Timestamps

[beccaelizabeth]

Trying to figure out when episodes are set? The website has dates on the emails; the most recent got sent 16/01/2008. Also the mission report says #2008/043. The police file and the news report have the date blanked or left out.

So... how does that work with other information?


It leaves a huge great blank in the middle of it, is how.

The mission report is recent - but Gwen had to send a follow up email to get him to even write it (Thursday 10th January 2008). The Himalayas thing lasted one week, but we don't know how long ago.

It would be handy if Owen had been procrastinating for six months.

Christmas invasion + 18 months = Saxon's election day. We got that spoken out loud by a couple different characters in the episode. You cannot get from Christmas to January in 18 months. Accidents with a newly healed TARDIS could account for the difference, but... then either Jack has been away minus a month, or eleven months - since his missing poster said Feb.

Writers in interviews have said he's been away 3 months, I think, which just about fits the on screen evidence with the old website - end of Feb to beginning of June is about 3 months. So that's the gap between Jack getting picked up by the TARDIS and arriving back on Earth. No problem.

... so what happened to the rest of the year?


Simplest if the email dates don't mean anything.

Were there any time mentions in the episode? I was too *squee* for that kind of detail. Shall rewatch in a minute with my laptop out, in minute detail. :-D

Comments

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

There weren't any time mentions in the episode that I recall, no. The only evidence of specific time passing between Last of the Time Lords and this episode (other than it being obvious by the team's reactions that he'd been gone for a bit of time), was that it was daylight when Jack got dropped off, and night time when he actually showed up. Who knows what he was doing all that time?

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

That, and he changed his shirt somewhere in those hours.

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

I didn't notice that, huh. When they were all back in the Hub together the first time, did it sound like Jack hadn't been there since he'd left? He said something wondering about redecorating, but I couldn't tell if he was serious or not.

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

I think Saxon got to Earth before the Christmas Invasion. Because while the Master is good, coming up with a new identity and conning himself into the Defense Ministry had to take some time.

Christmas Invasion Christmas 2006.
Runaway Bride/Out of Time Christmas 2007.
End of Days/Charging the TARDIS February 2008.
Sound of Drums April/June 2008
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang April/June 2008

That's 14 months. If Saxon arrived in October/November it works out okay. The Doctor said about 18 months leeway, not exactly 18 months.

[beccaelizabeth]

But the reporter lady who got killed said Harold Saxon had existed for 18 months, since just after the downfall of Harriet Jones. That was the Christmas Invasion. Saxon didn't start out in the MoD, he started out launching Archangel. And it was Archangel that hid him from the Doctor, so he had to have done that pretty much as soon as he got to Earth or the Doctor would have noticed him. He came to prominence as Defence Minister when he shot down the Racnoss, that being in Runaway Bride. So that's the first 12 months, and then he got elected 6 months after that. June.

If you've got the years right - and I think you have, from prior canon evidence - the website gives us a whole other problem. It says January 2008. Meaning before the TARDIS took Jack. Hence the problem.

If there's no on screen dates to contradict it I'm saying the website emails are wrong and the episode is June 2008.

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

Leaving aside the thought that it ought to be a year ahead of us because Nine dropped Rose back a year late, and nowhere is it suggested that anything was done to fix that.......(my brain is hurting already), I fear Torchwood must run on its own internal time, that bears little relation to the calendar..!

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*