2000s

On Earth, the 2000s - or the 00s - was the first decade of the 21st century.

The 2000s brought an increasing number of widely seen alien encounters. This led to widespread knowledge of alien life. Following the public revelation of alien life in the late 2000s, suicide rates doubled. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One ^[+]Loading...["Children of Earth: Day One (TV story)"]) In the following decade humanity continued to encounter more aliens and other supernatural events.

As Fitz Kreiner recalled, a number of the nine-film Star Wars series, which would be screened together in the 2040s, were produced in the 2000s. (PROSE: The Last Resort)

Martha Jones and Astrid Peth's era

The era in which Martha Jones and the Tenth Doctor travelled together, which encompassed a six-day period, took place on 18-23 June 2007, (PROSE: The Paradox Moon ^[+]Loading...{"page":"387","ed":"2021 paperback","1":"The Paradox Moon (short story)"}) in March 2008, (AUDIO: Recruits ^[+]Loading...{"minute":"10","second":"10","1":"Recruits (audio story)"}) or on 4-9 June in an unspecified year. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters ^[+]Loading...{"page":"120","1":"The Secret Lives of Monsters (short story)"}) Likewise, the era of Astrid Peth at Christmas immediately followed Martha's time, (TV: Voyage of the Damned) and was itself followed by the more inconsistently dated era of Donna Noble's adventures. (TV: Partners in Crime) In any case, this was a time after the Battle of Canary Wharf (TV: Smith and Jones) and the deposing of Harriet Jones, (TV: The Sound of Drums) and was "nearly 80 years" after 1930, (TV: Daleks in Manhattan ^[+]Loading...{"ed":"iPlayer","minute":"4","second":"14","1":"Daleks in Manhattan (TV story)"}) putting this era in the late 2000s.

An election was held in the United Kingdom for a new Prime Minister following Harriet Jones being declared unfit to lead the country at least 18 months earlier. The Saxon Master ran in this election under the alias "Harold Saxon". (TV: The Sounds of Drums)

Three days before the election, (TV: The Sound of Drums) the Royal Hope Hospital was teleported to the Moon with the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones inside, for the Judoon to search for a murderer. Identified as non-human, the Doctor escaped the Judoon after he was mistaken for the murderer. The Doctor's blood was later sucked by Florence Finnegan (the murderer). Martha revived him. The Judoon positively identified and executed Finnegan. The Doctor stopped a supercharged MRI machine from wiping out Earth. The hospital was returned and Martha joined the Doctor in the TARDIS. Saxon was given high support after the hospital's disappearance, then reappearance. (TV: Smith and Jones)

Lazarus attacks the Tenth Doctor, Francine Jones and Martha Jones on the roof of Lazarus Laboratories. (TV: The Lazarus Experiment)

Richard Lazarus unveiled an age-reversing machine which initially de-aged him, then transformed him into a possible evolutionary branch of humanity, latent in his DNA, becoming a monster in doing so. The Tenth Doctor killed Lazarus when he tried to kill Martha and Tish and drain their own life energies. (TV: The Lazarus Experiment)

Election Day began and the Master was voted British Prime Minister. A mysterious woman surveilled Francine Jones' phone, as she knew Francine's daughter Martha was in contact with the Master's enemy, the Doctor. (TV: 42 / The Sound of Drums) At or around this date, Saxon sent Torchwood Three on a "wild goose chase" mission in the Himalayas to keep them occupied so they couldn't interfere with his plans. (TV: The Sound of Drums)

The next day, the Tenth Doctor, Jack and Martha returned from 100,000,000,000,000 and went on the run as fugitives declared by the Master. The Master announced on television that humanity was to make first contact with the Toclafane. President Winters stepped in, allowing UNIT to take control. The following morning, the Doctor, Martha and Jack snuck aboard the Valiant; the Toclafane murdered President Winters. The Master, seeing through the Doctor and his companions' perception filters, heavily aged the Doctor and captured him and Jack. (TV: The Sound of Drums)

The Toclafane over Earth. (TV: Last of the Time Lords)

The Year That Never Was began; the Master built a New Time Lord Empire and Martha Jones travelled the world executing the Doctor's plan. Ultimately, the year was negated with the help of both Martha and Jack and the clock reset to just after the Toclafane killed Winters. Lucy Saxon killed the Master. Martha Jones and Jack returned home and left the Doctor on his own. (TV: Last of the Time Lords) Lucy was subsequently imprisoned; unknown to her, a group of Saxon's followers retrieved his signet ring from his funeral pyre and began preparations for restoring the Master to life the following year. (TV: The End of Time)

The Titanic floats above Earth. (TV: Voyage of the Damned)

From 24 to 25 December, the Tenth Doctor, after repairing a hole in space-time with the help of his fifth incarnation, (TV: Time Crash) found himself aboard a space-faring replica of the Titanic in orbit around Earth. Some of the passengers (including the waitress Astrid Peth) briefly landed in the middle of London. As the two previous Christmases had been disrupted by the arrival of alien spacecraft over London, most residents of the city had left for the season. Those choosing to remain in the city included Queen Elizabeth II and Wilfred Mott, grandfather of Donna Noble. A series of meteorites were deliberately allowed to collide with the deshielded Titanic, causing the ship and its nuclear storm drive to hurtle towards Earth. Most of the survivors of this collision were killed by the Heavenly Host. After the Doctor used the Host's security protocol to find the man in charge, Max Capricorn, Astrid followed, killing Capicorn but dying with him. The Doctor piloted the Titanic to safety, just missing Buckingham Palace. The only survivors were Midshipman Alonso Frame, Rickston Slade, the Doctor and Mr Copper. Astrid was partially revived as starlight. Mr Copper, having money for the first time in his life, retired to Earth. (TV: Voyage of the Damned) Donna Noble dismissed the near-miss by the Titanic as a hoax. (TV: Partners in Crime)

Early adventures of Sarah Jane Smith and her friends

There were few precise accounts as to when the early adventures of Sarah Jane Smith, Maria Jackson, Luke Smith, Clyde Langer, and Rani Chandra in which they fought aliens on Earth took place. However, what was known was that these took place in the 21st century (TV: Eye of the Gorgon, The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith) and approximately 40 years after Andrea Yates' death in 1964, (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?) placing them in the 2000s. According to Sarah Jane, it was "a year and a half" (TV: Invasion of the Bane) after she received K9 Mark IV, which occurred in 2007 (TV: School Reunion), thus implying a setting of 2008 for Invasion of the Bane.

A bottle of Bubble Shock. (TV: Invasion of the Bane)

Maria and Alan Jackson moved into 36 Bannerman Road, Ealing, the house opposite Sarah Jane's. The Bane used a 'natural ingredient' hidden in their Bubble Shock! drink to enslave humanity. Sarah Jane and Maria went to the Bubble Shock! factory and stole their human archetype. The archetype used a communication device from a Star Poet to destroy the Bane Mother and freed the mind-controlled people. One Bane, Mrs Wormwood, escaped from the exploding factory. Sarah Jane adopted the Archetype and named him Luke. (TV: Invasion of the Bane)

The Slitheen family killed overweight teachers and created technology labs for their energy draining machine to cool the Sun, intending to sell the destroyed Earth. In the testing phases, the Earth briefly experienced a worldwide power outage. Luke unwittingly gave the code that would make the machine work properly to the Slitheen. Clyde joined Luke, Maria and Sarah Jane in investigating the schools, fighting the Slitheen off with vinegar. When tried out on the Sun, the Slitheen's fixed machine overloaded and was destroyed in the confusion during its reset, killing two Slitheen while the others teleported to their ship. Sarah Jane used her supercomputer Mr Smith to orchestrate a cover-up that suggested the darkening of the sun and the power outage were caused by a sudden, but temporary, shift in Earth's magnetic field. (TV: Revenge of the Slitheen)

Sarah Jane found a Gorgon. Maria used a mirror to turn it into stone, and the gateway to the race's galaxy was sealed. (TV: Eye of the Gorgon)

Teenagers went missing after playing Combat 3000. Luke Smith and Clyde Langer were among them. Sarah Jane Smith discovered they were being teleported by an alien named Kudlak who took them to a war ship to fight in an alien war. After Luke discovered the war had ended ten years earlier, Kudlak returned the children and searched for the children he had sent to distant worlds. (TV: Warriors of Kudlak)

Sarah Jane Smith was given a puzzle box by a Verron soothsayer, with instructions to give it to someone she trusted. The next week she gave it to Maria Jackson. The Trickster retroactively wiped Sarah Jane out of existence, but reality was restored with help from Maria, Alan, and Andrea Yates, the woman who had caused all this. Mr Smith pushed a meteorite headed for Earth out of the way. (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)

A few days after the incident with the Trickster and five months after the thwarted Bane invasion, Mr Smith and the Slitheen tried to use Luke's telekinetic abilities via a MITRE headset to collide the Moon with Earth, freeing his Xylok brothers. He was defeated by Sarah Jane, who infected him with the Armaggedon virus made by Alan Jackson. Mr Smith was rebooted with a new purpose. (TV: The Lost Boy)

The last survivor of the ATMOS Sontaran invasion, Commander Kaagh, tried to destroy Earth by commandeering the Tycho Project in Goblin's Copse, landing satellites onto nuclear stockpiles. He was thwarted when Luke shut down the project and Chrissie Jackson attacked Kaagh's probic vent, knocking him out. Kaagh left Earth disgraced. Chrissie Jackson became aware of aliens and of Sarah Jane and her team's fight against them. Maria and Alan moved to America. (TV: The Last Sontaran)

On the morning of 10 October, Rani Chandra and her family moved to Bannerman Road. Clyde and Rani investigated Spellman's Magical Museum of the Circus. The owner, Elijah Spellman, was the clown and the Pied Piper, having come from a meteorite in the Jeggorabax Cluster centuries before. The Piper gathered children he had given balloons to, but Mr Smith interfered by contacting their mobile phones. Clyde, weakening the fear-eating Pied Piper with humour, allowed Sarah Jane to trap the Pied Piper back inside his meteorite, releasing the children who had been recently taken by him. (TV: The Day of the Clown)

Martin Trueman, using the power of the Ancient Lights, started enslaving every human on Earth using astrology. Luke, not having a starsign, defeated him. (TV: Secrets of the Stars)

Rani Chandra discovered the Berserker pendant. Clyde Langer's father Paul came to visit him after having walked out on his family years before. Paul took and was possessed by the pendant, but Sarah Jane and the team brought him back to himself. Clyde threw the pendant into the sea. (TV: The Mark of the Berserker)

The Trickster used a time fissure to trick Sarah Jane into saving her parents' lives in 1951 and created an alternate timeline where he drained the life out of Earth and enslaved humanity. Sarah Jane and her friends returned to this era after Sarah Jane's parents, Eddie and Barbara Smith, prevented this alternate timeline by sacrificing themselves in 1951. (TV: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith)

Mrs Wormwood and Commander Kaagh became allies in the light of Wormwood's exile from the Bane and Kaagh's self-imposed exile from the Sontarans. Taking the Tunguska Scroll from Sarah Jane and her gang, they used Luke to place the scroll on the "tomb" of Horath, the tyrant of the Dark Empire, to bring him back. Kaagh, disgraced by Wormwood's preference for her "son" Luke, pushed Wormwood into the interdimensional portal that held Horath, destroying the link. (TV: Enemy of the Bane)

Alternate realities

Andrea Yates. (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)

In one reality Maria Jackson, remembering Sarah Jane thanks to holding the Verron puzzle box, discovered she had died in 1964, taking the place of Andrea Yates, and that Mr Smith was never installed in 13 Bannerman Road's attic, Andrea having made a deal with the Trickster. As a result, the Earth was susceptible to the meteorite strike, fuelling chaos the Trickster could feed on. Maria was erased by Krislok. Alan, who remembered Maria when no-one else did thanks to holding the puzzle box, confronted Andrea Yates about Sarah Jane. Andrea revoked her deal with the Trickster, returning the timeline to normal. (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)

Donna Noble's era

The exact placement of the era in which Donna Noble first travelled in time and space with the Tenth Doctor on a regular basis and made trips home was inconsistent. However, as this took place after the Sycorax invasion of Earth, (COMIC: The Widow's Curse) Harriet Jones being deposed as Prime Minister, and Rose Tyler being trapped on a parallel world, (TV: The Stolen Earth) this would place her adventures in or around the late 2000s, after a separate disappearance of Rose on 6 March 2005. (TV: Aliens of London)

Conspiracy theorists and Donna Noble had begun noting the disappearance of bees from the Earth. (TV: Partners in Crime, et al.) They had left Earth in anticipation of its imminent relocation to the Medusa Cascade. (TV: The Stolen Earth)

Donna investigated Adipose Industries and met the Tenth Doctor again. Matron Cofelia forced the birth of thousands of Adipose from Londoners' bodies. The Doctor and Donna turned off the parthenogenesis signal before it proved fatal. The Adipose were sent into their ship, and Cofelia was killed by the Adiposian First Family to cover up seeding a Level 5 planet. Donna joined the Doctor in the TARDIS. Before leaving with the Doctor, she encountered Rose Tyler, unaware of who she was. (TV: Partners in Crime)

UNIT investigated the simultaneous deaths of fifty-two people across the world, all in ATMOS-equipped vehicles. Dr. Martha Jones, now working for UNIT, called in the Tenth Doctor. UNIT raided an ATMOS factory. The Sontarans captured Martha and cloned her. As part of a Sontaran invasion plan, all ATMOS-equipped vehicles, half of all cars on Earth, emitted a toxic gas. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)

The TARDIS, with Donna Noble inside, was taken to the Sontaran flagship. The Sontarans invaded the ATMOS factory, but UNIT retook it. The Doctor found Martha with her clone's help. The clone's link was severed. Before dying, she revealed the ATMOS gas would be used to clone Sontarans. With Donna's aid, the Doctor retook his TARDIS and used the technology from the Rattigan Academy to create an atmospheric converter to destroy the gas. Luke Rattigan, learning his plans to start a new world with his students had failed, swapped places with the Doctor and destroyed the Sontaran fleet and himself. The TARDIS, with Martha inside as well as the Doctor and Donna, suddenly started moving on its own. (TV: The Poison Sky)

From 15 May to 18 May, one year after the death of Donna's father Geoff, the Mandragora Helix attempted a takeover of Earth through the MorganTech computer systems. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos)

Earth is transported to the Medusa Cascade. (TV: The Stolen Earth)

The Earth and twenty-three other planets were relocated to the Medusa Cascade by the Daleks (with three other planets, Adipose 3, Pyrovillia and the Lost Moon of Poosh from other time zones) by the Supreme Dalek and Davros. The Tenth Doctor went to the Shadow Proclamation and tracked the Earth to the Medusa Cascade before the trail went cold. An invasion of Earth by the Daleks began and humans were taken to the Crucible. Former Prime Minister Harriet Jones contacted some of the Doctor's former companions, including Captain Jack Harkness, Sarah Jane Smith and Martha Jones, to reach the Tenth Doctor, using the Cardiff Rift and Mr Smith, before she herself was killed by the Daleks. Rose Tyler, meanwhile, contacted Donna Noble's family and was reunited with the Doctor, having broken through to the out-of-sync Cascade. (TV: The Stolen Earth)

The Tenth Doctor underwent a partial regeneration to heal damage from a Dalek blast. He threw his regenerative energy into his old hand. The TARDIS was taken to the Crucible. Humans were used for tests of the reality bomb. The TARDIS was almost destroyed in the Crucible's Z-neutrino core, but the energy-infused hand formed into a human Time-Lord Meta-Crisis clone of the Doctor after making physical contact with Donna Noble, safely piloting the TARDIS away. Sarah Jane threatened the Crucible with a warp star, while Martha planned to blow up Earth, stopping the use of the reality bombs. Davros and the Daleks quickly stopped them. The Meta-Crisis Doctor and Donna attempted an attack on Davros but failed. The electricity from his hand awakened her dormant Time Lord mind, the regeneration energy from earlier having spread both ways, turning her into the "DoctorDonna". Donna used a Dalek interface to shut down the Crucible and disable the Daleks and was able to send all but one planet home, while the Meta-Crisis Doctor finished off the Daleks. The Doctor and his companions towed the remaining planet, Earth, home with the TARDIS; this sparked worldwide celebrations around the planet. Afterwards, Mickey Smith chose to remain on his original Earth instead of returning to Pete's World. Jack and Martha went back to their respective jobs, and the Doctor returned Rose and Jackie Tyler to Pete's World, along with his clone, whom he considered unsafe. He asked Rose to help the clone, as she had helped him. Donna was returned to her family with all memories of the Doctor wiped from her mind due to the danger to her survival posed by her transformation. (TV: Journey's End)

During these events, a young Adelaide Brooke lost her family and saw a Dalek. For reasons unknown to her, it chose not to exterminate her. This inspired her to become an astronaut, a trailblazer for human exploration of space — in her case, establishing the first human base on Mars in 2058 and, in turn, inspiring generations of Brookes who would impel humanity to reach into the stars. (TV: The Waters of Mars)

While travelling on his own, the Tenth Doctor continued to make trips to this era at some point (relative to Earth) after Earth was transported across space. (TV: Planet of the Dead, The End of Time) At Easter, the 200 bus travelled through a wormhole, leaving several passengers, including the Tenth Doctor and Lady Christina de Souza, stranded on the desert planet San Helios, which had been turned into a sandy wasteland within the last year by alien stingrays which had started approaching the wormhole to devour Earth. Using some Tritovore anti-gravity clamps taken by Lady Christina, the 200 flew through the wormhole safely. The wormhole was closed and the handful of stingrays which made it through were destroyed by UNIT. The Doctor declined Lady Christina's offer to join the TARDIS, but helped her evade arrest. (TV: Planet of the Dead)

On 24 December, the Saxon Master was resurrected by Miss Trefusis and the new governor of Broadfell Prison on Christmas Eve. Lucy Saxon caused an explosion at the prison, killing everyone inside, except for the Master. The White House announced that President Barack Obama would make a Christmas Day speech announcing new economic initiatives to resolve the current worldwide economic crisis.

On 25 December, the Master was captured by soldiers working for Joshua Naismith to help him use the Immortality Gate. The Master betrayed him and, as Obama gave a speech on the recession, used the Gate, intended to heal planets, to turn every human on Earth except Donna Noble and Wilfred Mott into copies of the Master.

On 26 December, a diamond called a White-Point Star was sent from Gallifrey through time and space and crashed to Earth, where it was retrieved by the Master. He used it to open a portal that allowed Rassilon and other Time Lords to escape the Last Great Time War. Rassilon undid the "cloning" of the Master and Gallifrey entered the space around Earth, the Time Lords ready to end time. The Tenth Doctor shot the diamond, breaking the connection, and the Master blasted the Time Lords back into the time lock, the Master also disappearing. The Tenth Doctor rescued Wilf from certain death. In doing so, he was flooded with radiation. The Doctor began his regeneration cycle. A malfunction with the world's wi-fi systems was later blamed for causing mass hallucinations, a cover story concocted by Mr Smith. Shortly after, Luke Smith was nearly run over by a car on Bannerman Road, but rescued by the slowly-regenerating Tenth Doctor, who disappeared into his TARDIS.

Some time before Donna's wedding in the spring, Joshua Naismith and his daughter, Abigail, were put on trial. The Doctor (by way of Sylvia and Wilf) gave Donna a winning triple rollover lottery ticket as a wedding gift. (TV: The End of Time)

Some time after their wedding, Donna and Shaun's daughter, Rose, was born. (PROSE: The Giggle ^[+]Loading...["The Giggle (novelisation)"])

Alternate realities

Donna Noble's family was moved to Leeds after the Titanic annihilated London. The parthenogenesis of the Adipose was a huge success, with 60 million Americans killed before the Adipose were moved to their spaceship. Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones died saving the world from ATMOS, and Captain Jack was transferred to Sontar. Rose Tyler worked with the UNIT of this timeline to help Donna Noble restore the proper chain of events which, at one point, involved sending Donna back to 2007. (TV: Turn Left)

In a potential timeline created by a continuity bomb, the Tenth Doctor didn't sacrifice himself to save Wilfred Mott from radiation poisoning on 26 December and Wilf died. From here, the Doctor became "Time Lord Victorious" and ruled over the cosmos with an iron fist. (COMIC: Four Doctors)

Alien incursions on Earth

There were several attempted alien invasions, alien related actions, unspecified events, space time events and individual actions of Earth, into the atmosphere or surface by a multitude of races and species throughout this period.

Attempted alien invasions

The Kulan race invaded Earth in 2001. (PROSE: Escape Velocity)

Autons attacked central London in 2005. (TV: Rose)

The Sycorax attempted an invasion on Christmas Day, 2006, causing a third of the Earth to stand at the top of buildings. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)

The Battle of Canary Wharf took place in 2007. (TV: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday)

The Webstar descended on central London on 24 December 2007. (TV: The Runaway Bride)

The Toclafane invasion occurred during the Year That Never Was. (TV: The Sound of Drums/The Last of the Time Lords)

Alien-related actions

Mondasian Cybermen from the future poisoned Earth's rain. (COMIC: The Flood)

The Slitheen incursion into Downing Street marked the beginning of humanity's first contact, but was considered a hoax by many. (TV: Aliens of London/World War Three)

There was a threat of magnetic inversion of Earth, whenthe Mondasian Cyberman invaded the South Pole. (PROSE: Iceberg)

The Atraxi, looking for Prisoner Zero, threatened to incinerate the Earth. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)

The Royal Hope Hospital was transported to the Moon by the Judoon. (TV: Smith and Jones)

The Mondasian Cybermen launched an attack from Lonsis, via the portal in the main branch of Hulbert Logistics. (AUDIO: Human Resources)

The starship Titanic almost crashed into Buckingham Palace on a Christmas Day. (TV: Voyage of the Damned)

Miss Foster used Earth as a seeding planet for the Adipose. (TV: Partners in Crime

The 456 arrived on Earth (TV: Children of Earth: Day Three) and tried to threaten the goverments of the world into giving them 10% of the Earth's children. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Four, Children of Earth: Day Five)

Space-time events

Events of Siberia led to the creation of multiples alternate universes. Sabbath attempted to create a living black hole, so as to send it to the Event Zero. (PROSE: Time Zero)

The Temporal Paradox between the Weeping Angels, Sally Sparrow, Larry Nightingale, the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones occurred. (TV: Blink)

Abaddon was released from the Cardiff Rift. (TV: End of Days)

Unspecified events

As the Eighth Doctor forewarned to Chang Lee, an unknown incident occurred in San Francisco, on Christmas Day 2000. (TV: Doctor Who)

Individuals' actions

At the very beginning of the decade, the Bruce Master tried to destroy the Earth with the Eye of Harmony, in San Francisco. (TV: Doctor Who)

At some point between 2000 and 2003, Courtney Woods was born to Mr and Mrs Woods. (TV: Kill the Moon)

Sabbath attempted to make Guy Adams a living host for the diamonds, which would become the Council of Eight in the first place. (PROSE: Timeless)

LINDA was formed but later destroyed by the Abzorbaloff in his hunt for the Doctor. (TV: Love & Monsters)

Richard Lazarus, mutated by his own anti-ageing experiment, attacked the guests and staff and at Lazarus Laboratories. (TV: The Lazarus Experiment)

Gray and John Hart led a series of attacks in Cardiff. (TV: Exit Wounds)

Two Varaxils, who had been waiting for 350 years near Tranchard's Folly for their victim to re-emerge from the well, finally had their final encounter and were killed by Mary Shelley and Aleister Portillon. (AUDIO: The Witch from the Well)

Behind the scenes

Further dating issues

Page 120 of The Secret Lives of Monsters gives Sunday 4 June as the date of the events of Smith and Jones and the Royal Hope incident. However, it does not specify 2007 or 2008 as a current year. On top of this, the first two Sunday 4 Junes after 2004 (page 119 places the incident over 30 years after 1974) are in 2006 and 2017.

Other matters

• The first half of the decade saw several "false alarms" of new Doctor Who TV and film productions.
• Meanwhile, BBC Books continued its prolific lines of Doctor Who novels.
• Telos Publishing obtained the licence to produce original novellas based upon Doctor Who.
• Bernice Summerfield, no longer the star of her own Virgin Publishing novels, was featured in numerous novels, short stories and audio dramas produced by Big Finish.
• The BBC experimented with new media, producing several Doctor Who webcasts consisting of original stories featuring original series cast members. In 2003, a webcast entitled Scream of the Shalka introduced Richard E Grant as the voice of the Ninth Doctor.
• In late 2003, BBC Wales announced that it will be producing a new live-action Doctor Who series, with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor (the Richard Grant version of the character was abandoned). The series debuted in the spring of 2005 and almost instantly reinstated Doctor Who as a national institution.
• BBC Books discontinued its line of Eighth Doctor and Past Doctor novels in favour of a new line of hardcover fiction featuring the Ninth (and later the Tenth) Doctor.
• Big Finish Productions obtained the licence to publish the Short Trips book series.
• After one season, Eccleston left Doctor Who and David Tennant was introduced as the Tenth Doctor.
• Two spin-off series were launched: Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
• A third spin-off series, K9, was launched outside the BBC by Metal Mutt Productions.
• In 2008, Tennant announced his departure from Doctor Who. Matt Smith, a largely unknown actor at the time, was cast as the Eleventh Doctor at the age of 26; he later debuted in 2010.
• After four extremely successful seasons under the watch of Russell T Davies, Doctor Who went on partial hiatus for 2009, producing a number of specials in lieu of a full season. This was to allow Davies to hand over production duties to Steven Moffat, and also pave the way for Tennant's departure.