Theory:Timeline - UNIT

This page lists appearances of UNIT in chronological order. This timeline is based upon observations of the Doctor Who universe and the events that occur during each of these stories. From these observations we have attempted to build a concise timeline. It is assumed that for each novel, comic, audio or television series, their published, broadcast or numbered order is the order they occur in.

Note that the placing of UNIT stories is especially complicated due to the UNIT dating controversy.

20th century

 * TV: The Invasion
 * TV: Spearhead from Space
 * COMIC: The Arkwood Experiments
 * COMIC: The Multi-Mobile
 * COMIC: Insect
 * AUDIO: Vengeance of the Stones
 * The Doctor has had Bessie for a relatively short period of time.


 * TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians
 * PROSE: The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back
 * The outcome of Doctor Who and the Silurians is still fresh on the Doctor's mind.


 * AUDIO: Old Soldiers
 * Tentative placement in regards to the "recent" falling out between the Doctor and Brigadier over the Silurians.


 * AUDIO: Shadow of the Past
 * The Silurians occurred a few weeks earlier.


 * TV: The Ambassadors of Death
 * PROSE: UNIT Christmas Parties: First Christmas
 * Liz has been working with UNIT for "a few months", and her complaints about her job here are similar to those that the Brigadier cites as her reason for leaving. The TARDIS console has also been removed from within the ship, as it was in The Ambassadors of Death.


 * AUDIO: Walls of Confinement
 * This is the second time the Doctor has visited a zoo, setting this after The Arkwood Experiments.


 * PROSE: Prelude White Darkness
 * The Brigadier finds it doubtful that the Doctor can get the TARDIS to work, setting this before Inferno.


 * TV: Inferno
 * AUDIO: The Last Post
 * The Last Post spans from Spearhead to just before Inferno.


 * PROSE: Ashes of the Inferno
 * COMIC: The Fishmen of Carpantha
 * COMIC: Doctor Who and the Rocks from Venus
 * PROSE: The Science of Magic
 * PROSE: The Eye of the Giant
 * Mike Yates arrives at UNIT and sees inside the TARDIS for the first time, and the Doctor mentions visiting the parallel universe from Inferno.


 * AUDIO: The Blue Tooth
 * Liz decides to leave UNIT.


 * AUDIO: Binary
 * Liz announces her intention to leave UNIT.


 * PROSE: The Scales of Injustice
 * Liz officially leaves UNIT, Yates is promoted to Captain Rank, and the Doctor is in a new laboratory.


 * PROSE: Prisoners of the Sun
 * Liz has recently left UNIT.


 * AUDIO: The Rings of Ikiria
 * COMIC: Castaway
 * COMIC: Levitation
 * PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune
 * Liz is called back to UNIT, and has been absent long enough for the Doctor to admit missing her company.


 * Reconnaissance
 * After Prisoners of the Sun as the Master is active, unbeknown to the Brigadier.


 * TV: Terror of the Autons
 * TV: The Mind of Evil
 * AUDIO: The Doll of Death
 * Jo is still quite new to UNIT, and is unaware of the true nature of the TARDIS, setting it before The Claws of Axos.


 * AUDIO: The Mega
 * The Mega were aided by the Master.


 * PROSE: Deadly Reunion (part 2)
 * The Master has a working TARDIS, placing this after The Mind of Evil.


 * PROSE: UNIT Christmas Parties: Christmas Truce
 * No one has seen the Master since Deadly Reunion.


 * TV: The Claws of Axos
 * TV: Colony in Space
 * TV: The Dæmons
 * AUDIO:Degrees of Truth
 * Set immediately after The Dæmons.


 * PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy
 * PROSE: Freedom
 * Set soon after The Dæmons.


 * TV: Day of the Daleks
 * PROSE: The Face of the Enemy
 * This is concurrent with The Curse of Peladon.


 * PROSE: Harvest of Time
 * PROSE: The Eight Doctors
 * For the third Doctor, this takes place immediately after the Sea Devils, but before Find and Replace.


 * AUDIO: Find and Replace
 * PROSE: Rags
 * Jo recalls the Daleks and Ogrons, which places this firmly after Day of the Daleks. Likewise, the Doctor confesses that sheep have never filled him with dread before, placing this before Verdigris.


 * TV: The Time Monster
 * PROSE: Verdigris
 * TV: The Three Doctors
 * AUDIO: The Scorchies
 * AUDIO: The Many Deaths of Jo Grant
 * PROSE: Last of the Gaderene
 * The takes place before the Green Death


 * TV: The Green Death
 * AUDIO: Council of War
 * Takes place soon after the Green Death.

The Brig encounters the fifth Doctor while the Third is having a break from UNIT.
 * PROSE: Deep Blue
 * PROSE: Faithful Friends: Part 1
 * The third Doctor returns from his Sabbatical from UNIT.


 * TV: The Time Warrior
 * AUDIO: The Paradise of Death
 * TV: Invasion of the Dinosaurs
 * COMIC: Prisoners of Time
 * The Doctor is driving the "Whomobile", setting this after Invasion of the Dinosaurs.


 * AUDIO: The Ghosts of N-Space
 * PROSE: Island of Death
 * The Doctor senses that he will soon regenerate.


 * PROSE: An Overture Too Early
 * TV: Planet of the Spiders
 * TV: Robot
 * PROSE: Wolfsbane
 * TV: Terror of the Zygons
 * COMIC: Official Secrets
 * PROSE: No Future
 * The seventh Doctor implants the idea of the Brigadier retiring.


 * AUDIO: The Helliax Rift
 * Set in the 80s


 * TV: The Five Doctors
 * 1 January 1990 - PROSE: The Enfolded Time
 * 1995 - HOMEVID: Downtime / PROSE: Downtime
 * TV: Battlefield
 * 1997 - PROSE: The Dying Days

21st century

 * 2004 - TV: Fragments
 * Five years prior to her death in 2009, Toshiko Sato is arrested by UNIT but freed by Jack Harkness, who offers her a place at Torchwood Three.


 * AUDIO: The Coup
 * 2006 - TV: Aliens of London/World War Three
 * The Ninth Doctor identifies a group of alien experts from the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.


 * Christmas 2006 - TV: The Christmas Invasion
 * 2008 - TV: The Sound of Drums
 * First contact with the Toclafane is hosted on the UNIT aircraft carrier Valiant, designed by Harold Saxon.


 * 2008 - TV: Revenge of the Slitheen (mentioned only)
 * Sarah Jane Smith arranges for UNIT to clean up Coldfire Construction after defeating the Slitheen.


 * 2009 - TV: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky
 * UNIT is now known as the Unified Intelligence Taskforce.


 * TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
 * TV: Planet of the Dead
 * TV: Children of Earth
 * TV: Enemy of the Bane
 * TV: The End of Time
 * 4 May 2010 - GAME: Blood of the Cybermen (mentioned only)
 * Having defeated a Cyberman incursion in the Arctic, the Eleventh Doctor predicts that UNIT will clean up.


 * COMIC: The Golden Ones
 * TV: Death of the Doctor
 * 2011 - TV: The Blood Line (mentioned only)
 * As noted by Jack Harkness, UNIT seals off the Blessing after "the Miracle" is negated.


 * TV: The Power of Three
 * Kate Stewart meets the Doctor, in his eleventh incarnation, for the first time.


 * TV: The Bells of Saint John
 * AUDIO: Extinction
 * According to Big Finish, Extinction is between The Power of Three and The Day of the Doctor.


 * AUDIO: Assembled
 * Osgood hasn't met the Doctor yet.


 * TV: The Day of the Doctor
 * Osgood and Kate meet the Eleventh Doctor as well as the War Doctor and the Tenth Doctor. Preventing the discovery of a Zygon incursion from erupting into war, the three Doctors force UNIT and the Zygons to make a truce which will become Operation Double. Befriending her Zygon copy, there are now two Osgoods.


 * AUDIO: Shutdown
 * Osgood has met the Eleventh Doctor, meaning that this is after The Day of the Doctor. However, Shindi is still recuperating from being shot in Extinction.


 * AUDIO: Silenced
 * AUDIO: Encounters
 * AUDIO: Cyber-Reality
 * Colonel Shindi is unfamiliar with the sight of flying Cybermen, while Osgood is thrilled to have survived meeting, suggesting this takes place before Death in Heaven.


 * TV: Death in Heaven
 * Kate has her first encounter with the Twelfth Doctor and, the latter of whom murders an Osgood. As the two Osgoods chose to keep the truth of their races between them, it is unclear whether the one who died was the human or the Zygon.


 * TV: The Magician's Apprentice
 * TV: The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Invasion
 * The Zygon group Truth or Consequences attempt to break the ceasefire until the Twelfth Doctor convinces them to stand down. Their leader, Bonnie, joins and assumes the form of the surviving Osgood, who still refuses to disclose whether or not she is herself human or Zygon until the time comes when it does not matter.


 * TV: The Return of Doctor Mysterio
 * COMIC: The Lost Dimension

Post-21st century

 * 2119 - TV: Under the Lake/Before the Flood (mentioned only)

Unplaced

 * PROSE: UNITed We Fall