Theory talk:Timeline - Leela

Placement of Wicked Sisters Stories

As noted, During the Wicked Sisters anthology Leela not appears older than the Doctor but is also shown to be older than 40 years of age. I very much doubt that these take place shortly after her adventures with the Fourth Doctor in her own timeline. That's to say nothing of how she seems to be very used to Time Lord technology and the science behind it at this point. I think it's reasonable to assume that theses stories probably take place much later in her timeline. Though they do reference the events of Time in Office as being recent, so that's something we should keep in mind as well. –Nahald ☎ 10:15, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Well given that Lowri is president, this has to be set before Romana became president, no? That seems the pertinent continuity point here, at least to me. Danochy ☎ 09:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, there’s no discussion here. It goes where it goes and there’s no way around that. Besides, there’s nowhere you could theoretically place this where it would make sense for Leela to be significantly older like this. SarahJaneFan ☎ 10:59, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

The only possible explanation I can think of is that the Time Lords in Lowri's time thought that an older Leela would be more suitable for this mission rather than her present day self and plucked her out of her future. It's always kind of hard to tell when it comes to the Time Lords, at this point Leela's timeline is looking to become as convoluted as Ace's. Hopefully one day they'll provide some sort of explanation for it all, and maybe while they're at it, they can retcon that ridiculous and completely nonsensical reincarnation story arc that comes at the end of her life. Seriously, Leela deserves better than that. –Nahald ☎ 09:08, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

That's an awful lot of speculation. Lowri is still president in Wicked Sisters, so I see no reason for the box set to be placed at any point in Leela's timeline that isn't during Lowri's presidency. -- Saxon (✉️) 16:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Reevaluating Leela's Timeline

This is kind of retreading some of the same ground I covered in the above topic, but I think we seriously need to reevaluate Leela's timeline and the criteria we use to determine the chronological sequence of events in her personal timeline. Part of this was brought about by the early placement of Time in Office and the Wicked Sisters stories and the implication that enough time has passed in her personal timeline to the point where she appears to be, at the very least, a middle-aged woman (even being able to pass herself off as a frail old woman at one point), implying that Leela is a human of somewhat advanced years in all subsequent stories. I found this implication highly unlikely, but I was willing to admit its plausibility in the interest of adhering to the chronology of her life relative to the events on Gallifrey, even if I thought there were some explanations that could account for these discrepancies. But what was different between then and now is that aside from those Big Finish Doctor Who stories and some Companion Chronicles, I had yet to hear any Leela stories that took place post The Invasion of Time. Now I have gotten to her stories in Jago & Litefoot, I think I can say with absolute confidence: There is absolutely no way that the woman in these stories is an older version of the woman from Wicked Sisters.

The Leela of Wicked Sisters carries herself as someone who has fully adapted to her life on Gallifrey; not only seeming to be adapt at using Gallifreyan technology, but also having the ability to adapt to the various locales that she finds herself in fairly easily with minimal culture shock. This is in stark contrast to the Leela in Jago & Litefoot, who seems only slightly more inexperienced with civilization and modernity than she was in her time traveling with the Doctor. She only has a vague idea of how to operate Gallifreyan technology and is unfamiliar with basic social norms and figures of speech. Not only that, but she generally seems to be treated as and referred to as a "young lady" throughout these stories. While I have yet to listen to the Gallifrey stories, if the way she behaves in that series—especially the ones that take place prior to the Jago & Litefoot, according to this timeline—is anything like she behaves in these stories, then I think I can safely say that the thought of any of this taking place before Wicked Sisters is just absurd.

So here is what I propose: I think we need to reevaluate parts of Leela's timeline so that it uses her growth and maturity as a reference point for the placement of these stories rather than the events of her life relative to the events unfolding on Gallifrey. I believe this should be done for the following reasons:

1. Leela is a time traveler, so any discrepancies between her apparent age and the events on Gallifrey can easily be explained by her own personal timeline being out of sync. As I pointed out in the previous post, Acting President Lowri could have easily decided to send a future version of Leela to assist the Doctor because she thought that she would be more helpful to him than the naive and impulsive younger version of her that resided on Gallifrey at the time.
2. There are already discrepancies in this timeline, most notably the idea that Leela is carrying Andred's child before she ever even met Romana. Since, as far as I know, no reference to Leela having a child or suffering a miscarriage is ever referenced in Gallifrey, I think it's safe to assume that this simply never happened in the Big Finish continuity. Therefore, her pregnancy's placement on this timeline serves as more of an indication of when it would have happened in her own personal timeline if it was treated as canon by Big Finish as opposed to a definitive statement that it did happen prior to the events of Gallifrey.
3. This is a bit of an expansion on number 2, but contradicting events in the DWU are more common than ever these days. So common, in fact, that Big Finish has recently started saying that the fallout from the Time War is the source of the contradicting events in the DWU. I don't see why such an excuse couldn't also be used to explain something as minute as Lowri being the Acting President of Gallifrey when the older Leela is sent to help the Doctor in Wicked Sisters.

Maybe I'll be overruled on this one, but I think we need to keep all of this in mind right now and going forward, because I kind of suspect we'll be seeing Leela in more stories outside of Gallifrey and the Fourth Doctor Adventures in the years to come, where I suspect that we'll be seeing more of this older Leela. –Nahald ☎ 03:25, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Just an additional note regarding Time in Office: This story has several issues of its own when it comes to creating discrepancies in the Doctor Who canon, contradicting not only the Virgin stories but also the main show, as the Sixth Doctor seems to be under the impression that he still holds the title of Lord President during The Trial of a Time Lord. So I'm not sure that this story is a good reference point for the placement of other stories. –Nahald ☎ 03:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)