Authors: Lance Parkin,Lars Pearson
[
965
]
The Forgotten Army
. The Doctor says this was in “1829” (p156) - probably either a typo or the result of him misremembering, as the Plug Uglies and Dead Rabbits operated in the 1850s, not the 1820s.
[
966
]
The Eleventh Tiger
[
967
] Dating
Benny: The Vampire Curse
: “Possum Kingdom” (Benny collection #12b) - The tour group members dress up for the Victorian era (1837-1901), but nothing more specific is given.
[
968
]
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
. Jago claims to have had “thirty years in the halls”.
[
969
] Dating
The Haunting of Thomas Brewster
(BF #107) - Brewster is sold after having lived at Shanks’ workhouse for ten years.
[
970
] Dating
The Good, the Bad and Alien
(BBC children’s 2-in-1 #3) - The story takes place “three months” (p109) after “18 April 1861” (p7).
[
971
] It’s a Level Five world come the twenty-first century; see
City of Death
.
[
972
] Dating
Serpent Crest: The Broken Crown
and
Serpent Crest: Aladdin Time
(BBC fourth Doctor audios #3.2-3.3) - The Doctor tells Mrs Wibbsey, “You saw that newspaper in the village shop, this is 1861. We have to get acclimatised.”
[
973
]
Just War
[
974
] “The Forgotten”
[
975
]
A Good Man Goes to War
. The London Underground first opened in 1863; it’s not specified if the Doctor met Vastra as part of the initial construction or as it continued.
Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia
says that the Underground tunnelling accidentally obliterated the shelter in which Vastra’s people lived.
[
976
]
Tooth and Claw
(TV)
[
977
]
The Eleventh Tiger
[
978
] “The Tides of Time”
[
979
] “Half a century” before
Year of the Pig
, provided the age of Chardalot’s journals is anything to go by.
[
980
]
An Earthly Child
,
Wooden Heart
. “Blondin” is Charles Blondin (a.k.a. Jean François Gravelet-Blondin), a French tight-rope walker and acrobat who lived 1824–1897. He first performed the Niagara Falls feat in 1859, but repeated it, with variations, a number of times after that.
[
981
]
The Three Companions
. The Metropolitan line opened 10th of January, 1863.
[
982
] Dating
Empire of Death
(PDA #65) - The story’s starting and ending dates are given on p37 and p235.
[
983
]
Logopolis
. Thomas Huxley lived 1825-1895.
[
984
]
The Evil of the Daleks
, with further details in
Downtime.
[
985
]
The War Games
[
986
]
The Chase
. The TARDIS crew supposedly watch this on the Time-Space Visualiser, although it’s possible that they’re just watching Lincoln rehearse the speech beforehand. The actual event had Lincoln surrounded by a huge crowd in close quarters; the Visualiser shows him very much isolated.
[
987
]
Iris: The Panda Invasion
[
988
]
An Earthly Child
. This happened in 1864.
[
989
] Dating
The Runaway Train
(BBC
DW
audiobook #9) - The year is given, and it’s after the battle of Galveston (there were actually two of these, fought on 4th October, 1862, and then on 1st January, 1863).
[
990
] Dating
Renaissance of the Daleks
(BF #93) - The date is given toward the end of episode two. As stated, the detonation killed three hundred Confederates, but the Union army miscalculated in the explosion’s aftermath, and lost fifty-three thousand troops. The crater caused by the mine explosion is still visible to this day.
[
991
] “Over one hundred years” before
Iris: The Land of Wonder
. The implication is that Lewis Carroll’s work was based upon Dodd’s Wonderland, but it’s not explained how this is the case. Perhaps the malleable creatures in Wonderland patterned themselves, somehow, after the characters in Carroll’s books. Either way,
Alice in Wonderland
saw print in 1865, and Dodd’s Wonderland was presumably created around the same time.
[
992
] Dating
Blood and Hope
(TEL #14) - Judging by a letter on p29, the TARDIS crew arrive in America on 21st February, 1865. The Doctor’s saving Lincoln is dated on p49; Eustace’s death is dated on p69.
[
993
]
Minuet in Hell
[
994
] “Fifteen years” before
Evolution
(p107).
[
995
] Dating
Assassin in the Limelight
(BF #108) - The story takes place on the day Lincoln was shot (14th April, 1865; he died the following day). The Civil War had concluded a mere five days beforehand on 9th April, when General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia.
Knox here passes himself off as Oscar Wilde - who is only age ten when this story takes place - but the few people to see him as “Wilde” either die or (in Henry Rathbone’s case) go insane and become institutionalized before the real Wilde became famous, suggesting none of them would have noticed the discrepancy in future. An exception is the theatre manager, Henry Clay Ford, who would have lived to hear of Wilde’s fame - but who also, having deduced that the Doctor and Evelyn were time travellers, would perhaps be inclined to keep quiet about it all.
It’s fancifully implied that Knox, his mind in Pops’ dead body, assumes the life meant for Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) from this point on. Conan Doyle is actually seen in two
Doctor Who
stories:
Evolution
, set in 1880; and
Revenge of the Judoon
, set in 1902. The former is set before
Assassin in the Limelight
, and so doesn’t rule out the notion of an identity-swap. However, in the latter, Conan Doyle is presented as the genuine article, not a lively corpse-person with Knox’s mind.
The more one considers Knox’s plan to swap himself for Conan Doyle, the more unlikely it seems that he succeeded. Such a scheme begs the question of a) what exactly Knox did to the real Conan Doyle, b) how, exactly, everyone who knew Conan Doyle could have possibly mistake Knox-Pops for him, and c) how, exactly, Knox is meant to have married three times and sired five children when his animated Pops-body reeks of decay and death. Some of these issues are solved if Knox transfers his consciousness into Conan Doyle’s body after arriving in England, but this isn’t actually said, and it’s very odd that Knox is already telling people that he’s Conan Doyle before he’s even left America. Conan Doyle in real life was a doctor of medicine, so Knox would be able to fake that expertise, at least.
The Doctor and Evelyn are mistaken for Pinkertons - the Agency got its start in 1850, after Allan Pinkerton thwarted an attempt to kill president-elect Lincoln.
[
996
] Dating
The Haunting of Thomas Brewster
(BF #107) - It’s “two years” before the 1867 component of the story, and it’s said that the TARDIS is recovered “thirty-four years” after 1831.
[
997
] Dating
The Eleventh Tiger
(PDA #66) - The date is given. Although not referred to by name, the alien intelligence bears the characteristics of the Mandragora Helix (
The Masque of Mandragora
), and it’s intimated (p274) that the Doctor defeated its attempt to dominate Earth “four hundred years” previous.
[
998
] Dating
World Game
(PDA #74)
-
The TARDIS travels “fifty years” beyond 1815.
[
999
] Dating
The Evil of the Daleks
(4.9) - An early storyline gave the date of the Victorian sequence as “1880” (and the date of the caveman sequence which was later deleted as “20,000 BC”). The camera scripts gave the date of “1867”, as did some promotional material, but this was altered at the last minute to dovetail
The Faceless Ones
and
The Evil of the Daleks
.
[
1000
] “Twelve months” before the November 1867 component of
The Haunting of Thomas Brewster
.
[
1001
]
The Androids of Tara
[
1002
]
Pier Pressure
[
1003
]
FP: Erasing Sherlock
. Genevieve is “ten years” younger than Sherlock, who is said to have been born in 1857.
[
1004
]
The War Games
[
1005
] Dating
The Haunting of Thomas Brewster
(BF #107) - The day and year are given. James Clerk Maxwell lived 1831-1879. The Doctor here tries to seem older by growing a beard - a rare occurrence, but something he also does in
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street
and
The Wedding of River Song
.
[
1006
] Brewster has possession of the TARDIS for five months (from his perspective), and has such adventures as
The Three Companions
during that time. The Doctor and Nyssa catch up with him in
The Boy That Time Forgot
.
[
1007
]
Birthright
[
1008
]
Strange England
(p157).
[
1009
]
Imperial Moon
[
1010
]
Revenge of the Judoon
[
1011
] Dating
The Boy That Time Forgot
(BF #110) - It’s unclear how much time has passed since Brewster stole the TARDIS in mid-November 1867, and so it’s possible that it’s either late 1867 or some time in 1868. For the Doctor, Nyssa and Brewster, this story continues in the undatable
Time Reef
.
[
1012
]
Peacemaker
.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
was published in 1869.
[
1013
]
TW:
“Broken”. The incident seems unrelated to events in
The Unquiet Dead
, even though they occur in the same year, and the Rift entity isn’t Abaddon, whom Bilis is seen serving in
Torchwood
Series 1.
[
1014
]
The Forgotten Army
(p163). The American Museum of Natural History - presumably the same building that this novel keeps calling the “New York Natural History Museum”, and identified down to its street address (p26) - opened in 1869.