B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (166 page)

It is “the beginning of May” when the Ragman starts his campaign, “Tuesday 10th May” a little later. The year is given as “79” at the beginning of the book (although 10th May wasn’t a Tuesday in 1979). It is after Malcolm Owen of the Ruts died (July 1980, in real life), and The Damned song “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today” was released (November 1979).

[
282
] Dating
Find and Replace
(BF CC #4.3) - The younger Jo is currently the Doctor’s assistant, the Doctor thinks about nicking a component from Iris’ bus (so his exile is presumably still in force), UNIT is now based in “an old manor house” (so it’s more likely to be Season 9 than Season 8), and the Master is at liberty. Taking all of that into consideration, Iris and the older Jo must show up at some point between
The Sea Devils
and
The Three Doctors
. The story ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, suggesting that Iris and Jo have any number of adventures before returning to 2010.

[
283
] Dating
Verdigris
(PDA #30) - The month and year are stated in the book as “1973” and “May”. Jo has known the Doctor “two years” (p143). Paul Magrs playfully made it tricky to place this story precisely... the story leads into
The Three Doctors
(p241), and yet Jo doesn’t know about Peladon (p192). This is after the eventful UNIT Christmas party (p126).

[
284
] Dating
The Three Doctors
(10.1) - The evidence is mixed. Dr Tyler says the Americans have launched a deep space monitor, but he also cites “Cape Kennedy”. (This might suggest that
The Three Doctors
takes place between 1963 and 1973.) Jo misquotes the words to “I am the Walrus”. According to
Transit
(and a number of novelisations, such as
The Mysterious Planet
), the Doctor’s exile lasts “five years”.

[
285
] The Doctor says at the end of
The Three Doctors
that he needs to build a new force field generator to replace the one that has been destroyed, and goes on a test flight in
Carnival of Monsters.

[
286
]
Relative Dementias

[
287
]
Relative Dementias
(p18) mentions when the Doctor encountered the Countess.

[
288
] Dating
The Wages of Sin
(PDA #19) - It’s just after
The Three Doctors
, in “the 1970s” (p34).

[
289
]
Verdigris

[
290
] “Six months” before
Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

[
291
]
Original Sin

[
292
]
Carnival of Monsters
, in which Jo says that 1926 is “forty years” before her time.

[
293
] Dating
The Suns of Caresh
(PDA #56) - It is soon after the Doctor’s exile is lifted (p35), and straight after the TARDIS gets back from Inter Minor (p36).

[
294
] Dating
The Many Deaths of Jo Grant
(BF CC #6.4) - The blurb says that the story occurs between
Carnival of Monsters
and
Frontier in Space
.

[
295
]
Dancing the Code
(p61). These unseen encounters either occur with UNIT, or elsewhere with the Doctor.

[
296
]
Interference
(p75).

[
297
] Dating
Dancing the Code
(MA #9) - Set between
Planet of the Daleks
and
The Green Death
. Watergate appears to be topical (p154).

[
298
]
The Android Invasion
. Sarah reported on Crayford’s disappearance “two years” before that story.

[
299
] Dating
Last of the Gaderene
(PDA #28) - It is “some thirty years” since WW2 (p241). A constable indicates that it’s the “the middle of July”, which would contradict all four of the calendars in
The Green Death
.

[
300
] Dating
Speed of Flight
(MA #27) - Jo is now thinking about leaving the Doctor (p242).

[
301
]
Timelash. Speed of Flight
implies the Karfel visit occurs shortly afterwards.

[
302
]
Original Sin

[
303
] Dating
The Green Death
(10.5) - This is the near future. The Prime Minister is called Jeremy. BOSS is an advanced “Biomorphic” artificial intelligence that has been linked to a human brain. There is a Ministry of Ecology. Four calendars appear: the first, in the pithead office, shows the date as “April 5th”. The second, in the security guard’s office, shows the month as February during a leap year. A wall calendar in Elgin’s office suggests that it’s May, but a similar one seen behind Mike Yates in episode four indicates that it’s Monday, 28th April. See the British Politics in the UNIT Era sidebar.

[
304
]
Planet of the Spiders

[
305
] Dating
Deep Blue
(PDA #20) - It’s “six months” after
The Green Death
, and it’s Mike’s first mission since then. The Doctor has spent only a small amount of time on Earth since Jo’s departure, but there’s no mention of Sarah. This is “six months” after
The Green Death
(p15), “ten or so” years before Tegan’s native 1984 (p20).

[
306
] Dating
The Three Companions
(serialised story; BF #120-129) - Jo has moved to Wales and the Doctor is companion-less, so it’s between
The Green Death
and
The Time Warrior
.

[
307
] Dating
The Time Warrior
(11.1) - Sarah states in this story that she’s from the twentieth century, and isn’t more specific than that. In
Pyramids of Mars
, it’s stated four times that Sarah is “from 1980”. The most straightforward interpretation of the line has to be that this story, Sarah’s first, is set in 1980.

[
308
] Dating
The Paradise of Death
(Target novelisation #156) - The Brigadier hasn’t heard of Virtual Reality, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations is a woman. There is no gap on television between
The Time Warrior
and
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
, but this features both Sarah and Mike Yates. Barry Letts decided to set this radio play before Mike Yates’ “retirement” from UNIT. Captain Yates is referred to in the book version.

[
309
] Dating
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
(11.2) - The balance of evidence is that this is the near future. The Whomobile is a new car and an “M” reg, but the human race are - in theory at least - capable of building manned ships capable of interstellar flight. Whitaker has built a Timescoop capable of calling up dinosaurs from hundreds of millions of years ago. The bunker was built “back in the Cold War days”.

[
310
] The Doctor’s car was never named on screen, but was dubbed both “Alien” and “the Whomobile” by the production team. The Doctor continues to use Bessie, as both are seen in
Planet of the Spiders
.

[
311
]
SJA: Judgement Day

[
312
]
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
. The Doctor says that Chun Sen couldn’t be a suspect with regards to the dinosaur appearances as he “hasn’t been born yet”.

[
313
]
Terror of the Zygons
. Presumably the Brigadier didn’t have the Space-Time Telegraph before
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
, when dinosaurs were over-running London, or he would surely have used it.

[
314
]
Hornets’ Nest: Hive of Horror

[
315
] Dating
The Five Doctors
(20.7) - The third Doctor is kidnapped after
The Time Warrior
as he recognises Sarah. Sticking strictly to what we know in the television series, his abduction must occur between
The Monster of Peladon
and
Planet of the Spiders
, because the other stories of Season 11 follow on from each other. However
The Paradise of Death
is set in a “nonexistent” gap between the first two stories of the series, so the Doctor might have been taken from that point.

[
316
] Dating
The Ghosts of N-Space
(MA #7) - For the Doctor and Sarah, the story occurs after
Death to the Daleks
. Clancy’s Comet returns to Earth every one hundred and fifty-seven years, and the last sighting was in “1818”, so it’s 1975. As the month is given as May,
Planet of the Spiders
, set in March, must take place the following year. Fitzoliver was Sarah’s photographer in
The Paradise of Death
.

[
317
] Dating
Island of Death
(PDA #71) - The story mentions Sarah’s trip to Sicily in
The Ghosts of N-Space
, and the Hallaton arrived on Stella Island on 20th September, so this story happens in UNIT Year 7.

[
318
] “A few months” before
Robot
. The system has passed to UN control by
World War Three
.

[
319
]
The Sentinels of the New Dawn

[
320
] Dating
Amorality Tale
(PDA #52) - The story starts between
The Monster of Peladon
and
Planet of the Spiders
.

[
321
] The Doctor is conducting such research in
Planet of the Spiders
. It’s only mentioned in that story, and there’s no suggestion that the fourth Doctor continues the study.

[
322
] Dating
Planet of the Spiders
(11.5) - The story takes place three weeks before
Robot
. “Meditation is the in thing” according to Sarah Jane.

[
323
]
Original Sin

[
324
] Dating
Robot
(12.1) - This is clearly set in the near future. As with
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
, the Cold War has been “over for years” according to the Brigadier. Advanced technology includes the K1 robot, the Disintegrator Gun and dynastrene. Sarah Jane Smith’s day pass to Think-Tank bears the date “April 4th”.

[
325
]
SJS: Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre

[
326
]
Benny: The Relics of Jegg-Sau

[
327
] In
The Ark in Space
, Harry is surprised that the High Minister, “a member of the fair sex,” was “top of the totem pole”, suggesting Britain has yet to elect a female Prime Minister by his time. There must be a General Election or change of leadership in the government while he was away from Earth. In
Terror of the Zygons,
the Brigadier receives a phone call from the PM, whom he twice addresses as “Madam”, and later refers to her as “she”.