2007

History of the Doctor Who Universe

January

• Rose, carrying a rucksack, says goodbye to Jackie and Mickey, and continues her adventures with the Doctor. (DW: New Earth)
• 31 - The SS Elysium arrives safely in Panama, its passengers and crew having endured an attack by Cybermen just weeks earlier. One passenger, artist Michael Brack, is airlifted to hospital for treatment for hypothermia suffered during the attack. He misses his chance to tell Ruby Duvall that he is the man responsible for her father's paralysis. (NA: Iceberg)

February - March

• LINDA is given its name by Elton Pope, then is eventually destroyed when the Abzorbaloff (alias Victor Kennedy) absorbs all but one member, Elton, one by one each Saturday. (DW: Love & Monsters)
• The Master arrives on Earth around this time and assumes the alias Harold Saxon. He sets about establishing a political career while creating the Archangel Network. He also meets his future wife Lucy Saxon. (DW: The Sound of Drums)

June

• The Battle of Canary Wharf. Rose Tyler is presumed dead, but actually is transported to 'Pete's World'. (DW: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday) The partial cyber-conversion of Lisa Hallett happens during this event. (TW: Cyberwoman) Donna Noble, meanwhile, is on a Scuba-diving holiday in Spain and is not aware of these events. (DW: The Runaway Bride)
• Donna Noble chooses to take a job with H.C. Clements, after rejecting a request from her mother that she work for another firm. Unknown to Donna, an alternate timeline version of herself has fallen beneath the wheels of a lorry a few blocks away in order to prevent her from making the other decision and altering the timeline. Rose Tyler travels back in time from approximately two years in the future - and from the alternate timeline - to ask the alternate-Donna to pass a message on to the Doctor when she "dies". (DW: The Runaway Bride, Turn Left)
• Former Torchwood One operative Ianto Jones relocates to Cardiff and works to convince Jack Harkness to give him a position with Torchwood Three. (TW: Fragments). He is successful in his efforts, and subsequently hides his partially-converted Lisa Hallett within the Torchwood Hub (TW: Cyberwoman)

August

• Torchwood Three member Suzie Costello dies. Gwen Cooper joins Torchwood Three. (TW: Everything Changes)
• On her first day of work, Gwen helps the team defeat an alien entity. (TW: Day One)

August - December

• The new Torchwood Three team (new in the sense that it is different due to one member being replaced) saves the Earth - at least Cardiff - several more times. (TW: Ghost Machine through Out of Time)

• Sometime during this period, Suzie Costello was resurrected for a short period by Gwen before eventually being killed again. (TW: They Keep Killing Suzie)

December

• A company called Khrysalis sets up operations in Stockbridge, purportedly planning to construct a leisure park in the quiet town. Maxwell Edison creates the Stockbridge Preservation Society to protest this. (DWM: The Stockbridge Child)
• 18 - Diane Holmes, Emma-Louise Cowell and John Ellis arrive from 1953 through the Rift. (TW: Out of Time)

• 24 - Diane flies through the rift, Emma leaves from Cardiff to London and John commits suicide, all against the wishes of the Torchwood Three team. (TW: Out of Time)

• 24 - Donna Noble's marriage to Lance Bennett is interrupted by events orchestrated by her fiancé and the Empress of the Racnoss. (DW: The Runaway Bride) Although Sylvia Noble, Donna's mother, is witness to these events, her grandfather, Wilfred Mott, is absent due to an attack of flu. (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem)

Other timelines

• Donna Noble makes a decision that results in her not joining H.C. Clements and so not meeting Lance Bennett and becoming engaged to him. As a consequence, on Christmas Day, the Doctor never meets Donna and he drowns to death when defeating the Empress of the Racnoss. Rose Tyler, travelling between dimensions, ends up in this alternate timeline and arrives soon after the Doctor's corpse has been retrieved by UNIT. (DW: Turn Left)

See Donna's World.

• 1st of February - The Doctor's TARDIS visits Pete's World for the first time. The Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Mickey Smith battle parallel Cybermen. Mickey decides to stay. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel)

See Pete's World.

Unknown dates

• An "Arms for Humanity" concert is held to raise money for the Preserve our Planet Fund. (NA: Iceberg)

• Krillitanes attempt to solve the Skasis Paradigm using the imagination of the children at Deffry Vale High School. Sarah Jane Smith's pet, K9 Mark III, is destroyed and replaced by K9 Mark IV. (DW: School Reunion) The Doctor has hidden several gifts inside a panel in K9 Mark IV: sonic lipstick and a wristwatch for detecting alien life for Sarah Jane to find and use later. (Sarah Jane Smith website, SJA: Invasion of the Bane)

• The Doctor and Martha arrive on Earth a year before they met. They are attacked by Weeping Angels and sent back to 1969. They are saved by Sally Sparrow, and then prevent the danger of Red Hatching. (REF: The Time Traveller's Almanac)

• The discovery of a bizarre message encoded as an Easter egg on 17 different DVD releases causes a flurry of interest on the Internet due to the cryptic nature of the message. The message, which appears to have been shot on film many years earlier, depicts a man with glasses conducting what appears to be a one-sided conversation with an unknown person, and he is occasionally interrupted by a young black woman. Among those interested in the message is London video store employee Larry Nightingale. One of the cryptic statements made, "The angels have the phone box", is made into a T-shirt design. Larry Nightingale begins intensively studying the message, much to the annoyance of his sister, Kathy Nightingale. (DW: Blink)

• The Doctor and Martha Jones, following information provided to them by Sally Sparrow, investigate the Wester Drumlins estate near London, where by choice or accident they are touched by the Weeping Angels and transported to 1969; the TARDIS remains behind and is later taken into custody by London police. (DW: Blink; that this occurs in the same year as the events of Blink is conjecture, given that the Angels appear to only be recently interested in the TARDIS and Billy Shipton gives no indication that it's been in custody for long.)

• Sally Sparrow receives a bizarre message addressed to her from someone called the Doctor in 1969 while investigating an old house called Wester Drumlins near London. Sparrow learns of the Weeping Angels and during the course of the adventure her friend Kathy Nightingale is transported back to 1920, and a policeman named Billy Shipton is sent back to 1969. Sparrow encounters an elderly Shipton, who dies soon after revealing that he is responsible for adding a cryptic message from the Doctor to a number of DVDs, and the Easter egg mystery is solved when Sally realizes the one-sided conversation is from the Doctor and directed at her. Ultimately, Sparrow stops the Weeping Angels from capturing the TARDIS and with the help of Larry Nightingale sends the vessel back to 1969. After this event, Sally and Larry take over the ownership of the DVD rental store where Larry works, turning it into a bookstore, but Sally remains distant from Larry as she awaits the final resolution of her involvement with the time-travelling Doctor. (DW: Blink)

Real World

January

• BFA: Circular Time is first released.
• Big Finish Productions launches a new spin-off series of audio adventures, The Companion Chronicles, with the simultaneous release of four different productions: CC: Frostfire, CC: Fear of the Daleks, CC: The Blue Tooth and CC: The Beautiful People. The initial concept of the Companion Chronicles is to feature companions (and original actors) who up till now have not performed their original characters due to their Doctors (specifically the first four) being unavailable to the Big Finish range due to the original actors being dead or unavailable. The Beautiful People is an exception as it features Lalla Ward who had been portraying Romana for Big Finish for several years at this point, though never before in an adventure with the Fourth Doctor.
• 1 - TW: Captain Jack Harkness and TW: End of Days are first broadcast, concluding the first season of Torchwood. The cliffhanger ending of End of Days is not resolved until the broadcast of DW: Utopia more than six months later.
  • SJA: Invasion of the Bane, the first episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, is also first broadcast, although the proper series won't begin until later in the year.
  • Also broadcast: the final episode of Torchwood Declassified's first season.
• 03 - DW: The Invasion is released to DVD in Region 4.
• 11 - TWN: Another Life, TWN: Border Princes and TWN: Slow Decay, the first original novels based upon Torchwood, are first published by BBC Books. The books are similar in format to the BBC New Series Adventures novels in that they are in hardcover (but with slightly larger pages) and have a slightly lower page count than the older BBC Books and Virgin paperbacks. Like the NSA's, the Torchwood novels will be issued in sets of three.
  • Cast readthrough for DW: 42 and DW: Utopia (TV story)
• 15 - After a mid-season hiatus of more than a month, CBC Canadian broadcasts of Series 2 continue after a 5-week hiatus with DW: The Satan Pit.
• 16 - A DVD box set of the complete Second Series of Doctor Who is released in Region 1. In a reversal of the previous year, due to Series 2 still being in the midst of broadcast in Canada, release of the set is initially restricted to the US only, with Canadian release delayed until February.
• 19 - The CBC in Canada begins rebroadcasting Series 1 of Doctor Who in a late night weekend timeslot.
• 21 - More than eight years after it was first released, Billie Piper's 1998 single, "Honey to the B" returns to the UK music charts, even though Piper herself has become a full-time actress by this time.
• 22 - Christopher Eccleston makes his first of five appearances on the American science fiction series Heroes, which also features Eric Roberts. Eccleston plays "Claude", a man with the power to turn invisible.
• 27 - The New Beginnings DVD box set is released in the UK, featuring DW: The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis and Castrovalva.
  • Also released in the UK is the Amazon.co.uk-exclusive DVD box set The Dalek Collection, consisting of the previously released DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Genesis of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, and Remembrance of the Daleks.

February

• BFA: Nocturne is first released.
• BFBS: The Tub Full of Cats is first released.
• 8 - Cast readthrough for DW: The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords.
• 15 - After a month's delay due to the CBC still airing the episodes, the Canadian release of the Series 2 DVD box set takes place.
• 18 - Russell T Davies and Doctor Who Magazine writer Benjamin Cook begin exchanging e-mails as part of a project to document the production of several episodes of the upcoming 4th series for DWM. The project eventually grows into what becomes the book release Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale.
• 19 - Canadian broadcast of DW: Doomsday on the CBC, concluding Series 2; the season was broadcast over a longer than usual period due to the decision by the CBC to insert a mid-season hiatus. Doomsday attracts some 200,000 fewer viewers than part 1, DW: Army of Ghosts, a possible consequence of Series 2 being released to DVD in Canada a few days prior to Doomsday being broadcast.
• 26 - Christopher Eccleston makes his fifth and, to date, final appearance on Heroes in one of the series' most acclaimed episodes, "Company Man". Eccleston's appearances in Heroes are among the highest-profile American TV appearances by a former Doctor Who actor.
  • The DVD Torchwood Series 1 Part 2 is released in the UK.
• Late February - In a meeting with Jane Tranter, Catherine Tate expresses interest in returning as Donna Noble for a couple of episodes of Series 4 (at this point there had been no discussion of her returning to the series full-time). (The Writer's Tale)

March

• NSA: Made of Steel is first published. The second release in the Quick Reads series, the book is released prior to the broadcast of DW: Smith and Jones, making this the first public appearance of Martha Jones. Written by Terrance Dicks, former script editor and prolific author of novelisations and original Doctor Who novels, this is the first New Series-related literary work by a veteran of the 1963-89 TV series.
• BFA: Renaissance of the Daleks is first released.
• 06 - Iconic American actor Dennis Hopper expresses interest in appearing in Doctor Who and Russell T Davies begins considering him for a role in what would become the 2007 Christmas special, DW: Voyage of the Damned. Initially considered for the role of Mr. Copper and then Max Capricorn, the idea of Hopper appearaing does not ultimately pan out. Meanwhile, Billie Piper expresses interest in returning for as many as four episodes of Series 4. (The Writer's Tale)
  • DW: The Invasion and The Sontaran Experiment are released to DVD in Region 1.
• 13 - Catherine Tate, in a meeting with Julie Gardner indicates interest in appearing in a full season of Doctor Who; Russell T Davies, who is still sketching out the introduction of a new companion called Penny for Series 4, begins retooling his ideas to fit the possible return of Donna Noble (The Writer's Tale).
• 16 - David Tennant appears in a televised skit alongside Catherine Tate as part of a benefit for Comic Relief. Tennant plays Mr. Logan, a substitute teacher who runs afoul of rebellious Lauren Cooper (Tate). The skit includes numerous in-jokes related to Doctor Who, especially when Lauren starts to think that Logan is The Doctor. After Lauren chides him with "Did you fancy Billie Piper, sir?", "Mr. Logan" pulls out a sonic screwdriver and turns Lauren into a Rose Tyler action figure.
• 18 - DW: The Web of Fear episode one is repeated on BBC Four as part of London Underground night.
• 19 - Catherine Tate officially signs on to return as Donna Noble in the upcoming Series 4 of Doctor Who; besides retooling the season premiere, DW: Partners in Crime, Russell T Davies also begins rethinking his planned "world without a Doctor" storyline, which would become DW: Turn Left. (The Writer's Tale)
• 21 - Press launch for Series 3 of Doctor Who.
• 22 - Kylie Minogue, via her management, expresses interest in appearing in an episode of Doctor Who (The Writer's Tale).
• 26 - The DVD Torchwood Series 1 Part 3 is released in the UK. This is the last "vanilla" release of episodes from Season 1 of Torchwood and the last such release related to this series (although the vanilla releases continue for Doctor Who).
• 29 - John Gill, who played the character of Oak in DW: Fury from the Deep, dies.
• 30 - Seventies writer Dave Martin, who co-wrote many stories and co-created K9 with Bob Baker, dies from lung cancer.
• 31 - DW: Smith and Jones first broadcast, launching Series 3 (aka Season 29). Freema Agyeman makes her debut as new companion Martha Jones.
  • Earlier in the day, five exclusive previews of DW: Smith and Jones take place at the Cardiff Odeon, Swansea Odeon, Wrexham Odeon, The Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Pwllheli Neuadd Dwyfor.
  • After broadcast of DW: Smith and Jones, the first episode of the third series of Doctor Who Confidential airs.

April

• NSA: Sting of the Zygons, NSA: The Last Dodo, and NSA: Wooden Heart are first published.
• BFA: I.D. and BFA: Urgent Calls are first released. Urgent Calls is a single-episode story included as a bonus feature with I.D.
• BFBS: The Judas Gift is first released.
• 1 - George Sewell dies.
• 2 - DW: The Runaway Bride is released to DVD in the UK. This is the first time a single episode of the revived series has been released to DVD on its own. Although released in the same format as the "vanilla" releases of past seasons, this time the DVD includes a bonus feature of the Doctor Who Confidential installment relating to the 2006 Children in Need concert. This is the first time a full-length episode of Confidential has been released to DVD.
  • The first episode of the second season of Totally Doctor Who airs in the UK. This season, Totally Doctor Who features a serialized animated Doctor Who adventure, DW: The Infinite Quest, which features the voices of David Tennant, Freema Agyeman and Anthony Stewart Head (the latter playing a new character).
• 7 - DW: The Shakespeare Code is first broadcast.
• 11 - Russell T Davies, who has already indicated his wish to leave his post as executive producer after Series 4, is formally invited by the BBC to stay on for Series 5. Davies declines, later writing to Benjamin Cook, "They knew my reply even before they walked in." (The Writer's Tale) Davies' impending departure is kept under wraps for the next year.
• 14 - DW: Gridlock is first broadcast, concluding a trilogy of episodes that began with DW: The End of the World.
• 16 - DW: Survival is released to DVD in the UK.
• 17 - Russell T Davies furnishes Benjamin Cook with the story outline for what will be called DW: Voyage of the Damned, but currently carries the working title, Starship Titanic. (The Writer's Tale; according to the book, Davies is unaware of the Douglas Adams novel and videogame of this same name.)
• 21 - DW: Daleks in Manhattan is first broadcast. The episode includes some second-unit filming that took place in New York City, the first non-UK filming for a regular episode since DW: The Two Doctors and the first US production work ever for the franchise.
• 22 - The News of the World breaks the story that Kylie Minogue has been cast in the upcoming Christmas special, but erroneously reports that she is to play a Cyberwoman.
  • Russell T Davies pulls out of writing the script for the first episode of Torchwood season 2, although a scene he penned involving a blowfish driving a sports car is retained in the eventual script, TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (The Writer's Tale)
• 28 - DW Evolution of the Daleks is first broadcast.
  • Torchwood beats Doctor Who for the Best Drama prize at the Welsh BAFTA awards, while David Tennant and Eve Myles receive Best Actor and Best Actress and Graeme Harper Best Director.

May

• BFA: Exotron and BFA: Urban Myths are first released. Urban Myths is a single-episode bonus story included with Exotron.
• BFBS: The Two Jasons is first published.
• 5 - DW: The Lazarus Experiment is first broadcast. The story guest-stars long-time Doctor Who novelist and occasional scriptwriter Mark Gatiss.
• 16 - After weeks of sketching out story ideas, Russell T Davies begins writing the script for the 2007 Christmas special currently titled Starship Titanic.
  • Doctor Who: Battles in Time Dalek vs Cybermen Special, the first spinoff special issue of Battles in Time magazine, is published in the UK.
• Before 19th May - WC: 42 Prologue, a short story, is published exclusively online as part of the BBC's Doctor Who website. This was the first BBC-published exclusive-to-Internet Doctor Who story since WC: The Feast of the Stone several years earlier, and the first of several Tenth Doctor stories to be published online up to the end of 2009.
• 19 - DW: 42 is first broadcast.
• 21 - The DVD Doctor Who Series 3 Volume 1 is released in the UK, including the episodes DW: Smith and Jones, The Shakespeare Code and Gridlock.
• 26 - DW: Human Nature is first broadcast. This episode, and the one that follows, adapts the Virgin New Adventures novel NA: Human Nature, a first for the franchise. The episode is also significant for showing drawings of several past incarnations of the Doctor -- the first time the revived series has directly shown Doctors prior to the Ninth Doctor including, significantly, the Eighth Doctor.
• 30 - After discovering a Douglas Adams computer game of the same title, Russell T Davies changes the title of the 2007 Christmas special from Starship Titanic to DW: Voyage of the Damned. (The Writer's Tale)
• 31 - The Sun tabloid reports that Doctor Who will be taken off the air for a year after the conclusion of Series 4 in 2008, except for some specials, with David Tennant leaving midway through the season. The first half of the report proves accurate, the second half less so as Tennant ultimately stays for all of the specials.

June

• BFA: Valhalla is first released.
• ST: Short Trips: Destination Prague is first published.
• BFBS: Freedom of Information is first released
• 2 - DW: The Family of Blood is first broadcast.
• 4 - Russell T Davies learns that the secret of Catherine Tate replacing Freema Agyeman in Series 4 is beginning to leak out, causing concern about the potential for tabloid reports over Agyeman being "fired" before the current season has a chance to play out. (The Writer's Tale)
  • DW: Robot is released to DVD in the UK.
• 5 - Russell T Davies completes his initial draft script for DW: Voyage of the Damned (The Writer's Tale).
  • The New Beginnings DVD box set consisting of DW: The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis and Castrovalva is released in both Region 1 and Region 4.
• 6 - DW: Survival is released to DVD in Region 4.
• 9 - DW: Blink is first broadcast. This Doctor-lite episode starring Carey Mulligan as Sally Sparrow wins the franchise's third Hugo Award and becomes one of the most critically and fan-acclaimed episodes in franchise history.
• 16 - DW: Utopia is first broadcast, marking the return of the Master, last seen on screen in the 1996 TV movie and played by Derek Jacobi and John Simm. John Barrowman also returns to the series as Jack Harkness; the episode takes place immediately after the events of TW: End of Days and marks the start of the revived series' first three-part story.
• 18 - The CBC in Canada begins airing Series 3. In an unusual (and criticized) move, the network first airs DW: Smith and Jones during prime time, and then broadcasts the Christmas special DW: The Runaway Bride a few hours later, after midnight in most areas of Canada (it had originally been scheduled to air by itself on 11 June, but was rescheduled to accommodate hockey broadcasts).
• 23 - DW: The Sound of Drums is first broadcast. First full episode featuring John Simm as the Master. Alexandra Moen debuts as Lucy Saxon.
• 25 - The DVD Doctor Who Series 3 Volume 2 is released in the UK, featuring the episodes DW: Daleks in Manhattan, Evolution of the Daleks, The Lazarus Experiment and 42.
• 27 - David Tennant informs the Doctor Who production staff that he has been signed to appear in Hamlet in late 2008, during the already-planned production hiatus. (The Writer's Tale)
• 29 - The final episode of Totally Doctor Who is broadcast; it is subsequently cancelled. The final episode of the animated serial, DW: The Infinite Quest, also airs.
  • Robin Davies, who worked behind the scenes on the 2005 season as driver for Christopher Eccleston, dies. (The Writer's Tale)
• 30 - DW: Last of the Time Lords is first broadcast, concluding the third season of the Doctor Who revival. Freema Agyeman leaves the series as regular, as does John Barrowman, again.
  • The final episode of Doctor Who Confidential's third season airs afterwards.
  • Plans to simulcast DW: Last of the Time Lords to crowds at Trafalgar Square as part of a Gay Pride event are cancelled at the last minute.

July

• BFA: The Wishing Beast and BFA: The Vanity Box are first released. The Vanity Box is a single-episode bonus feature included with The Wishing Beast.
• ST: Short Trips: Snapshots is first published.
• 2 - First cast read-through for DW: Voyage of the Damned is held at Central Baptist Church in London.
  • Due to a quirk in scheduling involving its broadcasts of the U20 World Cup, the CBC in Canada gives DW: The Runaway Bride its only prime-time broadcast, albeit only in Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.
• 4 - The BBC announces in a midnight press release that Catherine Tate will join Doctor Who for Series 4; according to Russell T Davies the announcement was made in order to preempt an expected story revealing same by the Sun tabloid the same day. Davies learns that another tabloid The Daily Mail is expected to prematurely break the news of Tennant appearing in Hamlet, and in turn the official plan to have a gap year. (The Writer's Tale)
  • DW: Robot is released to DVD in Region 4.
• 7 - Freddie Earlle, who played the role of Aldo in DW: Warriors' Gate, dies.
  • Doctor Who wins three trophies at the inaugural Constellation Awards, a Canadian-based honour recognizing the best in science fiction and presented during the annual Polaris SF convention. David Tennant wins Best Male Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Television Episode for DW: The Girl in the Fireplace, while Doctor Who itself wins the overall Best Science Fiction Television Series category. Unusually, Doctor Who also receives the award for Outstanding Canadian Contribution to Science Fiction due to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation being a co-producer of the series.
  • The Toronto Star newspaper runs a full-page feature on Doctor Who featuring an interview with Freema Agyeman.
• 9 - Filming begins on DW: Voyage of the Damned.
  • DW: Timelash is released to DVD in the UK.
  • The UK newspaper the Guardian names Russell T Davies the 15th most powerful player in the UK media industry.
• 10 - David Tennant is forced to leave the set of DW: Voyage of the Damned upon learning that his mother has taken gravely ill. Production continues around his absence. (The Writer's Tale)
• 15 - David Tennant's mother passes away.
• 17 - Russell T Davies addresses what he describes to Benjamin Cook as "the elephant in the room" and initiates discussions with Steven Moffat about Moffat taking over Davies' job on Doctor Who. Moffat replies on the 19th that he is interested in talking about the idea. (The Writer's Tale)
• 21 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series of books and alluded to in DW: The Shakespeare Code, is published worldwide.
• 27 - The DVD Doctor Who Series 3 Volume 3 is released in the UK featuring the episodes DW: Human Nature, The Family of Blood and Blink.
• 29 - Inspired by reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Russell T Davies begins toying with the idea of inviting J.K. Rowling to appear on Doctor Who, possibly in the 2008 Christmas special. (The Writer's Tale)
• 31 - Bernard Cribbins, a veteran of the Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. movie, films a cameo for DW: Voyage of the Damned, little knowing he would later return to the series several times in Series 4. Despite his workload, Russell T Davies visits the set. (The Writer's Tale)
  • DW: Timelash is released to DVD in Region 4.

August

• BFA: Frozen Time is first released.
• BFBS: Nobody's Children is first published.
• Doctor Who receives the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form for the episode DW: The Girl in the Fireplace written by Steven Moffat. Also nominated in this category are the episodes DW: School Reunion and the two-parter DW: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday. Also nominated in this category is "200", an episode of Stargate SG-1, and "Downloaded", an episode of Battlestar Galactica.
• 3 - Problems with the script for DW: The Fires of Pompeii lead to Russell T Davies considering replacing it with a previously aborted Second World War-era story by Mark Gatiss. (The Writer's Tale)
• 4 - Russell T Davies begins work on a major rewrite of James Moran's script for DW: The Fires of Pompeii (The Writer's Tale).
• 6 - DW: Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity are released to DVD in the UK in a two-disc set.
• 7 - First cast readthroughs for DW: Planet of the Ood and DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp.
• Early August - Colin Teague and Phil Collinson visit the Cinecitta Studios in Rome, Italy, as the Doctor Who production team considers filming part of DW: The Fires of Pompeii in Rome -- the first time major filming for a DW TV episode has been conducted outside the UK since 1985. Cinecitta is the home studio of another BBC production, Rome.
• 9 - Around the time Teague and Collinson are in Rome, the Cinecitta Studios are heavily damaged in a fire. (The Writer's Tale)
• 14 - North American DVD release of DW: Robot and Survival.
• 16 - THN: Child of Time is first published. 11th and, to date, final novel in the Time Hunter series.
• 20 - The DVD Doctor Who Series 3 Volume 4 is released in the UK, concluding the "vanilla" releases of episodes from Series 3. This release includes the complete finale trilogy of DW: Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords.
• 21 - Russell T Davies hatches the idea of creating a false edit of DW: Partners in Crime for media/review distribution in order to hide a planned surprise cameo by Billie Piper as Rose Tyler. (The Writer's Tale)
• 23 - plans for the return of Rose Tyler in Series 4 are jeopardized when it's learned that Billie Piper is planning on getting married at the end of 2007, and might not be available for filming. (The Writer's Tale)
• 25 - Kylie Minogue and a Dalek take part in a cover-photo shoot for Doctor Who Magazine.
• 30 - Russell T Davies begins writing the script for DW: Partners in Crime, the first episode of Series 4.
• 31 - Due to a premature announcement by the Royal Shakespeare Company (see 3rd September, below), Doctor Who's producers inform their staff that the fifth series will not go into production until 2009, save for a few specials in the interim. (The Writer's Tale)
  • David Tennant switches on the illuminations in Blackpool before a crowd of tens of thousands. He is accompanied by Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson. The somewhat manic race through traffic-clogged motorways to get to the event is immortalized in one of Tennant's video diaries which is subsequently released in the Series 4 DVD set.

September

• NSA: Forever Autumn, NSA: Sick Building, and NSA: Wetworld are first published.
• BFA: Son of the Dragon is first released.
• BFA: 100 is first released.
• BFBS: The End of the World - a Bernice Summerfield audio drama not to be confused with the 2005 Doctor Who episode of the same title - is first released
• 3 - The BBC officially announces that Series 5 of Doctor Who will not air until 2010. According to Russell T Davies the announcement was originally to have been made prior to an 11th September press conference by the Royal Shakespeare Company announcing David Tennant's appearance in Hamlet in the fall of 2008, but the release of an RSC brochure in late August required an immediate announcement.
  • DW: The Time Warrior is released to DVD in the UK.
  • BBC Audio launches a series of audio releases adapting Target Books novelisations. These recordings, virtually unabridged, feature (for the most part) veteran cast members reading the long-out-of-print books. The first releases are DWN: Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters and DWN: Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon.
  • BBCR: Doctor Who at the BBC: The Tenth Doctor, a radio documentary presented by Elisabeth Sladen, is first released on CD by BBC Audio.
• 4 - Cast readthrough for DW: The Fires of Pompeii.
• 6 - Russell T Davies reveals to Benjamin Cook that, despite previous scheduling conflicts, Billie Piper will return as Rose Tyler in DW: Partners in Crime and Series 4. (The Writer's Tale)
  • Russell T Davies completes his initial draft of DW: Partners in Crime.
• 13 - Filming begins on DW: The Fires of Pompeii at the Cinecitta Studios in Rome, the first time, save the 1996 telefilm and second-unit filming on DW: Daleks in Manhattan, that major shooting for a regular episode has taken place outside the UK since 1985's DW: The Two Doctors was filmed in Spain.
• 23 - The American animated series Family Guy broadcasts the episode "Blue Harvest", a nearly scene-by-scene parody of Star Wars: A New Hope. A joke involving hyperspace features a brief clip of the classic mid-1970s opening sequence of Doctor Who featuring Tom Baker and a few bars of the Doctor Who theme. This is the first time any footage from the Tom Baker era, or the classic Delia Derbyshire arrangement of the theme, has appeared on an American commercial network. The episode, with DW clip intact, is released to DVD in North America in early 2008.
• 24 - SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen is first broadcast, launching the first full season of The Sarah Jane Adventures (following the pilot episode, SJA: Invasion of the Bane, which aired months earlier). This is the first half-hour episode produced by the televised Doctor Who franchise since episode 3 of DW: Survival in 1989.
  • Nearly five years after it was released to DVD in North America (Region 1), the complete Key to Time season is finally released in Region 2 (UK). This version, issued in a somewhat limited release, includes featurettes and other extra features not included in the 2002 version. This is the first UK release of a complete classic series season in one set. Episodes: DW: The Ribos Operation, The Pirate Planet, The Stones of Blood, The Androids of Tara, The Power of Kroll and The Armageddon Factor.
• 27 - Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner decide to reject a script by Tom MacRae which was planned for Series 4. Davies takes on the job of writing a replacement, which ultimately becomes DW: Midnight. (The Writer's Tale)
• 28 - Steven Moffat informs Russell T Davies that he has agreed to take over the executive producer/head writer's position when Davies leaves. (The Writer's Tale).

October

• BFA: Absolution is first released.
• CC: Mother Russia is first released.
• BFDE: Dalek Empire IV: The Fearless: Part 1 is first released, launching Big Finish Productions' fourth Dalek Empire mini-series, three years after the third.
• BFBS: The Final Amendment is first released.
• REF: The Target Book: A History of the Target Doctor Who Books is first published.
• 1 - SJA: Eye of the Gorgon part 1 is first broadcast.
  • REF: I Am the Doctor: The Unauthorised Diaries of a Timelord is published by Zone Publishing. Written by John Peel and illustrated by Pete Wallbank, this unofficial publication features diaries entries by all 10 Doctors and new illustrations by Wallbank.
• 2 - Cast readthrough for DW: Partners in Crime.
• 3 - DW: The Time Warrior is released to DVD in Region 4.
• 7 - Production of the Children in Need mini-episode, DW: Time Crash, featuring the return of Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, takes place in Cardiff. Russell T Davies is drawn away from working on scripts to attend the filming (per The Writer's Tale).
• 8 - SJA: Eye of the Gorgon part 2 is first broadcast.
• 10 - With production of DW: Partners in Crime now under way, Russell T Davies realizes how ill Howard Attfield, playing Geoff Noble has become and begins to consider how to work this into the season, given the character is supposed to sppear in several episodes. A few days later, Davies considers filming Attfield's scenes in the as-yet-unwritten DW: Turn Left as soon as possible, along with his scenes in Partners in Crime. (The Writer's Tale)
• Mid-October - British media leaks the news that Billie Piper will be returning to Doctor Who.
• 13 - Russell T Davies begins writing the script for Crusader Five, later renamed Crusader 50 as at the time it was going to be the 50th episode of the revived Doctor Who. The script is later retitled DW: Midnight. (The Writer's Tale)
• 15 - SJA: Warriors of Kudlak part 1 is first broadcast.
  • An injury forces Howard Attfield to pull out of production of DW: Partners in Crime after filming only a few of his planned scenes. Phil Collinson suggests hiring Bernard Cribbins as a last-minute replacement, and Russell T Davies retcons the newspaper seller Cribbins played in DW: Voyage of the Damned to be Donna Noble's grandfather, Wilfred Mott. (The Writer's Tale)
  • DW: Planet of Evil is released to DVD in the UK.
• 18 - Russell T Davies completes the initial draft of Crusader 50, later called DW: Midnight.
• 19 - Cast readthrough for DW: The Sontaran Stratagem/ The Poison Sky
• 22 - SJA: Warriors of Kudlak part 2 is first broadcast.
  • Piers Wenger is interviewed as a possible replacement for Julie Gardner when she steps down as producer after the 2009 Specials are filmed. (The Writer's Tale)
• 27 - Russell T Davies begins writing the script for DW: Turn Left.
• 29 - SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? part 1 is first broadcast.
  • SJA: Invasion of the Bane is released by itself on DVD in the UK. This is the only episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, to date, to be released on its own in a "vanilla" edition.
• 31 - Howard Attfield, who played Geoff Noble in DW: The Runaway Bride, dies only two weeks after pulling out of production of DW: Partners in Crime.
  • Doctor Who wins Most Popular Drama and David Tennant wins Most Popular Actor at the 2007 National Television Awards.

November

• BFA: The Mind's Eye and BFA: Mission of the Viyrans are first released. Mission of the Viyrans is a single-episode bonus story included with The Mind's Eye.
• CC: Helicon Prime is first released.
• BFDE: Dalek Empire IV: The Fearless: Part 2 is first released.
• BFBS: Old Friends is first published.
• BFBS: Missing Adventures is first published.
• 1 - SJAN: Invasion of the Bane, SJAN: Revenge of the Slitheen, SJAN: Eye of the Gorgon and SJAN: Warriors of Kudlak are all first published. These novelisations based upon episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures are the first releases by Penguin Character Books and mark the first major release of televised story novelisations since the Target Books line was retired in 1994 (notwithstanding a few one-off Doctor Who releases between 1994 and 2005). Invasion of the Bane is Terrance Dicks' first TV novelisation since DWN: Doctor Who - The Space Pirates some two decades earlier.
• 5 - SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? part 2 is first broadcast.
  • The complete Third Series of Doctor Who is released in a DVD box set in the UK.
  • DW: The Infinite Quest, an animated Tenth Doctor serial produced for Totally Doctor Who, is released to DVD in the UK. To date this is the only DVD release of material from Totally Doctor Who.
  • SJAA: The Thirteenth Stone and SJAA: The Glittering Storm, two original made-for-audio The Sarah Jane Adventures stories, are released by BBC Audio.
  • Audio adaptations of DWN: Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion and DWN: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot are first released. The latter is read by Tom Baker and features his first performance as the Doctor since his cameo in DW: Dimensions in Time.
• 06 - DW: Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity are released to DVD in Region 1. Unlike the UK release, the two stories are issued separately rather than as a set.
  • The complete Third Series of Doctor Who is released in a DVD box set in North America (Region 1).
• 07 - The complete Key to Time season is released to DVD in Region 4. Episodes: DW: The Ribos Operation, The Pirate Planet, The Stones of Blood, The Androids of Tara, The Power of Kroll and The Armageddon Factor.
• 12 - SJA: The Lost Boy part 1 is first broadcast.
• 16 - DW: Time Crash, a mini-episode set between DW: Last of the Time Lords and DW: Voyage of the Damned, is first broadcast as part of the 2007 Children in Need appeal. Discounting DW: Dimensions in Time, Peter Davison makes his first appearance as the Doctor since 1984's DW: The Caves of Androzani. First multi-Doctor television story since DW: The Two Doctors. Final use of the Doctor Who Theme arrangement by Murray Gold that had been introduced in 2005.
• 19 - SJA: The Lost Boy part 2 is first broadcast, concluding the first season of The Sarah Jane Adventures.
  • The complete First Series of Torchwood is released in a DVD box set in the UK.
• 22 - Verity Lambert, first producer of Doctor Who, dies of cancer.
• 23 - Cast read-throughs for DW: The Doctor's Daughter, DW: Midnight, and DW: Turn Left.
• 26 - DW: Destiny of the Daleks is released to DVD in the UK.
  • BBC Video releases the box set The Complete Davros Collection including the previously released stories DW: Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks, and Revelation of the Daleks, and a new edition of DW: Remembrance of the Daleks. This marks the first time a previously released story has been revisited on DVD with new features and restoration work.
  • The Davros DVD set also includes BFD: The Davros Mission, a single-episode audio drama produced by Big Finish Productions], as a bonus feature.
• 29 - Simultaneous filming of DW: Midnight and DW: Turn Left is now under way, marking Billie Piper's return to Doctor Who production. During this time, she films her cameo for DW: Partners in Crime, as well as a short appearance originally intended only for Midnight but later also added to DW: The Poison Sky.

December

• NSA: Wishing Well, NSA: The Pirate Loop, and NSA: Peacemaker are first published.
• BFA: The Girl Who Never Was is first released.
• CC: Old Soldiers is first released.
• ST: Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas is first published.
• BFDE: Dalek Empire IV: The Fearless: Part 3 is first released.
• IDW Publishing, an American comic book company, launches Doctor Who Classics, a monthly series of colorized reprints of Fourth Doctor comic strips from the early days of Doctor Who Weekly. This is in advance of the launch of a new original Tenth Doctor monthly series scheduled to begin in early 2008.
• 01 - The BBC's Doctor Who website launches the 2007 Advent Calendar. Each day between the 1st and 24th, a different item is uploaded to the site, ranging from exclusive video and games to original fiction.
• 02 - WC: The Frozen, an exclusive-to-Internet Doctor Who short story, is published on the 2007 Doctor Who Advent Calendar, a special feature on the BBC's Doctor Who website.
• 05 - BBC Video cancels plans to release the Special Edition DW: Remembrance of the Daleks to DVD in North America in March 2008; clearance issues (presumably regarding the use of a Beatles song on the soundtrack) are cited as the reason. The DVD is eventually announced for a 2010 release, with the Beatles song removed. The announcement results in North American release of The Complete Davros Collection being cancelled, although the other stories in the set remain available as individual releases.
  • DW: Planet of Evil is released to DVD in Region 4.
• 7 - The BBC announces that Julie Gardner will end her tenure as executive producer of Doctor Who in 2009, with Piers Wenger succeeding her.
• 10 - Russell T Davies begins writing the script for DW: The Stolen Earth.
  • That same day, Steven Moffat begins a dialogue with Davies regarding the changeover in producing regime and the start of Series 4. (The Writer's Tale)
• 15 - Catherine Tate lets slip on the Jonathan Ross radio show the incorrect news that Series 4 will be David Tennant's last. This is followed by a similarly erroneous (or at least premature) report by BBC News. (The Writer's Tale)
• 18 - Press launch for DW: Voyage of the Damned.
• 22 - A Christmas-themed Doctor Who short story, WC: The Hopes and Fears of All the Years, is published on the Telegraph.co.uk website.
• 25 - DW: Voyage of the Damned, the third Doctor Who Christmas special, is first broadcast, introducing a new arrangement of the theme music, once again by Murray Gold. Bernard Cribbins, a Doctor Who veteran dating back to the 1960s film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., makes his debut as Wilfred Mott, who becomes recurring character in the next series. Much attention is given to the special's guest star, pop superstar Kylie Minogue.
• 31 - Russell T Davies completes the initial draft of DW: The Stolen Earth.

Unknown dates

• Early winter - Doctor Who is nominated in the "Favorite Sci-Fi Show" category for the 2008 People's Choice Awards, to be presented in January 2008 on the CBS network. This is the first mainstream American award nomination for the series (which previously was only nominated for awards in genre awards such as the Hugos). The award winner was determined by an Internet poll, and the award ultimately goes to Stargate Atlantis.
• As production begins on Series 4, news leaks out that Billie Piper would be returning to her role as Rose Tyler, including images of her filming scenes for the series. Initially denied by the BBC, this was later confirmed (with the BBC including her in a cinema trailer distributed prior to the season premiere in 2008). Piper films scenes for four episodes, and a brief piece of footage that will be added to two others.