2009

2009 in

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the DWU • production history • vital statistics • releases

2009 was a year.

Events

Dated events

January - May

On 20 January, Barack Obama was inaugurated as President of the United States, the first African-American in the position. (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary)

Early in the year, over 4 months before August, Thomas Brewster and Gerald Lendler came to London. At the time, Lendler had stolen the Doctor's TARDIS from Brewster. When Brewster rummaged through Lendler's collection of valuable items, he accidentally woke up a hibernating Coffin-Loader and it escaped into the River Thames. It released methane and mould into the atmosphere, which increased Earth's temperature by 1 degree. (AUDIO: The Three Companions)

Owen Harper finds a Vostok in Cardiff Bay. (COMIC: The Return of the Vostok)

In March, the Vostok came to Cardiff with the intentions of using its rift to bring the Earth into a new Ice Age. Torchwood Three visited Cardiff Bay after it was frozen and discovered the Vostok beneath the ice. They defeated the Vostok by covering the ice in fuel and dropping a match in the fuel, burning the Vostok alive. (COMIC: The Return of the Vostok)

One account, but not others, which suggested this time as 2008, placed 15 May 2009 as the start of the Mandragora Helix's attempted takeover of Earth through the MorganTech computer systems. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos)

June - August

On 6 June, the Atraxi extradimensional prison break occurred. (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary)

On 28 June, Stephen Hawking held a party for time travellers at Gonville & Caius College, but he only sent out invitations after the event. (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary)

Sometime before 18 August, Polly Wright read a blog post by Jo Jones about Jo's encounter with Doreen Killebrew in the 1970s. From this blog post, she learned that Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart knew the Doctor and they began exchanging emails on their past adventures with him. Eventually, they were contacted by Thomas Brewster, who thought they could help him deal with Gerald Lendler.

On 18 August, Polly and Alistair met up with Brewster at a restaurant where Brewster had been working for three weeks. Lendler had hired an alien hunter to deal with the creature. The Coffin-Loader came out of the River Thames and parts of London were flooded. Using Alistair as bait for the Coffin-Loader, the Hunter lured it to Trafalgar Square and killed it, returning Earth's climate to normal. Afterwards, with some convincing from Polly and Alistair, Lendler gave the Doctor's TARDIS back to Brewster. (AUDIO: The Three Companions)

September - December

Members of the Stockbridge Preservation Society began to go missing. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Child)

Newspaper Ianto Jones picks up. Date reads: Wednesday September 2009 (TV: Children of Earth: Day Two)

On 8:40AM GMT on a Wednesday in September, every child on Earth stopped in their tracks and recited the message, "We are coming", repeatedly, in English. Behind the scenes, the British government knew this came from the 456, a race who had visited Earth before. Gwen Cooper spoke to Clement McDonald, who also stopped and said the message, He told Gwen that when he was a child, the children on his orphanage bus were stolen away, with him almost being taken too. Jack Harkness had a bomb encased in his body which blew up the Torchwood Three hub. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)

Jack, his body slowly reconstituting itself, was held by Johnson, while Gwen went on the run from the British government, revealing to her husband Rhys she was pregnant. The children on Earth stopped again to say, "We are coming...tomorrow". Mr Dekker built a container for the 456 to specification, filled with unusual gases. Lois Habiba revealed to Gwen that John Frobisher was behind the death orders for Torchwood. Johnson sealed Jack in concrete, but Ianto arrived, releasing him. Jack and Ianto escaped with Rhys and Gwen. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Two)

The 456 ambassador materialised in the gassy container in Thames House. They demanded 10% of all of Earth's children. Clem revealed that Jack had been behind the handover in 1965, and Jack staid it was for the 456. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Three)

Jack continued to talk about the night he and others handed children over to the 456 in 1965. At Thames House, the 456 ambassador had one of the children of 1965 as part of its system, unaging. As negotiations failed, the government started to think of ways to hand over the 10%, which Lois recorded with Torchwood's Eye-5 contact lenses as incriminating evidence. The 456 killed Clem. Jack and Ianto faced the 456, but were also killed, along with the rest of Thames House once the 456 released the virus. Jack revived, upset over his loss. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Four)

The British government started sending the 10% to the 456, labelling it "inoculations". The ambassador revealed the children were to be used as drugs. The Prime Minister informed John Frobisher that his children would be among those handed over to the 456. Unable to cope with this, Frobisher killed his family and committed suicide. Gwen and Rhys tried to escape with as many children as they could. Jack used the wave the 456 had used to kill Clem the previous day to destroy the 456, but sacrificed his grandson Steven to set it up. Stricken with guilt over the death of his grandson, Jack left Cardiff and spent the next few months wandering the Earth. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Five)

On Halloween in 2009, the Gelth attempted to pass through a rift in space and time which had opened in Ratchett Abbey, Cheltenham, but were eventually stopped by the Tenth Doctor and Corynne Fletcher. (PROSE: Scared Stiff)

In mid-December, the Aurelia Festival was held in Stockbridge. The Tenth Doctor and new companion Majenta Pryce arrived to find themselves involved in an adventure with Maxwell Edison. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Child)

On the 12th of December, Brenda sent out a letter to the readers of the book series based upon herself and Effie, inviting them to visit her B&B in Whitby, North Yorkshire. (PROSE: Brenda's B&B)

On 25 December, the Tenth Doctor and his companion Heather McCrimmon visited the village of Stillmuir to celebrate Christmas with Heather's family. The celebrations were interrupted by three blue-skinned aliens who wanted to learn about Christmas. They transported the entire village away from Earth to a giant snow globe where they could observe the humans. The Doctor talked with the aliens and invited them to observe Christmas by attending the McCrimmon family's celebrations if they returned the village to Earth. The aliens agreed and spent Christmas night celebrating. (COMIC: A Merry Little Christmas)

Undated

By this year, Polly Wright worked in the City of Westminster. (AUDIO: The Three Companions)

Professor Egen, a time traveller from 1959, briefly stopped in 2009 during his first (and ultimately only) journey through time in his experimental time machine. He looked at a 21st century city full of skyscrapers, which looked "ultra-modern", as he had expected — but, precisely because he had expected it, found it underwhelming, prompting him to move on to the more distant future. (COMIC: Dr. Who's Time Tales)

A broken Filbik colour coder leaked a rainbow over a town in England, causing anyone who touched it to change colour and fall unconscious before being transported to a storage ship. When Bobby explained the mishap to the Filbik they politely agreed to return all of the samples taken by accident. (PROSE: The End of the Rainbow)

Gareth, head of the seismology unit of the UCMA taskforce, developed a system for accurately predicting earthquakes. Gareth's system was credited for saving the human race several times. (TV: Doctor Who)

Kate Maguire first encountered the Tenth Doctor. However, he knew that one day she would help him defend the Earth against an Auton invasion. (PROSE: Autonomy)

A crashed Terpsivore spaceship was buried under Birmingham before being repaired and leaving in 2009. (COMIC: Death Disco)

Rani Chandra visited a Krulius spaceship. (COMIC: Return of the Krulius)

Ellie Faber became homeless. (TV: The Curse of Clyde Langer)

Phil Houseman's The Myth of Artificial Intelligence was published. (PROSE: Theatre of War)

Julia Hardwick was sent back in time by a Weeping Angel when she was in a graveyard. (WC: A Ghost Story for Christmas)

The nine-year-old Sally Morgan's parents were killed in the Middle East when their convoy was ambushed. From then onwards, she was raised by her grandfather. (AUDIO: Black and White)

Jack Odwards swam the English Channel to raise money for Chuckle-Aid. (AUDIO: Kronos Vad's History of Earth (Vol. 36,379))

The Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot visited London for a few days during their travels. The Doctor met Miranda Peel on a Tuesday and a Wednesday on the London Underground while Jamie and Zoe explored the city. (PROSE: Favourite Star)

One of Abslom Daak's ancestors was found guilty by Intersol for crimes against New Devonia. (COMIC: The Crimson Hand)

The Abzorbaloff met the Tenth Doctor in Cardiff, wanting to revenge his son. (WC: The Genuine Article)

According to Brent Cleever, Sir William Frazer and Lady Frazer settled on Mars. (PROSE: Biography — 21)

Prior to 456 incursion

Contradicting other sources, one account placed this year as the time Torchwood discovered the skeleton of a Cardiff soldier from 1812 who died when his heart was ripped out. According to this account, Ianto, Owen Harper, and Toshiko Sato were still active in Torchwood. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts)

A half-alien, half-human girl named Freda was sent back from the future to escape persecution and came under the protection of Torchwood Three. (AUDIO: Asylum)

Torchwood Three discovered Torchwood India still existed and its members were preserving their own time in their headquarters by draining the life out of innocent civilians, with plans to roll back time to Britain's empire across the world. Torchwood Three defeated them and Torchwood India was frozen in time. (AUDIO: Golden Age)

Torchwood Three combatted a mysterious force that put people into coma-like trances after they answered the phone. (AUDIO: The Dead Line)

Captain Jack and Gwen Cooper searched for an alien heat-gun on Cardiff's Machen estate. While doing so, they inadvertently caused a parasitic alien baby to unlatch from its host, causing the host to kill herself and the baby. (PROSE: The Wrong Hands) When the baby's father discovered this, he sought revenge on Torchwood Three and infected Jack and Gwen with the Kagawa Virus. (PROSE: Virus)

Torchwood Three recovered a sentient book from Cardiff University Library, which had been stealing people's memories and converting them into stories. The book was indestructible, so to release its grasp on Nina Rogers Jack decided to send it back in time to 1899, where Emily Holroyd would secretly place it in the university library and so trap it in a time loop. (PROSE: Consequences)

Undated adventures of Sarah Jane Smith & friends

The Veil Androvax crashed in Ealing, followed by the Judoon Tybo. Androvax escaped to Genetec Systems, using Nanoforms to build a spaceship and destroy Earth. Luke deactivated the Nanoforms, and Tybo arrested Androvax. Clyde and Rani were grounded on Earth by the Judoon. (TV: Prisoner of the Judoon)

Rani was called to Danemouth by Samuel Lloyd to investigate a haunted funfair. Sarah Jane, Luke and Clyde followed. Rani found Eve, whose powers were out of control. Eve was taken to Ship to control them. Sarah Jane gave Ship the co-ordinates to the black hole K9 was protecting, freeing him and powering Ship. Eve, Samuel and Eve's adopted father Harry left in Ship to explore the universe. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic)

Peter Dalton was about to marry Sarah Jane Smith, but the Tenth Doctor interfered. The Trickster took Sarah Jane and her gang into a time loop, with Sarah Jane and Peter stuck in one second and the Doctor, Clyde and Rani in another. Peter revoked his deal with the Trickster and died. Time resumed its natural course. With Peter nowhere to be seen, Sarah Jane called the wedding off. (TV: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith)

At Ashen Hill Manor, Sarah Jane discovered the people who had disappeared at the manor had been trapped inside another dimension, keeping Erasmus Darkening alive. Sarah Jane tricken Darkening by putting him into an electromagnetic field. (TV: The Eternity Trap)

The Mona Lisa was in the International Gallery in London, on loan from the Louvre. Due to her proximity to The Abomination, made from the same sentient paint as the Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa was brought to life. She returned to her painting when she was tricked into bringing a sketch of K9 to life, who shot at The Abomination. (TV: Mona Lisa's Revenge)

The Slitheen-Blathereen family captured some Slitheen, stopping them from destroying the Earth. The Slitheen-Blathereen gave Sarah Jane a Rakweed plant, which the next day mutated, sending spores across London that would have put humans into a coma. Mr Smith used a high-pitched frequency across the city to destroy the plants, and when the Slitheen-Blathereen attacked Sarah Jane, he did so again, destroying their Rakweed-saturated bodies. (TV: The Gift)

Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde and Rani fought and killed a Raxacoricofallapatorian, while K9 defused a bomb. (TV: The Nightmare Man)

Other timelines

In the summer, Rani, upset over not living up to the standards of her predecessor, Maria, offhandedly wished that her friends would leave her alone. Ship took this as an actual request and erased Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde and K9. Eve's son Adam reversed this once an older Rani told him about this in 2059. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic)

Births and deaths

Mary Baker, the paternal grandmother of Julia Hardwick as well as one of her possible descendants due to time travel, died at the age of 82. (WC: A Ghost Story for Christmas)

Chang Hu was born. (PROSE: Observer Effect)

Other

In March 2005, Chris Martin watched the Ninth Doctor get kicked off a train as his season ticket wasn't valid until 2009. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)

Behind the scenes

While the 2011 audio stories The Devil and Miss Carew and Submission are ostensibly set not long before the third series of Torchwood from 2009, dialogue in The Devil and Miss Carew mentioning that Joanna Carew is 81 years old and born in 1930, and the events of Submission taking place more than 50 years after the successful return of the Trieste from the Mariana Trench in 1960, contradictorily suggest that they are set in their year of broadcast, 2011.