The Time Lords alert the Doctor to a time rift sweeping across the galaxy, and he uses the TARDIS intuition circuits to direct him to a time when he will be able to stop it. The TARDIS materialises on Alrakis, where the Doctor and Jo are separated during one of the timestorms which have been devastating the native civilisation, the Tonska. Jo is kidnapped by rebels who believe that the Time Lords are responsible for the disaster; she manages to convince them that she and the Doctor are here to help, but they reveal that they’re driving an armoured vehicle with a nuclear bomb into the palace of the tyrant Yed-Prior Zaniah. The Doctor makes his own way to Zaniah’s palace, where he learns that she intends to channel and control the Time distortion to let her people live out natural life spans within hours while extending her own; thus, she will rule the planet for generations. The Doctor is forced to help her researchers, but discovers that their experiments to contain the Time distortion and use it to manipulate living creatures’ morphic signatures have summoned the Cerunnos, a metamorphic creature from the darkest corners of Time. Jo helps the rebels to break into the palace as the Cerunnos breaks free, but she and the Doctor can do nothing but retreat as the rebels’ bomb goes off. The force of the explosion propels the Doctor and Jo thousands of years into the future, where they find that the grim civilisation they visited has fallen long ago. But the Cerunnos has survived the explosion and fled into the Time Vortex, following the trail of the TARDIS back to Earth...

Time-Placement: Jo is familiar with the Doctor's trances that make his skin ice-cold, something that happened in Planet of the Daleks. Since Jo leaves in The Green Death, it must take place between these two stories.

On an assignment for Metropolitan, Sarah interviews Scott Wojzek of Tonska Industries, but is put off by his patronising attitude and his easy familiarity with modern technology. Having skipped several years during her travels with the Doctor, Sarah has found it hard to come to terms with such things, and regards Wojzek’s technology as dehumanising. Wojzek allows her to try out his new virtual reality cubicle, but after she emerges she begins to suffer from hallucinations, and Wojzek inexplicably commits suicide. Back at home, Sarah begins to have trouble sleeping, and as K9 begins to break down, Sarah realises that she won’t be able to repair him without circuits which won’t be invented for centuries. She continues to suffer from hallucinations, and the late Wojzek finally appears to her, admitting that he is the Cerunnos. The Cerunnos is trapped on Earth and has been passing from host to host, trying to find a way to lure the Doctor into its clutches and avenge its expulsion from Alrakis. Sarah discovers that, while under the Cerunnos’ influence, she sabotaged K9 and triggered an automatic distress signal which will soon lure the Doctor to Earth. The Doctor seems to return, but Sarah realises that she is hallucinating again and that by agreeing to travel with the illusory Doctor again she will fall under the Cerunnos’ influence completely. She stands up to the Cerunnos, realising that she’s been stuck relying on her memories of the Doctor for too long and that the time has come to put him out of her life. The Cerunnos is banished from her mind, and Sarah orders K9 to stop transmitting his distress signal; this means K9 must shut down, but it’s time for Sarah to move on.

Time-Placement: Non-Doctor story. In Sarah’s timeline, this is the last story to feature K9, and takes place before Comeback.

Continuity Note: Sarah hangs onto the deactivated K9 for some time, but following the events of Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre, it’s unlikely that he’ll appear again.

The TARDIS materialises on the planet Tarron during the test of a new technological marvel, a holoprobe which enhances old holographs to create a more realistic image. However, the Doctor realises that the machine can’t possibly work in the manner its creators, the Azmec Corporation, claim it does. His suspicions are further aroused when he learns that two promising young students have recently been murdered in a manner reminiscent of old cult killings which took place in the early days of the colony. Furthermore, the Azmec Corporation has refused to let the Science Board use the holoprobe to enhance the near-legendary holograph in which the founder of the colony handed over control to the Azmec Corporation. With the help of investigative journalist Crakar Lund, the Doctor proves that the Azmec Corporation used prototype time-travel technology to bring the original cult leader from the past and kill the students as a culling exercise; the holograph of the colony founder is a fake generated over an old distress signal transmitted from Earth, and the people of Tarron were close to developing the technology to prove this. The furious people of Tarron force the Azmecs from their planet, taking charge of their own affairs, and requesting that the Doctor and Dodo dispose of the historical artefacts which symbolised the Azmec rule, including the faked hologlyph and an alien head-dress which retains the psychic image of a screaming woman. The Doctor reluctantly takes the artefacts with him, but as he and Dodo leave, they realise that Tarron’s civilisation is reeling from these revelations, and wonder whether their interference was indeed for the best.

Time-Placement: The 1st Doctor and Dodo are alone, placing it between The Savages and The War Machines.

The Doctor takes Nyssa to Trentillys Castle to visit David Gosthorpe, an old acquaintance, only to find that David is dead and that the castle is now in the public domain and in a state of disrepair. While exploring the grounds, the Doctor and Nyssa see David’s sister, Ellen Carter, trying to break into a secret hiding place in a grotto outside the castle. She blames the Doctor for her circumstances; after the Doctor advised David to chart his own destiny rather than let his family dictate his place in life, David squandered his family fortune searching for lost historical relics. Ellen intends to reclaim her lost family fortune by selling the one relic David actually found, the legendary headpiece worn by Helen of Troy, which disappeared from Berlin in 1945. The Doctor, however, recognises the headdress as one of the relics he once disposed of from the planet Tarron; somehow it survived its journey through the Time Vortex and ended up on Earth. It is in fact an alien artefact which psychically enhances the wearer’s appearance, and when Ellen dons it to mock the Doctor, the headdress malfunctions and Ellen is killed. The Doctor and Nyssa drop the headdress in the pond and try to depart quietly, but the body has been discovered, and when they slip past the security guard on the gate the Doctor accidentally sets the guard questioning a bystander who knows nothing about Ellen’s death.

Time-Placement: The 5th Doctor and Nyssa are alone, placing it between Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity.

The starship Hope contains the legacy of the extinct human race, including the DNA coding with which the ship’s android guardians intend to recreate humanity. To this end they are following a distress signal which appears to carry the co-ordinates for the lost planet Earth; however, Hope is under attack by the ferocious Other, a vicious race of mutants who are attempting to seize the stored DNA samples. During a nearly-successful attack, one of Hope’s storage modules is destroyed and three of the six guardians are killed; following this incident, the survivors decide to meet any further incursions with deadly force. Unfortunately, the TARDIS then materialises on board, as the Doctor has picked up the same distress call and recognised it as a signal from his own TARDIS, presumably a distress call he will send out in the future. The guardians attack, and when Jamie and Zoë defend themselves they destroy two of the three surviving guardians. The ship’s automatic self-destruct countdown is triggered, and although the Doctor stops it, this has the side-effect of shutting down the defence grid, allowing the Other on board. Unaware of the danger, the Doctor studies the body of an Other killed during the previous attack and discovers that the Other are in fact the mutated descendents of the human race. The last Guardian sets the ship to self-destruct to prevent the Other from sullying humanity’s name by using the DNA samples to recreate humanity in their own image. The Doctor and his companions flee, taking one of the ship’s treasures to safety -- the last surviving relic of the human race, a work of art known as the Face of Humanity.

Time-Placement: Between The Wheel in Space and The War Games.

The Doctor and Mel are collecting rare minerals from an asteroid in deep space when they are struck by a poorly-steered spacecraft. Intending to complain to the pilot, the Doctor follows him to a space platform, but notes to his surprise that a number of ships belonging to criminals and representatives of warlike species have already docked. Curious, the Doctor materialises aboard the station and finds a number of aliens there, including an Eyespeer, two Chelonian criminals named Varzlad and Jerlot, representatives from New Alexandria, and the notorious criminal Mrs Monodine. The Doctor sends Mel to investigate further, but she is kidnapped by Monodine’s drunken pilot, Willchook; however, Willchook is forced to release her when he discovers that some energy field has pinned his ship to the platform, preventing him from escaping. Meanwhile, the Doctor learns that he’s gatecrashed an auction, and that the energy-based being Fegovy has offered for sale the priceless “Face of Humanity.” The Chelonians win the bidding war, but Monodine pulls out a hidden weapon and kills them, determined to seize the prize herself. Fegovy retreats, and most of the bidders disappear, revealed to be holograms generated by Fegovy to drive up the price. Furious, Monodine forces the Doctor to break into Fegovy’s quarters, which they find filled with priceless treasures -- and the bodies of notorious criminals in suspended animation. The auction was a sham; Fegovy is an artificial life form programmed to acquire wealth for the Syndicate, whether that be in the form of priceless treasures or criminals who can be turned in for the bounty. However, the Syndicate collapsed centuries ago, and Fegovy is carrying out its programme although fully aware that it’s pointless. Fegovy places Monodine in suspended animation, but the Doctor strikes a deal, scribbling something on a piece of paper and offering to trade with Fegovy; what would he give for the co-ordinates of Gallifrey? The greedy Fegovy releases the others who attended the auction, and the Doctor hands over the scrap of paper -- but Fegovy learns too late that the Doctor was bluffing. He only agreed to trade the scrap of paper, on which he has written a childish insult. The natives of New Alexandria, shaken by their close shave, decide to accept the Doctor’s advice; their world is noted for being a storehouse of information, and they decide to organise it into a proper library open to the public.

Time-Placement: Between Business Unusual and Dragonfire.

The Doctor visits the Library of New Alexandria to check out a restricted text about the massacre of the Deltheron species during the Drakoid invasion. However, the hostile Andrea Talwinning, who prefers to be known simply as the Librarian, refuses to let him do so, recognising him for who he is and understanding that he’s trying to warp her perceptions in order to get her to release the book. The Doctor leaves, and the Librarian, rudely rejecting her assistant Walter’s advances, questions Benny about what it’s like to travel with the most complex space-time event in the Universe. Benny is surprised when the Librarian then speaks with Walter about the tryst they’ve planned for this evening. Years ago the Librarian’s young daughter Gwen was killed by hostile plant life and her husband Fred left her shortly afterwards; however, a temporary teacher who, curiously, resembled the Doctor in many ways, taught her Tibetan mind control techniques which have enabled her to retain her optimism and compassion for other people. Benny is somewhat taken aback when the Librarian, who prefers to be known as Andrea, introduces Benny to her husband Fred, who nearly left her after their daughter’s death but reconsidered after hitching a lift with a man who talked him out of it -- a man driving a bright blue lorry with a flashing light on top. The Doctor returns and greets his old friend Andrea, and her beautiful daughter Gwen, whom he saved from hostile plants years ago and who has now become a noted doctor with an interest in nanotechnology. Though grateful for what he’s done, Andrea realises that her life is not internally consistent and that the Doctor has manipulated her history for his own reasons; thus, she still refuses to lend out the book. The Doctor thus travels back in time, to a lecture which Andrea once attended while undergoing memory augmentation. Rather than a lecture by Professor Candy about how dangerous the Doctor can be, Andrea thus listens to a guest lecturer who advises the group on the importance of lending out library books to their friends. Soon afterwards, the Doctor returns to the Library of New Alexandria the book which Andrea allowed him to check out, a restricted text about the Deltherons’ successful repulsion of the Drakoid invasion.

Time-Placement: The 7th Doctor wears his question-marked pull-over and travels with Benny, so the story must be set between Love and War and Deceit.

The TARDIS materialises on a Lorq vaultship, the home of a neutral species which keeps items and people in temporal stasis for as long as the owner wishes them to be stored. Disaster strikes when some of the passengers and crew contract the virulent, contagious Anlerrian rash. The Doctor discovers that the plague was caused by the drug Aesculac, a nanotechnological virus created at the Gwendoline Talwinning Memorial Institute, which tailors specific cures for whatever disease the patient is suffering; one batch used recently to cure a minor illness has malfunctioned, generating a worse disease instead of a cure. The Doctor fixes the problem, but the ship’s purser, Xo’ril, then takes his own son Ts’ril hostage and orders the Doctor to use Aesculac to manufacture another type of bacteria. The Doctor realises that Xo’ril has been possessed by a Crialan, an intelligent form of bacteria which was thought wiped out by the Time Lords long ago. The last two surviving Crialans sealed themselves in temporal stasis aboard the vaultship, and once the opportunity arose they infected its purser and have moved from purser to purser ever since, seeking an opportunity to restart their species by infecting others. The use of Aesculac to manufacture more of their kind enables the Crialans to take over the ship, but the Doctor remains immune, cures Ts’ril and escapes back to the TARDIS. With Ts’ril and K9’s help, the Doctor links the TARDIS to the vaultship’s stasis generators, and as the Crialans refuse to abandon their plans for Universal domination, he accelerates time backwards and forwards over the entire ship, confusing the bacteria long enough for their hosts’ immune systems to respond and wipe out the invaders. The Doctor leaves with Ts’ril as his new companion.

Time-Placement: The 4th Doctor and K-9 are alone, placing it between The Invasion of Time and The Ribos Operation.

The TARDIS is forced off course and materialises on the planet Heracletus, and the Doctor theorises that the Time Lords need him to fix something for them yet again. However, when he and Turlough step out of the TARDIS they find themselves in separate timelines, cut off from the TARDIS. The Doctor finds himself in a technologically advanced culture where scientist Enryk Ullius, with the help of the late alien Ambassador Ts’ril, has created the Spline, a chronon stream with which he can plunder resources from the future and save his dying planet. Turlough, however, is in a world where Ullius is the High Priest of a cult which worships the Spline -- and an alternate version of the Doctor is also present, this version an arrogant Time Lord agent called the Savant. Turlough discovers that Ullius’ cult has been discarding advanced weapons, unaware of their significance, and he leads a group of rebels led by Festle Caloon into Ullius’ temple; however, they are betrayed by a double-agent and captured. Turlough tricks Ullius into firing one of the weapons into the Spline, triggering an energy backlash. Meanwhile, the Doctor also meets Caloon -- but his version is a scientist working for Ullius, and when he learns that the Doctor is also an alien he lets him examine the Spline. Ullius is furious when he finds the Doctor tampering with his work, even more so when the Doctor reveals that the Time Lords have already placed Heracletus in a time loop to prevent Ullius’ work from damaging history. Determined to break through the loop, Ullius boosts power to the Spline, triggering an energy backlash. The Doctor’s and Turlough’s timelines thus overlap, and the arrogant Savant’s attempts to put things right cause the timelines to begin collapsing into each other. The Doctor realises that the time loop was flawed; each time Heracletus reached the end of its four-year cycle and began again, its history was slightly different. He, Turlough and the TARDIS have been caught in the time loop, and the Spline is an alternate version of the TARDIS itself. The Doctor is able to home in on the actual TARDIS’ location and transport himself and Turlough to safety, but in this version of reality, Heracletus is a desert wasteland where all life was destroyed by the Heracletes’ failed time-travel experiments. The Doctor and Turlough depart, knowing that the time loop will soon collapse into a time rift -- which the Doctor suspects he’s already dealt with...

Time-Placement: The 5th Doctor and Turlough are alone, placing it between Resurrection of the Daleks and Planet of Fire.

Continuity Note: The Savant is the first 'Dark Doctor', a version of the Doctor that's evil, or at least not interested in fighting evil. Others like him are introduced in The Trial of a Time Lord, The Ancestor Cell and, technically, The Two Doctors. An alternate Doctor also appears briefly in The Quantum Archangel.