Advertised as a single, unified multi-media cross-platform story spread across videos, audios, escape rooms, video games, prose, comics, short stories, plays, webcasts, T-shirts, and action figures, this actually came together from three different sources follwing three diverse paths. One leads into a live one hour escape room game still operating in several cities in England (A Dalek Awakens) and another into a two-and-a-half hour immersive experience which ceased operating in 2022 (UNIT-centered Time Fracture). Neither of those two have much of any contribution at all to the main Time Lord Victorious story nor even more than very shaky crossover connections to it. What follows is my attempt to bring coherence out of what some have described as a confusing total mess, with parts of the story having been released out of order and irrelevant entries included.
Though the main focus of the story is the Tenth Doctor in the immediate aftermath of The Waters of Mars, the Eighth Doctor and the Ninth Doctor also play significant parts; in Eight’s timeline, these events fall just before the Last Great Time War, while in Nine’s timeline they fall between Series 1’s “Father’s Day” (or else Series 4 of Big Finish’s The Ninth Doctor Adventures) and Series 1’s “The Empty Child”.
This is not the full original chronology, which it could not in fact be since parts of that no longer exist, but it is a good account of the story that can be recreated now.
** means a short clip
+ means prose
© mean comic
@ means audio
No symbol means video
The Road to the Dark Times
This was a Blu-ray boxset released by BBV of stories in both Classic Who and New Who that tie directly into the Time Lord Victorious multi-platform event with an explanation by author James Goss of how each story connects, each of which (explanations, that is) is also available on the event website. For a description of each story, see the entry for it above.
“Planet of the Daleks”
(Season 10, Serial 4)
“Genesis of the Daleks” (Season 12, Serial 4)
“The Deadly Assassin” (Season 14, Serial 3)
“State of Decay” (Season 18, Serial 4)
* “Resurrection of the Daleks” (Season 21, Serial 4)
* “Revelation of the Daleks” (Season 22, Serial 6)
* “Remembrance of the Daleks” (Season 25, Serial 1)
“The Curse of Fenric” (Season 26, Serial 3)
The Runaway Bride (Christmas Special 2006)
The Waters of Mars (Autumn Special 2009)
(* These three are not part of the boxset as compiled by Goss, but make up the trilogy of the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, in the aftermath of which the Restoration Empire, with its Dalek Time Squad, of this storyline was founded.)
In addition, the following two mostly Thirteenth Doctor-centered stories from Titan Comics (a duology called A Tale of Two Time Lords), both of which include the Tenth Doctor, are not part of the TLV story but do lead directly, at least from the point-of-view of Thirteen, into the events of the Tenth Doctor-focused TLV story Defender of the Daleks. For Thirteen, the events take place during Series 11, after “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror”; for Ten, the events of the initial duology begin and end during the time he and Martha are trapped in 1969’s London in the Series 3 episode “Blink”.
© A Little Help From My Friends (TPB; 11 Oct 2020)
© Alternating Current (TPB; 11 May 2021)
The following select volumes from BBC Books’ Eighth Doctor Adventures range plus the one from Mad Norwegian Press’ Faction Paradox series, The Book of War deal with the War in Heaven and Faction Paradox, and provide background to “Canaries” and Wintertime Paradox below.
+ EDA #6 Alien Bodies
+ Faction Paradox: The Book of
War
+ EDA #23 Unnatural History
+ EDA #25 Interference: Shock
Tactic
+ EDA #26 Interference: The
Hour of the Geek
+ EDA #36 The Ancestor Cell
+ EDA #73 The Gallifrey
Chronicles
Time Lord Victorious (main storyline)
The TARDIS, using its telepathic connection to other versions of itself, brings together the Eighth and Ninth Doctors to help put the Tenth back in place after The Waters of Mars. The core part of this storyline lies in the two Penguin Books novellas, but the rest fill out the picture more fully, including how Eight and Nine got involved.
The audios, novellas, and short stories below are the most relevant and most accessible of all the various media that came under the TLV umbrella, with the storyline comprised of five separate but interwoven threads featuring the Eighth Doctor, the Ninth Doctor, the Tenth Doctor, the Dalek Restoration Empire (and its Time Squad), and Brian the Ood assassin. The time fracture of this storyline resulted from the Tenth Doctor’s changing of a fixed event in time—Adelaide Brooke’s death—which grew despite her corrective actions regarding her own personal timeline.
The short stories by Eaglemoss are nearly impossible to find since the company went bankrupt in 2022, but TARDIS Wiki has a decent summary for each. While not absolutely necessary, they are helpful to explain the Daleks here.
+ “What the TARDIS Thought of ‘Time Lord Victorious’” (15 Nov 2020)
In this short story published on the Doctor Who TV website for the 11th anniversary of The Waters of Mars and included on the TLV event website, the TARDIS takes advantage of takes him back to the early Dark Times, when the Kotturuh are beginning to stir and bring death to the universe.
+ “The Dawn of the Kotturuh” (25 Sep 2020)
This short story on the TLV event website shows the Kotturuh as they moved out from their home on Mordeela to begin spreading their “gift” of Death in the Dark Times, starting on the planet Birinji.
+ “The Guide to the Dark Times” (3 Sep 2020)
This short story in the Doctor Who Annual 2021 was posed as an article from the in-universe magazine The Dark Times Times, written and published by ‘Melody Malone’, pen name for River Song.
@ Lesser Evils (7 Oct 2020)
This Big Finish short trip audio, also narrated by Jon Culshaw, features the Tremas Master facing off against the Kotturuh when they arrive to judge the people of Alexis, to which he has been exiled. The events take place sometime between “The Ultimate Foe” (Season 23’s Serial 4) and “Survival” (Season 26’s Serial 4), demonstrating the Kotturuh’s presence in the time of the Tenth Doctor in the original timeline, before Ten interferred with past events in the Dark Times.
+ “The Restoration Empire” (20 Oct-2 Dec 2020)
This short story by Eaglemoss shows the beginnings of the Restoration Empire of the Daleks erected in the aftermath of the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War shown in the three serials listed above under ‘The Road to the Dark Times’, during the time of the Eighth Doctor and before the Last Great Time War. Good summary available on Doctor Who Wiki.
“The Last Message” (1 Sep 2020)
This short webcast on Youtube contained a warning to the universe “about The Doctor” from the lone surviving Drone of the Dalek Time Squad, which was destroyed by the Eighth Doctor in the Dark Times.
+ “The Last Message” (20 Oct 2020)
In this Eaglemoss short story, the Restoration Emperor on Skaro receives the Lone Dalek Drone’s warning “about The Doctor” (with no other info), leading to his sending the Dalek Time Squad back to the Dark Times, in a bootstrap paradox. Good summary available on Doctor Who Wiki.
Daleks! (12
Nov-10 Dec 2020)
1. “The Archive of Islos” (12 Nov 2020)
2. “The Sentinel of the Fifth Galaxy” (18 Nov
2020)|
3. “Planet of the Mechanoids” (26 Nov 2020)
4. “The Deadly Ally” (3 Dec 2020)
5. “Day of Reckoning” (10 Dec 2020)
This webcast miniseries, which takes place in the ‘Wilderness Era’ and was released on Youtube, shows the Restoration Empire coming up against a being of pure energy from outside N-Space (‘normal space’, aka “our” universe), whom they refer to as The Entity, encountering along the way the Archivians, the Sentinel of the Fifth Galaxy, and the Mechanoids, ending with the Entity, aka ‘Slave of the Hond’, warning them on its way back to its dimension of its masters, who in the original timeline died out in the Dark Times but exist in the present.
© Defender of the Daleks (2 Sep & 7 Oct 2020)
(First, read the previous comics stories of this trilogy—A Little Help From My Friends and Alternating Current—listed in the section above, ‘The Road to the Dark Times’; they’re not part of TLV but are the first two installments of the trilogy, A Tale of Two Time Lords.)
Also known as ‘Time Lord Victorious’, this two-issue story picks up right at the end of Alternating Current, with the Tenth Doctor opening the doors of the TARDIS to find a group of Daleks waiting for him, begging for his help against the Hond, an enemy previously extinct since the Dark Times but now recently back from nonexistence due to the time fracture created by the later version of Ten in The Waters of Mars. This is still Ten in the midst of the Series 3 story “Blink”, mind you. These Daleks know nothing of a Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords. He manages to outwit their inevitable betrayal once the main crisis is over, with the help of Thirteen; the Dalek Prime Strategist then aims for the Eighth Doctor. For Thirteen, her part takes place immediately after Alternating Current, the second part of the comics duology that takes place just after Series 11’s “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror”.
@ Echoes of Extinction, Part 1: 8th Doctor (16 Apr 2021)
In the first part of this Big Finish audio drama: on a tour of the 700 Wonders of the Universe, the Eight Doctor, voiced by Paul MacGann, accidentally arrives on a station orbiting the planet Orriv and meets a woman named Jasmine, last of her species, which was recently destroyed by a self-aware AI of psychic energy known as The Network, and her robot butler Edwards.
@ He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not (14 Apr 2020)
Resuming his tour of the 700 Wonders of the Universe in this Big Finish audio drama, the Eighth Doctor (voiced by Paul McGann) arrives at what he expects to be the water planet Atharna to see a statue that is one of the Wonders, but instead finds it a sparsely inhabited desert wasteland. There he meets Felicity and the assassin Brian the Ood, and while learning of their story meets Marshal Katherine Steele, Samson the bartender, Craddock the doctor, and, later, Sophie, Felicity’s lover. Brian the Ood falls through the Time Vortex into the Dark Times despite Eight’s attempt to save him. The story ends with Eight landing the TARDIS and opening its doors to find himself a prisoner of the Restoration Daleks.
@ The Enemy of My Enemy (11 Nov 2020)
This Big Finish audio drama finds the Eighth Doctor (voiced by Paul McGann), still in ‘his own’ time, forced by his Dalek captors to attend their negotiations with the Wraxians, whom Eight knows should not exist, their entire lot having died out in the Dark Times thousands of years ago. Their superweapon, the Devolver, is a pivotal plot point also connected to the BF short trip Master Thief listed below. At the end of this one, Eight links his TARDIS to the Dalek ship to travel back to the Dark Times.
@ Master Thief (7 Oct 2020)
In this Big Finish short trip audio narrated by Jon Culshaw, after retrieving the Devolver from the jungle planet Wrax, which is devoid of civilization, the Auton Master breaks into the Repository, the most secure vault of the most wealthy in the galaxy, in a caper which goes badly awry and ends with his regeneration.
© Monstrous Beauty (17 Sep, 15 Oct, 12 Nov 2020)
In this three-comic story by Panini Comics set in the early Dark Times and published in Doctor Who Magazine on the above dates and as a single trade paperback on 10 Jun 2025, the Ninth Doctor and Rose encounter the Great Vampires along with Shobogans of a pre-Time Lord Gallifrey led by a female Rassilon, with our heroes eventually freeing the vampire slaves from their Great Vampire masters as the Free Undead.
+ The Knight, the Fool, and the Dead (1 Oct 2020)
This novella published by Penguin Books features the Tenth Doctor (voiced by David Tennant) landing on the planet Andalia just after his entry into the Dark Times at the height of the Kotturuh Crisis in the wake of The Waters of Mars, where he witnesses the Kotturuh genocide the entire population save one, a woman named Estinee. The story includes a scientist named Fallomax as well as Brian the Ood, who becomes a companion of sorts to Ten. When Ten resolves to wipe out the Kotturuh, he is briefly halted at the end by Eight, with the Dalek Time Squad, and Nine and Rose, with the Free Undead, facing off against his mercenary Victris Fleet.
+ All Flesh is Grass; Chaps 1-3 (10 Dec 2020)
The first part of this Penguin Books novella features the Battle of Mordeela, home planet of the Kotturuh, in which Ten unleashes the weapon of the Kotturuh against them, then has to flee his outraged other selves.
@ The Minds of Magnox (3 Dec 2020)
In this BBC Audio story read by Jacob Dudman, the Tenth Doctor, on the run and accompanied by Brian the Ood, travels to the planet Magnox, then the greatest home of knowledge in the galaxy, to ask a vital question of the Minds of Magnox who rule it. Most of the Magnoxians are wiped out, however, the survivors reolocating to the planet Islos, where they establish the Archive. The Eleventh Doctor appears at the end, stopping by on his way to Trenzalore.
© Tales of the Dark Times (25 Sep, 10 & 22 Oct, 4 & 19 Nov 2020)
This miniseries of five digital comics by Comic Creator (which can be found on Youtube), focus on Brian the Ood and the Tenth Doctor, the Velosians and the Dalek Time Squad, those same Daleks and Huon particles, the Ninth Doctor and Ikalla (commander of the Free Undead), and lastly Eight and Nine searching together for the Time Lord Victorious.
+ “Mission to the Known” (2 Dec 2020)
Another story published by Eaglemoss, this features the Dalek Restoration Emperor, the Scientist, and the Executioner. Adequate summary available on TARDIS Wiki.
+ All Flesh is Grass; Chaps 4-15 (10 Dec 2020)
In the second part of the novella, the paths of the three Doctors eventually collide on the planet Entraxis, leading to a chaotic climax on the planet Birinji, first victim of the Koturruh, which leads Ten to finally abandon the title ‘Time Lord Victorious’.
@ Mutually Assured Destruction (9 Dec 2020)
In this Big Finish audio trilogy, the Eighth Doctor (voiced by Paul McGann) engineers the end of his Dalek Time Squad captors along with that of the Restoration Empire, with the help of Tiska and Groth, the last two surviving Tralassans, who have been held in cryogenics as ‘specimens’ for experimentation.
+ “Exit Strategy” (5 Dec 2020)
In this Eaglemoss short story, the Dalek Prime Strategist watches as his fellow Daleks are pulled apart and into the Time Vortex, before activating Koturruh crystals procured during their odyssey in the Dark Times to escape via a temporal shift in order to launch a war against Gallifrey, destined to become the Last Great Time War.
+ “Canaries” (15 Oct 2020)
This short story published on the TLV website and included at the end of the paperback and digital (but not hardback) editions of the anthology The Wintertime Paradox (the stories within which it prefaces despite being at the end), features Anke von Griel of the Verbier Museum of the Impossible, the Eighth and Eleventh Doctors, and the Curator at the end.
+ The Wintertime Paradox (15 Oct 2020)
Not so much a part of TLV as it is a spinoff from the connecting short story “Canaries”, this anthology of twelve connected Christmas and Doctor Who themed short stories, the ‘Paradox’ in the title refers to *Faction Paradox, which has not been seen in the Whoniverse since EDA #73 The Gallifrey Chronicles, two members of which, Sibling Same (later Max) and Sibling Different (later Mae), feature in the first, fifth, ninth, and twelfth stories, as well as in the TLV short story “Canaries”, which leads into the anthology’s first story.
(*Featured in the War in Heaven Arc of BBC Books’ Eight Doctor Adventures as well as its spinoff series and The Gallifrey Chronicles.
@ Echoes of Extinction, Part 2: 10th Doctor (16 Apr 2021)
In the second part of this Big Finish audio story, on his way back to London in 1969 from the Dark Times, the Tenth Doctor (voiced by David Tennant) comes across a spaceship travelling to the the planet Orriv, where he finds a salvage team composed of Jasmine, Cooke, and Joshi Frye headed for the planet to extract valuable scrap from the wreckage of the space station; for the salvage team, it has only been a week since the planet fell silent. Ten mourns, knowing that Eight is about to head into the Last Great Time War.
(For all intents and purposes, the story ends here, but the following BF audio story and its promo serve as a fitting coda to the storyline.)
** “Genetics of the Daleks” (10 Dec 2020)
A short webcast promo on Youtube for the following BF audio story.
@ Genetics of the Daleks (10 Dec 2020)
In this audio story by Big Finish, a lone Dalek floating in space (the lone survivor of the Dalek Time Saucer) is brought aboard Starship Future in 2985, a human colony ship with thousands of humans in cryogenic stasis, and is secretly revived by an insane scientist. Meanwhile, several of the colonists have been replaced by members of a criminal syndicate, including the chief of security. Into this mess lands the Fourth Doctor (voiced by Tom Baker). The story may’ve been produced as a lead-in to the escape room A Dalek Awakens, but it serves as a good coda to the actual TLV story.
{In the Tenth Doctor’s timeline—though not the show’s—the events of the 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor, follow here, if not immediately after The Waters of Mars.}
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