Forum:Consecutive stories in the RTD era

Just a few memory refreshers for the timeline pages: am I right that The Unquiet Dead is the trip immediately following The End of the World, and likewise for Planet of the Ood to The Fires of Pompeii? Also, is The Sontaran Stratagem said to be fairly close to the start of Donna's travels? -- Tybort (talk page) 14:05, May 5, 2012 (UTC)


 * The Unquiet Dead comes immediately after The End of the World, The Planet of the Ood comes immediately after Fires of Pompeii, and The Sontaran Stratagem comes right after Planet of the Ood, is Donna's first trip home after she started travelling, and is pretty early in her travels.Icecreamdif talk to me 17:14, May 5, 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, I think Tybort is likely asking about these stories' positions with respect to the totality of DWU fiction, not just their broadcast order. There's a direct line in Unquiet where Nine says "You've seen the future, now let's look at the past". So I think we're meant to infer that it is directly after World.  Since we're not in the JNT era anymore, I think we're also supposed to infer significance from the fact that Rose is wearing her Rose/World wardrobe at the top of Unquiet.


 * I think your series 4 queries, though, admit of much greater ambiguity. In Ood, Donna does make the throwaway comment, "I mean, history's one thing, but an alien planet!"  But she looks totally different to what she looks like at the end of Pompeii.  I mean, it's not just that she's got a different dress on, but she also has a totally new hair style. She's gone from straight in Crime to ponytail in Pompeii, to super curly in Ood.   And the Doc's in a different suit.  Ood is the first appearance of the blue suit in season 4.  So time has clearly elapsed between Pompeii and Ood.  And although you didn't ask about it, there's really nothing in Pompeii to suggest it comes directly after Crime.


 * So between these first three eps of the series, you've got plausible gaps. Maybe they've only had a night's sleep.  Or maybe they've merely taken a shower and changed.  Or, maybe, they've gone on several intervening adventures, but they've only been historical or modern day ones.  I think it's possible to slide, for instance, Ghosts of India in between Pompeii and Ood, or even between Crime and Pompeii.  Could be wrong though; maybe there's something in Ghosts that precludes it.  But the frequent costume and appearance changes for a regulars at the beginning of the series does imply gaps.  Conversely, Martha being in the same outfit so often in series 3 reinforces the idea that most episodes, especially 1-7, are happening within just a few hours of Smith and Jones.


 * I'm not as quick as Imamadmad to put the Sontaran stuff necessarily early. Just because it's her first trip back home doesn't imply anything about how far into her travels she is at that point.  After all, there is no connective tissue between Ood and Sontaran, aside from the nominal fact that the Doc's in a blue suit in both.  Donna is again completely changed.  Not just costume, but again the hair betrays the passage of time.  She's definitely lost her curls by Sontaran.  Plus there's the freakin' giant fact that Ten is teaching her how to fly the TARDIS at the top of the episode.  That to me has always implied a giant passage of time.  He definitely didn't teach Rose anything about how to fly the TARDIS in his entire ninth incarnation.  And it seems to have taken the threat of the Family of Blood to have made him teach Martha anything about the console.  So I think it's entirely likely that serious time has passed between Ood and Sontaran.


 * I think that in the construction of Forum:Timeline - Tenth Doctor, you're going to need to scour the other stories for any references they make to TV stories. Positive ID is only going to occur when you see a story making a reference to Sontaran — or whatever — that you'll know its placement relative to that particular show.  But I think there definitely are gaps pretty much between every episode of series 4, except between the Martha trilogy and 11-13. I don't even particularly see why we have to accept broadcast order as chonological order for a lot of them.  Midnight in particular, could easily go between Ood and Sontaran without causing discontinuity.  And Unicorn could go after Pompeii without causing a worry in the world.  But, again, that's just looking at the televised episodes.   Once you start putting the other stories in there it becomes harder to move TV stories around. 13:59: Tue 08 May 2012


 * As good points you've made, Midnight couldn't go between "Ood" and "Stratagem". When the planets go missing and Rose speaks to Wilf and Sylvia, Wilf makes reference to Donna speaking to him from Midnight. Even if we assume Donna doesn't call home frequently, it pretty much has to be after The Doctor's Daughter, and more likely pretty close to Turn Left.


 * Plus, and I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the Doctor inferred it as being a short while when Donna went home (as in her house) for the first time and he said his farewells. -- Tybort (talk page) 14:23, May 8, 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, let's be specific about what you're saying.
 * From Stolen Earth
 * Wilf: ... the last time she called it was from a planet called Midnight, made of diamonds.
 * On the face of things, that gives us a bit of definition. But that only narrows down Midgnight to after Sontaran.  It still could be in something other than broadcast order, such as immediately before or after Unicorn or Silence.


 * But.


 * You're right to be less certain about the Sontaran quote. All the Doctor says there about Donna's departure is, "that's a bit soon.  I was gonna take you to x, y, z."   Soon means something completely different to early — especially for a long-lived Time Lord.  That being the case, you could actually move the entire Martha trilogy to any point before Turn Left.  This would then make it possible to put it all after Midnight, and Wilf would still be telling the truth when he said "the last time she called was from Midnight", because she doesn't call Wilf in Sontaran or Poison.


 * It's easy speculation ike this that makes the forums the only logical home for timeline pages. Timeline stuff isn't definite, most of the time.  It can be what you want it to be.  And we're only talkin BBC Wales here, which at least tries to have some connective narrative.  Take a look at, say, season 17.  The only thing you can say for sure is that Destiny of the Daleks must come first, because it's the one where Romana regenerates.  After that, those stories could be in absolutely any order you want (again, without reference to other media).  There's no discontinuity whatsoever with having Nimon after Destiny.  Or Nightmare after Nimon.  It all works.  And that's true of most colour seasons.  The general shape of classic DW is only that the first story of a season must be the first story.  After that, all bets are off, with the exception of most Davison stories and season 23.  17:24: Wed 09 May 2012