story saw release between
TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
and
TW: Sleeper
.

[
1209
] Dating
TW: To the Last Man
(
TW
2.3) - “Friday the 20th” is circled on Tosh’s calendar, and is also seen on Jack’s calendar. In 2008, such a day only occurred in June - which neatly fits with
Last of the Time Lords
occurring in the same month, and Jack returning to the Hub shortly afterwards. Tommy, who was frozen in 1918, is said to have been at the Hub for “ninety years”. Tosh says that she’s known Tommy for “four years”, which is consistent with her having been a member of Torchwood for “three years” in
TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts
, and “five years” in
TW: Fragments
. Tommy has been revived on an annual basis but doesn’t know Gwen, so less than a year has passed since
TW: Everything Changes
.

[
1210
] Dating
TW: Something in the Water
(
TW
novel #4) - Tosh mentions (p31) the Rift’s “recent time shift with 1918” (
TW: To the Last Man
), but Rhys doesn’t yet know (p30) Torchwood’s true purpose (
TW: Meat
).
The Time Traveller’s Almanac
says that Strepto is one of the twenty-seven planets the Daleks abducted to build their reality bomb (
The Stolen Earth
).

[
1211
] Dating
TW: Trace Memory
(
TW
novel #5) - The year is given (p23), and it’s twice said that it’s “fifty-five years” after 1953. It’s a Sunday (p13, p232).

[
1212
] It’s possible that the “star whale” is related to the “space whale” seen in
The Beast Below
.

[
1213
] Dating
TW: Everyone Says Hello
(
TW
audiobook #2),
TW: In the Shadows
(
TW
audiobook #3),
TW:
“Rift War” (
TWM
#4-13),
TW:
“Shrouded” (
TWM
#21-22) - In all of these stories, Rhys knows Torchwood’s true purpose (so, it’s after
TW: Meat
), but Owen hasn’t “died” (so, it’s before
TW: Reset
).
Everyone Says Hello
(cited on its blurb as occurring in Series 2) was released on 4th February, 2008, between the broadcasts of
TW: Meat
and
TW: Adam
, and nestles between the two stories easily enough. One oddity is that Gwen and Rhys seem to spend six weeks in “Rift War” caring for a giant Zansi infant; fortunately, the continuity in this phase of Series 2 is pliable enough that such a duration of time might well elapse between the TV episodes.