B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (185 page)

[
1087
] “A couple of years back” according to Sarah Jane in
SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?
It’s almost certainly a reference to the interactive story
Attack of the Graske
that appeared on the BBC website (and which is outside the remit of this book).

[
1088
]
SJA: Death of the Doctor

[
1089
] Events in 2007 include the “present day” sequences of
Doctor Who
Series 2 and most (but not all) of
Torchwood
Series 1.

[
1090
] “Three months” before
School Reunion
.

[
1091
]
SJA: The Man Who Never Was

[
1092
]
TW: Long Time Dead
(p206).

[
1093
] “A few years” before
TW: First Born
.

[
1094
] The year before “The Stockbridge Child”.

[
1095
] Throughout the year prior to
TW: A Day in the Death
.

[
1096
] “Three years” before
Situation Vacant.

[
1097
]
Deimos

[
1098
] “Eighteen months” before
SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen
.

[
1099
] “Eighteen months” before
SJA: The Lost Boy
, and after K9 begins monitoring the black hole, as they have not met before that story.

[
1100
] Dating
The Stone Rose
(NSA #7) - Mickey hasn’t joined the TARDIS crew, but Rose knows about Petrifold Regression, so it’s set between
New Earth
and
School Reunion
.

[
1101
] Dating
The Feast of the Drowned
(NSA #8) - The story is set between
The Christmas Invasion
and
School Reunion
.

[
1102
] Dating
Cuddlesome
(BF promo #7,
DWM
#393) - The audio saw release in March 2008 and seems contemporary, including mention of texting. However, a radio report says that authorities in England are investigating a possible outbreak of H5N1 avian flu, which in real-life was a concern in the UK in 2007.

[
1103
] Dating
School Reunion
(X2.3) - The story features Mickey, and Sarah refers to the events of
The Christmas Invasion
as “last Christmas”, so the story is set in 2007 (and at some point during a school term).

Sarah Jane’s Reunions with the Doctor

In
School Reunion
, the very strong implication is that Sarah hasn’t had any form of contact with the Doctor since she left him at the end of
The Hand of Fear
. Somewhat tellingly, the Doctor comments that he’s regenerated “half a dozen times” since she last saw him.

Some commentators have seized upon this as evidence that the non-TV media (which entailed a post-
Hand of Fear
Sarah meeting the Doctor on more than one occasion) are apocryphal, but in truth this scenario doesn’t match the TV series either. In the first place, the Doctor sent Sarah a K9, and in
K9 and Company
, she even says “so he didn’t forget me after all”. Yet in
School Reunion
, Sarah says she thought the Doctor had forgotten about her after dropping her off. Also, she was reunited with the third Doctor - and met the fifth - in
The Five Doctors
. Clearly, as occasionally happens, the series chooses not to complicate the narrative by invoking every possible relevant previous story. Indeed, a new or more casual viewer would infer from what Sarah says that some time ago, the Doctor left her and K9 on Earth to go and fight the Time War.

Sarah Jane also appeared in a number of stories in other media set after
The Hand of Fear
: “Train-Flight” (set c 1990),
System Shock
(set in 1998; she didn’t meet the Doctor in that story, but neither did she believe he was dead or had abandoned her),
Interference
(set in 1997, and portraying her as romantically involved with a man called Paul) and
Bullet Time
(also set in 1997). Ergo, Sarah Jane has encountered four of the “half a dozen” incarnations that the Doctor has been through between
The Hand of Fear
and
School Reunion
. The basic story beat is the same in each case - Sarah continues to be a successful journalist, while missing the Doctor.

[
1104
] Established on the BBC website; the sonic lipstick is seen in
SJS: Invasion of the Bane
.

[
1105
] “Eighteen months” before
SJS: Invasion of the Bane
.

[
1106
] Dating “The Green-Eyed Monster” (
DWM
#377) -
School Reunion
and The
Girl in the Fireplace
are both referenced, but it’s before
Rise of the Cybermen
, as Mickey is still around.

[
1107
] Dating
Borrowed Time
(NSA #49) - The year is given (p60). The Chancellor of the Exchequer is to give a speech based upon the booming economy following “the first six months of 2007” (p201), so it’s likely summer. Certainly, nobody complains about the weather. It’s a Tuesday (p72).

[
1108
] Dating
Rise of the Cybermen
/
The Age of Steel
(X2.5-2.6) - Mickey finds a newspaper that he says is dated to “1st February, this year” - in other words, the year
School Reunion
is set, 2007. Lumic cites the day as 1st February.

A birthday party is being held for the parallel-universe Jackie, and Rose says - when she and the Doctor are outside the Tyler mansion - “February the first, mum’s birthday” (thereby indicating that “our” Jackie was born on the same day).

One point of confusion is that the official biography of the parallel Jackie - or so she claims - states that she was born the same day as actor Cuba Gooding Jr. He was actually born on 2nd January, 1968 (it would seem that someone on the production team didn’t take into account that in America, the date “1/2” means the second of January). We might imagine that Gooding was born on 1st February in the parallel reality, or it’s possible that Jackie’s biographers - in an attempt to make her sound more interesting - simply got the date wrong and nobody corrected her. (This is no more implausible an error than the real-life production team failing to fact-check Gooding’s birthday via Google.)

“Our” Gooding was born in 1968 - so if Jackie was born the same year, she should be 39 in
Rise of the Cybermen
, not 40 as she claims. In addition to everything else, then, it’s possible Jackie and Gooding’s parallel counterparts were born a year prior in 1967.

[
1109
] Evidently a reference to Vaughn’s company from
The Invasion
, which otherwise doesn’t appear to exist in this reality.

[
1110
]
Doomsday
. The Doctor names this version of Earth as “Pete’s World” (as Pete Tyler is alive there), and the term has caught on in texts such as
Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia
.

[
1111
] Dating
I am a Dalek
(
Quick Reads
#1) - No year is given, but the story has a present day setting.

[
1112
] Dating
100:
“Bedtime Story” (BF #100c) - The story seems contemporary with the audio’s release in September 2007 - Jamie Oliver is referenced, and mention is made of the rumours surrounding Evelyn’s disappearance. There’s a glaring story flaw in that the Williams family has long since recognised the correlation between the birth of a son causing his grandparents to “drop dead”, and yet no generation has, apparently, refrained from siring children even knowing that the act will kill their parents.

[
1113
] Dating
Love & Monsters
(X2.10) - It’s “two years” since the events of
Rose
(set in March 2005). The story takes place after
The Christmas Invasion
, but before
Army of Ghosts
and
Doomsday
. Jackie says that Mickey has gone, placing it after
The Age of Steel
.

Elton says that Kennedy approached LINDA on “a Tuesday night in March”.

[
1114
] The Abzorbaloff reads the newspaper in
Love & Monsters
.

[
1115
] “Two months” before
Army of Ghosts
.

[
1116
] Dating
Turn Left
(X4.11) - This is “six months” before Donna would have met the Doctor in December 2007 (so, June). Rose says it’s “Monday 25th”, and June was the only month in 2007 when the 25th fell on a Monday. In the alternate timeline created by Donna turning right, there is no mention of Harold Saxon - because if the Doctor died defeating the Racnoss and
Utopia
didn’t happen, the Master presumably remained at the end of time.

[
1117
]
Planet of the Ood, The Sontaran Stratagem, The Unicorn and the Wasp, Journey’s End
,
The End of Time
(TV).

[
1118
] Dating
Army of Ghosts
/
Doomsday
(X2.12-2.13) - No month is given, but it’s after
Love & Monsters
and before
The Runaway Bride
(set at Christmas Eve 2007).

Backtracking the
Torchwood
Series 1 dating makes it somewhat hard to believe that the Battle of Canary Wharf occurs any later than July. (
TW: Out of Time
takes place right before Christmas;
TW: They Keep Killing Suzie
takes place beforehand but is “three months” after
TW: Everything Changes
- which
TW: Miracle Day
suggests occurs in October; Jack and Gwen chat about Canary Wharf in
TW: Everything Changes
, and don’t speak as if the battle there occurred, say, within the last week or so.)
Army of Ghosts
and
Doomsday
respectively broadcast on 1st July and 8th July, and could well take place on one of those dates in 2008.

[
1119
] Alistair Appleton, who might be among the casualties in the
Doctor Who
universe.

[
1120
]
Smith and Jones
, which explains why Freema Agyeman portrayed both Martha in Series 3 and Adeloa in
Army of Ghosts
.

[
1121
]
TW: Everything Changes

[
1122
]
Utopia