2008

2008 in

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the DWU • production history • vital statistics • releases

Events

• Owen Harper went undercover to prevent the Weevils like Janet from being abducted by humans to fight in a Weevil Fight Club. Torchwood Three discovered the club's location and shut it down. (TV: Combat)

Early February

• Jack Harkness and Toshiko Sato were transported back in time to The Ritz in 1941. Owen used the Rift Manipulator to bring them back, opening the Rift. By this point, Harold Saxon's campaign for election was underway as "Vote Saxon" signs were visible in Cardiff. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)
• As the Cardiff rift opened, the Rift quickly pulled beings through it at a steadier pace. Visions appeared to the Torchwood Three team and Rhys Williams was murdered. As a result, the Rift was closed, undoing the damage, but Abaddon was released, wiping out hundreds of people. Jack killed Abaddon with an overflow of life energy, which left Jack dead for days. (TV: End of Days) Shortly after being restored to life, Jack heard the sound of the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS and re-joined the Doctor as the TARDIS hurtled toward the year 100,000,000,000,000. (TV: End of Days, Utopia)
• Meanwhile, Jack was declared missing by his Torchwood teammates, and Gwen Cooper took charge of the group. Subsequently, Ianto Jones began taking a more active role in field assignments. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)
• The Eleventh Doctor met Amy Pond in Leadworth after twelve years of waiting. A Multi-form called Prisoner Zero, who had escaped through the crack in Amy's wall, attacked. The Atraxi arrived, threatening the destruction of Earth if Prisoner Zero did not surrender. The Doctor created a computer virus for the Atraxi to track back to its source in Leadworth (spread by Jeff). The Doctor also transmitted Prisoner Zero's disguises to the Atraxi so it couldn't hide in the bodies it had been disguised as. It then took the form of Amy; the Doctor made Amy think of Prisoner Zero's original form. Now in plain sight, Prisoner Zero was captured by the Atraxi, who left. The Doctor took a test drive of his refurbished TARDIS, only returning two years later. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)

Spring or Summer

• Maria and Alan Jackson moved into 36 Bannerman Road, Ealing, the house opposite Sarah Jane Smith'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 Langer 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)
• 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. Mr. Saxon continued his campaign for British Prime Minister. He was given high support after the hospital's disappearance, then reappearance. (TV: Smith and Jones; The Sound of Drums, et al, establishes this occurs only a few days before the election.)
• 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. (TV: The Lazarus Experiment)
• Election Day began and Harold Saxon was voted British Prime Minister. A mysterious woman surveilled Francine Jones' phone, as she knew Francine's daughter Martha was in contact with Saxon'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 away from Great Britain (TV: The Sound of Drums) to the Himalayas where they were told (apparently by 'the highest authority') that another Rift had been discovered halfway up K2. When they got there, however, they found it to be a trap. They were almost killed in an avalanche while distracted by a 'Jack-in-a-box' (WEB: torchwood.org.uk)
• The Tenth Doctor, Jack and Martha returned from 100,000,000,000,000 and went on the run as fugitives declared by Harold Saxon, in fact 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 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 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 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, Part One)
• Captain Jack returned to Torchwood Three and met John Hart, who was sent on a wild goose chase to find an Arcadian diamond. In finding the apparent keys to its location, he was implanted with a bomb attached to his DNA. The Torchwood Three team disposed of the bomb and sent John through the Rift. John told Jack he had found Gray. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)
• 15 May - Geoff Noble, father of Tenth Doctor companion Donna Noble, died. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos)
• The Tenth Doctor may have participated in preventing a Graske causing mischief at a 2008 BBC Proms concert in London. (TV: Music of the Spheres)
• 31 July - : NASA confirmed the existence of liquid water on Mars via its Phoenix probe. (TV: The Waters of Mars trailer)

June-August

• Jonah Bevan was taken by the Cardiff Rift, ending up on a burning planet. A much older Jonah was found on the island of Flat Holm seven months later. (TV: Adrift)
• The alien Samarands invaded Greece. (COMIC: Hotel Historia)
• 31 October - The Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones found an unusually creepy Halloween celebration in Blackwood Falls. (PROSE: Forever Autumn)

Spring/Summer - December

• Sarah Jane Smith found a Gorgon. Maria Jackson used a mirror to turn it into stone, and the gateway to the race's galaxy was sealed. (TV: Eye of the Gorgon)
• The Torchwood Three team discovered Cell 114 sleeper agents in Cardiff and stopped them from setting off nuclear warheads hidden under Cardiff. (TV: Sleeper)
• Annual de-frosting of Tommy Brockless, a young soldier first cryogenically frozen in 1918, took place. This turned out to be the final defrosting. Tommy returned back in time to use a 'Rift key' to stop the two timelines in this year and 2008 from colliding with one another. (TV: To the Last Man)
• 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)
• Rhys Williams discovered the truth about Gwen Cooper's job when he was caught up in Torchwood Three's investigation of a Cash Cow. Owen euthanised the animal. (TV: Meat)
• A being which used the name "Adam Smith" escaped from the Void and lived parasitically by altering and inserting himself into others' memories. Adam was drawn to the unique memories of Torchwood Three and made them believe he was a long-time member of their team and Toshiko Sato's lover. Ianto Jones and Captain Jack Harkness exposed Adam after Ianto found no reference to him in his written diaries, and the team banished him to the Void by retconning themselves to forget the whole incident. (TV: Adam)
• 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 Jackson, Alan Jackson 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 Smith'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)
• Dr. Martha Jones arrived in Cardiff on the trail of the the Pharm, who had been experimenting on humans with a drug called Reset. Martha was temporarily assigned to Torchwood Three. The Pharm was shut down, but Dr. Owen Harper was shot and killed by Aaron Copley. (TV: Reset)
• Before Martha Jones could conduct an autopsy on Owen Harper, he was revived by Jack Harkness using the second resurrection gauntlet. For reasons unknown, Harper continued to live past the standard two and a half minute revival time. He was briefly possessed by Duroc, the embodiment of Death. Deaths occurred at a Cardiff hospital as a result of Duroc's manifestation. Owen defeated Duroc, not having any life energy for Duroc to steal. (TV: Dead Man Walking)
• A company called Khrysalis set up operations in Stockbridge, purportedly planning to build a leisure park in the quiet town. Maxwell Edison created the Stockbridge Preservation Society to protest this. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Child)
• 24 December-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, (TV: The Christmas Invasion and TV: The Runaway Bride) 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)

Unknown Dates

• Following her encounter with the Tenth Doctor and the Empress of the Racnoss, Donna Noble attempted to improve her life by travelling to Egypt. Afterwards, experiencing regret at turning down the Doctor's invitation to travel with him, Donna began investigating unusual events in hopes of encountering the Doctor doing the same. Her investigations led to her learning about the disappearance of bees and Adipose Industries, which eventually led to her reuniting with the Doctor in 2009. (TV: Partners in Crime)
• During an unchronicled adventure in London with Martha Jones, the Doctor met Sally Sparrow, who gave him information he would need to escape when the Weeping Angels sent him back to 1969. After this, Sally began to open up to Larry Nightingale. (TV: Blink)
• Ed Gold, later a member of the crew of Bowie Base One, was born in Australia. (TV: The Waters of Mars)
• The Seventh Doctor destroyed the Forge's alpha facility in Dartmoor. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus)
• The Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller visited London. (AUDIO: Sisters of the Flame)

Negated Timelines

Donna's World

• Spring or Summer - The Judoon defeated Florence Finnegan; all but one of the people inside Royal Hope Hospital, which was taken to the Moon, died of asphyxiation, including Sarah Jane Smith and Martha Jones. Luke Smith and Maria Jackson were also reported missing. (TV: Turn Left)
• 25 December - While Donna Noble, her mother and her grandfather holidayed in the English countryside, the alien spaceship Titanic crashed into London, destroying the city and contaminating most of southern England with radioactivity. (TV: Turn Left)

Andrea Yates' World

• Spring/Summer-December - Maria Jackson, remembering Sarah Jane thanks to holding the Verron soothsayer's 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?)