Theory:Timeline - 13 Bannerman Road
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.
This page lists appearances of 13 Bannerman Road in chronological order. 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 that for each novel, comic, audio or television series, their published, broadcast or numbered order is the order they occur in.
Fan sources like the Doctor Who Reference Guide should not be used solely as a source or considered a "true" timeline for stories.
Limitations
Any story with Maria, Luke and Clyde on the team must be after TV: Revenge of the Slitheen and before TV: The Last Sontaran. Any story with Clyde and Rani must be after TV: The Last Sontaran. Any story with K9 Mark IV defending the black hole must be between TV: Invasion of the Bane and TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic. Any story with K9 freely around in Bannerman Road must be after TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic and before TV: The Nightmare Man. Any story with Luke at Oxford with K9 must be after TV: The Nightmare Man. Any story with Sky must be after TV: Sky.
Timeline
Bannerman Road gang begins
- Set in August 2008. Sarah Jane meets Maria Jackson and adopts Luke Smith, who was "born a thirteen year old boy" due to being made artificially by the Bane. K9 has been guarding a black hole for "a year and a half".
- Set in September 2008, shortly after Invasion of the Bane. A new school year has started at Park Vale Comprehensive School, and Maria and Luke, who is now "fourteen", befriend Clyde Langer, who joins the Bannerman Road gang hile foiling a plot by the Slitheen family. Luke and Clyde are classmates in form 10B. Sarah Jane begins letting Luke call her his mother, at Clyde's urging.
- Luke has been experimenting with jokes, and asks Clyde about girls after receiving his first kiss. Luke, Maria and Clyde go into space for the first time.
- It is noted that Luke hasn't "existed" for long, setting this shortly after Invasion of the Bane.
- Sarah Jane fights the Trickster for the first time. Alan fights a Graske and demands answers from Sarah Jane, leading directly into The Lost Boy.
- Set five months after Invasion of the Bane at the most. Despite the initial shock, Alan gives Maria his blessing to continue having her adventures with Sarah Jane. Mr Smith reveals himself to be a Xylok with intentions of destroying the world, but he is rebooted into a benevolent being by the Armageddon virus. Sarah Jane meets Celeste Rivers at the Pharos Institute, and Clyde meets K9 for the first time.
- Set immediately after The Lost Boy, and the day before Clyde's birthday on 5 June.
- Set in 2009, between May and June. With Maria and Alan in Cornwall, and Clyde staying to protect his mother, Sarah Jane and Luke join with Torchwood Three, Martha Jones and Harriet Jones on the Sub-Wave Network to summon the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble to Earth after it is moved to the Medusa Cascade by the New Dalek Empire. Leaving Luke under Mr Smith's protection, Sarah Jane goes to find the Doctor, only to be ambushed by the Daleks, leading directly into Journey's End.
- Sarah Jane is saved by Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler, and they are taken to the Crucible, where the Metacrisis Tenth Doctor destroys the Daleks. Luke, Mr Smith and K9 then assist in returning the Earth to its proper location, and Sarah Jane returns to them. Luke is still "fourteen".
After the Dalek invasion
- Maria and Alan move to Washington, DC in America six weeks after the Bannerman Road gang defeat Commander Kaagh of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet. Alien life is now common knowledge on Earth, implying a setting after Journey's End. While Chrissie's hair is noticeably longer, she implies that Alan has only recently moved to Bannerman Road.
Rani joins the gang
- Set in October 2009. Rani Chandra moves into 36 Bannerman Road and becomes a part of Sarah Jane's gang during their fight with the Pied Piper. While it has been a "while" since the disappearance of Park Vale Headmaster Greg Blakeman in Revenge of the Slitheen, Headmaster Haresh Chandra observes that Luke has shown impressive results over the "past year", but it is unclear if he is referring to the year date or the school year. Maria notes in an email that it "feels like only yesterday" that she left Bannerman Road. According to Luke, the Bannerman Road gang has saved the world "twelve times".
- According to Martin Trueman, Rani has still only "just moved house", setting this shortly after The Day of the Clown. Luke is given an official birthday.
- While Sarah Jane is tracking down Travast Polong in Tarminster, Clyde's father, Paul, returns from Germany to see Clyde, and falls under the sway of a Berserker pendant, though he is able to overcome it before he returns to Germany. Rani meets Maria for the first time, although via a video call. Clyde is fifteen-years-old.
- Set at least a whole year after Invasion of the Bane.
- Mr Smith recalls the recent events of The Lost Boy.
- Rani and Luke experience time travel for the first time when the Trickster tries to manipulate Sarah Jane into preventing her parents' deaths in 1951, only for them to sacrifice their lives to stop him. Clyde recalls the events of Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? as happening "last year", and he helps Krislok the Graske escape his enslavement by the Trickster.
- As Luke would recount in Sarah Jane's Alien Files: Episode 3, the events of The Last Sontaran are still a recent affair. When Mrs Wormwood and Kaagh return for revenge, Sarah Jane visits Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart for the fist time in a "long time" to get his help in retrieving the Tunguska Scroll from the Black Archive. When Wormwood betrays Kaagh when she tries to find Horath, Kaagh drags her into anther dimension. UNIT do not know about Luke's origins, and Clyde shows an interest in joining them. Kaagh destroy the sonic lipstick, but Sarah Jane reveals that she has a spare.
- Rani appears to already know K9.
- Rani faces the Trickster, setting this at least after The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith.
Recording the Alien Files
- After they assist in the capture of Androvax, Clyde and Rani are issued an order of confinement to Earth by the Judoon Captain Tybo, effectively making them "grounded".
- An alternative account of Prisoner of the Judoon.
- Rani reviews the events of Prisoner of the Judoon on the Alien Files.
- When Rani is contacted by her old friend Samuel Lloyd, who she had told of her adventures with Sarah Jane, the Bannerman Road gang travel to Danemouth, where they help power Ship with the black hole K9 Mark IV is guarding, closing the singularity and allowing K9 to return to 13 Bannerman Road. Luke, who is now roughly "fifteen", has fully grasped the concept of deception, and Sarah Jane is told she will soon be reunited with the Doctor.
- Clyde reviews the events of The Mad Woman in the Attic on the Alien Files.
- K9 has returned to 13 Bannerman Road, setting this after The Mad Woman in the Attic.
- Sarah Jane nearly marries Peter Dalton as part of a plot concocted by the Trickster. The Tenth Doctor arrives to foil his plans, meeting Clyde and Rani for the first time, as well as meeting Luke in person for the first time since Journey's End.
- Rani notes that the events of The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith were only "the other day".
- Clyde and Rani review the events of The Eternity Trap on the Alien Files.
- Luke and Clyde are now in form 11T, as is Rani.
- Clyde and Rani review the events of Mona Lisa's Revenge on the Alien Files.
- Sarah Jane prevents the Slitheen-Blathereen family from poisoning the world with Rakweed. Luke is still only "fifteen".
- Clyde reviews the events of The Gift on the Alien Files.
Luke's final adventures
- Sequel to Monster Hunt.
- Set after Prisoner of the Judoon.
- Sequel to The Gift.
- Sarah Jane meets the Tenth Doctor again, and has a photograph of them from her wedding, setting this between The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith and The End of Time.
- Rani recalls meeting the Doctor, setting this after The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith.
- Shortly after Christmas 2009, Luke is saved from being struck by a car by the Doctor, who quickly leaves without speaking a word. Sarah Jane senses that he is about to regenerate when they lock eyes.
- Though Luke has only just started Sixth form, setting this near September 2010, he takes his A levels a year early and leaves for Oxford University with K9.
After Luke left for university
- Sarah Jane begins recording her Alien Files in more detail for use of future defenders of Earth. She mentions how Luke has left for Oxford.
- Despite the cracks in time removing all memory of alien life to the public, Gita still recalls the events of Prisoner of the Judoon. However, her memories of aliens are erased by Mister Dread after Gita comes face-to-face with Androvax again. Luke has settled into Oxford, but Sarah Jane is still coping with his absence.
- Set in 2010, at least six months after February. The events of School Reunion took place "about four years ago", and Luke has still only "just left for university". UNIT is now aware of Sarah Jane having Mr Smith in her attic. When the Claw Shansheeth fake the Doctor's death, Sarah Jane meets Jo Grant at the staged funeral, and the pair help the Eleventh Doctor foil their plans. The Bannerman Road gang has not seen the Doctor since either The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith or The End of Time, and have their first meeting with his eleventh incarnation.
- Luke visits 13 Bannerman Road from Oxford with his laundry, and learns of the new Alien Files for the first time.
- Clyde and Rani grow closer after being left the only two humans on Earth for an hour-and-a-half by two Automatons looking for a lost alien prince. In gratitude for them finding him, the prince makes them a Lord and a Lady.
- Set on 23 November 2010. The Bannerman Road gang meet the Shopkeeper for the first time, and he sends Sarah Jane to help a paranormal investigator in 1889, Clyde to fight Nazis in 1941, and Rani to save Queen Jane Grey from an assassination in 1553. When pressed by Jane, Rani implies she has developed feelings for Clyde.
- Sequel to Return of the Krulius. The Krulius has a photo from the events of Death of the Doctor.
- Luke visits from Oxford to help save Sarah Jane from a Qetesh called "Ruby White". While on the verge of apparent death, Clyde tries to confess something to Rani, with the implication that it an admittance of love towards her.
- Clyde has drawn a Groske, setting this after Death of the Doctor.
- Luke visits 13 Bannerman Road from Oxford while Sarah Jane is researching a fossilised Silurian egg at the Pharos Institute with Clyde and Rani.
- Sarah Jane catches up with the Eleventh Doctor, mentioning that she intends to meet with Luke in "twenty minutes", though Sky goes unmentioned, implying a setting before Sky. The Doctor hands her a fez, instructing her to deliver it to Clyde for him as a gift.
Adopting Sky
- The Shopkeeper leaves a Fleshkind bio-weapon baby with Sarah Jane for safekeeping, and she is adopted as "Sky Smith". Rani is 17-years-old, and Sky is aged up to a 12-year-old.
- Set "barely a month" after Sky. Clyde and Rani are still in sixth form. Due to a curse placed on him by Hetocumtek, Clyde is briefly forced into homelessness, where he forms a relationship with a girl called Ellie, but is forced to abandon her to stop Hetocumtek ending the world, and is unable to find her afterwards.
- Luke and Sky meet face-to-face for the first time, and come to embrace each other as siblings. Luke has begun pairing Clyde and Rani together, calling them "Clani".
Later lives
- After Sarah Jane passes away, both her friends, and friends of the Doctor, attend her wake on a Spring day, and repel a final attack from the Trickster. K9 leaves with Ace, and Luke, Clyde and Rani shut down Mr Smith when they lock up 13 Bannerman Road, as per Sarah Jane's last request. Though no date is given, Luke has been married to his husband for five years, and Jo is still alive, which would set this before 2028. Going by how little Luke, Rani and Clyde have aged, it is implied that Sarah Jane died in 2020, the year the story was released.
- By 2059, Rani, now a grandmather, is living at 13 Bannerman Road.