2005

History of the Doctor Who Universe

February

• Annual de-frosting of Tommy Brockless, a young soldier first cryogenically frozen in 1918. (TW:To the Last Man.) (Date: WEB:torchwood.co.uk)

March

• Monday March 2005 - Rose Tyler first meets the Doctor (due to the Autons). He then blows up the shop she works in. (DW: Rose)
• Tuesday March 2005 - With the help of his new companion Rose Tyler, the the Doctor stops a third attempt to conquer Earth by the Nestene Consciousness, recently reduced from a marauding race of conquerors to desperate refugees by the Last Great Time War. Rose joins the Doctor on his travels. (DW: Rose)
• Tuesday March 2005 - Clive Finch's website "Who is Doctor Who?", dedicated to uncovering the mystery of a man seen in historical photographs going back more than a century, is left without a webmaster when Clive is killed by Autons. (DW: Rose)
• Wednesday March 2005 - Rose contacts her mother Jackie from the year 5,000,000,000 using the superphone and makes a brief return trip to her own time (DW: The End of the World), but thereafter she disappears until 2006. After this time her boyfriend, Mickey Smith, is initially held as a suspect in her possible murder; Mickey subsequently takes over running the "Who is Doctor Who?" website. (DW: Aliens of London)
• Some time after this, London, cabs are replaced with motorcycles in an attempt to relieve the increasing traffic congestion (NA: Cat's Cradle: Warhead)

June

• Der Speigel magazine gives away a personal organiser with every issue (NA: Transit)

Unknown date

• The FLIPback Project begins at the Snowcap base at Earth's South Pole, at the same time that Cybermen left over from the attack on Earth in 1986 once more become active. (NA: Iceberg)
• London police, including DI Billy Shipton, begin investigating the disappearance of a number of people who visited an old abandoned house called Wester Drumlins. The police begin collecting as evidence the vehicles left abandoned by the disappeared, at one point obtaining a police box from the scene. The case would remain unsolved until 2007. (DW: Blink)

Real World

January

• EDA: To the Slaughter is first published. With the new Doctor Who TV series about to premiere, BBC Books has decided to retire both the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures and BBC Past Doctor Adventures lines, in favor of a new series of novels featuring the Ninth Doctor. One more EDA book will follow in June, while the PDA series will continue to the end of 2005 (one of which will be an Eighth Doctor story).
• BFA: The Juggernauts is first released.
• BFU: Snake Head is first released.
• 29 - Big Finish announces the production of 3 standalone hardback novels as part of its Big Finish New Worlds range. These are BFNW: Wildthyme on Top, BFNW: Project: Valhalla and BFNW: The Coming of the Queen. Big Finish also announces that it will be producing two single audio stories featuring Iris Wildthyme
• Sophie Okonedo, who provided the voice of Alison Cheney in the webcast WC: Scream of the Shalka, is nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in the 2004 film, Hotel Rwanda. Okonedo becomes, to date, the only actor to have played a Doctor or companion in an official Doctor Who production to have been nominated for an Oscar. She ultimately did not win.

February

• PDA: Match of the Day is first published. Final BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel to feature the Fourth Doctor and, as of 2009, this is the most recent original Fourth Doctor novel. The PDA series is suspended until July to allow for the premiere and broadcast of the first season of the revived series.
• BFA:The Game is first released.
• 05 - At the conclusion of a Saturday Night Live sketch on public access television pledge drives, TV celebrity Paris Hilton dons the Fourth Doctor's hat and scarf and makes reference to the Daleks and the TARDIS. The sketch is widely circulated among SF fandom, in part via the recently introduced video-sharing website, YouTube. In the coming years, YouTube would become a major outlet for the distribution of fan-made music videos, clips and other material related to Doctor Who and its spinoffs.
• 10 - Leonard Trolley (Supt. Reynolds in DW: The Faceless Ones) dies in England.
• 16 - The TARDIS Index File Wikia website is launched.

March

• BFA: Dreamtime is first released.
• ST: Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins is first published.
• BFU: The Longest Night is first released.
• THN: Echoes is first published.
• This month, promotion for the upcoming return of Doctor Who to television enters high gear.
• 8 - Big Finish announces it have agreed a deal with Paul Cornell allowing the company to continue its range of Bernice Summerfield books and audio CDs for the next few years
• 22 - Project Who : Bigger on the Inside Airs on BBC Radio 2
• 23 - Billie Piper interviewed on The Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1
• 25 - Christopher Eccleston interviewed on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.
• 26
  • DW: Rose is first broadcast, returning Doctor Who to television as a weekly series for the first time since 1989 and launching Series 1, aka Season 27. Christopher Eccleston debuts as the Ninth Doctor, along with Billie Piper as companion Rose Tyler.
  • In conjunction with the debut of the new series, BBC Three premieres its behind-the-scenes series, Doctor Who Confidential the same night. A new episode of Confidential follows the broacast of each new episode of Doctor Who.
  • The Doctor Who Story Broadcast on UK Gold
• 30 - The BBC announces production to go ahead on a second series and a Christmas Special.
  • A publicity branch of the BBC prematurely announces that Christopher Eccleston will not be returning for a second series as the Doctor, citing his desire to not be typecast. This reason is immediately denied by Eccleston and the BBC ultimately retracts it (as of 2009 he has never confirmed his reason for leaving the role). In his 2008 book The Writer's Tale, Russell T Davies confirms that Eccleston's departure was intended to be kept secret until the final moments of DW: The Parting of the Ways.

April

• BFA: Three's a Crowd is first released.
• BFG: Lies is first released. This audio drama features the landmark first meeting between the first two incarnations of Romana, featuring Mary Tamm returning to the role of Romana I.
• 2 - DW: The End of the World is first broadcast.
• 9 - DW: The Unquiet Dead is first broadcast. First appearance of the Rift; first revival-series story set in Wales; first appearance of Eve Myles in the Doctor Who franchise.
• 16 - DW: Aliens of London is first broadcast. This episode is significant for reintroducing UNIT (last referenced on television in DW: Battlefield) and for establishing that all modern-day stories in the Doctor Who franchise from this point on (spinoffs included) take place approximately one year ahead of their real-life broadcast date. First appearance of the Slitheen. For the first time since DW: The Gunfighters, a multi-part story carries different episode titles.
  • David Tennant is officially announced as the Tenth Doctor.
• 23 - DW: World War Three is first broadcast.
• 30 - DW: Dalek is first broadcast. The Daleks make their revived-series debut. Bruno Langley briefly joins the series as short-term companion Adam Mitchell.
• The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Canada begins airing the new series, the first time the CBC has aired Doctor Who since the mid-1960s. For the CBC broadcasts, Christopher Eccleston videotapes special introductions and promotions for a contest sponsored by TV Guide, the first prize being a trip to London to visit the set of Doctor Who. These broadcasts are promoted as the North American debut of the series, as no other broadcaster on the continent had yet picked up the revived series.

May

• BBC Books launches the New Series Adventures line of original novels tying in with the new series; this line, featuring the Ninth Doctor, replaces the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures and BBC Past Doctor Adventures lines, though both continue publishing briefly. The new line of books are published in hardcover and have a shorter word count than the EDA/PDA novels. The books are to be released three at a time. The first three releases are NSA: The Clockwise Man, NSA: The Monsters Inside, and NSA: Winner Takes All.
• BFA: Catch-1782 is first released.
• ST: Short Trips: A Day in the Life is first published.
• BFG: Spirit is first released.
• 7 - DW: The Long Game is first broadcast. Bruno Langley leaves the series as his character, Adam Mitchell, becomes the first TV companion to be evicted.
• 14 - DW: Father's Day is first broadcast.
• 21 - DW: The Empty Child is first broadcast. John Barrowman makes his first appearance as Jack Harkness. This episode, and part 2 the next week, are Steven Moffat's first serious contributions to televised Doctor Who and will win the series its first Hugo Award.
• 28 - DW: The Doctor Dances is first broadcast. Jack Harkness becomes a companion.

June

• EDA: The Gallifrey Chronicles is first published. This is the final release in the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novel series, as BBC Books prepares to move into publishing novels exclusively based upon the revived series. One further Eighth Doctor novel will be published under the BBC Past Doctor Adventures line.
• BFA: Unregenerate! is first released.
• BFG: Pandora and BFG: Insurgency are first released.
• BFU: The Wasting is first released. Final episode of the spin-off series, U.N.I.T..
• BFBS: The Tree of Life is first published.
• The BBC announces that a second Christmas special has already been commissioned for 2006, as well as a third season for the new Doctor Who series.
• 1 - Geoffrey Toone (Hepesh in DW: The Curse of Peladon and Temmosus in Dr. Who and the Daleks) dies in Northwood, Middlesex, England.
• 4 - DW: Boom Town is first broadcast
• 11 - DW: Bad Wolf is first broadcast. First reference to Torchwood.
• 18 - DW: The Parting of the Ways is first broadcast, concluding the first season of the revival of Doctor Who. The Ninth Doctor regenerates into the Tenth, introducing David Tennant and marking Christopher Eccleston's final (to date) appearance as the Doctor. John Barrowman also leaves the series as a regular with this episode. The broadcast is followed by the final transmission of Doctor Who Confidential's first season.
  • Post-production completed for DW: The Christmas Invasion.

July

• PDA: Island of Death is first published. Final PDA novel to feature the Third Doctor and last Third Doctor original novel to date. The PDA series returns to monthly releases for the remainder of the year as the final books in the line are published.
• BFA: Terror Firma is first released.
• THN: Peculiar Times is first published.

August

• PDA: Spiral Scratch (originally promoted under the title Future Nostalgia) is first published. Final novel to date to feature the Sixth Doctor.
• BFA: The Council of Nicaea is first released.
• BFG: Imperiatrix is first released.
• 31 - Michael Sheard, who had countless roles in Doctor Who, notably DW: Pyramids of Mars and DW: Remembrance of the Daleks, dies of cancer on the Isle of Wight.

September

• NSA: The Deviant Strain, NSA: Only Human, and NSA: The Stealers of Dreams are first published. To date, these are the last novels featuring the Ninth Doctor as BBC Books changes to novels featuring the Tenth Doctor.
• PDA: Fear Itself is first published. This is the last novel to date to feature the Eighth Doctor and was the only time this incarnation was featured in the BBC Past Doctor Adventures line.
• BFA: Thicker Than Water is first released.
• BFA: Live 34 is first released.
• ST: Short Trips: The Solar System is first published.
• BFC: Scorpius the first episode of a new Big Finish spin-off series, Cyberman, is first released.
• 12 - Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Commander Julian Radnor in DW: The Seeds of Death and Commander Stevenson in DW: Revenge of the Cybermen) dies.
• 23 - Roger Brierley (Trevor in DW: The Daleks' Master Plan and voice of Drathro in DW: The Mysterious Planet) dies after suffering a heart attack.

October

• PDA: World Game is first published. Final Second Doctor novel to date.
• BFA: Scaredy Cat is first released.
• BFC: Fear is first released.
• 18 - John Hollis (Sondergaard in DW: The Mutants) dies from natural causes.
• 24 - Robert Sloman, who along with Barry Letts, wrote DW: The Dæmons, DW: The Time Monster, DW: The Green Death and DW: Planet of the Spiders dies. (The pair were credited as "Guy Leopold" on the first story but for the final three, Sloman took the sole credit.)

November

• PDA: The Time Travellers is first published. Final First Doctor novel to date.
• BFA: Singularity is first released.
• BFIW: Wildthyme at Large is first released, launching an ongoing series of audio dramas featuring the character of Iris Wildthyme, played by Katy Manning.
• 18 - The DW: Children in Need Special is broadcast by the BBC as part of the Children in Need Appeal. This 7-minute mini-episode bridges the events of DW: The Parting of the Ways and DW: The Christmas Invasion and is the first canonical production of this nature (an earlier CiN production, 1993's DW: Dimensions in Time', is not generally considered part of the canon).
• 29 - Joseph Fürst (Professor Zaroff in DW: The Underwater Menace) dies in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

December

• PDA: Atom Bomb Blues is first published. This novel featuring the Seventh Doctor is the final release in the BBC Books Past Doctor Adventures line. After this point, BBC Books publishes only novels based upon the current series of Doctor Who, and also moves away from the paperback format, adopting a hardcover format (with the exception of Quick Reads novellas) hereafter. As of the fall of 2009, Atom Bomb Blues is the last novel to be published featuring a Doctor other than the one currently on TV.
• BFA: Other Lives is first released.
• ST: Short Trips: The History of Christmas is first published.
• BFC: Conversion is first released.
• BFIW: The Devil in Ms. Wildthyme is first released.
• THN: Deus Le Volt is first published.
• 19 - Don McKillop (Bert the Landlord in DW: The Dæmons) dies from natural causes in the UK.
• 25 - DW: The Christmas Invasion is first broadcast. The episode closing credits introduce a modified arrangement of the Doctor Who theme restoring the "middle 8" section not used during the 2005 series. At the behest of star David Tennant, the lead character is once again identified in the closing credits as "The Doctor".
• 26 - DW: The Christmas Invasion airs on the CBC in Canada. For this broadcast, Billie Piper videotapes a special introduction. This marks the last time (to date) that the CBC's broadcasts of the series more-or-less coincide with that of the BBC.

Unknown dates

• Broadcast of the revived series in the United States is delayed when the American Sci-Fi Channel unexpectedly passes on picking up the series. Reasons cited in media and fan forums included the show being considered "too British" and concerns over the quality of the preview episodes seen. Sci-Fi eventually reverses its decision and the series is broadcast at a later date and the network subsequently picks up further seasons in a more timely manner.
• Following the conclusion of the 2005 Doctor Who series, the BBC announces that it has commissioned the franchise's first full spin-off series, Torchwood, to debut in 2006 and star John Barrowman, reprising his role of Jack Harkness.
• Fall: During production of the 2006 series, the media reports that Billie Piper will leave the series at the end of the season.

2004

21st century 2000s

2006