Last Updated: August 5, 2005

2005 edition • Version 4.5
Compiled by David Hancock and Shaun Lyon for Outpost Gallifrey

Additional Research by Mick Gair, Bill Merlock, Simon Simmons, James Gent and Steve Manfred

Original Concept, Website Integration and Additional Research by Shaun Lyon

Additional Acknowledgements:
Our thanks are given to the following individuals for additional research, corrections and comments in preparation for both the current version and earlier editions of the Guide: John Ainsworth, John Anderson, David Ball, Anthony Bernacchi, Jonathan Blum, Dominique Boies, Paul Bolchover, Simon Bucher-Jones, Frank A. Colosimo, Jesse Conrad, David Conway, Cameron Dixon, Gordon Duffy, Jon Elledge, Andrew Foxley, Robert Franks, Mick Gair, Ian Gardner, Jon Paul Gullo, Sarah Hadley, James Hadwen, Craig Hinton, David J. Howe, Imran Inayat, Ed Jefferson, Andrew Kearley, Corey Klemow, Cameron Mason, Greg McElhatton, David McIntee, Ian McIntire, Bill Merlock, Mark Michalowski, Greg Miller, Lance Parkin, Mark Phippen, Ian Potter, Henry Potts, Jon Preddle, John Putland, Josiah Rowe, Gary Russell, Simon Simmons, Shannon Patrick Sullivan, Brian Swift, Clive Walker, Michael Weidrich, Alex Wilcock, Christopher Woodford, and the denizens of the Doctor Who Continuity Cops mailing list.

The Canon Keeper's Guide to Doctor Who is the most comprehensive guide to Doctor Who "expanded universe" continuity on the Internet, and exclusively published on Outpost Gallifrey. It is presented here available in four "flavors" depending on your preference for continuity information. Three of them are very specific, without detailed information:

• TV Series Only, with the BBC television series, film and "K-9 and Company"
• TV Series and Audio, all of the above plus Big Finish audios, BBC & BBCi radio dramas, and specials
• TV Series, Audio & Novels, all of the above plus BBC & Virgin novels, Telos and Target books

Finally, there is the Expanded Universe section, the main bulk of the Canon Keeper's Guide, which has over thirty different pages of material organized by era of the Doctor's life and including detailed and comprehensive reference notes for the placement of each event. Each of these pages will feature a variant of the following timeline graphic which visually notes where and when the user is referring:

The following sections detail every facet of the Guide, from an introduction to canon and continuity, to explanations of color coding, formatting and conventions used in these pages.

About the miscellaneous page of the Expanded Universe section: this is the only page that is actually not as updated as it should be; it's mostly carried over from the previous version. Work will commence on updating that page in the near future.

What is "canon"? It's what's generally debated by everyone in fandom... what's accepted as "official" varies depending on who you talk to. Canon can be the subject of much scorn by those who deliberate it... but most will agree that it's up to the person who's doing the considering as to what they do and do not consider to be canon. For some, it's the television series and the '96 movie. For others, it includes the TV series, the Virgin & BBC novels and the Big Finish audios. And for those of us with the stamina to put everything in the world of Doctor Who into one giant collection... it's all of that, the Doctor Who Magazine strips, TV Action, Countdown, the Annuals, the Charity Anthologies, the BBV spinoffs, the Bernice Summerfield stories, and so much more. And... all of it in order.

The Canon Keepers' Guide to Doctor Who has metamorphosed over the years from a small table of stories generally considered canonical, to a multi-faceted research tool that includes many of these approaches simultaneously, organized into a patterned grid in order of the Doctor's point of view. As a timeline of broadcast in the series, with events that have since been added to the overall continuity, this list can generally be considered a timeline from the perspective of the Doctor, and as such, some items at the end do not fit into the Doctor's continuity (seeing as they take place out of his range of knowledge.) As such, the Canon Keepers' Guide has become one of the most definitive collections of Doctor Who continuity on the Internet, and we hope you enjoy it.

Each entry in the tables of the Guide may be clickable! Clicking the color-coded box for each entry (in addition to the box serving as a story reference notation) takes you to the corresponding entry in the detailed Story Notes. Likewise, clicking the title of the story itself may take you to the appropriate page in the Reference Guides (Doctor guides, books, audios); if there is no page at this point, there is no link.

The Guide is always a work in progress. Some of the most tricky approaches to canon -- solo Doctor stories without adequate timeframes such as the always-accompanied Fifth Doctor, the "Season 6B" theory with the Second Doctor, the three-year Eighth Doctor & Sam gap, the conundrum surrounding the Sixth Doctor and the events of his trial, the Master's many regenerations, and of course that almost-irrational death of Ace -- can be argued from a multitude of standpoints. Until recently, we've always decided that some of the actual adventures were apocryphal, most notably the early comics... but for our purposes, we've attempted to work as much into the overall existing continuity framework as possible. This includes adding such characters as John & Gillian; the Izzy, Fey and Kroton era; the Fourth Doctor and Sharon; and the Fifth Doctor, Gus and Jason. But that's only the start!

These are our interpretations; we are always ready and willing to accept new viewpoints. Your suggestions are always welcome; email us if you have additions, corrections and more!

Acknowledgement is made to the following places for some reference info & material:

• Jon Preddle's extraordinary Timelink continuity manual
• The Doctor Who Continuity Cops email list at Yahoo! Groups
• The Unofficial Historical Timeline (here at the Outpost)
• James Hadwen's Stripping Down and Out of the Who
• Andrew Kearley's Doctor Who: The Complete Adventures
• Dominique Boies' always-wonderful Doctor Who Reference Guide

Items included in the Canon Keepers' Guide are noted as follows, with a color icon for easy identification of the source material. The following four symbols are used on each page:

  Full Adventure (square), the actual happening of the story/event in question.
  Flashback Sequence (diamond), noting a flashback to a particular event which takes place at this moment.
  Reference Point (dot), indicating a reference to something that has occurred.

Note that these will be color coded depending on what type of material is being referred to.

Additionally, in this version of the Canon Keeper's Guide, we are using Continuity Icons which may be located in the notes box of each story in the Expanded Universe sections (though only sometimes). The continuity icons serve as linking guides as follows:

  First in a confirmed run of consecutive adventures
  Follows on directly from the previous adventure (no interim adventures)
  Takes place during / concurrently with prior story
  Uncertain placement (gap confirmed, exact order unclear)
  Confirmed and substantiated, albeit uncomfortable, placement (e.g. no available gap)
  Uncertain/Speculative placement (minimal evidence)

In the list-only versions of the guide (not the Expanded Universe pages), there are Roll-Over Icons (seen below). To avoid printing vast quantities of text on a page with a limited amount of horizontal space, these are provided in case you'd like to see the information present; merely roll your mouse cursor over each icon and a small moveable box will appear revealing the Companions for the story (the "C" box) and the Location at which the story in question took place (the "L" box).

  Companions Roll-Over
  Location Roll-Over

In the Expanded Universe section, most stories will have a descriptive box under their listing, with various pieces of information and notations on placement and dating. The following is a guide to each of the possible fields; not all of these will appear in each listing:

There are two "special circumstances" for the notes on each story, and they are as follows:

In some (but not all) Location listings, there are specific Location Colors denoting when a story might take place... usually Earth dates that have some subjective placement (like the old UNIT Dating problem), or other chronology issues. While many of these are marked, this is an ongoing process and is by no means final:

Finally, the following is a table of each specific story icon color code used in the guide, noted by the color of the icon on the shaded on each color icon as noted:

BLUE

• All of the stories from the 26 years of Dr. Who broadcast by the BBC, starring William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy as the first through seventh Doctors
• The 1996 BBC/Fox/Universal Doctor Who TV movie starring Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor
• The new Doctor Who series being produced by BBC Television starring Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant
• The untelevised story "Shada" which was only partially completed, but is still considered as part of continuity
• The televised adventure "K-9 and Company" produced by the BBC & John Nathan-Turner, starring Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith and John Leeson as K-9; pilot episode entitled "A Girl's Best Friend"

GREEN

• The one-off specials "Dimensions in Time" and "The Curse of Fatal Death", both produced for charity, featuring many of the series' stars and/or top talent in film and television
• The BBCi online webcast stories Death Comes to Time, starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred; Real Time, starring Colin Baker and Maggie Stables; and Shada, starring Paul McGann, Lalla Ward and John Leeson
• The BBCi animated serial "The Scream of the Shalka" starring Richard E. Grant, Sophie Okonedo and Derek Jacobi

TAN

• The Big Finish Productions' Audio Adventures of Doctor Who, authorized and licensed by the BBC, featuring the Fifth-Seventh Doctors and companions, including original companions Professor Evelyn Smythe, Charlotte "Charley" Pollard, Pharaoh Erimem ush Imteperem (aka Erimem), and Hex
• The Big Finish Productions' Dalek Empire series, authorized by the BBC and the estate of Terry Nation
• The Big Finish Productions' Sarah Jane Smith series
• Note: the Bernice Summerfield series (both Big Finish and Virgin) are in the Cyan section

GREY

• "The Pescatons", an adventure produced for LP by Argo Records, starring Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen; it was later novelized as part of the Target series
• The BBC Radio dramas "Slipback" (with Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant), "The Paradise of Death" (Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney) and "The Ghosts of N-Space" (with Pertwee, Sladen and Courtney)
• The audio serial Exploration Earth: The Time Machine starring Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen

RED

• The New Adventures of Doctor Who novel series (1991-1997) featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace, plus original companions Bernice "Benny" Summerfield, Roslyn Forrester and Christopher Rodonante Cwej (note that this includes Doctor novels but not the independent Bernice Summerfield novels following "The Dying Days")
• The Missing Adventures of Doctor Who series (1993-1997) featuring Doctors 1-6 and companions, including original sixth Doctor companion Grant Markham
• The Virgin Eighth Doctor book "The Dying Days" with Benny Summerfield and the Brigadier, which takes place following the start of the BBC Eighth Doctor series
• Note: the Bernice Summerfield series (both Big Finish and Virgin) are in the Cyan section

VIOLET

• BBC Books' range of Eighth Doctor Adventures (1997-2005) featuring the Eighth Doctor and original companions Samantha (Sam) Jones, Fitz Kreiner, Compassion, Anji Kapoor, and Beatrix "Trix" MacMillan
• BBC Books' range of Past Doctor Adventures featuring Doctors 1-7, plus special adventures such as 'The Infinity Doctors' and 'The Face of the Enemy', and also featuring Frobisher, companion of the Sixth Doctor created by Doctor Who magazine and used in 'Mission: Impractical'

BROWN

• The Doctor Who Novellas published 2002-2004, featuring the Doctors in new adventures on solo adventures and with their companions, including new companion Cat

YELLOW

• The three "missing episodes" from the aborted original 23rd season of the series, "The Nightmare Fair," "The Ultimate Evil" and "Mission to Magnus"; these missing stories were novelized in the Target range and are considered by many to be official installments of the series
• The story "The Masters of Luxor," issued as a script book; this canceled episode is considered by many to be an official "side step" adventure for the First Doctor
• The two "Companions of Doctor Who" books also issued as part of the Target novelization series, "Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma" and "Harry Sullivan's War". (A third book, the novelization of "K-9 and Company," is featured in the televised Who section)
• The "Make Your Own Adventures" series of books published in the 1980's licensed from the BBC.
• Note: not all of the "Make Your Own Adventure" books are listed due to availability; when we locate them all we will incorporate them.

PINK

• Short stories in the official Doctor Who anthology books from Virgin and BBC Books, including Decalog (D1), Decalog 2: Lost Property (D2), Decalog 3: Consequences (D3), Short Trips (ST), More Short Trips (MST) and Short Trips & Side Steps (STSS), as well as the audio version of Short Trips
• Short stories read aloud on audio releases such as Out of the Darkness (OD) and Earth and Beyond (EB)

ORANGE

• The Radio Times Eighth Doctor comic strip. While most of the comics, whether in DWM, Radio Times or elsewhere, are considered apocryphal, many fans consider these items to be an established part of the Eighth Doctor continuity (see notes at bottom). These include the companions Stacy Townsend and Ssard They are readily available at the DW Cuttings Archive (see links page)
• The comic strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine (DWM, formerly known as Doctor Who Monthly and/or Doctor Who Weekly), the Doctor Who Specials, the Yearbooks, and other comic strips published by Marvel and/or Panini (the current DWM license-holders), including the Incredible Hulk Presents limited run; includes the companion characters Sharon, Gus, Jason, Izzy, Fey and Kroton
• Short fiction printed in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine such as the "Brief Encounters" or "Prelude" series
• The many years of Doctor Who comics, periodicals and annuals: TV Action, TV Comic, Countdown, Countdown Annuals, Holiday Specials, The Amazing World of Doctor Who and other comic publications.

MAUVE

• Various Doctor Who themed Stage Plays, including Seven Keys to Doomsday and The Ultimate Adventure
• Direct to video productions including the UNIT video Wartime
• Apocryphal stories including the "Jim'll Fix It" sketch A Fix With Sontarans and various unofficial stage plays (listed only in the "Additional" section of the Expanded Universe guide)

CYAN

• The Virgin New Adventures series starring Bernice Summerfield and Jason Kane, which continue on the adventures of the original Seventh Doctor companion after her departure from the TARDIS, starting with "Oh No It Isn't"
• The Big Finish Productions Bernice Summerfield Novels and Audios, which continue the adventures of the character
• BBV Productions line of audios and videos, most especially including the "Audio Adventures in Time and Space" tales with the Professor and Ace, the P.R.o.B.e. video series, the Auton video series, and others.
• Magic Bullet Productions line of Kaldor City audios, which feature events and situations expanding from the Doctor Who story "The Robots of Death"
• Note that this does NOT include the first "season" of Benny Summerfield audio stories, which is considered to be apocryphal (as many are rewrites of Doctor Who or Benny novels themselves, heavily altering continuity)

BLACK

• Charity Anthologies which are not official productions of, or sanctioned by, the BBC, but are nevertheless widespread enough (and participated in by many Doctor Who professionals), with some official links and continuity pieces that link to official BBC-sanctioned products (books or audios), that they can be considered part of the overall canon. This includes Perfect Timing (edited by Mark Phippen & Helen Fayle), Perfect Timing II (edited by Helen Fayle & Julian Eales), Tales of the Solar System (edited by Paul Griggs) and Missing Pieces (edited by Mark Phippen & Shaun Lyon)
• Note: additional anthologies will be analyzed for the Guide as soon as we are able, including The Cat Who Walked Through Time 1 & 2 (edited by Tom & Alryssa Kelly), Walking In Eternity (edited by Julian Eales) and Lifedeath (edited by Kereth Cowe-Spigal and Patrick Neighly)