Theory:Timeline - Second Doctor

This page lists appearances of the Second Doctor in the order in which he experienced them. This timeline is based on observations of the Doctor Who universe and the events in each of these stories. From these observations we have attempted to build a concise timeline. There are also many gaps between stories.

The layout of this timeline is based in part on the observations on Doctor Who Reference Guide and Doctor Who - The Complete Adventures, Lance Parkin's AHistory and other sources that allow us to make observations. None of these sources should be used solely as a source or considered a "true" timeline for stories.

Companions
Time placement of Second Doctor stories has a lot to do with looking at the companions. Any story featuring only Ben Jackson and Polly Wright must take place before TV: The Highlanders; any story featuring Jamie McCrimmon must take place after TV: The Highlanders. Any story with Victoria Waterfield must take place after TV: The Evil of the Daleks and before TV: Fury from the Deep. Any story with Zoe Heriot must be set during or after TV: The Wheel in Space.

Where it gets tricky is when the Second Doctor is with un-televised companions, or with Jamie alone. A lot of these stories are often said to occur during Season 6B, a fan-opined spot on the timeline after the Doctor's trial on Gallifrey in The War Games. Such placement is possible because we don't actually see the Second Doctor regenerate into the Third. Thus it is possible to imagine, as TV Comic writers and Terrance Dicks certainly did, that the Second Doctor survived for an unspecified period of time after The War Games.

But you can't always shuffle off these difficult stories to Season 6b. And even if you do put them there, it's hard to know precisely where they sit in relation to each other.

Problem children: John, Gillian and TV Comic's Jamie
The biggest unknowns certainly surround TV Comic stories, because of a fundamental continuity error. There's no way around it, no retcon that can be applied — the TV Comic writers just got it wrong. At the beginning of his run in TV Comic, the Second Doctor effectively inherits John and Gillian from the First Doctor. But then after a few stories with the brats, he puts them in school on Zebadee and, in the same story, meets up with Jamie McCrimmon — again. That is, he knows who Jamie is. Somehow, Jamie has made his way to 20th century Scotland, but we don't know how.

So time placement of the John and Gillian and Jamie TV Comic stories is, frankly, impossible. How could he have already known Jamie at the same time he was travelling with the kids? Were John and Gillian always stowed away on the TARDIS while the Doctor travelled around with Ben, Polly, Jamie, Victoria and Zoe? There is no great explanation for it.

Saying that all of the TV Comic stories occur during Season 6b is problematic at best. Action in Exile – one of the first post-Jamie strips — certainly goes out of its way to depict the Doctor as newly exiled. You can't even really construct some timey-wimey narrative, in which everything prior to Action in Exile actually happened after it. Why? Attempts to construct a timeline that works for the Second Doctor are always frustrated by the need to accommodate John and Gillian's travels with the First Doctor.

It was all a dream
So what do we do with these wayward scribbles? Say that the Doctor dreamt it all up. We've even got a source for that theory. The Land of Happy Endings explicitly says that the brats were just a dream that the Doctor periodically had. Since sanity is valuable, why not avail ourselves of Scott Gray's solution?

If we do that, then the TVC timeline goes something like this:
 * The Extortioner — Martha the Mechanical Housemaid are a dream
 * The Duellists — Operation Wurlitzer are essentially not placeable, because they feature the Second Doctor alone, but definitely not in exile on 20th century Earth
 * Action in Exile — The Night Walkers are firmly in Season 6b, post The War Games and World Game

They're just Stories
Another theory is found in the novels Conundrum and Head Games where it is stated that the adventures with John and Gillian were just stories created by the master of the Land of Fiction.

New Adventures with Ben & Poly

 * TV: The Tenth Planet / PROSE: Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet
 * The Doctor regenerates from his previous incarnation.


 * TV: The Power of the Daleks / PROSE: The Power of the Daleks
 * PROSE: Pluto
 * Ben finally accepts the Doctors regeneration


 * PROSE: Timewyrm: Apocalypse
 * PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People

Ben, Jamie, and Polly

 * TV: The Highlanders / PROSE: The Highlanders
 * TV: The Underwater Menace / PROSE: The Underwater Menace
 * TV: The Moonbase / PROSE: Doctor Who and the Cybermen
 * TV: The Macra Terror / PROSE: The Macra Terror
 * These stories, from Highlanders to Macra Terror, all flow into each other.


 * AUDIO: Resistance
 * AUDIO: The Three Companions
 * AUDIO: The Forbidden Time
 * AUDIO: The Selachian Gambit
 * AUDIO: The Yes Men
 * The Doctor is trying to get to 1966.


 * AUDIO: The Forsaken
 * TV: The Faceless Ones / PROSE: The Faceless Ones

Adventures With Jamie between Ben & Polly and Victoria

 * PROSE: The Nameless City
 * Jamie does not know who the Master is, placing it before The Dark Path.

Travels with Jamie and Victoria

 * TV: The Evil of the Daleks / PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks
 * TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen / PROSE: Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen
 * AUDIO: Return to Telos
 * Return to Telos is set during The Tomb of the Cybermen.


 * AUDIO: The Great Space Elevator
 * Victoria mentions having just been on Telos.


 * TV: The Abominable Snowmen / PROSE: Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen
 * TV: The Ice Warriors / PROSE: Doctor Who and the Ice Warriors
 * PROSE: Combat Rock
 * The TARDIS crew are glad to be in a warm location


 * AUDIO: The Black Hole
 * Jamie compares a colony's computers to the computers of the Ice Warriors. Between episodes 2 and 3 the Doctor and Jamie go on several adventures together. They almost visit the events of The Two Doctors, but upon learning that Sontarans are involved decide to visit later.


 * TV: The Enemy of the World / PROSE: Doctor Who and the Enemy of the World
 * TV: The Web of Fear / PROSE: Doctor Who and the Web of Fear
 * COMIC: Bringer of Darkness
 * Victoria states that they had just been underground.


 * PROSE: Screamager
 * Victoria is starting to consider leaving


 * PROSE: Twilight of the Gods
 * PROSE: The Dark Path
 * Victoria decides that at their next stop she shall leave the TARDIS.


 * TV: Fury from the Deep / PROSE: Fury from the Deep

Traveling with Jamie Between Victoria & Zoe

 * AUDIO: Seven to One
 * The Doctor and Jamie are traveling alone.

Zoe Joins the TARDIS Crew

 * TV: The Wheel in Space / PROSE: The Wheel in Space
 * AUDIO: Fear of the Daleks
 * The opening scene takes place right after The Wheel in Space, while the Doctor is using his thought projector. The remainder of the story can take place anywhere between The Invasion and The War Games.


 * TV: The Dominators / PROSE: The Dominators
 * Begins right after the Doctor finishes using the thought projector.


 * TV: The Mind Robber / PROSE: The Mind Robber
 * COMIC: Time & Time Again


 * TV: The Invasion / PROSE: The Invasion
 * The preceding three television stories take place in succession of each other.


 * AUDIO: Shadow of Death
 * AUDIO: Little Doctors 
 * Zoe has recently joined the TARDIS crew


 * AUDIO: The Glorious Revolution
 * Jamie recently encountered Tobias Vaughn.


 * AUDIO: Prison in Space
 * Zoe has recently encountered the Quarks.


 * PROSE: Future Imperfect
 * The Doctor visits the Land of Fiction again, placing it after The Mind Robber. Also leads into The Three Doctors, which must place it after The Invasion.


 * TV: The Three Doctors / PROSE: The Three Doctors
 * Immediately follows Future Imperfect. The Doctor recognises Benton, placing it after The Invasion.


 * PROSE: Briefly Noted
 * The Doctor buys a new recorder


 * COMIC: The Forgotten
 * TV: The Krotons / PROSE: The Krotons
 * COMIC: Land of the Blind
 * TV: The Seeds of Death / PROSE: The Seeds of Death
 * PROSE: ''The Room with All the Doors
 * Set during The Seeds of Death


 * AUDIO: The Rosemariners
 * COMIC: Prisoners of Time
 * AUDIO: Echoes of Grey
 * AUDIO: The Apocalypse Mirror
 * In Last of the Cybermen Jamie establishes that Echoes and Apocalypse take place between Seeds and Wheel of Ice, but their relation to other stories is unclear.


 * PROSE: The Wheel of Ice
 * In Last Jamie implies that The Wheel of Ice takes place immediately before The Space Pirates.


 * TV: The Space Pirates / PROSE: The Space Pirates
 * AUDIO: Last of the Cybermen
 * For the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe, this takes place after The Space Pirates


 * AUDIO: The Queen of Time
 * AUDIO: ''Lords of the Red Planet
 * Could be anywhere between The Seeds of Death and The War Games.


 * AUDIO: The Dying Light
 * TV: The War Games / PROSE: Doctor Who and the War Games
 * PROSE: The Eight Doctors
 * PROSE: War Crimes
 * The Eight Doctors and War Crimes occur during The War Games
 * The Doctor was sent into a forced regeneration at the end of The War Games. It would later be revealed that the Doctor had initially been sentenced do death, only for his sentence to be revoked on the condition that he work for the Time Lords on missions. His banishing and regeneration take place later.

Working For the Time Lords

 * PROSE: World Game
 * PROSE: Players
 * World Game is the first story in the series of Season 6B. Early in the book, the Doctor asks to be sent to World War II to see if the Time Lords have really sent the soldiers from the War Games home, and Players occurs here. After Players, the Doctor returns to Gallifrey to continue the events of World Game. At the end of World Game, the Doctor blackmails the Time Lords into letting him travel with Jamie McCrimmon as his companion once more. The time lords modify Jamie's memory to make him believe that he is traveling with the Doctor during the events of The Black Hole.


 * TV: The Two Doctors / PROSE: The Two Doctors
 * The Doctor and Jamie's first mission for the Time Lords.


 * PROSE: The Time Eater
 * The Doctor has his Stattenheim remote control


 * AUDIO: Helicon Prime
 * Jamie believes Victoria Waterfield is studying graphography, but the Doctor has a Sonic Screwdriver.


 * PROSE: That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress
 * TV: The Five Doctors / PROSE: The Five Doctors
 * The Doctor knows of the events of The War Games.


 * GAME: Destiny of the Doctors
 * The Doctor has his Stattenheim remote control.
 * Free of Jamie or any televised companion, the Doctor eventually served the two parts of his sentence separately. First he was exiled to Earth, where he lived in comparative opulence at the Carlton Grange Hotel in London.

Beginning Of Exile on Earth

 * COMIC: Action in Exile
 * COMIC: The Mark of Terror
 * COMIC: The Brotherhood
 * COMIC: U.F.O.
 * COMIC: The Night Walkers
 * One night, while he was a panellist on a game show, the Time Lords finally caught the Doctor and forced him to regenerate, then set the controls of the TARDIS to dematerialise one last time, spinning him off towards the opening moments of ''Spearhead from Space

The Doctor's dreams
Given the fact that The Land of Happy Endings explicitly tells us that the Doctor dreamed up John and Gillian, it's much safer just to consider these dreams, removed from the timeline entirely. Because Jamie and John and Gillian actually are in the same strip — Invasion of the Quarks — it's much easier just to believe his TVC exploits with the Doctor are part of that same "dream continuity". There's no particular reason to have faith in the order of these stories, since they're dreams anyway, but for convenience will choose publication order as the order in which the dreams occurred.


 * COMIC: The Extortioner
 * COMIC: The Trodos Ambush
 * COMIC: The Doctor Strikes Back
 * COMIC: The Zombies
 * COMIC: Master of Spiders
 * COMIC: The Exterminator
 * COMIC: Barnabus
 * COMIC: Jungle Adventure
 * COMIC: The Monsters from the Past
 * COMIC: The TARDIS Worshippers
 * COMIC: Space War Two
 * COMIC: Egyptian Escapade
 * COMIC: The Coming of the Cybermen
 * COMIC: The Faithful Rocket Pack
 * COMIC: Flower Power
 * COMIC: The Witches
 * COMIC: Cyber-Mole
 * COMIC: The Sabre-Toothed Gorillas
 * COMIC: The Cyber Empire
 * COMIC: The Dyrons
 * COMIC: Return of the Witches
 * COMIC: Masquerade
 * COMIC: Dr. Who and the Space Pirates
 * COMIC: Car of the Century
 * COMIC: The Jokers
 * COMIC: Attack of the Daleks
 * COMIC: Pursued by the Trods
 * COMIC: The Time Museum
 * COMIC: Invasion of the Quarks
 * COMIC: The Killer Wasps
 * COMIC: Ice Cap Terror
 * COMIC: Jungle of Doom
 * COMIC: Father Time
 * COMIC: Martha the Mechanical Housemaid

Not placeable
These stories are not easily placeable, since they have no companion, but neither is the Doctor in exile on 20th century Earth. Maybe they are a part of Season 6b, but if so, they're a part never clearly outlined in any narrative. It's equally possible that the Doctor had better control of his TARDIS than he let on. He could have slipped away during a dull moment in a televised story. Because of this uncertainty, it's safest to say that we just don't know when they occurred.
 * COMIC: The Duellists
 * COMIC: Eskimo Joe
 * COMIC: Peril at 60 Fathoms
 * COMIC: Operation Wurlitzer
 * COMIC: The Champion
 * COMIC: The Entertainer
 * COMIC: The Electrodes
 * COMIC: Death Race
 * COMIC: Test Flight
 * PROSE: Loop the Loup
 * PROSE: All of Beyond
 * PROSE: The Man Who (Nearly) Killed Christmas
 * PROSE: Mother's Little Helper
 * PROSE: Blue Road Dance
 * PROSE: Scientific Adviser
 * PROSE: The Steward's Story
 * PROSE: Golem
 * PROSE: All of Beyond
 * PROSE: Dust
 * PROSE: Reunion
 * PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy
 * The Doctor in this book is vague. It is either the Second Doctor or the Seventh.

Yet to be evaluated

 * AUDIO: The Emperor of Eternity
 * Could be anywhere between The Abominable Snowmen and Fury from the Deep.


 * AUDIO: The Memory Cheats
 * AUDIO: The Uncertainty Principle
 * This trilogy could be anywhere between Fear of the Daleks and The War Games, but must take place in this order.


 * AUDIO: The Jigsaw War
 * AUDIO: A Stain of Red in the Sand
 * Could be anywhere between Fear of the Daleks and The War Games.


 * AUDIO: The Way Forwards
 * Could be anywhere between The Tomb of the Cybermen and Fury from the Deep


 * AUDIO: The Five Dimensional Man
 * Could be anywhere between Fear of the Daleks and The War Games.


 * AUDIO: ''Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
 * Could be anywhere between Fear of the Daleks and The War Games.


 * AUDIO: The Old Rogue (flashback)
 * Could be anywhere between The Highlanders and The War Games, most likely in Season 6B.


 * PROSE: The Menagerie
 * PROSE: Downtime
 * PROSE: The Murder Game
 * PROSE: The Roundheads
 * PROSE: Dreams of Empire
 * PROSE: The Final Sanction
 * PROSE: Independence Day (flashback cameo)
 * PROSE: Heart of TARDIS
 * PROSE: Dying in the Sun
 * PROSE: The Colony of Lies
 * PROSE: The Indestructible Man
 * PROSE: Foreign Devils
 * PROSE: Wonderland
 * PROSE: The Sour Note
 * PROSE: The Dream Masters
 * PROSE: The Word of Asiries
 * PROSE: Only a Matter of Time
 * PROSE: Planet of Bones
 * PROSE: When Starlight Grows Cold
 * PROSE: H.M.S. TARDIS
 * PROSE: The King of Golden Death
 * PROSE: Lords of the Galaxy
 * PROSE: Follow the Phantoms
 * PROSE: Mastermind of Space
 * PROSE: The Celestial Toyshop
 * PROSE: Valley of Dragons
 * PROSE: Planet from Nowhere
 * PROSE: Happy as Queeg
 * PROSE: World of Ice
 * PROSE: The Microtron Men
 * PROSE: Death to Mufl
 * PROSE: The Dragons of Kekokro
 * PROSE: The Singing Crystals
 * PROSE: The Mystery of the Marie Celeste
 * PROSE: Grip of Ice
 * PROSE: Man Friday
 * PROSE: Slave of Shran
 * PROSE: Run the Gauntlet
 * PROSE: A Thousand & One Doors
 * PROSE: The Sleeping Beast
 * PROSE: Dream a Little Dream for Me
 * PROSE: Fallen Angel
 * PROSE: Vortex of Fear
 * PROSE: Aliens and Predators
 * PROSE: uPVC
 * PROSE: Please Shut the Gate
 * PROSE: Twin Piques
 * PROSE: Constant Companion
 * PROSE: Five Card Draw
 * PROSE: Face-Painter
 * PROSE: The Astronomer's Apprentice
 * PROSE: The Glass Princess
 * PROSE: Greenaway
 * PROSE: One Small Step...
 * PROSE: The Age of Ambition
 * PROSE: The Farmer's Story
 * PROSE: The Last Emperor
 * PROSE: Goodwill Toward Men
 * PROSE: That Which Went Away
 * PROSE: Undercurrents
 * PROSE: Visiting Hours
 * PROSE: Mercury
 * PROSE: The Feast
 * PROSE: The Revolutionaries
 * PROSE: Saint Nicholas's Bones
 * PROSE: Father Figure
 * PROSE: The Lost
 * PROSE: The Avant Guardian
 * PROSE: The Time Eater
 * PROSE: Across Silent Seas
 * PROSE: The Cutty Wren
 * PROSE: The Christmas Presence
 * PROSE: Lepidoptery for Beginners
 * PROSE: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
 * PROSE: Homework
 * PROSE: The Slave War
 * PROSE: On a Pedestal
 * PROSE: Outstanding Balance
 * PROSE: Lares Domestici
 * PROSE: Mirth, or Walking Spirits
 * PROSE: Favourite Star
 * PROSE: Pass It On
 * COMIC: The Tests of Trefus
 * COMIC: World Without Night
 * COMIC: Atoms Infinite
 * COMIC: Freedom by Fire
 * COMIC: The Vampire Plants
 * COMIC: Robot King
 * TV: ''The Day of the Doctor