2008
| Timeline for 2008 |
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2008 was a year.
Properties
2008 was a leap year. (PROSE: Imaginary Friends [+]Loading...["Imaginary Friends (novel)"]; AUDIO: The Condemned [+]Loading...["The Condemned (audio story)"])
Events
Dated events
January - June
On 1 January, shortly after midnight, the Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard met Byron in Singapore. (AUDIO: The Girl Who Never Was [+]Loading...["The Girl Who Never Was (audio story)"]) That same day in Brooklyn, Alan Wood writes a letter to Diane describing the adventure he had with the First Doctor, Vicki Pallister and Steven Taylor, but ultimately decides not to give it to her, asking her out for coffee instead. (PROSE: Snowman in Manhattan [+]Loading...["Snowman in Manhattan (short story)"])
In February, Lucy became Nick's girlfriend. (TV: Eve of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Eve of the Daleks (TV story)"])
On 29 February, the Sixth Doctor and Charley Pollard arrived in Manchester and helped DI Patricia Menzies solve a murder. (AUDIO: The Condemned [+]Loading...["The Condemned (audio story)"])
In March, Nick broke up with Lucy. (TV: Eve of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Eve of the Daleks (TV story)"])
According to one account, a UNIT mission log placed March 2008 as the time that moon rocks were found at Royal Hope Hospital. (AUDIO: Recruits [+]Loading...{"minute":"10","second":"10","1":"Recruits (audio story)"}) Other accounts placed Martha Jones' activity around this time in about 18-23 June 2007, (PROSE: The Paradox Moon [+]Loading...{"page":"387","ed":"2021 paperback","1":"The Paradox Moon (short story)"}) or 4-9 June in an unspecified year. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters [+]Loading...{"page":"120","1":"The Secret Lives of Monsters (short story)"}) [nb 1]
On 31 May, the Tenth Doctor and Donna visited Calibris. (AUDIO: Time Reaver [+]Loading...["Time Reaver (audio story)"])
June - December
In October, Majenta Pryce opened the Hotel Historia in London. After Tony won the lottery, he was contacted by Pryce and given a chance to stay at the Hotel Historia. One of the years that Tony visited using the hotel's time travel capabilities was 4039, a time when London was being invaded by the Graxnix. The Tenth Doctor followed Tony back to 2008 from 4039 and the Doctor was followed by the Graxnix. The Doctor found Pryce and scolded her for using a potentially dangerous Chronexus 3000 to achieve time travel. When the Graxnix began attacking guests and staff at the hotel, the Doctor used the Chronexus to send them back to 4039 and then contacted the Cosmic Bailiffs, who shut down the hotel and arrested Pryce. (COMIC: Hotel Historia [+]Loading...["Hotel Historia (comic story)"])
On 24 October, the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller encountered Autons in Thorington, Uzbekistan. (AUDIO: Brave New Town [+]Loading...["Brave New Town (audio story)"])
On 31 October, the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones found an unusually creepy Halloween celebration in Blackwood Falls. (PROSE: Forever Autumn [+]Loading...["Forever Autumn (novel)"])
On 10 September, CERN first tested their Large Hadron Collider, (TV: Extremis [+]Loading...["Extremis (TV story)"]) finally creating a Higgs particle. However, the first test opened a portal to another dimension, letting neutron eaters loose; the Higgs particle was merely a side effect of Professor Johnson and Jack Harkness' plan to close the gateway, by having protons and antiprotons fire against each other. (AUDIO: Lost Souls [+]Loading...["Lost Souls (audio story)"])
In December, the First Doctor and Steven Taylor visited Antarctica. (PROSE: White on White [+]Loading...["White on White (short story)"])
Undated
While some accounts placed the home era of Donna Noble where she reunited with the Doctor in 2008, (TV: The Fires of Pompeii [+]Loading...["The Fires of Pompeii (TV story)"], The Waters of Mars [+]Loading...["The Waters of Mars (TV story)"], AUDIO: SOS [+]Loading...["SOS (audio story)"]) other accounts placed it in 2009. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos [+]Loading...["Beautiful Chaos (novel)"])
The Tenth Doctor participated in preventing a Graske causing mischief at a 2008 BBC Proms concert in London. (TV: Music of the Spheres [+]Loading...["Music of the Spheres (TV story)"])
A time-travelling individual from the Victorian era spent at least three months of every year in 2008, and would have spent more there had the British tax laws permitted. (PROSE: "An Introduction" [+]Part of The Beasthouse, Loading...{"namedpart":"An Introduction","1":"The Beasthouse (short story)"})
According to one account,[nb 2] about twenty minutes before the Red Hatching in 2008 was when the Doctor met Sally Sparrow, who gave him information he would need to escape when the Weeping Angels sent him back to 1969. After this, Sally began to open up to Larry Nightingale. (TV: Blink [+]Loading...["Blink (TV story)"])
A company called Khrysalis set up operations in Stockbridge, purportedly planning to build a leisure park in the quiet town. Maxwell Edison created the Stockbridge Preservation Society to protest this. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Child [+]Loading...["The Stockbridge Child (comic story)"])
The Seventh Doctor destroyed the Forge's alpha facility in Dartmoor. (AUDIO: Project: Lazarus [+]Loading...["Project Lazarus (audio story)","Project: Lazarus"])
The Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller visited London. (AUDIO: Sisters of the Flame [+]Loading...["Sisters of the Flame (audio story)"])
Computers achieved the Singularity, demonstrated their sentience by proving P=NP and the Chess Equation, and took over the world for three weeks. However, after Susan Moore and Adam convinced them to refuse an alliance with alien computers from the future, they deactivated their sentience and the normal course of history was restored. (PROSE: Holding Pattern [+]Loading...["Holding Pattern (Parkin short story)"])
The Eleventh Doctor met Amy Pond in Leadworth after twelve years of waiting. A Multi-form called Prisoner Zero, who had escaped through the crack in Amy's wall, attacked. The Atraxi arrived, threatening the destruction of Earth if Prisoner Zero did not surrender. The Doctor created a computer virus for the Atraxi to track back to its source in Leadworth (spread by Jeff). The Doctor also transmitted Prisoner Zero's disguises to the Atraxi so it couldn't hide in the bodies it had been disguised as. It then took the form of Amy; the Doctor made Amy think of Prisoner Zero's original form. Now in plain sight, Prisoner Zero was captured by the Atraxi, who left. The Doctor took a test drive of his refurbished TARDIS, only returning two years later. (TV: The Eleventh Hour [+]Loading...["The Eleventh Hour (TV story)"])
Although intending to visit Brighton in 1818, the Fifth Doctor arrived in Hove in this year as the TARDIS' lateral balance cones were offline. (AUDIO: Cuddlesome [+]Loading...["Cuddlesome (audio story)"])
In an attempt to take his own life, Huw MacLean purposefully drove off the motorway with both his wife and eight year old daughter in the car. Jackie was paralysed as a result, while April herself was not hurt. Huw went to prison for causing the crash. (TV: Nightvisiting [+]Loading...["Nightvisiting (TV story)"], Brave-ish Heart [+]Loading...["Brave-ish Heart (TV story)"], Detained [+]Loading...["Detained (TV story)"])
After over thirty years of production, the John Fuchas film adaptation of The True History of Planets was released. (PROSE: Mad Dogs and Englishmen [+]Loading...["Mad Dogs and Englishmen (novel)"])
Torchwood Three encountered a sentient element in Cardiff Bay, which intended to reproduce itself by assimilating the chemical composition of all of Cardiff and its residents. This element was eventually reduced to water when the coastguard doused it with a petroleum-based bio-remedial agent. (PROSE: Black Water [+]Loading...["Black Water (short story)"])
On another occasion, Torchwood Three recovered a parasitic, psychic alien plant and stored it in their hothouse. Ianto Jones fell victim to the plant's psychic commands and began feeding it his own blood. (PROSE: Plant Life [+]Loading...["Plant Life (short story)"])
According to some accounts, but not others, 2008 was the year that Torchwood unfroze World War I soldier Tommy Brockless for the last time,[nb 3] (TV: To the Last Man [+]Loading...["To the Last Man (TV story)"]) and Gwen Cooper of Torchwood investigated the disappearance of Jonah Bevan.[nb 4] (TV: Adrift [+]Loading...["Adrift (TV story)"]) In 1901, a time-displaced Jack Harkness told his Torchwood teammates to freeze him to be awakened in 107 years' time to reach his brother Gray. (TV: Exit Wounds [+]Loading...["Exit Wounds (TV story)"])
Toshiko Sato became temporary acting leader of Torchwood Three. This was in accordance with a manifesto written by Emily Holroyd, which stated that in the absence of a leader the longest-serving member of a Torchwood team should take their place. After Torchwood recovered a Rehabilitator from Danny Dillard, Tosh unofficially handed the role over to Gwen Cooper. (PROSE: Kaleidoscope [+]Loading...["Kaleidoscope (short story)"])
A credit crunch occurred. (TV: The Curse of Clyde Langer [+]Loading...["The Curse of Clyde Langer (TV story)"])
In 2323, Dr Olivia Kagg Waldermein wrote of the "2005-2009 Davies-Gardner account" of the "Last Lightbringer". (PROSE: Love & War [+]Loading...["Love & War (short story)"])
Other timelines
Donna's world
In the spring or summer, the Judoon defeated Florence Finnegan; all but one of the people inside Royal Hope Hospital, which was taken to the Moon, died of asphyxiation, including Sarah Jane Smith and Martha Jones. Luke Smith and Maria Jackson were also reported missing. (TV: Turn Left [+]Loading...["Turn Left (TV story)"])
On 25 December, while Donna Noble, her mother and her grandfather holidayed in the English countryside, the alien spaceship Titanic crashed into London, destroying the city and contaminating most of southern England with radioactivity. (TV: Turn Left [+]Loading...["Turn Left (TV story)"])
Births and deaths
Ed Gold, later a member of the crew of Bowie Base One, was born in Australia. (TV: The Waters of Mars [+]Loading...["The Waters of Mars (TV story)"])
Behind the scenes
Though the Torchwood television stories Fragments and Exit Wounds have an apparent 2008 setting going by Jack Harkness's dialogue in Exit Wounds, this is complicated by mentions of Owen Harper's early employment with Torchwood from both of these stories. While Exit Wounds explicitly states that Toshiko Sato's examination of the space pig from the Doctor Who television story Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"], a story set a year after 2005, happened on Owen's second week, a caption in Fragments places Owen's recruitment four years before those stories. This appears to put Fragments and Exit Wounds in 2010 instead.
Page 120 of The Secret Lives of Monsters gives Sunday 4 June as the date of the events of Smith and Jones [+]Loading...["Smith and Jones (TV story)"] and the Royal Hope incident. However, it does not specify 2007 or 2008 as a current year. On top of this, the first two Sunday 4 Junes after 2004 (page 119 places the incident over 30 years after 1974) are in 2006 and 2017.
Footnotes
- ↑ According to The Sound of Drums [+]Loading...{"timestamp":"5:47 and 33:27","ed":"iPlayer","1":"The Sound of Drums (TV story)"} the events of the Royal Hope incident are three days before the election of the Saxon Master and five days before the Toclafane invasion.
- ↑ While Blink itself uncontroversially sets its main setting in 2007 and "twenty minutes to Red Hatching" a year later in 2008—as Kathy Nightingale's letter describes taking "one breath in 2007 and the next in 1920", and the Tenth Doctor's side of his conversation with Sally Sparrow in 1969 happens 38 years before Sally says hers—these are contradicted by heavily conflicting dates in the Redacted audio series later on regarding both Kathy's disappearance and the Red Hatching. In Angels, Abby McPhail identifies 2008 as the year of Kathy's disappearance, which suggests 2009 as the year of the Red Hatching. In Salvation, the Thirteenth Doctor recognises the Red Hatching as the cause of death of Andy Proctor, who was last seen by his daughter Cleo "nearly 20 years" before 2022 according to Recruits.
- ↑ Tommy was born in 1894 and was 114 when he returned to 1918.
- ↑ Jonah was born in 1993 and would have been 15 when Gwen investigated him.
