User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Reference Desk/@comment-5959773-20130106175347/@comment-88790-20130109154912

Theband65 wrote: Yeah I figured it'd be something along those lines. Just figured I'd ask anyway though. I didn't even know that canon was such a gray area in the Doctor Who universe. Are there some mediums (Audio, comics, novels etc) that are more often accepted as canon as opposed to other mediums (excluding the TV show)? Or is asking that question essentially opening up Pandora's box amongst the fans?

My last question is just a clarification of what you guys are telling me. So what I'm understanding is that if you were able to determine what you personally considered canon you could create a "comprehensive timeline" of the Doctor's stories. However it would only be accurate to a certain extent because of the lack of chronological evidence.

Thanks again!

Basically, yes, if you can decide what counts for you then you could create a comprehensive (for you) timeline.

Or once you've decided what's canon for you you're able to read other people's timelines and ignore the stories that don't fit your understanding of a timeline.

As well as those already mentioned I'd recommend Lance Parkin's AHistory whose third edition is huge and covers a lot. It's more of a history than a timeline though.

As for acceptance amongst fans / fan guides. The answer is not really and kinda, and it depends.

Basically in the 90s it was relatively easy to keep up to date with DW fiction. Virgin/BBC Books published all the prose and there were 1-2 books a month. Plus DWM's comic. That's not a huge amount of stories being generated, so there were lots of timelines produced around that time because the pool of information was large but not growing at an out of control rate.

Once we hit the 2000s Big Finish gets in on the game and then in 2005 the BBC. Since then the amount of stories has been increasing at a fairly steady rate. So writing timelines becomes a more complex job.

What this means is that there are probably more comprehensive timelines from pre-2005 than there are post-2005.

Some timelines also are vague about things and slot things in 'where they fit. The Doctor Who Reference Guide does this with many stories (short stories especially) they've noted "time placement arbitrary").