2010s

The 2010s was the second decade of the 21st century when alien encounters and other unusual events continued on Earth, which had been common since the previous decade.

Operating from a shadow Earth, the Vist took control of everything in the universe from 2011 to 2019, now a "restricted time zone". The Second Doctor tricked them into travelling back to before the Time Lords, and they became stuck in the "no time" that existed before Event One. (AUDIO: The Forbidden Time ^[+]Loading...["The Forbidden Time (audio story)"])

Major events

On 25 June 2010, Amy Pond began travelling with the Eleventh Doctor, (TV: The Eleventh Hour ^[+]Loading...["The Eleventh Hour (TV story)"], Flesh and Stone ^[+]Loading...["Flesh and Stone (TV story)"]) later joined by Rory Williams after returning on 26 June, the date of their wedding. (TV: The Vampires of Venice ^[+]Loading...["The Vampires of Venice (TV story)"]) 26 June 2010 was also the end of the universe, but the Doctor reversed the effects of total event collapse by resetting the universe with the help of the Pandorica, causing Big Bang Two. (TV: The Pandorica Opens ^[+]Loading...["The Pandorica Opens (TV story)"]/The Big Bang ^[+]Loading...["The Big Bang (TV story)"])

Amy and Rory returned to their native time period, living there for a number of months after their honeymoon, (TV: The Impossible Astronaut ^[+]Loading...["The Impossible Astronaut (TV story)"]) and again after leaving the TARDIS and settling in a new home. (TV: The God Complex ^[+]Loading...["The God Complex (TV story)"], Closing Time ^[+]Loading...["Closing Time (TV story)"]) After two years on Earth, (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe ^[+]Loading...["The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe (TV story)"]) they continued to travel with the Doctor again, on and off, for several years, maintaining a double life. (TV: The Power of Three ^[+]Loading...["The Power of Three (TV story)"])

Miracle Day took place in 2011, beginning on 19 March, halting death in all humans, at least barring extreme measures, drastically changing and challenging the social and cultural conventions on Earth during the period of the "miracle". (TV: The New World ^[+]Loading...["The New World (TV story)"], The Categories of Life ^[+]Loading...["The Categories of Life (TV story)"]) When the Miracle ended in September, (PROSE: Acceptance, and then Understanding ^[+]Loading...["Acceptance, and then Understanding (short story)"]) due to the efforts of Torchwood, all of the world's Category 1 patients, who had been kept alive, took their last breaths together. (TV: The Blood Line ^[+]Loading...["The Blood Line (TV story)"])

One Dalek that survived the Last Great Time War was passed from collector to collector and was eventually imprisoned in the Vault near Salt Lake City by 2012. Nicknamed the Metaltron by Henry van Statten, it was accidentally released and began murdering everyone inside the Vault. As its genetic make-up began changing, it was overwhelmed from the emotions it had taken from Rose Tyler and was forced to commit suicide. (TV: Dalek ^[+]Loading...["Dalek (TV story)"])

Along with several children on Dame Kelly Holmes Close, the crowd at the 2012 Olympic Games stadium in London were abducted by an Isolus to keep it from being lonely. The Isolus returned them when Rose Tyler used the heat and love the Olympic Torch represented to recharge the Isolus pod. (TV: Fear Her ^[+]Loading...["Fear Her (TV story)"])

In 2013, the robot Spoonheads captured human "souls" via Wi-Fi to feed to the Great Intelligence in an operation spearheaded by Rosemary Kizlet from the Shard. The Eleventh Doctor stumbled upon this and put a stop to it as well as forcing Kizlet to release all the trapped minds from the data cloud. It was here that Clara Oswald first met the Doctor, from her perspective, and joined him as his companion. (TV: The Bells of Saint John ^[+]Loading...["The Bells of Saint John (TV story)"])

After figures from the Under Gallery's stasis cube paintings had disappeared along with the glass of the paintings being smashed outwards, UNIT summoned the Eleventh Doctor under the instructions of Queen Elizabeth I from the 16th century. The figures in the paintings were actually Zygons who hid themselves inside in 1562 while waiting for the Earth to become more suitable for invasion. UNIT had accidentally airlifted the TARDIS to the National Gallery not knowing the Doctor was still inside. The Zygons later took on the biological forms of Kate and UNIT scientists McGillop and Osgood and tried taking over the Black Archive. Trying to stop them, Kate set off the countdown for a nuclear warhead, which her duplicate was unable to cancel, but the Tenth, Eleventh and War Doctors broke into the Black Archive, erasing the minds of the Zygons and the real Kate, McGillop and Osgood and making them forget which was "real" and allowing both Kates to agree to cancel the detonation. The Doctors refused to return the memories of the two parties until they agreed to a peace treaty. (TV: The Day of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)"])

In 2014, (COMIC: The Fractures ^[+]Loading...["The Fractures (comic story)"]) a lone Skovox Blitzer was lost on Earth, attracted to the area around Coal Hill School by the high number of artron energy emissions. It was detected by the Twelfth Doctor, who trapped it and projected it into the Time Vortex using chronodyne generators. Danny Pink had inadvertently turned off some of the generators and the Blitzer was not projected as far into the future as the Doctor had planned. Before it reappeared, he developed a device that would make his orders sound as though they were coming from one of the robot's superiors. With the assistance of Clara and Danny, he again trapped it, and ordered it to deactivate. He then left it drifting in space and told it to enjoy its war. (TV: The Caretaker ^[+]Loading...["The Caretaker (TV story)"])

The organisation 3W, ostensibly formed by Dr Skarosa to create a place to house the consciousness of the deceased, was discovered by the Twelfth Doctor and Clara, (TV: Dark Water ^[+]Loading...["Dark Water (TV story)"]) as well as being investigated by UNIT after an anonymous tip. (TV: Death in Heaven ^[+]Loading...["Death in Heaven (TV story)"]) It was discovered that the organisation was an elaborate deception orchestrated by Missy, who used a Matrix data slice to create the Nethersphere, where the minds of the recently deceased would be uploaded and converted into an army of Cybermen. This army emerged from 3W's base in St Paul's Cathedral (TV: Dark Water ^[+]Loading...["Dark Water (TV story)"]) with UNIT soon arriving on the scene led by Kate Stewart. Capturing both the Doctor and Missy, UNIT brought them both aboard their presidential aircraft, Boat One, where the Doctor was inaugurated as an emergency President of Earth. At this time, clouds appeared over the world's major cities, raining cyber-pollen on the graveyards to convert the dead into Cybermen. These Cybermen, now possessing the ability to fly, attacked Boat One resulting in its destruction. Offered control of the Cybermen army by Missy, the Doctor refused to submit to her claim that he was like her, he handed it over to the converted Danny Pink, who rallied all the Cybermen to self-destruct, taking the pollen clouds with them. The Doctor was saved the obligation of killing Missy by one remaining Cyberman, a converted Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. (TV: Death in Heaven ^[+]Loading...["Death in Heaven (TV story)"])

By 2015, a research and study base called Moon Village One was established on the Moon. (COMIC: The Lunar Strangers ^[+]Loading...["The Lunar Strangers (comic story)"])

That year, Missy used a time stop to freeze all planes airborne across the globe, amounting to 4165, in order to gain the attention of Clara and UNIT so they could help her find the Doctor. This brief worldwide phenomenon ended when Missy released the planes at Clara's request in return for her co-operation. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice ^[+]Loading...["The Magician's Apprentice (TV story)"])

That September, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Daniel Claremont, was revealed on live television to be a Sea Devil. His race began an attack on Scotland, but were quickly stopped by the Twelfth Doctor; who destroyed their base on Raven's Isle. (COMIC: Clara Oswald and the School of Death ^[+]Loading...["Clara Oswald and the School of Death (comic story)"])

On one day, trees mysteriously grew across all the land on Earth. As the Twelfth Doctor discovered, it was a defence mechanism to protect the planet from the threat of a solar flare with excess oxygen. Once the solar flare struck and the worldwide forest's work of preservation succeeded, it promptly regressed to its former state. (TV: In the Forest of the Night ^[+]Loading...["In the Forest of the Night (TV story)"])

The Coal Hill defenders dealt with numerous alien incursions in the later months of 2016, mostly caused by the Coal Hill Space-Time Rift. (TV: For Tonight We Might Die ^[+]Loading...["For Tonight We Might Die (TV story)"], etc.) On one occasion, in mid-November, killer petals came out of the Rift, and multiplied fast in the space of one day, resulting in a massacre. April MacLean, having just been proclaimed Shadow King in a duel with Corakinus in the Underneath, used her new army of Shadow Kin to destroy the petals. (TV: Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart ^[+]Loading...["Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart (TV story)"], Brave-ish Heart ^[+]Loading...["Brave-ish Heart (TV story)"]) Charlie Smith and Andrea Quill encountered a Dalek in Coal Hill Academy, together with Ace, former companion to the Seventh Doctor. (AUDIO: In Remembrance ^[+]Loading...["In Remembrance (audio story)"])

When Corakinus returned to Earth, killing many in his path, Charlie killed his friend April, resulting in Corakinus' death, as the two shared one heart, and then committed genocide using the Cabinet of Souls, destroying all Shadow Kin. April awoke again in Corakinus' body. At this time, the Governors were in league with the Weeping Angels, and prepared for the Arrival. (TV: The Lost ^[+]Loading...["The Lost (TV story)"])

Also in 2016, the K1 robot was rebuilt by UNIT. It went on a rampage in downtown London, destroying the London Eye. The Twelfth Doctor was able to stop it with his sonic screwdriver. (COMIC: Robo Rampage ^[+]Loading...["Robo Rampage (comic story)"])

Meanwhile, at St Luke's University, the Twelfth Doctor, having spent at least 70 years lecturing and guarding the Vault, met Bill Potts, who he took on as a private pupil. (TV: The Pilot ^[+]Loading...["The Pilot (TV story)"]) Over the course of the following year, Bill travelled with the Doctor and Nardole. (TV: Smile ^[+]Loading...["Smile (TV story)"], etc.)

At some point during their time at the university, Bill granted the Monks her consent for them to take over Earth, in order to save the Doctor's life. (TV: The Pyramid at the End of the World ^[+]Loading...["The Pyramid at the End of the World (TV story)"]) Over the next six months, they invaded quietly, and fabricated an entire alternate history for Earth, enforced by the Memory Police. They were defeated by Bill's memories of her mother. (TV: The Lie of the Land ^[+]Loading...["The Lie of the Land (TV story)"]) After helping to rescue the Doctor and Bill on Mars, (TV: Empress of Mars ^[+]Loading...["Empress of Mars (TV story)"]) Missy was let out of the Vault, (TV: The Eaters of Light ^[+]Loading...["The Eaters of Light (TV story)"]) and the four left in the TARDIS for what would be their final adventure together, on a Mondasian colony ship. (TV: World Enough and Time ^[+]Loading...["World Enough and Time (TV story)"], The Doctor Falls ^[+]Loading...["The Doctor Falls (TV story)"])

On Christmas Day 2017, the Chelbil invaded Earth. They were scared away from the planet by the Eighth Doctor and Goilin B. (PROSE: Not in My Back Yard ^[+]Loading...["Not in My Back Yard (short story)"])

The Thirteenth Doctor met her first companions, Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan in late 2018 Sheffield, in an encounter with Tzim-Sha. The Stenza warrior was defeated and sent along by teleport, (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth ^[+]Loading...["The Woman Who Fell to Earth (TV story)"]) ultimately to Ranskoor Av Kolos, where he established himself as a god between the Ux. (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos ^[+]Loading...["The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos (TV story)"])

The Doctor frequently returned her companions to their home time period, where they encountered, in 2018, giant spiders (TV: Arachnids in the UK ^[+]Loading...["Arachnids in the UK (TV story)"]) a sentient begonia plant, (PROSE: The Secret in Vault 13 ^[+]Loading...["The Secret in Vault 13 (novel)"]) and a portal leading through to the fabled Solitract plane. (TV: It Takes You Away ^[+]Loading...["It Takes You Away (TV story)"]) 2019 began with a thwarted plan by a lone Dalek, brought back to life in Sheffield, to summon its fleet. (TV: Resolution ^[+]Loading...["Resolution (TV story)"])

Behind the scenes

• The first eight years of the decade saw Steven Moffat's run as showrunner of Doctor Who, with the first half hosting Matt Smith's televised run as the Eleventh Doctor.
• Metal Mutt Productions' K9 broadcast its sole series in 2010.
• Both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures finished their televised run in 2011.
• The 50th anniversary of Doctor Who was celebrated in 2013.
• Having been cast as the Twelfth Doctor in 2013, Peter Capaldi starred in the role from 2014 to 2017.
• Big Finish Productions' licence was renewed, leading to the production of audio dramas derived from the revived Doctor Who series, as well as Torchwood. Initially extended to cover Doctor Who up to the end of the Eleventh Doctor's run, stories using concepts from the Twelfth Doctor's were produced following Peter Capaldi's televised departure.
• A new spin-off series, Class, was broadcast by the BBC in 2016. Though it was cancelled after only one series, it was later picked up by Big Finish.
• In 2017, both Steven Moffat and Peter Capaldi bowed out as showrunner and leading actor respectively. Chris Chibnall was announced as the new showrunner, with Jodie Whittaker being cast as the Thirteenth Doctor, becoming the first woman to portray the leading role.
• The first series of Doctor Who under Chris Chibnall was broadcast in 2018.
• Notably, 2018 forgone the traditional Christmas special, ending a run that began with the series revival in 2005. In its place, a New Year Special was broadcast on New Year's Day, 2019.