Then: The Chronarchy and the Doctor’s Timeline: The Doctor’s Eighth Incarnation, up to the First Battle of Gallifrey

 (say, a hundred and seventy-two years. In The Ancestor Cell, Romana has been President of the Time Lords for a hundred and fifty years. Respectfully disagreeing with Lance Parkin, who takes this as a hundred and fifty years from her accession in Happy Endings, I’m taking it as a hundred and fifty years from her taking over from Valyes in Ascension. In The Apocalypse Element, it is said that Romana was captured by the Daleks “weeks” after becoming President, but it must have been after Lungbarrow, so say a couple of years. She was succeeded by the unnamed President featured in The Sirens of Time and The Apocalypse Element, and returned after twenty years. Panacea, in which she leaves Gallifrey for the Axis, was released six years after The Apocalypse Element; she returned in Ascension, say, a couple of years after that. In Happy Endings, the Doctor is about one thousand and one; two plus twenty plus six plus two plus a hundred and fifty is a hundred and eighty, making the Doctor eleven hundred and eighty-one in The Ancestor Cell. Eleven hundred and eighty-one minus one thousand and nine is a hundred and seventy-two.

(I have two further points to make about the Doctor’s age. Firstly, in The Dying Days, clearly set before his amnesia in The Ancestor Cell, he gives his age as twelve hundred, which is a reasonable rounding up if it occurs not long before. I actually suggest it takes place just after Interference: The Hour of the Geek, after he has left Foreman’s World and before he has collected Compassion and the remembered Fitz.

(Secondly, The Book of the War has the Second War in Heaven breaking out a hundred and fifty-one years after Grandfather Paradox escaped from the Time Lords, which happened in Christmas On A Rational Planet, when the Doctor was about a thousand and three. By the time of The Ancestor Cell, then, the outbreak of The War was already almost three decades late (although Romana was prudently still preparing for it). I suggest what caused this disruption in Wartime history was Faction Paradox dragging their version of Sam into the Doctor’s path (The Eight Doctors, Unnatural History). Making The War’s entire Spiral Politic a paradox would certainly give the Faction an operating advantage over the Great Houses, and possibly over The Enemy as well. On a metafictional level this is appropriate, given that in Unnatural History Orman and Blum took Faction Paradox in a direction Lawrence Miles had not intended, to his dismay, and set the entire Faction/War narrative going off in unpredictable directions with considerable energy.)

 

Doctor Who   Novelisation of a TV story, published 1996                     Doctors: 8, 7

featuring the Master, Grace, with the Daleks (informative mention)

Adapted by Gary Russell from a script by Matthew Jacobs.

As broadcast, partly in North America. The Doctor regenerates for the seventh time


The Doctor’s Journal, After His Seventh Regeneration   

                                                    Fictional document, published 2013          Doctors: 7, 8

Featuring the Master, Grace

Written by James Goss and Steve Tribe.

This seems to have been written not long after Doctor Who.


Dead Time   Short story, published 1998                                                   Doctor: 8

Featuring Sam, with the Time Lords (informative mention)

Written by Andrew Miller.

Informed guess Takes place in the TARDIS, and another Gallifreyan time-vessel. Sam has boarded the TARDIS and the Doctor has not long regenerated.


The Lifeboat and the Deathboat   Audio drama, released 2019   Doctor: 0

Featuring the Master, River Song

Written by Eddie Robson.

Takes place in the Vortex; for the Master, not long after Doctor Who.


The Sirens of Time   Audio drama, released 1999                      Doctors: 5, 6, 7

featuring the Time Lords, with Tegan, Turlogh (informative mention)

Written by Nicholas Briggs.

Informed guess Takes place pivotally on Gallifrey, and partially in the Atlantic Ocean. The Time Lord President is the one occupying the office during Romana’s captivity by the Daleks, some time between Lungbarrow and The Apocalypse Element.


The Apocalypse Element   Audio drama, released 2000       Doctor: 6

featuring the Time Lords, the Daleks, Romana, Evelyn

Written by Stephen Cole.

Takes place on Gallifrey and in the Gallifreyan noosphere, some twenty years into Romana’s Lord Presidency. The current Doctor, wherever he is, must be about a thousand and twenty-one years old.


Shada   Webcast adaptation of an unfinished TV story, released 2003  Doctor: 8        

featuring the Time Lords, K9 II, Romana, Skagra

Adapted by Gary Russell from a script by Douglas Adams.

Takes place for the Time Lords after The Apocalypse Element and before Neverland, largely in regional England.


The Time Lord’s Story   Short story, published 2004                              Doctor: 8

featuring the Time Lords, the Vampires, K9 II, Romana

Written by Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett.

Takes place on Gallifrey, plausibly just after Shada.


Gallifrey   Audio drama, released 2020                                      Doctor: Unbound

Featuring the Time Lords, Benny

Written by Guy Adams and A K Benedict.

Takes place on Gallifrey, before Narvin replaces Vansell as co-ordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency.


Repercussions   Linking material for narrative anthology, published 2004 Doctor: 8

featuring Charley, with Grant, Sam (informative mention)

Written by Gary Russell.

Takes place in the TARDIS, more or less. Charley has reboarded/boarded it, but recently.

Grant Markham is a humanoid of Tellurian descent, born by my estimation in the late twenty-third or early twenty-fourth centuries CE.


Head in the Sand   Charity short story, published 2001                           Doctor: 8

featuring Charley

Written by Gary Russell.

Takes place in the TARDIS, before Neverland. Ramsey is aboard the TARDIS.


Solitaire   Audio drama, released 2010                                                   Doctor: 8

Featuring the Toymaker, Charley

Written by John Dorney.

Takes place in the Toymaker’s realm, before Neverland.


Neverland   Audio drama, released 2002                                           Doctor: 8

featuring the Time Lords, Romana, Charley, with the Daleks (informative mention)

Written by Alan Barnes.

Takes place in TARDISes and the Antiverse. Ramsay has left the TARDIS.


Zagreus   Audio drama, released 2003                                                  Doctor: 8

featuring the Time Lords, the Vampires, Leela, Romana, Charley, with Braxiatel, K9 II (glimpse)

Written by Alan Barnes and Gary Russell.

Takes place on Gallifrey and in the TARDIS, immediately after Neverland. It is suggested that the universe comes to an end in the eighth Dekaeon, in contradiction to quite a lot else. Infected with Anti-time, the Doctor is obliged to pilot the TARDIS into the Divergent Universe. Charley elects to accompany him.


Scherzo   Audio drama, released 2003                                                 Doctor: 8

featuring Charley

Written by Robert Shearman.

Takes place in the Divergent Universe, immediately after Zagreus. The Doctor and Charley lose the TARDIS. It is said that there is no time in the Divergent Universe, which is fair enough, but clearly there must be something very analogous to it, otherwise the stories there wouldn’t make any sense.


Weapon of Choice   Audio drama, released 2004                             Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, K9 I, K9 II, Romana

Written by Alan Barnes.

Takes place on Gallifrey and in the Gallifreyan noosphere, shortly after Zagreus.


The Creed of the Kromon   Audio drama, released 2003     Doctor: 8

featuring Charley, C’rizz

Written by Philip Martin.

Takes place in the Divergent Universe, shortly after (after? It’s the Divergent Universe. Something like after) Scherzo. C’rizz joins the Doctor and Charley.


Square One   Audio drama, released 2004                                           Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, K9 I, K9 II, Romana

Written by Stephen Cole.

Takes place on Gallifrey and in the Gallifreyan noosphere, shortly after Weapon of Choice.


The Natural History of Fear   Audio drama, released 2004   Doctor: 8

featuring Charley, C’rizz

Written by Jim Mortimore.

Takes place in the Divergent Universe, “after” The Creed of the Kromon.


The Inquiry   Audio drama, released 2004                                           Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, K9 I, K9 II, Romana

Written by Justin Richards.

Takes place on Gallifrey and in the Gallifreyan noosphere, shortly after Square One.


The Twilight Kingdom   Audio drama, released 2004            Doctor: 8

featuring Charley, C’rizz

Written by Will Shindler.

Takes place in the Divergent Universe, “after” The Natural History of Fear.


Faith Stealer   Audio drama, released 2004                                     Doctor: 8

featuring Charley, C’rizz

Written by Graham Duff.

Takes place in the Divergent Universe, “after” The Twilight Kingdom.


The Last   Audio drama, released 2004                                                Doctor: 8

featuring Charley, C’rizz

Written by Gary Hopkins.

Takes place in the Divergent Universe, “after” Faith Stealer. It would appear that entropy here is cyclic rather than progressive, which, fair enough, means that what we understand by time isn’t happening. Probably the only reason that these stories are as coherent as they are is because the minds of the Doctor and Charley are processing the local analogy for time as best they can.


Caerdroia   Audio drama, released 2004                                                Doctor: 8

featuring Charley, C’rizz, with the Time Lords (glimpse)

Written by Lloyd Rose.

Takes place in the Divergent Universe, “after” The Last. The Doctor discovers the TARDIS and reboards it with Charley and C’rizz. Uniquely, I think, C’rizz doesn’t leave linear time by being aboard the TARDIS when it dematerialises, as he has never been in it to begin with.


The Next Life   Audio drama, released 2004                                   Doctor: 8

featuring the Time Lords, Charley, C’rizz, with the Daleks, Davros (glimpse)

Written by Alan Barnes and Gary Russell.

Takes place in the Divergent Universe, which the TARDIS and its occupants leave, “after” Caerdroia.


Lies   Audio drama, released 2005                                                             Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, K9 I, K9 II, Romana

Written by Gary Russell.

Takes place on Gallifrey, some time after The Inquiry.


Spirit   Audio drama, released 2005                                                         Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, Romana, with K9 I, K9 II (informative mention)

Written by Stephen Cole.

Takes place on Davidius, in the Gallifreyan noosphere, over a week after Lies.


Pandora   Audio drama, released 2005                                                   Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, K9 I, K9 II, Romana

Written by Justin Richards.

Takes place on Gallifrey, after Spirit.


Insurgency   Audio drama, released 2005                                             Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Leela, K9 II, Romana

Written by Steve Lyons.

Takes place on Gallifrey, after Pandora.


Imperiatrix   Audio drama, released 2005                                            Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Leela, K9 I, K9 II, Romana

Written by Stewart Sheargold.

Takes place on Gallifrey, after Insurgency.


Fractures   Audio drama, released 2006                                         Doctor: 0        

featuring the Time Lords, Leela, K9 II, Romana

Written by Stephen Cole.

Takes place on Gallifrey, some time after Imperiatrix.


Warfare   Audio drama, released 2006                                                  Doctor: 0        

featuring the Time Lords, Leela, K9 II, Romana

Written by Stewart Sheargold.

Takes place on Gallifrey, some time after Fractures.


Appropriation   Audio drama, released 2006                                    Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Leela, K9 II, Romana

Written by Paul Sutton.

Takes place on Gallifrey, soon after Warfare.


Mindbomb   Audio drama, released 2006                                           Doctor: 0

featuring the Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, K9 II, Romana

Written by Justin Richards.

Takes place on Gallifrey, immediately after Appropriation.


Panacea   Audio drama, released 2006                                                 Doctor: 0        

featuring the Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, K9 II, Romana, with the Daleks (informative mention)

Written by Alan Barnes.

Takes place on Gallifrey, after Mindbomb.


Reborn   Audio drama, released 2011                                                     Doctor: 0

Featuring Unbound Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, K9 II, Romana

Written by Gary Hopkins.

Takes place on a version of Gallifrey; for the central characters, after Panacea.


Disassembled    Audio drama, released 2011                          Doctor: Unbound 6

Featuring Unbound Time Lords, Braxiatel, Leela, K9 II, Romana, with Benny (glimpse)

Written by Justin Richards.

Takes place on a version of Gallifrey; for the central characters, after Reborn.


Annihilation   Audio drama, released 2011                                         Doctor: 0

Featuring Unbound Time Lords, Unbound Vampires, Leela, K9 II, Romana

Written by Scott Handcock and Gary Russell.

Takes place on a version of Gallifrey; for the central characters, after Disassembled.


Forever   Audio drama, released 2011                                         Doctor: Unbound 6

Featuring Unbound Time Lords, Unbound Braxiatel, Leela, K9 II, Romana

Written by David Wise.

Takes place on a version of Gallifrey; for the central characters, after Annihilation.


Emancipation   Audio drama, released 2013                                      Doctor: 0

Featuring Unbound Time Lords, Leela, Romana

Written by James Peatty.

Takes place on a version of Gallifrey, nine months after Forever.


Evolution   Audio drama, released 2013                                               Doctor: 0

Featuring Unbound Time Lords, Leela, Romana

Written by Una McCormack.

Takes place on a version of Gallifrey; for the central characters, after Emancipation.


Arbitration   Audio drama, released 2013                                            Doctor: 0

Featuring Unbound Time Lords, Unbound Braxiatel, Leela, Romana, with the Daleks (glimpse)

Written by David Llewellyn.

Takes place on a version of Gallifrey; for the central characters, after Evolution.


Extermination   Audio drama, released 2013                                     Doctor: 0

Featuring Unbound Time Lords, the Daleks, Unbound Braxiatel, Leela, Romana

Written by Scott Handcock.

Takes place on a version of Gallifrey; for the central characters, after Arbitration.


Renaissance   Audio drama, released 2013                                          Doctor: 0

Featuring The Time Lords, Leela, Romana

Written by James Goss.

Takes place in the Matrix, immediately after Extermination.


Ascension   Audio drama, released 2013                                              Doctor: 0

Featuring the Time Lords, the Daleks, Leela, K9 II, Romana

Written by Justin Richards.

Takes place on Gallifrey, immediately after Renaissance.


Model Train Set   Short story, published 1998                                          Doctor: 8

Written by Jonathan Blum.

Takes place in the TARDIS, not long after the Doctor’s seventh regeneration. Charley and C’rizz appear to have left the TARDIS.


Collision Course   Audio drama, released 2019       Doctors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10

Featuring the Time Lords, Leela, Romana, Benny

Written by Guy Adams.

Takes place on Gallifrey and elsewhere, apparently after Ascension.


Mistfall   Audio drama, released 2015                                                 Doctor: 5

Featuring Nyssa, Tega, Turlogh

Written by Andrew Smith.

Informed guess Takes place on Alzarius, in E-space, three hundred years after Full Circle, in the thirty-fifth century of a local calendar. The Doctor, wherever he is, would be in my estimation about a thousand and seventy years old.


Equilibrium   Audio drama, released 2015                                      Doctor: 5

Featuring Nyssa, Tegan, Turlogh

Written by Matt Fitton.

Informed guess Takes place on Isenfel, in E-space, some time after Mistfall.


The Entropy Plague   Audio drama, released 2015                   Doctor: 5

Featuring Nyssa, Tegan, Turlogh

Written by Jonathan Morris.

Informed guess Takes place on Apollyon, in E-space, some time after Equilibrium.


Telling Tales   Short story, published 2005                                               Doctor: 6

Featuring Peri

Written by David Bailey.

Takes place outside time and space, concluding not too long before Seven Deadly Sins.


Seven Deadly Sins   Short story, published 2005                                     Doctor: 8

Featuring The Time Lords

Written by Jacqueline Rayner.

Takes place outside time and space, for the Doctor and the Time Lords, some time after The Apocalypse Element..


Gone Too Soon   Short story, published 2000                                          Doctor: 6        

featuring the Time Lords

Written by Christopher M Wadley.

Informed guess Takes place variously, including in Hamburg and Bonn, but ends at the deathbed of the hermit who was the Doctor’s mentor, who regenerated just after Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders; but clearly before The Ancestor Cell.

Hamburg and Bonn were a coastal and inland city of Germany, respectively.


A Life of Matter and Death   Comic story, published 1997                     Doctor: 8

featuring Izzy. Quite a lot else is mentioned, but none of it ends up being informative.

Written by Alan Barnes.

Takes place in the TARDIS. Izzy has boarded it.


The Final Chapter   Comic story, published 1998                                     Doctor: 8

featuring the Time Lords, Shayde, Izzy, Fey

Written by Alan Barnes.

Informed guess Takes place on Gallifrey; Fey has boarded the TARDIS. A considerable time seems to have passed on Gallifrey since the Doctor was last there, possibly the result of the subjective time he spent in Crivello’s Cauldron The Keep, or partly. The rebuilding of the Capitol presumably followed on from the events of Ascension; the Matrix has been reinstalled from a back-up, and the Matrix Lords are operational again.


Happy Deathday   Comic story, published 1998                                       Doctor: 0

featuring Izzy. Again, quite a lot else is mentioned, but none of it ends up being informative.

Written by Scott Gray.

informed guess Takes place in the TARDIS; Fey has left it.


Mark Four   Charity drabble, published 1993                                              Doctor: 0

featuring the Master, Unbound K9

Written by Peter Anghelides.

Informed guess Takes place indeterminately; for the Master, plausibly between The Fallen and The Glorious Dead.


The Book of the War informs us that the renegade who will become known as the War King returns to the Homeworld eighty-one years before the outbreak of the Second War in Heaven, when the Doctor will have been about one thousand and seventy-three. I shall discuss the War King’s identity later.

 

Nightmare   Charity short story, published 1998                           Doctor: 8, implicitly

Featuring Unbound Daleks, Unbound Ice Warriors

Written by Nathan Skreslet.

Informed guess Takes place in the Doctor’s head, plausibly at this point.

 

The Book of the War further informs us that the Head of the Presidency, whom I assume is, in non-Wartime parlance, the President, makes the Faraway Declaration thirty-six years before the War’s declaration, and meets a terrible fate during the First Message from The Enemy. This individual is given male pronouns and has, it is noted in passing, a large black moustache. Romana and her Presidency are conspicuous in The Book by their absence: it is possible that its Head of the Presidency is Romana regenerated into maleness. However, there is some evidence that Romana fought in the War – at one point in a male incarnation, as it happens – and I think it more likely that in the War timeline she was replaced as President, possibly forty years previously because she was inclined to believe the War King when the consensus was against him. Romana certainly interacted with the Doctor after he had met the revised (by Faction Paradox) Sam, which may have given her an edge in retaining her grip on power. The Doctor’s age at the time of the Faraway Declaration, which now didn’t happen, would have been eleven hundred and fifteen.


The Land of Happy Endings   Comic story, published 2003                  Doctor: 8

Featuring Unbound Gillian, Unbound John

Written by Scott Gray.

Informed guess Takes place in the TARDIS; Izzy has left it 


Unseen Rooms   Charity short story, published 1999                               Doctor: 0

Featuring an indeterminate K9, Frobisher, Ssard, Sam, an indeterminate Fitz, Compassion

Written by Imran Inyat.

Takes place in the TARDIS; the remembered Fitz and Compassion have boarded it.


Transitions   Charity short story, published 1998              Doctors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Featuring Steven, Jamie, Liz, Sarah Jane, Tegan, Peri, Chris, Fitz or the remembered Fitz, with Vicki, Victoria, Adric, Roz (informative mention)

Written by Daniel Ben-Zvi.

Informed guess Takes place indeterminately, concluding plausibly round now.


Toy Story   Charity short story, published 1999                  Doctor: 8 (informative mention)

Featuring the Second War in Heaven, the remembered Fitz, Compassion, with the Time Lords (informative mention)

Written by Lawrence Miles.

Takes place in and just outside the TARDIS.


Interlude   Charity short story, published 2001                                          Doctor: 8

Featuring the Time Lords, the remembered Fitz, Compassion

Written by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole.

Takes place in the TARDIS, shortly before the First Battle of Gallifrey.

 

 

Total Stories Considered               2585

Proportion Written By Women   11%                                        

 

Top Docs

3                 260 stories

4                 245 stories          

7                 215 stories          

10               168 stories

5                 157 stories                   

6                 151 stories          

8                 150 stories          Climber!    

2                 140 stories         

11               138 stories         

1                 126 stories         

12               76 stories  

Unbound   42 stories  

9                 35 stories  

13               33 stories

War            5 stories    

 

 

Top Twenty Recurring Elements

 

London                                                                608 stories         

Regional England                                               474 stories

UNIT                                                                    385 stories

Alastair, Kate, Kadiatu, Lucy Weston and the Lethbridge-Stewart family                                                                                      377 stories

The Time Lords                                                  255 stories   Climber!   

Wales                                                                  241 stories

North America                                                   233 stories   

Torchwood                                                         228 stories  

Sarah Jane                                                          179 stories   Climber! 

Captain Jack                                                       179 stories

The Master, including Missy                            147 stories  

The K9s                                                               139 stories   Climber! 

Ace                                                                      126 stories  

Continental Europe                                           124 stories   Climber!

Christmas                                                            123 stories

Jo                                                                         120 stories         

Benton                                                                114 stories  

The Daleks and Davros                                     113 stories   

Romana                                                               112 stories   Re-entry!

Iris Wildthyme                                                   103 stories

 

 

Top Decades

 

The Teens                                                           1035 stories

The Noughties                                                    681 stories                   

The Nineties                                                       272 stories

The Twenties                                                     204 stories

The Seventies                                                    176 stories         

The Eighties                                                        169 stories

The Sixties                                                          49 stories  

 

 

And Top Twenty Years

 

2016                                                          154 stories

2008                                                          129 stories

2020                                                          126 stories         

2018                                                          122 stories  

2017                                                           121 stories  

2011                                                          109 stories   Climber!

2019                                                          109 stories  

2015                                                          105 stories   Climber!  

2009                                                          101 stories

2010                                                          94 stories  

2013                                                          94 stories      Climber! 

2001                                                          81 stories  

2021                                                          77 stories  

2007                                                          75 stories

2006                                                          69 stories      Climber! 

2012                                                          66 stories  

2004                                                          62 stories      Climber! 

2005                                                          60 stories      Climber!

1993                                                          60 stories

2014                                                          54 stories           

         

 

 

Total Writers (including showrunners, script editors, anthology linking material writers)                                  756

Proportion of Female Writers            16%      

 

Top Twenty Writers

 

Terrance Dicks                                          110 stories  

Russell T Davies                                       87 stories  

James Goss                                               68 stories           

Paul Magrs                                                62 stories  

Robert Holmes                                         45 stories  

Justin Richards                                         44 stories            

Eric Saward                                               40 stories  

Steven Moffat                                          38 stories  

Gareth Roberts                                        37 stories  

Eddie Robson                                            36 stories           

Andrew Cartmel                                      35 stories

Gary Russell                                              35 stories   Climber!    

? John Canning                                         33 stories

John Dorney                                             31 stories            

Joseph Lidster                                          30 stories  

Steve Lyons                                               30 stories   Climber!    

Jonathan Morris                                      30 stories   Climber!

David Whitaker                                        29 stories  

James Hornby                                           28 stories

Matt Fitton                                                28 stories   Climber!    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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