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Theory:Timeline - Second Doctor

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Index → Timey-wimey detector → Timeline - Second Doctor
Spoilers are strongly policed here.
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.

This page lists appearances of the Second Doctor in the order in which he experienced them. This timeline is based on observations of the Doctor Who universe and the events in each of these stories. From these observations we have attempted to build a concise timeline. There are also many gaps between stories.

The layout of this timeline is based in part on the observations on Doctor Who Reference Guide and Doctor Who - The Complete Adventures, Lance Parkin's AHistory and other sources that allow us to make observations. None of these sources should be used solely as a source or considered a "true" timeline for stories.

Limiting factors

Companions

Time placement of Second Doctor stories has a lot to do with looking at the companions. Any story featuring only Ben Jackson and Polly Wright must take place before TV: The Highlanders; any story featuring Jamie McCrimmon must take place after TV: The Highlanders. Any story with Victoria Waterfield must take place after TV: The Evil of the Daleks and before TV: Fury from the Deep. Any story with Zoe Heriot must be set during or after TV: The Wheel in Space.

Where it gets tricky is when the Second Doctor is with un-televised companions, or with Jamie alone. A lot of these stories are often said to occur during Season 6B, a fan-opined spot on the timeline after the Doctor's trial on Gallifrey in The War Games. Such placement is possible because we don't actually see the Second Doctor regenerate into the Third. Thus it is possible to imagine, as TV Comic writers and Terrance Dicks certainly did, that the Second Doctor survived for an unspecified period of time after The War Games.

But you can't always shuffle off these difficult stories to Season 6b. And even if you do put them there, it's hard to know precisely where they sit in relation to each other.

Problem children: John, Gillian and TV Comic's Jamie

The biggest unknowns certainly surround TV Comic stories, because of a fundamental continuity error. There's no way around it, no retcon that can be applied — the TV Comic writers just got it wrong. At the beginning of his run in TV Comic, the Second Doctor effectively inherits John and Gillian from the First Doctor. But then after a few stories with the brats, he puts them in school on Zebadee and, in the same story, meets up with Jamie McCrimmon — again. That is, he knows who Jamie is. Somehow, Jamie has made his way to 20th century Scotland, but we don't know how.

So time placement of the John and Gillian and Jamie TV Comic stories is, frankly, impossible. How could he have already known Jamie at the same time he was travelling with the kids? Were John and Gillian always stowed away on the TARDIS while the Doctor travelled around with Ben, Polly, Jamie, Victoria and Zoe? There is no great explanation for it.

Saying that all of the TV Comic stories occur during Season 6b is problematic at best. Action in Exile – one of the first post-Jamie strips — certainly goes out of its way to depict the Doctor as newly exiled. You can't even really construct some timey-wimey narrative, in which everything prior to Action in Exile actually happened after it. Why? Attempts to construct a timeline that works for the Second Doctor are always frustrated by the need to accommodate John and Gillian's travels with the First Doctor.

It was all a dream

So what do we do with these wayward scribbles? Say that the Doctor dreamt it all up. We've even got a source for that theory. The Land of Happy Endings explicitly says that the brats were just a dream that the Doctor periodically had. Since sanity is valuable, why not avail ourselves of Scott Gray's solution?

If we do that, then the TVC timeline goes something like this:

Timeline

The Doctor regenerates from his previous incarnation.
Ben finally accepts the Doctors regeneration
These stories, from Highlanders to Macra Terror, all flow into each other.
Could be anywhere between Macra Terror and The Faceless Ones.
Could be anywhere between The Highlanders and The Faceless Ones.
Could be anywhere between The Highlanders and The Faceless Ones.
Could be anywhere between The Highlanders and The Faceless Ones, but must be after Resistance due to referencing it.I
Return to Telos is set during The Tomb of the Cybermen.
Victoria mentions having just been on Telos.
the TARDIS crew are glad to be in a warm location
Victoria states that they had just been underground.
Victoria is starting to consider leaving
Victoria decides that at their next stop she shall leave the TARDIS.
The Doctor and Jamie are traveling alone.
The Doctor is traveling just with Jamie, and has not encountered the Master in a long time, but knows that he's evil, suggesting a placement of a long time after the Dark Path. Jamie does not know what the Doctor is, placing it before The War Games.
The opening scene takes place right after The Wheel in Space, while the Doctor is using his thought projector. The remainder of the story can take place anywhere between The Invasion and The War Games.
Begins right after the Doctor finishes using the thought projector.
The preceding three television stories take place in succession of each other.
Zoe has recently joined the TARDIS crew
Jamie recently encountered Tobias Vaughn.
Zoe has recently encountered the Quarks.
The Doctor visits the Land of Fiction again, placing it after The Mind Robber. Also leads into The Three Doctors, which must place it after The Invasion.
Immediately follows Future Imperfect. The Doctor recognises Benton, placing it after The Invasion.
The Doctor buys a new recorder
Set during Seeds of Death
In Last of the Cybermen, Jamie implies that The Wheel of Ice takes place immediately before The Space Pirates.
Could be anywhere between The Seeds of Death and The War Games.
The Eight Doctors and War Crimes occur during The War Games
The Doctor was sent into a forced regeneration at the end of The War Games. It would later be revealed that the Doctor had initially been sentenced do death, only for his sentence to be revoked on the condition that he work for the Time Lords on missions. His banishing and regeneration take place later.
World Game is the first story in the series of Season 6B. Early in the book, the Doctor asks to be sent to World War II to see if the Time Lords have really sent the soldiers from the War Games home, and Players occurs here. After Players, the Doctor returns to Gallifrey to continue the events of World Game. At the end of World Game, the Doctor blackmails the Time Lords into letting him travel with Jamie McCrimmon as his companion once more.
World Game leads directly into The Two Doctors
The Doctor has his Stattenheim remote control
The Doctor knows of the events of The War Games.
The Doctor has his Stattenheim remote control.
Free of Jamie or any televised companion, the Doctor eventually served the two parts of his sentence separately. First he was exiled to Earth, where he lived in comparative opulence at the Carlton Grange Hotel in London.
One night, while he was a panellist on a game show, the Time Lords finally caught the Doctor and forced him to regenerate, then set the controls of the TARDIS to dematerialise one last time, spinning him off towards the opening moments of Spearhead from Space

The Doctor's dreams

Given the fact that The Land of Happy Endings explicitly tells us that the Doctor dreamed up John and Gillian, it's much safer just to consider these dreams, removed from the timeline entirely. Because Jamie and John and Gillian actually are in the same strip — Invasion of the Quarks — it's much easier just to believe his TVC exploits with the Doctor are part of that same "dream continuity". There's no particular reason to have faith in the order of these stories, since they're dreams anyway, but for convenience will choose publication order as the order in which the dreams occurred.

Not placeable

These stories are not easily placeable, since they have no companion, but neither is the Doctor in exile on 20th century Earth. Maybe they are a part of Season 6b, but if so, they're a part never clearly outlined in any narrative. It's equally possible that the Doctor had better control of his TARDIS than he let on. He could have slipped away during a dull moment in a televised story. Because of this uncertainty, it's safest to say that we just don't know when they occurred.

The Doctor in this story is vague. It is either the Second Doctor or the Seventh.
The Doctor in this book is vague. It is either the Second Doctor or the Seventh.

Yet to be evaluated

Could be anywhere between The Abominable Snowmen and Fury from the Deep.
This trilogy could be anywhere between Fear of the Daleks and The War Games, but must take place in this order.
Could be anywhere between Fear of the Daleks and The War Games.
Could be anywhere between The Tomb of the Cybermen and Fury from the Deep
Could be anywhere between Fear of the Daleks and The War Games.
Could be anywhere between Fear of the Daleks and The War Games.
Could be anywhere between The Highlanders and The War Games, most likely in Season 6B. [statement unclear]
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