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This page lists appearances of the Eighth Doctor in the order in which he experienced them. This timeline is based upon observations of the Doctor Who universe and the events that occur during each of these stories. From these observations we have attempted to build a concise timeline. It is assumed, much like its TV story counterparts that for each novel or audio series their published/numbered order is the order they occur in. This does not apply to short stories which are often ambiguous about their placement. There are also many gaps between stories.
The layout of this timeline is in part based on the observations on Doctor Who Reference Guide and Doctor Who - The Complete Adventures, as well as Lance Parkin's AHistory and other sources that allow us to make observations, such as The Whoniverse, Doctor Who Reviews, Doc Oho's Book Reviews, The History of Doctor Who, The Discontinuity Guide, Clive Banks databanks, Whopix, two Big Finish forums and the Divergent Universe forum. None of these sources should be used solely as a source or considered a "true" timeline for stories.
Limiting factors
Any story with the Doctor’s silver Sonic Screwdriver must take place either between Doctor Who and The Flood, where it is destroyed, or (if the story takes place during the Last Great Time War) after Natural Regression and before The Night of the Doctor. Between The Flood and Natural Regression, the Doctor uses a wooden sonic.
Any story featuring Romana II must take place either before her regeneration in The Shadows of Avalon or after her regeneration is undone in Enemy Lines.
Complications
Split continuities
Following the release of Doctor Who, both Doctor Who Magazine and BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures took to continuing the Eighth Doctor's adventures in 1997; they were joined by Big Finish Productions in 2001. For the most part, each of these storylines should not be interrupted or intertwined: in other words, there are few gaps in each series' storyline where the Doctor could feasibly take a break from one set of companions and to travel with a different set of companions from another series. Both the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures books and Doctor Who Magazine comics advertised themselves as continuing directly from the TV Movie, but only the novels actually portrayed an newly-regenerated Eighth Doctor, with Doctor Who Magazine instead depicting an Eighth Doctor that was comfortable with his body and personality. For this reason, the most commonly accepted framework is that, after the telemovie, BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures happened, followed by Doctor Who Magazine, and then continued with Big Finish Productions, who show the development of the Doctor that leads to The Night of the Doctor.
There are very few exceptions to this general rule:
- In the BBC Books novel Vampire Science, companion Sam Jones mentions that the Doctor once dropped her off at a Greenpeace rally and had (what he told her was) a year's worth of adventures before picking her up again. Radio Times's comic mini-series with the Eighth Doctor takes place in at least part of this gap, as the events are referenced in Placebo Effect a few books later.
- A gap of unknown size takes place between the Eighth Doctor's travels with Charlotte Pollard in Big Finish's Main Range and his adventures with Lucie Miller in the Eighth Doctor Adventures.
- A gap of unknown size takes place between the "What Happened on Earth" and "Foreman’s World" narratives of the novel Interference.
Gallifrey
During the War in Heaven, multiple duplicate Gallifreys were created, each believing themselves to be the original. One of these, Romana III's Gallifrey, was destroyed in The Ancestor Cell; anything involving Romana III must therefore take place before The Ancestor Cell or the reversal of Romana II's regeneration in Enemy Lines.
Alternatively, anything involving Gallifrey could take place either on a different duplicate Gallifrey or sometime after a hypothetical recreation of Romana III's Gallifrey following The Gallifrey Chronicles. However, such a restoration is never mentioned in the comics or audios.
Timeline
New adventures
- The Doctor regenerates from his previous incarnation, but suffers complete amnesia. Seeking aid from Dr. Grace Holloway, the Doctor is able to recover his memory during a final fight with the Bruce Master, who is absorbed into the TARDIS through the Eye of Harmony. After parting ways with Grace, the Doctor settles down to read The Time Machine.
- Continues directly on from Doctor Who, with the Doctor completing his reading of The Time Machine. After a second bout with amnesia, the Doctor rescues a 16-year-old girl named Sam Jones from being attacked by drug dealers, and welcomes her company in his travels.
- Sam takes her first trip in the TARDIS.
Stacy and Ssard
- The Doctor states he has "only just begun getting used to" his head, referring to his recent regeneration. He rescues Stacy Townsend when her ship is attacked by the Cybermen, and she decides to join him on his travels.
- The Doctor and Stacey befriend an Ice Warrior named Ssard while investigating the treachery of High Lord Artix and Luass.
- After helping them on Mars, Ssard accepts an offer from the Doctor to travel with him and Stacey.
- After traveling with the Doctor for "a few months", Stacy and Ssard leave the TARDIS and decide to live in Ssard's time period. (PROSE: Placebo Effect)
Fight against the Threshold
- The TARDIS is shown to have its Victorian parlour interior design. On a return visit to Stockbridge, the Doctor is reunited with Maxwell Edison and meets Izzy, a seventeen-year-old science fiction fan and amateur paranormal investigator. After they help him defeat the Celestial Toymaker, he offers them companionship; Max declines, but Izzy gleefully accepts.
- On Izzy's first trip into the future, the Doctor follows an SOS to the Keep, where he is forced by Marquez to bond with Crivello's Cauldron so it can be sent off to form a new star system.
- The TARDIS is still recovering from the events of A Life of Matter and Death. Lured to Crivello's Cauldron at Icarus Falling, the Doctor and Izzy discover that Marquez was working for the Daleks, and become embroiled in the Threshold's plot to destroy the Daleks to acquire the secrets of a box with the Seal of Rassilon on it. During his endeavour, the Doctor's link to the Cauldron is severed.
- The Doctor and Izzy are summoned by Fey to an island in the Indian Ocean during 1939, where the Doctor injects himself with poison to defeat a Cucurbite, forcing Fey and Izzy to take him to Gallifrey, leading into The Final Chapter.
- Whilst his body heals on Gallifrey, the Doctor ventures into the Matrix, where he learns from Rassilon why he hired the Threshold. The Doctor also catches up with Shayde, leading into Wormwood.
- Having switched places with Shayde, the Doctor goes undercover in the Threshold, witnessing their destruction by the Pariah. Shayde is injured in the battle, but is saved from death when Fey bonds with him, becoming a singular entity, and returns to Gallifrey.
Controller of the Glory
- The Doctor bumps into Grace, and discovers the fallout of his influence on her.
- In 17th century Japan, the Doctor makes an immortal out of Samurai Katsura Sato.
- The Doctor is beginning to notice the TARDIS's recent difficulties finding its destination. He and Izzy are joined by Kroton, a Cyberman with his emotions intact.
- According to the Master, the events of The Fallen, The Road to Hell and The Company of Thieves took place in the past few months. Landing on Paradost, the Doctor, Izzy and Kroton find Sato Katsura leading the Church of the Glorious Dead, and in the services of the Master in his bid to win the contest with the Doctor for the Glory, however, it eventually transpires that the contest is really between Sato and Kroton, with Kroton emerging the winning. With the power of the Glory, Kroton kills Sato, and undoes the Master's recent atrocities before placing him in imprisonment, which is presumably the Eye of Harmony, because Forgotten presents him escaping from the Eye of Harmony. Esterath also removes the Master's ability to influence the TARDIS, setting this after The Gallifrey Chronicles.
Final adventures with Izzy
- Izzy knows Fey, setting this after Wormwood
- Izzy mentions the events of Wormwood.
- On the Ophidius, the Doctor's green frockcoat is destroyed, and Izzy has her body switched with Destrii, who is apparently disintegrated before they can switch back.
- While Izzy deals with the fallout of the events of Ophidius, the Doctor replaces his destroyed frockcoat with a blue jacket.
- Izzy is kidnapped by Destrii's pursuers, leading into Uroboros.
- Set during Uroboros: Part 1, before the Doctor calls Shayde for help.
- Returning to Ophidius with Fey, the Doctor finds Destrii alive and forces her to accompany him in his search for Izzy, leading into Oblivion.
- Having been returned to her rightful body, Izzy makes peace with her identity and returns home to her adopted parents. Destrii kills her mother, and then departs her home world with her uncle, Jodafra, in a chronon capsule.
Time off
- On the advice of a kind barman, the Doctor decides to go on holiday. All stories where the Doctor is trying to get to a relaxing destination, or is already on a holiday, can be placed in this period. The Doctor is wearing his green coat, revealing that he has acquired a new one since the previous was destroyed in Ophidius.
- The Doctor is trying to get to Egypt and has resumed wearing his blue coat again.
- Despite boating down the River Nile, the Doctor is still feeling down due to Izzy's departure.
- Having missed Les Huguenots in 1840, the Doctor is beginning to yearn for company.
- The Doctor visits John and Gillian in his dreams.
Travels with Destrii
- The Doctor encounters Jodafra and Destrii while fighting the Windigo in 1875 North America. Destrii sides with the Doctor against her uncle, who beats her to near-death, leading into Sins of the Fathers.
- Having helped him repel a Zeronite attack on Hippocrates Base, the Doctor decides to give Destrii the chance to travel with him in the TARDIS.
- While fighting a Cyber-Fleet from the far future with MI6, the Doctor's blue jacket and sonic screwdriver are destroyed. To defeat the fleet, the Doctor joins with the Time Vortex, but abandons its power to save Destrii.
- Destrii would eventually stop travelling with the Doctor, though under unknown circumstances. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Showdown)
Samson, Gemma and Mary
- After meeting them in the Folkestone Library, the Doctor starts travelling with Gemma and Samson Griffin when they follow him into the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Terror Firma)
- Having left Gemma and Samson in Vienna, the Doctor answers his future self's distress signal, and meets an 18-year-old Mary Shelley, who leaves to travel with him.
- The Doctor and Mary travel to Vienna to pick up Gemma and Samson, but arrive in the wrong year. After Mary breaks his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor mentions he has a room full of replacements, explaining how he replaced the one destroyed in The Flood.
- Mary requests to be returned home, and she and the Doctor part on good terms.
- The Doctor refers to his time traveling with Mary Shelley, specifically when he, Mary, Chronotis and Lord Byron spent a weekend together at Lake Geneva.
- The Doctor, Romana and K9 have just returned from the events of Shada.
- The Doctor successfully returns to Vienna to collect Gemma and Samson. (AUDIO: Mary's Story)
- Gemma recalls the events of The Long Midwinter.
- Investigating a Nekkistani time vessel, Gemma is ensnared by Davros and, taking Samson, forces the Doctor to take Davros to Earth and then alters his memories to forget her and Samson before sending him away. (AUDIO: Terror Firma)
A broken web of time
- Landing on the doomed airship R101, the Doctor violates the Laws of Time by saving the life of stowaway Charley Pollard, and takes her aboard the TARDIS as his new companion. The TARDIS has its Victorian parlour interior design.
- Charley has only been travelling with the Doctor for a matter of days. Immediately after the recent events of Sword of Orion, Charley goes to the TARDIS library to research future history.
- Charley isn't familiar with the TARDIS translation circuits, setting this before The Light at the End.
- Charley recalls the events of Sword of Orion. She has only been travelling with the Doctor for a few weeks, but has already realised that she has fallen in love with him.
- The Doctor and Charley have just left Venice, setting this immediately after The Stones of Venice. "Sam" is listed as one of the Doctor's former companions by Gideon Crane, either referencing Sam Jones or Samson Griffin. Charley sees a television for the first time.
- Charley still has the black eye and bruises she acquired in Minuet in Hell, which was their previous adventure.
- Charley is still uncomfortable with wearing clothing that shows more flesh than she's used to, setting this during her early travels with the Doctor. Charley watches television, setting this after Minuet in Hell.
- The Doctor is traveling with Charley, but she is at a disco during this adventure.
- Charley visits Prague for the first time, setting this before Lady of the Snows.
- The Doctor learns that Orson Welles is ignorant of William Shakespeare's identity, that there are forty-nine states in the USA, and that the Central Intelligence Agency are active in 1947. The Doctor decides to take Charley to Singapore.
- Charley still wants to get to Singapore, however the Doctor decides to let the TARDIS take them to where it wants to go, citing that he has been too methodical recently and that they will get to Singapore eventually.
- Authorial intents places this between The Chimes of Midnight and Seasons of Fear.[source needed]
- Authorial intent places this "sometime during the second series of Charlotte Pollard Eighth Doctor adventures". Charley does not know about regeneration.
- The Doctor and Charley arrive in Singapore, and discover that Benjamin Franklin is President.
- The events of Storm Warning were "a long time ago".
- Charley recalls the events of Seasons of Fear. The Doctor is becoming unable to deny the truth about the effect that Charley's paradoxical survival is having on the Universe.
- Charley mentions the events of Seasons of Fear.
- Set over the course of nine days. Calabria has met Charley on several occasions, suggesting that Charley has been traveling with the Doctor for a while.
- Charley recalls meeting the Brigadier in Minuet in Hell.
- The Doctor is using a brand new model of sonic screwdriver, setting this after The Flood. He also sees a flotilla of Type 70 TARDISes in the Time Vortex.
- The Toymaker refers to people from Invaders from Mars, The Chimes of Midnight, Seasons of Fear, and Embrace the Darkness.
- Charley has an idea of what regeneration is and knows that her survival on the R101 has affected the Web of Time, setting this after Seasons of Fear.
- The Doctor uncovers why Welles didn't know of Shakespeare in Invaders from Mars.
- The Doctor and Charley are returning William Shakespeare home, setting this immediately after The Time of the Daleks.
- Set after The Time of the Daleks, with the Doctor having just returned William Shakespeare home.
- The Doctor and Charley go back in time to kill a dictator as a baby. However, the Doctor gets caught in the act before he can strike a fatal blow, and has to be rescued by his fourth incarnation, though he succeeds in showing the mother how to properly care for the baby. Charley seems comfortable with the Doctor's methods, placing this closer to Neverland.
- The Doctor uncovers the cause of the time disruptions from Invaders from Mars, Seasons of Fear and The Time of the Daleks, and discovers why there were Type 70 TARDISes in the Time Vortex during Embrace the Darkness; Charley has become a portal into a world of anti-time, causing cracks in the Web of Time. Ending leads directly into Zagreus. It is Charley's nineteenth birthday and she and the Doctor have been travelling together for six months.
- Fighting off an infection of anti-time, the Doctor is exiled to the Divergent Universe by Romana, with Charley following him. Rassilon leaves the Matrix, setting this after The Final Chapter.
Exiled in the Divergent Universe
- Set immediately after Zagreus, with the Doctor and Charley adjusting to their new environment in the Divergent Universe. They also get separated from the TARDIS.
- The Doctor and Charley are joined by a grieving Eutermesan named C'rizz.
- The Doctor is on a quest to find Rassilon and the TARDIS.
- The Doctor recovers his TARDIS.
- The Doctor recalls the events of Tooth and Claw. The anti-time is completely purged from the Doctor by Rassilon. The Doctor, Charley and C'rizz escape the Divergent Universe to N-Space, and run into Davros, leading directly into Terror Firma.