For most of the show's history, it's been pretty clear when "the present day" was. Yes, there were a few glitches like Ian knowing a song from 1964 or a series 4 episode where the writer apparently forgot it was 1 year in the future, but for the most part there aren't any real questions.
The famous exception to the rule is the UNIT dating controversy. But I think we have nearly as big a problem with dating Amy's present-day stories.
There are some detailed arguments on Talk:The Power of Three (TV story), which I won't repeat here; I'll just give unfairly brief summaries, and you can go read the long versions over there. Here are the basic possibilities:
1. Around 2017. It's 10 years since The Big Bang (TV story) on Amy's timeline, but less than that on the main Earth timeline, hence all her talk about aging faster than her friends.
2. 2020. It's the Ponds' 10th anniversary, Rory's 31 years old, therefore it's 2020. Otherwise, they'd have to lie to everyone about their anniversaries, ages, etc., and we never see that. Also, there's time they skipped over (where nobody saw them for months) as well as extra time they've lived on the side.
3. 2012. Technology, fashion, and trends all look like 2012. Amy and Rory look a lot closer to 23 and 24 than to 30 and 31.
I personally don't see how 2012 could make sense. Rory said he was 31, and we saw an episode that explicitly took place in 2013 that's at least a couple years before TPO3. But the present day is so clearly not 2017 (much less 2020). You can make excuses for each piece of circumstantial 2012 evidence (as you can see on the above-linked talk page), but there's so much of it, and the excuses are so thin.
So that brings us to:
4a. Moffat's trying to be intentionally vague, as Dicks tried to do in the UNIT era, and he's pulled it off just as badly. Chibnall, Mackinnon, and Wilson gave us an episode that looked like 2012 because Moffat forgot to tell them otherwise.
4b. Moffat's being intentionally contradictory, as a clue.
I could live with 4a—after all, I still love the UNIT stories. And that was my first conclusion. But the more I think about it, the more it seems out of character for Moffat to not do 4b. Even if he started off just being sloppy, once he realized the problems, it's exactly the kind of thing he'd spin a story out of.
So, I'm coming around to the crazy conspiracy theory that the dates don't work on purpose, and this is a clue to the 7a finale. (Or the 7a finale could leave it open, and then there will be more clues and it'll be resolved in the 7b finale, either with a surprise return by the Ponds, or without them.)
But I still don't buy the theory that "The Power of Three" was named to remind us of "The Power of the Daleks" (set on one of Earth's space colonies in 2020) as a further clue. It's not so awkward a name that it demands explaining. --70.36.140.233talk to me 08:39, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
Part of your calculation is adrift because the date of The Big Bang is wrong. You seem to have forgotten that the TARDIS explosion (although it affected all of time & space) occurred on Amy's wedding day in 2010, which is also when she woke up in the "rebooted" universe. The museum scenes were set in 1996 (as Amy calculated from her younger self's age) & the Stonehenge scenes were in 102AD. None of it was set in 2007, so 10 years after The Big Bang isn't 2017. --89.241.76.92talk to me 09:33, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
- Did you just stop reading half way through possibility 1? The wedding was 2010, and that's 10 years ago on Amy's timeline. The question is whether those 10 years on Amy's timeline correspond to 10 years on the main Earth timeline (so it's 2020, possibility 2), or significantly less (so it's around 2017, possibility 1). There are some clues for the latter, but I won't go over them again (see the linked talk page for someone else making a good argument), and I don't think we have anything conclusive to say that Moffat definitely intends it to be 2017 +/- 3 years, or that he intends it to be 2020. --70.36.140.233talk to me 16:44, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
- Given that Amy clearly said that it's been about ten years for her and Rory, but not for the Doctor or the Earth, I think we can assume that it is sometime from 2014 to 2017. There's nothing that directly contradicts that, and plenty to support it. This is nothing like the UNIT dating controversy, where it is mathematically impossible for every date's reference to be correct.Icecreamdif ☎ 16:50, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
How do we know when the Doctor drops them off in the God Complex? Maybe he dropped them off a little in the past. So maybe 2012 isn't that far off? Just a thought. VoicesFromTheVortex ☎ 17:00, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
- I doubt he'd do that. For one thing, Amy and Rory would have to avoid seeing their families or any of their friends from Leadworth, or anyone else who they knew to avoid creating paradoxes. For another thing, Amy became a model, which could potentially cause a paradox if past Amy saw future Amy on a billboard or magazine or something.Icecreamdif ☎ 17:21, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
- True. But did we ever get a definite time WHEN he drops them off? VoicesFromTheVortex ☎ 17:33, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
- Honestly, past Amy seeing future Amy on a billboard is no problem for the way time works in the Moffatverse—in fact, it's almost the _most_ likely reason for Amy to become a model, given the way her life works. And it's an interesting theory. But ultimately, I don't think this changes the options much. --70.36.140.233talk to me 18:06, September 25, 2012 (UTC)
- Getting back to the main thread: As I said, I don't think 2020 or 2012 is actually plausible. If it's not (4b), it's (4a). Or, this new possibility that someone elsewhere is swaying me toward:
- 4c. Moffat's being intentionally contradictory, as a red herring. Which means we'll probably end up left with a minor unanswered mystery, but that's not out of character for Moffat at all.
- Anyway, to briefly summarize the problems with 2017: If it's not 2012, why do people wear 2012 clothes (even models), watch The Apprentice, etc.? If it's not 2020, why aren't Amy and Rory's friends surprised that they're 30 and 31 years old (it's not like nobody notices a model's age…) and having their 10th anniversary? And why even bring up (more than once) "you disappear for months at a time and show up like you just stepped out" if not to push the dates farther into the future?
- People were arguing about UNIT dating long before Battlefield made it mathematically impossible. While Dicks intentionally avoided firm references to dates, there was tons of circumstantial evidence for both the future and the present, because some of the writers and producers remembered the original brief and others didn't. In-universe, all of that evidence (and even Pyramids of Mars and Mawdryn Undead) could be explained away, but it was pretty shaky. Similarly, all the problems with the Amy years can be explained away in-universe, but it's pretty shaky. --70.36.140.233talk to me 18:08, September 25, 2012 (UTC)