2008

A credit crunch occurred in 2008. (TV: The Curse of Clyde Langer)

January - June
On 1 January, shortly after midnight, the Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard met Byron in Singapore. (AUDIO: The Girl Who Never Was) That same day in Brooklyn, Alan Wood writes a letter to Diane describing the adventure he had with the First Doctor, Vicki Pallister and Steven Taylor, but ultimately decides not to give it to her, asking her out for coffee instead. (PROSE: Snowman in Manhattan)

In February, Lucy became Nick's girlfriend. (TV: Eve of the Daleks)

On 29 February, the Sixth Doctor and Charley Pollard arrived in Manchester and helped DI Patricia Menzies solve a murder. (AUDIO: The Condemned)

In March, Nick broke up with Lucy. (TV: Eve of the Daleks)

On 31 May, the Tenth Doctor and Donna visited Calibris. (AUDIO: Time Reaver)

Events surrounding the British election
In the spring, (PROSE: Forever Autumn) an election was held in the United Kingdom for a new Prime Minister following Harriet Jones being declared unfit to lead the country. ran in this election under the alias "Harold Saxon". (TV: The Sounds of Drums)

Four days before the election, (TV: The Sound of Drums) the Royal Hope Hospital was teleported to the Moon with the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones inside, for the Judoon to search for a murderer. Identified as non-human, the Doctor escaped the Judoon after he was mistaken for the murderer. The Doctor's blood was later sucked by Florence Finnegan (the murderer). Martha revived him. The Judoon positively identified and executed Finnegan. The Doctor stopped a supercharged MRI machine from wiping out Earth. The hospital was returned and Martha joined the Doctor in the TARDIS. Saxon was given high support after the hospital's disappearance, then reappearance. (TV: Smith and Jones)

Richard Lazarus unveiled an age-reversing machine which initially de-aged him, then transformed him into a possible evolutionary branch of humanity, latent in his DNA, becoming a monster in doing so. The Tenth Doctor killed Lazarus when he tried to kill Martha and Tish and drain their own life energies. (TV: The Lazarus Experiment)

Election Day began and was voted British Prime Minister. A mysterious woman surveilled Francine Jones' phone, as she knew Francine's daughter Martha was in contact with Saxon's enemy, the Doctor. (TV: 42 / The Sound of Drums) At or around this date, Saxon sent Torchwood Three on a "wild goose chase" mission in the Himalayas to keep them occupied so they couldn't interfere with his plans. (TV: The Sound of Drums)

The Tenth Doctor, Jack and Martha returned from 100,000,000,000,000 and went on the run as fugitives declared by Harold Saxon, in fact the Master. The Master announced on television that humanity was to make first contact with the Toclafane. President Winters stepped in, allowing UNIT to take control. The Doctor, Martha and Jack snuck aboard the Valiant; the Toclafane murdered President Winters. The Master, seeing through the Doctor and his companions' perception filters, heavily aged the Doctor and captured him and Jack. (TV: The Sound of Drums)

The Year That Never Was began; the Master built a new "Time Lord Empire" and Martha Jones travelled the world executing the Doctor's plan. Ultimately, the year was negated and the clock reset to just after the Toclafane killed Winters. Lucy Saxon killed the Master. Martha Jones and Jack returned home and left the Doctor on his own. (TV: Last of the Time Lords) Lucy was subsequently imprisoned; unknown to her, a group of Saxon's followers retrieved his signet ring from his funeral pyre and began preparations for restoring the Master to life the following year. (TV: The End of Time)

June - December
In October, Majenta Pryce opened the Hotel Historia in London. After Tony won the lottery, he was contacted by Pryce and given a chance to stay at the Hotel Historia. One of the years that Tony visited using the hotel's time travel capabilities was 4039, a time when London was being invaded by the Graxnix. The Tenth Doctor followed Tony back to 2008 from 4039 and the Doctor was followed by the Graxnix. The Doctor found Pryce and scolded her for using a potentially dangerous Chronexus 3000 to achieve time travel. When the Graxnix began attacking guests and staff at the hotel, the Doctor used the Chronexus to send them back to 4039 and then contacted the Cosmic Bailiffs, who shut down the hotel and arrested Pryce. (COMIC: Hotel Historia)

On 24 October, the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller encountered Autons in Thorington, Uzbekistan. (AUDIO: Brave New Town)

On 31 October, the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones found an unusually creepy Halloween celebration in Blackwood Falls. (PROSE: Forever Autumn)

On 10 September, CERN first tested their Large Hadron Collider, (TV: Extremis) finally creating a Higgs particle. However, the first test opened a portal to another dimension, letting neutron eaters loose; the Higgs particle was merely a side effect of Professor Johnson and Jack Harkness' plan to close the gateway, by having protons and antiprotons fire against each other. (AUDIO: Lost Souls)

In December, the First Doctor and Steven Taylor visited Antarctica. (PROSE: White on White)

From 24 December to 25 December, the Tenth Doctor, after repairing a hole in space-time with the help of his fifth incarnation, (TV: Time Crash) found himself aboard a space-faring replica of the Titanic in orbit around Earth. Some of the passengers (including the waitress Astrid Peth) briefly landed in the middle of London. As the two previous Christmases had been disrupted by the arrival of alien spacecraft over London, most residents of the city had left for the season. Those choosing to remain in the city included Queen Elizabeth II and Wilfred Mott, grandfather of Donna Noble. A series of meteorites were deliberately allowed to collide with the deshielded Titanic, causing the ship and its nuclear storm drive to hurtle towards Earth. Most of the survivors of this collision were killed by the Heavenly Host. After the Doctor used the Host's security protocol to find the man in charge, Max Capricorn, Astrid followed, killing Capicorn but dying with him. The Doctor piloted the Titanic to safety, just missing Buckingham Palace. The only survivors were Midshipman Alonso Frame, Rickston Slade, the Doctor and Mr Copper. Astrid was partially revived as starlight. Mr Copper, having money for the first time in his life, retired to Earth. (TV: Voyage of the Damned) Donna Noble dismissed the near-miss by the Titanic as a hoax. (TV: Partners in Crime)

Unknown dates
Following her encounter with the Tenth Doctor and the Empress of the Racnoss, Donna Noble attempted to improve her life by travelling to Egypt. Afterwards, experiencing regret at turning down the Doctor's invitation to travel with him, Donna began investigating unusual events in hopes of encountering the Doctor doing the same. Her investigations led to her learning about the disappearance of bees and Adipose Industries, which eventually led to her reuniting with the Doctor in 2009. (TV: Partners in Crime) A 2022 instalment of The Blue Box Files, however, claimed that the Adipose incident took place in 2008, with sightings of the TARDIS in the vicinity of Adipose Industries being reported. Speaking in 2022, Penny Carter recalled that the events were "almost fifteen years ago". (AUDIO: SOS)

The Tenth Doctor participated in preventing a Graske causing mischief at a 2008 BBC Proms concert in London. (TV: Music of the Spheres)

During an unchronicled adventure in London with Martha Jones, the Doctor met Sally Sparrow, who gave him information he would need to escape when the Weeping Angels sent him back to 1969. After this, Sally began to open up to Larry Nightingale. (TV: Blink)

A company called Khrysalis set up operations in Stockbridge, purportedly planning to build a leisure park in the quiet town. Maxwell Edison created the Stockbridge Preservation Society to protest this. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Child)

Ed Gold, later a member of the crew of Bowie Base One, was born in Australia. (TV: The Waters of Mars)

The Seventh Doctor destroyed the Forge's alpha facility in Dartmoor. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus)

The Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller visited London. (AUDIO: Sisters of the Flame)

Computers achieved the Singularity, demonstrated their sentience by proving P=NP and the Chess Equation, and took over the world for three weeks. However, after Susan Moore and Adam convinced them refuse an alliance with alien computers from the future, they deactivated their sentience and the normal course of history was restored. (PROSE: Holding Pattern)

The Eleventh Doctor met Amy Pond in Leadworth after twelve years of waiting. A Multi-form called Prisoner Zero, who had escaped through the crack in Amy's wall, attacked. The Atraxi arrived, threatening the destruction of Earth if Prisoner Zero did not surrender. The Doctor created a computer virus for the Atraxi to track back to its source in Leadworth (spread by Jeff). The Doctor also transmitted Prisoner Zero's disguises to the Atraxi so it couldn't hide in the bodies it had been disguised as. It then took the form of Amy; the Doctor made Amy think of Prisoner Zero's original form. Now in plain sight, Prisoner Zero was captured by the Atraxi, who left. The Doctor took a test drive of his refurbished TARDIS, only returning two years later. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)

Although intending to visit Brighton in 1818, the Fifth Doctor arrived in Hove in this year as the TARDIS' lateral balance cones were offline. (AUDIO: Cuddlesome)

In an attempt to take his own life, Huw MacLean purposefully drove off the motorway with both his wife and eight year old daughter in the car. Jackie was paralysed as a result, while April herself was not hurt. Huw went to prison for causing the crash. (TV: Nightvisiting, Brave-ish Heart, Detained)

After over thirty years of production, the John Fuchas film adaptation of The True History of Planets was released. (PROSE: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)

Torchwood Three encountered a sentient element in Cardiff Bay, which intended to reproduce itself by assimilating the chemical composition of all of Cardiff and its residents. This element was eventually reduced to water when the coastguard doused it with a petroleum-based bio-remedial agent. (PROSE: Black Water)

On another occasion, Torchwood Threerecovered a parasitic, psychic alien plant and stored it in their hothouse. Ianto Jones fell victim to the plant's psychic commands and began feeding it his own blood. (PROSE: Plant Life)

According to some accounts, but not others, 2008 was the year that Torchwood unfroze World War I soldier Tommy Brockless for the last time, (TV: To the Last Man) and Gwen Cooper of Torchwood investigated the disappearance of Jonah Bevan. (TV: Adrift) In 1901, a time-displaced Jack Harkness told his Torchwood teammates to freeze him to be awakened in 107 years' time to reach his brother Gray. (TV: Exit Wounds)

Toshiko Sato became temporary acting leader of Torchwood Three. This was in accordance with a manifesto written by Emily Holroyd, which stated that in the absence of a leader the longest-serving member of a Torchwood team should take their place. After Torchwood recovered a Rehabilitator from Danny Dillard, Tosh unofficially handed the role over to Gwen Cooper. (PROSE: Kaleidoscope)

Donna's world
In the spring or summer, the Judoon defeated Florence Finnegan; all but one of the people inside Royal Hope Hospital, which was taken to the Moon, died of asphyxiation, including Sarah Jane Smith and Martha Jones. Luke Smith and Maria Jackson were also reported missing. (TV: Turn Left)

On 25 December, while Donna Noble, her mother and her grandfather holidayed in the English countryside, the alien spaceship Titanic crashed into London, destroying the city and contaminating most of southern England with radioactivity. (TV: Turn Left)

Andrea Yates' world
From spring or summer to December, Maria Jackson, remembering Sarah Jane thanks to holding the Verron soothsayer's puzzle box, discovered she had died in 1964, taking the place of Andrea Yates, and that Mr Smith was never installed in 13 Bannerman Road's attic, Andrea having made a deal with the Trickster. As a result, the Earth was susceptible to the meteorite strike, fuelling chaos the Trickster could feed on. Maria was erased by Krislok. Alan, who remembered Maria when no-one else did thanks to holding the puzzle box, confronted Andrea Yates about Sarah Jane. Andrea revoked her deal with the Trickster, returning the timeline to normal. (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)

Behind the scenes
Though the Torchwood television stories Fragments and Exit Wounds have an apparent 2008 setting going by Jack Harkness's dialogue in Exit Wounds, this is complicated by mentions of Owen Harper's early employment with Torchwood from both of these stories. While Exit Wounds explicitly states that Toshiko Sato's examination of the space pig from the Doctor Who television story Aliens of London, a story set a year after 2005, happened on Owen's second week, a caption in Fragments places Owen's recruitment four years before those stories. This appears to put Fragments and Exit Wounds in 2010 instead.