Talk:The Power of Three (TV story)

Date
Looks like there's some confusion as to the dating of this episode.

"It is ten years since the events of The Eleventh Hour, dating this story to be set in 2018."

"By 2020, Kate had dropped the name "Lethbridge" when she became the head of scientific research to UNIT so as to avoid favours." (from Kate Stewart)

As far as I remember, Amy says that it's been 10 years for her, counting both real life and travels with the Doctor. In her and Rory's "real life", a much shorter time has passed. 78.8.2.156talk to me 00:15, September 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * This isn't the only proof we have that the story is set in 2020. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 01:10, September 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * I thought they said they had been married for 10 years. Since they were married in 2010, it is 2020. --Desariella 02:10, September 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Look, will someone just go and get a direct quote? We're all arguing over what was said! OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 03:11, September 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Chronologically, "The Power of Three" takes place for the Amy, Rory, and Brian after "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship." Rory states that he is 31-years-old in DoaS. We know from "Let's Kill Hitler" that he and Amy are approximately the same age and Amy was born in 1989, making her seven in 1996 during "The Eleventh Hour." 1989+31=2020. Therefore, "The Power of Three" has to take place in 2020 at the earliest. 75.141.237.131talk to me 03:19, September 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * It is clearly stated by Amy both that it has been ten years for her and that it has NOT been ten years for the rest of the world meaning that it must have been significantly sooner that 2020. Also, the Ponds earlier mentioned that they were aging significantly faster than their friends.  It is most likely that this story is meant to take after 2012 but well before 2020.
 * Doesn't The Hungry Earth hint that Amy and Rory have their 10th anniversary in 2020?
 * On the other hand, if that's true, why didn't Amy and Rory drive to Wales to wave at their younger selves? I know history can change (especially given that Rory was erased and recreated and the whole universe was rebooted since then), so they don't _have_ to do it, but I can't imagine that they wouldn't _want_ to do it. If you were them, celebrating your 10th anniversary, reminiscing over your decade with the Doctor, and agonizing over whether to give up traveling through time with him, how could you possibly pass that up? --70.36.140.233talk to me 07:18, September 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, their friends and family (except Brian) don't know about their time travel, so could they really be talking to anyone about their 10th anniversary in, say, 2014? It's not impossible that they celebrated a private 10th anniversary with the Doctor and a public 2nd anniversary with their friends, but the episode doesn't give us any clue that such a thing happens.
 * Anyway, last week we heard about how they're getting older faster than their friends, but this week we heard everyone talking about how they disappear for months at a time and then come back as if they'd just stepped out. So really, there's as much evidence for 2030 as for 2014. Maybe the best we can say is that we have no idea when it took place. --70.36.140.233talk to me 07:23, September 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Amy and Rory disappeared for seven weeks in the middle of their anniversary, it's not impossible or even necessarily unlikely that they made a pit-stop in Wales. Anywho, Amy does suggest that she has been growing older faster, and specifically says "We think it's been ten years."  Seeing as their concern is getting too old too fast (and not staying young too long), it's implied that it has been less than ten years in the real world, thus 2020 at the latest.  Rory may be older than Amy (making the 31-year reference make sense), and even still, he may be actually 31 while not being recognized as 31 on Earth (ex. if he spent two years travelling, it would be the year 2018, etc.) All we can say for certain right now is that it is 2020 at the absolute latest.  I'm going to go back and do some math from the other episodes, but based on how they refer to how long it's been since they've seen him each time, this episode likely takes place around 2016.  Can't confirm just yet.  d ● • ·  14:24, September 23, 2012 (UTC)

On the Brigadier page it says that he dies in the 2050s. This doesn't make sense with the the Power of Three because Kate as good as says that her dad is dead. SO either he didn't die at the time given, or this story is set when Amy and Rory are over 60 which I highly doubt.


 * (Sign your posts on talk pages.) Outside of his close circle of confidantes, and a few key people in the UNIT hierarchy, most people believe he died in 2010. Since he and Kate were estranged, she probably didn't know the truth.


 * Anyway, if you don't accept that explanation, I think the only other reasonable possibility is a continuity error (or, of course, "history can change). The episode definitely doesn't take place in the 2050s. And it would be odd for the series to suddenly contradict everything the novels told us about the Brig in the very same episode they introduced his daughter from the novels. Especially considering how hard it is to make sense of the SJA stories without some explanation for how he went from old and retired in 2009 to going on a top secret mission in Peru for most of 2010… --70.36.140.233talk to me 12:48, September 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Kate is not from the novels. She is from Downtime. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 13:18, September 23, 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the novelisation was written as a Virgin Missing Adventure, and Kate's story was followed up in another MA, and if I remember correctly it was an NA that first canonized the fan idea (which originated with Nicolas Courtney) that the Brig had a wife before Doris, which Platt then ran with in Downtime.
 * At any rate, I doubt you could find a fan who was "TV-only" last week but now believes that TV plus the semi-licensed videos without the Doctor are also canon, but not the novels. Not that it isn't a conceivable argument, just that I can't imagine who would think that way. --70.36.140.233talk to me 19:33, September 23, 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible that A Town Called Mercy takes place during the 7 weeks the Doctor takes Amy and Rory away from the party? I'm referring to the Henry VIII scene. 82.26.80.182talk to me 16:17, September 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * Sure, it's possible. But as far as I know the only potential evidence is that Henry VIII scene. --70.36.140.233talk to me 19:33, September 23, 2012 (UTC)

Date: Quotes from episode
--Desariella
 * Amy: "We think it's been 10 years. Not for you, or for Earth, but for us. 10 years older, 10 years of you, on and off."
 * 1) Amy's friend: "You've missed quite a few things the last year or two"
 * 2) Rory's co-worker: "There's been months when we don't see you"

Year Maths
Separating this from the previous discussions since this could get long.

First thing's first: Amy and Rory are concerned about getting old too fast, and NOT staying young too long. Based on this statement, and the fact that Amy thinks she and Rory have been travelling with the Doctor on and off for ten years, this places the end of our date range at 2020. And actually, the fact that it is definitely not ten years on Earth, this sets the end at 2019.

So then, we know for sure that The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe has the Doctor having dinner with the Ponds in 2013 (two years after he left them behind in The God Complex. This makes our range 2014-2019.

In Pond Life, the Doctor has started making house calls during the summer and, since there is no indication that the Cubes have arrived by the end, this webcast occurs before The Power of Three. Since this makes at least the first summer void, our range is now 2015-2019. Asylum of the Daleks is implied to take place shortly thereafter.

In Dinosaurs on a Spaceship we learn it has been ten months (and thus at least near the end of the summer of that year) since the Ponds last saw the Doctor. This makes our range 2016-2019. We also hear Rory claim to be 31. Seeing as he definitely isn't five years older than Amy (if this episode took place in the summer of 2015, it would seem the time Amy and Rory spent on the TARDIS is on the order of years (most likely three or four) as opposed to months.

In A Town Called Mercy, we don't actually get any indicators of time... yet (as far as I can remember -- please correct me if I'm mistaken).

And that brings us to The Power of Three. While going through the fridge in July, we see that a large amount of their dairy is months out of date (implying the last adventure they had took them out of April-May and back very recently). Given this spring/summer gap, this most likely takes place the year following Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, confirming the range of 2016-2019.

Then, during the intro, they run off with the Doctor again. Amy's friend says she's missed a lot in the last year or two. Seeing as the Ponds had a long period of Doctorlessness until the summer of 2014 (at least), this lines up with the 2016 date quite nicely and provides solid support for these first four episodes to take place in a two-year period. Sadly, we can't outright confirm a specific year, but we can narrow The Power of Three down to anywhere in the 2016-2017 to 2019-2020 range. If we're exceedingly lucky, The Angels Take Manhattan will shed some light on it, but there you have it. As it's unlikely their friends would notice them getting old fast if it were only one year or so, this suggests the likeliest dates are 2016-2017, but nothing is totally certain. d ● • ·  14:56, September 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * Well thought out, though I would say that when they visit Henry VIII, the Doctor is holding a mobile phone charger (which appears on the floor as he sneezes) - presumably meaning that some of the events of this episode happen before those of  'A Town called Mercy' Baziel  ☎  16:39, September 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that 2016-2019 is more plausible than 2020. But pinning it down to "probably within this 5-year span" doesn't seem like enough to give a "Main setting" at all; I think the "2020-2021" should just be removed rather than replaced.


 * As a side note, if you re-watch the episode, there's quite a bit of circumstantial evidence that points to 2012. Certainly none of it is anywhere near conclusive, but there's so much that it's hard to ignore. For example:
 * People are excited about the cubes as if they were iPads falling from the sky. (Even if iPads aren't an exciting new thing, they'll still probably be a popular and somewhat expensive product.)
 * The Apprentice is still a major TV show. (It's going on its 9th season; what's 8 more?)
 * The Doctor references Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter as "modern" things, echoing the Facebook and Bebo line from TEH. (It's possible they'll still be the up-to-date references.)
 * Everyone dresses like 2012. (Fashion is cyclical.)
 * The Ponds have a Wii, only months away from obsolescence today. (The Ponds are the kind of people who could easily have an out-of-date game console.)
 * Amy and Rory don't look anywhere near 10 years older than in TEH. (Maybe they just age well.)
 * I don't mention this because I think the episode takes place in 2012. Or that it takes place in a 2020 where history has somehow become stagnant since 2012 (someone on a forum or blog argued that point, and even claimed that the name was meant to remind us of "The Power of the Daleks", set in a 2020 where humans had space colonies…).
 * Rather, I think Chibnall didn't get instructions to write it to any particular year because Moffat hasn't picked any particular year; the setting is just "a bit in the future, but not nearly as far in the future as it should be for Amy and Rory's 10th anniversary". --70.36.140.233talk to me 20:11, September 23, 2012 (UTC)

Not 2020 for sure, so don't say so in the article, please Guys, you're all very welcome to speculate at the Howling. This page is for discussing the editing of the article, The Power of Three. To the extent that it's necessary to discuss the text of the episode a bit in order to edit the article, the above discussion is just this side of appropriate. But it needs to end now.

The evidence submitted above doesn't come close to clearly establishing setting. The loopholes created by words like "we think" and "about" are big enough to drive a truck through.

We don't know what year it is in this episode. There's no set decoration to help us out, no dialogue to definitively answer the question. We certainly never hear Amy and Rory define which anniversary they're celebrating. Therefore we don't put a speculative year in the infobox or anywhere on the page. Since we are trying to build an accurate encyclopaedia based upon the facts as they are actually presented in stories, please do not refer to this story as taking place in 2020 on this or any other page until and unless we have a clear line of dialogue or bit of set decoration which reasonably establishes that date. (And such evidence is not to be found in this episode. Basically, all hopes for establishing the year of this story are resting on the series 7a finale.)  01:30: Mon 24 Sep 2012