Theory talk:Timeline - Tenth Doctor

Day of the Doctor - Shakespeare Code
Shouldn't Day of the Doctor be somewhere before The Shakespeare Code? Because the Doctor greets Elizabeth I at the end of The Shakespeare Code as if he had known her before. Also, the Tenth Doctor looked surprised when the War Doctor said "Bad Wolf", I think Day of the Doctor should be somewhere after Doomsday and before the Shakespeare Code, he didn't have Martha with him while he was with Elizabeth. I suggest Day of the Doctor should rather be in the part "Grieving for Rose".

The Tenth Doctor acts surprised and confused as to why she is so angry at him when he's with Shakepeare. We know The Day of the Doctor probably happened between The Waters of Mars and The End of Time.

In The Waters of Mars he is summoned by Ood Sigma, then in End of Time The Doctor references stopping at various places on the way, including meeting Elizabeth the First, with reference to the events at the beginning of Day of the Doctor Danochy ☎  04:43, August 31, 2018 (UTC)

Dr. Tenth: A Christmas Surprise
I personally would’ve placed this directly after Frosty the Snowdemon. It seems plausible to me that the Doctor and Donna would decide to stick around and celebrate Christmas after the events at the garden centre. Thoughts? WaltK ☎  01:38, October 15, 2019 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. Danochy ☎  08:30, October 24, 2020 (UTC)

Echoes of Extinction
So AUDIO: Echoes of Extinction seems to have thrown up something of a continuity conundrum.

It’s very explicitly after the events of TLV, to the point where the Doctor isn’t actually expecting to be confronted with anything related to that, and he doesn’t really speak of it as though it’s particularly recent for him. So we know it goes sometime after All Flesh is Grass, with the Doctor having resumed his normal travels.

However an issue arises later on in the story, when the Doctor makes reference to a fiancé called Liz, whom he does an impression of. This is clearly intended to be Elizabeth I. The problem is, they get engaged during the events of The Day of the Doctor and then marry later on in the same story, with little opportunity for the Doctor to pop off and have other adventures in between.

I don’t personally feel it would be right to place this story during Day of the Doctor because of this reference, as it doesn’t really make any sense in the narrative of either story. I feel it would make more sense to place it after with the assumption that either the Doctor didn’t believe that the marriage ceremony was legally binding at the time, or that the presence of his other selves have messed with his memory. Basically I think we should treat this as though he doesn’t yet know that he actually married Elizabeth I and that’s why he calls her his fiancé, only to discover that he did in fact marry her by The End of Time.

What are everyone else’s thoughts? SarahJaneFan ☎  14:45, 16 April 2021 (UTC)


 * It is possible it’s post-Day and the Doctor is just poorly recalling details due to usual multi-Doctor events screwing with memory, though that requires speculating that he somehow realised he did marry her by The End of Time when he clearly does remember marrying her. Trouble is I think the story is clearly designed as an epilogue for Tenth Doctor’s character arc in TLV so placing it so far after the main events feels wrong.


 * Is it not also possible the Doctor met Liz prior to The Day of the Doctor? It’s never explicitly said (if I remember rightly) how long he and her have been together prior to him confronting her about being a Zygon (which is the start of his role in Day). He could have been popping to and fro for a while before realising the Zygons were about and fearing they’d replaced Liz. I realise this is very speculative, so might not be appropriate for the Wiki. SherlockTheII ☎  21:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

The Doctor actually asks Liz to marry him in the scene just before he accuses her of being a Zygon, with the main basis for his argument being that the real Liz would never accept his proposal, and then realises hes made a terrible mistake once it’s clear to him that he’s now engaged to her. So it seems unlikely to me that this can take place before Day of the Doctor. I made the mistake myself of initially setting it prior to Day of the Doctor thinking they were already engaged at the start but after some fact checking I realised this was not the case.

But I do agree that a likely scenario could just be that the Doctor is misremembering or maybe he just doesn’t think the marriage was legal, but finds out later that it was. SarahJaneFan ☎  22:42, 16 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I have yet to find time to listen to my copy yet, but from what's been said here, it sounds like it takes place shortly, if not immediately, after The Day of the Doctor, with the Doctor recalling only his proposal to Elizabeth. After all, going by how old is describes his age, at least two years pass for the Doctor between The Day of the Doctor and The End of Time, plenty of time to find out their marriage, if not at least come to remember some of it, since the Eleventh Doctors says, "This is where I come in", just before he jumps into the time fissure, meaning the Tenth Doctor did come to remember more of the Multi-Doctor Event. BananaClownMan 23:32, 17 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The idea that the Doctor would only recall the engagement from Day of the Doctor due to the multi-Doctor shenanigans (that would affect the rest of the story) makes a lot of sense to me. Regardless of why he doesn't remember the marriage, it seems we have a consensus that it's best placed after Day. I'd also have to agree that the sooner the better, although there's nothing to suggest it should take place so soon as to be described as "shortly" or "immediately" after Day, especially given the suggested 2 year time period we have available. Danochy ☎  11:06, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

The Feast of the Drowned - Tooth and Claw
I've recently ordered and been reading The Feast of the Drowned and I noticed something a little odd about it's placement here. At the beginning of the Novel The Doctor keeps referring to himself as Sir John. I can't think of any reason why he would call himself Sir other than the fact that he was knighted in Tooth and Claw. As he doesn't do this again my only assumption is that he's very recently been knighted. The Problem appears when you look at the timeline. It has been placed before the beginning of Series 2 with New Earth, so at this stage he's not actually a knight. Another thought is that the novel was written after The Stone Rose. Now I know that when writing for the Novels and Audios the writers are allowed to jump around but I kind of like the idea of them being released in order of how the events happened to the Doctor. Very interested to see the counters so feel free to shoot down my idea in a ball of flame (If you are able to. ;-)).

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head and a move should be made. I’ve never liked the placements of the books on the timeline, so I’m glad you’ve spotted something that makes things clearer. SarahJaneFan ☎  19:38, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * As I recall, The Feast of the Drowned was at least set before The Lodger comic due to Mickey still holding his grudge with the Ninth Doctor against the Tenth Doctor in the former, while the latter shows them becoming friends, since, aside from some rather justified resentment from being treated as second fiddle to Rose, Mickey doesn't seem to have any hard feelings for the Doctor in Season 2. BananaClownMan ☎  21:01, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Hey, IP user. Saw the twitter question. First of all, you should make an account, it makes it so much easier to coordinate things on the wiki. Things like talk pages are incredibly helpful for coordinating projects. (eg, mine, which I linked to, has part of a conversation between Nate and I discussing writing a summary for a book) Secondly, in order to reply, there are two ways. The "add topic" button at the top of the page has another button next to it that has three dots. If you click that and then click "edit source" you will be editing the entire page. Alternatively, if you look at the topic heading "The Feast of the Drowned - Tooth and Claw", you see that little pencil button next to it? Click that and you will be editing just this section.
 * In addition to that, formatting tips, indentation can be done by using ":"s, try to add one more than the last person who talked, generally as a rule of thumb people reset when it goes up to five or so colons. Personal preference is a guide. Finally, make sure to sign your comments with four "~"s, regardless of whether you've got an account or not. It lets us know who made the comment. Cheers. Najawin ☎  05:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Hey it's me. The OP.
 * In response to BananaClownMan. Mickey's reaction in The Feast of the Drowned is up to debate. The way I see it he has no more resentment towards the Doctor than in The Christmas Invasion or School Reunion. However this can be perceives different ways by different people. Whereas the Doctor calls himself Sir John Smith multiple times in the novel. I don't see many other ways that this can be perceived. Thus I feel that Sir John Smith trumps Mickey's reaction to the Doctor and gives more of a reason as for a different placement.
 * Lord Egg 61 ☎  05:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Original talk
I am going to move this to the talk page to avoid an ongoing edit war, even as I know that talk page debates take years to get satisfying resolution. But User:BananaClownMan's ongoing claims that A Rose by Any Other Name is set after Journey's End makes absolutely no sense.

The entire story is about the Doctor mourning Rose Tyler after she fell into Pete's World. The comic ends with the Doctor deciding he has to move on and get a new companion in spite of losing Rose. Early on, the comic was clearly meant to be set after Series 2. An offhand reference to the events of Series 3 brought this into question, so the timeline was then moved there.

But then, someone pointed out that a Hath cameos for literally one panel of a random issue. I believe the context is that the Doctor goes to a lonely hearts club, and there's a Hath there for literally one panel. BananaClownMan thusly believes that, as you could speculate that he spent enough time with this Hath to recognize one later, the comic must be set post-Series 4.

This is, with all due respect, asinine, and another example of why Timeline pages were taken off the mainspace, because they encourage an exacerbatingly incorrect reading of sources. No, the comic about the Doctor mourning Rose Tyler post-Series 2 is not set after he's reunited with her and after he loses Donna because a random fish alien cameos for one panel. Placing the story post-Series 4 makes absolutely no sense in terms of the story presented, and was clearly not the authorial intent. If it was, the comic would have name dropped Donna I don't know, once? And it would not have ended with 10 deciding to get a new companion after his final televised one. OS25🤙☎️ 11:06, 30 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I think the Hath part of your argument is absolutely true and basically above discussion. The thing is that The Doctor's Daughter never actually says the Tenth Doctor doesn't recognise the Hath! In the scene where he "first" comes face-to-face with the fish-people, he doesn't go, "wow! I've never met one of you lot!" or anything. (Mostly, he ducks, because people are shooting guns in all directions.) The entire idea that he has never met the Hath before relies on this quote

"Yes, I noticed. With the Hath. But tell me, because we got a bit out of circulation — Eastern Zone and all that. So who exactly are the Hath?"

- Tenth Doctor


 * But — come now. At most, all we have here is him learning the name 'Hath' and asking for more information about who they are as a species. This doesn't have to mean mean he doesn't remember his speed-dating encounter with another Hath a big long while ago. The whole gag, in A Rose by Any Other Name, is that the Doctor wasn't able to communicate with the Hath, so obviously he didn't learn its name or anything about the species! Obviously! (EDIT: Slightly misremembered the gag, actually. My bad. Teach me to not reread before posting. But it is still the joke that he doesn't speak to the Hath for any great length of time — it is a speed date, after all — so the basic point that he needn't have learned the name, or anything substantial, stands.) Big Finish Productions doing their level best to tip-toe around continuity could not have written it better.


 * But even that may be taking the above quote a little too literally. You may notice that the Doctor, in this quote, is lying. "We got a bit out of circulation; Eastern Zone and all that". This is a classic moment of Dr Who playing dumb to get the bad guy talking. What he actually wants is background information on the particular ongoing war. You could absolutely imagine the Doctor coming up on a weird enclave of humans fighting Daleks in a historical context that baffles him, and sidling up to the leader, and playing dumb, and going, "now, I'm just a silly little hermit who doesn't know nuthink' about nuthink', so could you help a guy out? These Dalek things, who are they, what's their deal? Since when have they been attacking you?" Remember Rule 1.


 * What to do with the mention of Lilith, I cannot say. I personally feel that a post-Series 2 placement, acknowledging Lilith as a continuity error, makes the most sense, at least as far as the main namespace is concerned. (The Theory: timelines are an area somewhat outside my remit.) But it could go either way and deserves further discussion. Post-Series 4, though — no. Just… no. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:35, 30 March 2023 (UTC)


 * As I've moved on, I've somewhat accepted the post-series 3 placement on the justification that the comic ends with the Doctor directly saying I am ready for a new companion. If you think about it, this does not make sense directly before his arc with Martha, but does work a lot better pre-Donna. So I think immediately pre-series 4 actually has a lot of advantages with the over-all story. OS25🤙☎️ 22:41, 30 March 2023 (UTC)


 * May I just note, in passing, that "Are you saying you are writer Rachael Smith?" is a... rather extreme misreading of "I wrote the book on Rose-the-cat, and I've read all of their comics." (From the edit summaries.) I know that I've previously had difficulty in interpreting some comments made on this wiki, (/cough/ WiPM /cough/) and I know that BCM has had similar difficulties in the past, which is why I'm calling attention to this to clarify it. OS25 meant that they're effectively the on-wiki expert for the character. They very much did not mean that they've contributed to the stories in question. We can't see the discussions, but there's some residual evidence of this at Talk:A Rose by Any Other Name (comic story). I have no strong feelings on the rest of this issue, but this is clearly what OS25 meant. Najawin ☎  07:59, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Time for me to give my two cents, though in a bit of rushed manner as I'm about to head off to bed for my next night shift. Firstly, User:Najawin is correct; I did think User:OttselSpy25 was saying they literally wrote the comic. I'm on the autism spectrum, so certain phrases go over my head. Speaking of whom, User:OttselSpy25's summery of the placement is spot on; until the Doctor explicitly recalled being stabbed in a heart by Lillith during The Shakespeare Code, the comic was assumed to be following directly on from The Runaway Bride. Then the Hath showed up and it was pushed back to right after Journey's End, the reasoning being that, Hath cameo aside, the Doctor ended Journey's End in his lowest state emotionally after sending off Donna and saying goodbye to all his friends, with A Rose by Any Other Name starting with him deeply depressed in the TARDIS. Even the ending with him going off to find new companionship was seen as an explanation for the plethora of companions he had in the expanded universe stories set during the 2009 specials.

Since there is no way around the Doctor using such detailed words to recall The Shakespeare Code,that leaves us to debate a placing after Series 3 or Series 4;
 * Post-S3: User:OttselSpy25 pretty much summed this one up superbly already, though their more opinionated points about authorial intent verge closer to speculation than fact. Until someone contacts Rachael Smith directly to get her to say how she approached the story, it is not for us to put words in her mouth.
 * Post-S4: The thing about the Hath argument that User:ScroogeMacDuck made is that, while the Doctor is lying about himself, his confusion about the Hath is presented as genuine, as is often the case when a new alien makes it's television debut. Apart from that, all the other reasons were already stated in the paragraph above.

If we are to agree on a placement between Martha and Donna, I think putting A Rose by Any Other Name right after Voyage of the Damned would be the most fitting, as that story also ends with the Doctor being a Debbie Downer, and would allow him to get the Rose angst that strained his friendship with Martha out of his system before he travels with Donna, whom I don't recall hearing about Rose during her travels. BananaClownMan ☎  11:16, 31 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Okay, so seeing this discussion, I've done a bit of research. I found a podcast in which Rachael Smith starred in — Isabella and Blodwen — which has some really prominent information about the placement of this back-up strip. The interviewer asked Rachael if A Rose By Any Other Name was set after Doomsday, to which she says this...

"Yeah, I mean obviously, it was a very sad episode when they say goodbye, but I kind of imagined what he would do directly after that, y'know, being a bit sort of like a breakup, though they were never like officially boyfriend and girlfriend, it did feel very much like a breakup. So I just had him do a lot of very cliche breakup things."

- Rachael Smith, on Isabella and Blodwen


 * ...to me, this tells me that this isn't set after series four, or three, but series two. It directly clinches that, as I always suspected. Rachael says that ARBAON is set directly after Doomsday, and considering this is literally a breakup story, it literally only makes sense post-series two, Lilith reference be damned. As @Scrooge MacDuck said, it makes the most sense to chalk this up to a continuity error. And the Hath cameo has already been proven not to contradict The Doctor's Daughter. 12:54, 31 March 2023 (UTC)


 * If only it could be that simple, but this will have to be an example of when in-story evidence trumps authorial intent; you see, "authorial intent" is used to help place a story when there is no evidence within the story itself to identify a placement, but it is ultimately a secondary source of reference. A good example would be the Third Doctor audio The Doll of Death, which is claimed by the blurb to come between The Dæmons and Day of the Daleks, despite the story itself having Jo in her early days with UNIT. Examples like this often boil down to writers simply not knowingm or taking into accountm the wider range of stories with Doctor Who media. I mean we're still discovering stories from as early as the 1960s, such as Barbara in Wonderland, or User:OttselSpy25 finding The Disney Club just hours before this writing. The only logical conclusions from reference a Series 3 story in a comic intended to come between S2&3 is that Rachael Smith either thought the joke was too funny to not to use, that she wasn't that fussed about continuity or she changed her mind, like how the main Titans range was originally set shortly after Planet of the Dead until they added references that placed it shortly before The End of Time. Unless someone takes to Twitter to ask her for clarification, we can only speculate on Rachael Smith's intentions.


 * Now, back to the matter at hand, since this outside-universe statement is contradicted by in-universe information, it is sadly null and void. But, it does mean we can narrow it down to as early as Series 2 as possible, to keep the spirit of the author's intent going. With that, upon reflecting on User:ScroogeMacDuck's argument on the Hath's communication inability to identify itself and User:Epsilon the Eternal's discovery, I think the best placement would be following Voyage of the Damned; it's close enough to Series 2 to keep with Racheal Smith's intent, while also being near enough to The Shakespeare Code for the Doctor to make the "L word = Lilith" connection, fits into the characterisation of the Doctor being in a depressive stare while alone in the TARDIS, and ends with him ready for a new companion. An argument could be made he's got Rose on the brains due to realising that his friendship was strained by him treating her as a replacement Rose, something he avoided with Donna.BananaClownMan ☎  09:42, 1 April 2023 (UTC)


 * With regards to "you see, "authorial intent" is used to help place a story when there is no evidence within the story itself to identify a placement, but it is ultimately a secondary source of reference"… I mean, heaven knows authorial intent isn't a valid source for the main namespace either, but I do worry from the way you phrase this that you're getting muddled between the main namespace and the Theory:Timeline namespace. The latter is its own little bubble in the Wiki, with its owns standards and practice. There is absolutely no requirement whatsoever that our biographies in the main namespace coincide in any way, shape or form with the order in which the editors of the Timeline namespace agree to put the stories; just because the rules of evidence used in the Timelines point one way, do not force us to do the same thing here.


 * Indeed, although discussions such as this one cannot be avoided because we do have to put the biographies in some kind of an order, there is official policy banning timeline discussion/speculation in the main namespace, as you might recall.


 * As a result there are no formal standards for what arguments avail on placement of biography sections in the main namespace. But arguably, the aforementioned ban on timeline-crafting in the main namespace would tilt in the direction of "worrying about the continuity of the Lilith reference is timeline-crafting, and thus banned here; we should cover it as post-Series 2 as per the advertised intent, and cover the Lilith contradiction as a case of According to one account…". Indeed, I feel even more strongly that we should do the same for The Doll of Death if its intended placement is actually printed in the blurb, not just something the writer talked about in a podcast later. You speak of "logical conclusions from references to…", but — in the main namespace — we are not here to worry about what is "logical". The DWU doesn't have to be logical. It frequently isn't. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 10:58, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

At the end of the day, I'm fine with the story being post-Series 2. But the article before my latest edit suggested it was mid-Doomsday, which truly doesn't make sense. So I moved it to right before the Martha section, since that's what the comic was clearly setting up. OS25🤙☎️ 19:01, 1 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Yeah the mid-Doomsday thing was an error on my part. I just pasted the section before that travelling alone section, not realising that ending of Doomsday had been split and placed in said section, even with another story placed before it. Artificial gaps are really confusing. 19:07, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Apologies for getting back to this late, but I've been preoccupied with mountains of responsibilities for the past two months; work at my night shift, family responsibilities, two major health scares, getting ready for a 2 week holiday abroad and a personnel project I've been working at that involves reading Doctor Who comics from the 60s and 70s. So, you guys can see why discussing the continuity of this story stopped being near the top of my priorities list. But I would like to air a few grievences before the discussion if put to a definitive close.


 * Now, the reference to The Shakespeare Code can't be look at as a mere continuity error. It's not a vague remark of a background detail easily over looked; He doesn't say he got stabbed once or that he knows a Lilith, those would be easier to overlook as happening off-screen or handwaved as a different Lilith or the Eighth Doctor having his second heart cut out. Instead, the Doctor point blank recalls having a heart get broke by Lilith. All that's missing is a direct flashback to The Shakespeare Code to illustrate the callback. By all accounts, Racheal Smith just decided that her comedic backup comic strip needed a "Comedically Missing the Point" joke and a "Stabbed in the Heart" metaphor and just pulled from her memory without taking into account how it would be perceived from fans regarding her post-S2 intentions.


 * In essence, it's the same problem that was had with the Second Doctor's involvement in The Five Doctors; despite The War Games being intended as his regeneration, the Doctor references events from the serial when the script for The Five Doctors had to be changed due to Deborah Watling becoming unavailable to reprise Victoria Waterfield and had to be replaced by Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot. As such, the Doctor brings up Zoe and Jamie being "returned to [their] own people, [and how] the Time Lords erased [their] memory of the period [they] spent with [the Doctor]." Suddenly, despite the original intent, the Doctor could now only experience The Five Doctors after The War Games, which eventually evolved into the Season 6B theory.

Now, I'm not saying this is going to open up a theory that adds a few extra adventures for the Tenth Doctor, but I feel we can't ignore the similarities here, and should have a post-Shakespeare Code placement, as was where the discussion was going before this authorial intention, which both contradicts evidence within the story and sounds more like a mindset the creative team had going in as oppose to a "set in stone" rule of thumb, was brought to light. However, I am aware that I am currently in the minority when it comes to this placement, so I bring my final grievance to the floor before I retire.


 * If a reader were the read the entry for A Rose by Any Other Name as between S2&S3, and they came across this passage;
 * When Rose-the-Cat asked if the Doctor at least said the "L-word" to Rose before she left, the Doctor thought she meant Lilith the Carrionite and retorted that she had "only broke one of [his] hearts", (COMIC: A Rose by Any Other Name) in reference to her stabbing him. (TV: The Shakespeare Code)
 * Surely it would just confuse them?

Well, that was everything I wanted to get off my chest on the subject. I look forward to hearing the counterarguments, and seeing what new lights they can shed in the debate. Until, then. Sincerely, BananaClownMan ☎  10:11, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Well from where I'm standing, the only reason we cover Season 6B as an actual thing in the main namespace is that there are actual stories that embraced the idea explicitly. Otherwise we would in fact cover the lines in T5D as a strange little aberration using "according to one account" language; not invent Season 6B out of thin air and put that in Second Doctor.


 * Of course the paragraph would be confusing if phrased that way. But we would acknowledge the contradiction. We would say "This account depicted the Doctor as already being familiar with Lilith at this point in his lifetime, (COMIC: A Rose by Any Other Name) whereas in other accounts, his encounter with Lilith and the Carrionites was depicted as one of his first adventures with Martha Jones after he stopped wholly wallowing in his grief over Rose. (TV: The Shakespeare Code)", or something of the kind. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 13:49, 17 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I am going to restate that I fully reject a post series three placement. It is very, very clearly set after series two due to the tone and pretty much the entire plot of Ten getting a cat. The authorial intent aligns with this. It doesn't "contradict evidence withing the story", the only "evidence" is a single reference that is very clearly an error. The author of the series openly admitted to never watching Doctor Who before writing this, I think we can forgive her for not comprehensively knowing every single detail and remembering them. 15:34, 17 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid this is the last I can give for a while; I'm going abroad for a holiday and, since my mobile phone only has a UK contract, I won't be able to access my 4G while out the country. So, I will give my final proposal in the debate and then leave the rest of you guys to yourselves once it's all off my chest. And the main point is this new information that Rachael Smith didn't watch the show! So, this authorial intent evidence, which has been the linchpin for the "Post-S2" discussion, and not even an in universe source to boot, may not even be factually correct, or at the very lease outdated. I mean, unless someone contacts her via Twitter, how do we know she didn't catch an episode and change her mind about placement after that podcast, like how the Tenth Doctor Titan comics were meant to follow on from Planet of the Dead until they started referencing events from his exploits between The Waters of Mars and The End of Time. I don't have Twitter, so it can't be me that asks. BananaClownMan ☎

Renewed talk
I've decided to bring this conversation over to here, both because I realised it would be more appropriate to discuss the placement in the timeline forum, and because a new debate was added to the Tenth Doctor's talk page. BananaClownMan ☎