The Power of Three dating controversy

The Power of Three dating controversy stems from a narrative confusion beginning in series seven of Doctor Who, noticeable particularly with the 2012 television story The Power of Three by Chris Chibnall. Unlike his predecessor Russell T Davies, as head writer Steven Moffat was vaguer on what was considered "present day", particularly after series six.

In the October 2014 issue of Doctor Who Magazine, reader Mike Bond submitted a question to Moffat about this discrepency: specifically, how Kate Stewart could meet the Eleventh Doctor and Clara in The Day of the Doctor in 2013 if she had first met the Doctor in The Power of Three, which could be deduced to be set in July 2016. Moffat replied,

"Ah, yes, well, good point. Some may think that question has no good answer. But as I believe I mentioned earlier, I'm on fire this month and can answer ANYTHING, oh yes. Sadly, however, I've run out of space..."Steven Moffat

Dating information

Amy and Rory

Television

Computer screens giving Amy Pond's age as 1308. (TV: The Beast Below)

In series five and series six, the episodes are consistently presented as set in the present day:

• In The Eleventh Hour (2010), 21-year-old Amy Pond joins the Eleventh Doctor in the TARDIS after waiting for him for fourteen years. Later references would have her leaving in 2010, which would put her meeting as a 7-year-old in 1996, and the Atraxi incident in 2008. However, despite Rory Williams being consistently presented as Amy's age, in an apparent prop mistake his identification badge for the Royal Leadworth Hospital was issued on 30 November 1990.
• In The Beast Below (2010), Amy's age is spoken aloud by a Starship UK computer as being 1306 in 3295. On-screen, however, her age is given as being 1308, placing her year of birth as 1987, and would have made her 9-years-old in 1996.
• In Flesh and Stone (2010), the Doctor refers to 26 June 2010 as "Amy's time".
• In The Vampires of Venice (2010), Rory claims that he will marry Amy "four-hundred-and-thirty years" after 1580, placing the year of their wedding in 2010.
• In The Hungry Earth (2010), Amy and Rory see their future selves waving at them during a trip to 2020, although the following episode, Cold Blood (2010), establishes that their future can still be changed.
• In The Pandorica Opens (2010), the Doctor's TARDIS explodes on 26 June 2010.
• In The Big Bang (2010), Amy directly states that she met the Doctor at age 7 in the year 1996. Finally, after rebooting reality together, Amy and Rory marry on 26 June 2010 and then leave with the Doctor for their honeymoon.
• In The Impossible Astronaut (broadcast 23 April 2011), Amy and Rory are invited to Lake Silencio, where they witness the Doctor's apparent assassination. Later references date the assassination to 5:02 PM on 22 April 2011.
• In Let's Kill Hitler (broadcast 27 August 2011), the Doctor returns to Amy and Rory after having been away "all summer" looking for Melody Pond.
• In The God Complex (2011), the Doctor leaves Amy and Rory on contemporary Earth. In the next episode, Closing Time (2011), the Doctor sees Amy and Rory, apparently after he had left them on Earth, while at a shopping centre on 19 April 2011. How much time has passed for them, and therefore when exactly the Doctor dropped them off, is unclear.
  • One possibility is Amy and Rory lived through most of 2011 twice. However, Amy has become a famous model for the perfume Petrichor, leaving it difficult to believe two Amys could be living in the same year without being noticed.

Beginning with series seven, long gaps mentioned in the TV stories pushed its events further and further into the future.

• In The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe (2011), the Doctor visits Amy and Rory for Christmas. Amy claims that it has been two years since they last saw the Doctor in The God Complex. Depending on how the prior stories are interpreted, this comment could have several meanings:
  • If Closing Time is taken to indicate that the Doctor left them in early 2011, and if Amy is assumed to be rounding up, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe might be set in December 2012. This reading is used to construct dates for the remainder of this article.
  • Alternately, if Amy's comment is taken totally literally, the story could be set in December 2013. This interpretation seems to be what Mike Bond followed with his question in DWM 447.
  • If much more time is assumed to have passed for Amy and Rory by Closing Time – for instance, if the Doctor left Amy and Rory as early as mid-2010 – it could be December 2011.
• In Pond Life (released August 2012), the Doctor remains in contact with Amy and Rory throughout April, May, June, and July of the year following The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe. Following the first interpretation of that story's dating described above, this would be the year 2013. That August, Amy and Rory almost divorce after an argument, but the Doctor helps reunite them in Asylum of the Daleks (2012).
• During Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (2012), Amy mentions that she hasn't seen the Doctor for 10 months. If Asylum of the Daleks is set at its earliest possible date, in August 2013, this would place Dinosaurs in June 2014.
• However, also in Dinosaurs, Rory mentions to his father that he is 31 years old. If one believes Rory being born in 1989, as mentioned in such sources as COMIC: The Broken Man, then this would set this story in circa 2020. If the story was set contemporary to broadcast, Rory should have been 22 or 23. Given that Arthur Darvill would have been 29 while filming the episode, it's likely that Chris Chibnall briefly forgot that Rory was younger than Darvill - thus he simply added two years to Darvill's age to imply it being set slightly into the future.
  • Given later information would confirm that Amy and Rory have aged while traveling in the TARDIS while their lives at home stay still, one could interpret that Rory was 31 without the story being 31 years from his birth. However, this seems to contradict it being a statement he makes to his father.
• In The Power of Three (2012), the Shakri cubes arrive in July and remain dormant for a whole year. Based on the idea that Dinosaurs takes place in 2014, the Year of the Slow Invasion would start in 2014 and end in 2015. Based on the idea that the story takes place in 2020, the in-universe "pandemic" would instead take place in 2020 and 2021. Kate Stewart meets the Doctor for the first time during this year, identifying him only by his binary vascular system rather than his face, and she is surprised when he knows her father is Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. However, in The Day of the Doctor (2013), which is set in 2013, Kate is already familiar with the Doctor.
• In The Power of Three, Amy tells the Doctor "We think it's been ten years. Not for you or Earth, but for us. Ten years older. Ten years of you, on and off." This implies that while Amy and Rory have aged ten years since meeting the Doctor, the Doctor has not had ten years of adventures with them and the "current year" is less than ten years from when Amy first left in the TARDIS.

Prose

• The Whoniverse places the Year of the Slow Invasion in 2012-2013, shortly after the start of the 2012 Olympics.

Clara

Television

Beginning with the second half of series seven, the show returned to the present day:

• In The Bells of Saint John (2013), Clara Oswald joins the Doctor while working as a nanny. In Deep Breath (2014) Strax states that Clara is 27-years-old during a medical examination, which, as her date of birth is given as 23 November 1986 in Death in Heaven (2014), would set her travels with the Doctor starting in 2013, and The Time of the Doctor (2013) as happening during Christmas 2013.
• In The Name of the Doctor (broadcast 18 May 2013), Clara receives a letter from Madame Vastra, who calculated the date of the letter's arrival to be 10 April 2013.
• In The Day of the Doctor (2013), Clara has begun working as a teacher at Coal Hill School.
• In The Time of the Doctor (broadcast 25 December 2013), the Eleventh Doctor attends Christmas dinner with Clara's family.
• In Deep Breath (broadcast 23 August 2014), set early in Clara's career as a teacher, Strax states that she is 27-years-old, which, as her date of birth is given as 23 November 1986 later in the season in Death in Heaven (2014), would set the present year as 2013.
• In Into the Dalek (2014), Danny Pink starts teaching at Coal Hill School, but it is not clarified if it is a new school year or if he is joining at the start of the Winter term.
• In The Caretaker (2014), the Twelfth Doctor takes a temporary job at Coal Hill School. Courtney Woods' mother implies that Danny was at a previous Parent's Evening.
• In In the Forest of the Night (2014), the Doctor makes an analogy of planting an acorn in 1795 that would grow to be an oak tree in 2016, speaking as if he is referring to the current year.
• In Face the Raven (2015), Clara reunited with Rigsy. Since they met in Flatline, set during Clara's relationship with Danny, Rigsy has moved from Bristol to London, and his girlfriend Jen has had a baby.
• In For Tonight We Might Die (2016), set on 14 October 2016, the fates of Danny Pink and Clara Oswald in Dark Water (2014) and Face the Raven, respectively, are listed as recent events on the Coal Hill School Roll of Honours Board.

Comics

• The Fractures (2015), which takes place between The Caretaker and Dark Water, gives the year as 2014.
• The Hyperion Empire (2015), which takes place between Last Christmas and The Magician's Apprentice, gives the date as summer 2015.
• Clara Oswald and the School of Death (2016), which takes place between The Witch's Familiar and Face the Raven, gives the date as September 2015.
• Witch Hunt (2016), which takes place after Danny's death in Death in Heaven, gives the date as October of an unspecified year, with Clara being alive to see the opening of the new IT suite in Danny’s memory, a few months later.

Prose

• In The Persistence of Memory, the Twelfth Doctor mentions that Clara is absent from the TARDIS due to attending an end-of-term Christmas party. Since the two were not traveling together in Last Christmas, this would logically be the Christmas after.
• A History of Humankind places The Caretaker in 2014.
• Time Traveller's Diary places the present day events of The Day of the Doctor on 23 November 2013, Last Christmas in 2014, and The Return of Doctor Mysterio in 2016.
• Cybermen (2021) places the 3W Institute Affair in 2014.