UPTO DATE TIMELINE: HERE
At least for now, I believe I have perfected my timeline. The valuable piece of information that I needed, that I felt it just couldn't be finished without was supplied in last night's ep Lois Battles Jamie: Reese's birthday. I still cannot pinpoint it to an exact month, but I did deduce it had to be sometime in summer, and that piece helped me to finish it.
I'll still be adding to it until the end of season six, but any revisions you can think of should be posted here and I can update it.
Improvements and Notices from the last version I posted in the old forums:
--each boy now has an age next to thier birthday. This is found by assuming (or inferring) an age during at least one season, and then adding or subtracting a year for each of the other seasons. Lois and Hal don't have ages because it's irrelevant, but if anyone does know them, I can add them. Also, I have season one now beginning in December, 1999 instead of January, 2000 in order to show Malcolm's birthday, which is in December.
--it is assumed that episodes that aired in the order that they take place, however not necessarily at the time they take place. I'll use the three most current ep's: Hal's Christmas Gift, Hal Sleepwalks, and Lois Battles Jamie as an example. They must be placed in that order on the timeline, but from an earlier ep, I deduced Hal and Lois' anniversary is in April, thus Hal Sleepwalks takes place in April. Lois Battles Jamie must, then, take place later than Hal Sleepwalks. Because the boys are still wearing general cool-weather clothing, I deduced the ep must take place in April as well, since by May that type of clothing would no longer be necessary.
--since no location is explicity told to us (we generally assume anywhere from Idaho to California) I assume a general American climate, which includes a warm summer and cool winter. The timeline is also based on the American school system, with grades 1-12, Dewey in first grade in the first season; Malcolm in 6th grade, Reese in 7th, and Francis at the age of 16, or a sophomore, at the military academy.
--not everything is explicitly told to us. In these situations, I either use other episodes to infer the missing details (for a recurring event, such as an anniversary, or to help pinpoint a time zone) or look to details in the episode in question, including clothing, weather, school (or not), time of day, etc.
--it is probable that the writers were not even thinking this deeply when they wrote the ep's, and I do realize that. For that reason, not everything makes perfect sense. There are some episodes where Malcolm has to be taking summer school, and even then it is a stretch for it to work properly. For some reason, May always seems to be an especially busy month. For those months with more than two episodes, I used a calendar to verify it was possible to fit the entire plot in that month. For example, if we see the episode takes place over the course of three weeks, then no other ep's can occur during that three-week period.
--the timeline is color-coded by season and is in the Excel format, inside of the zipped file (because I'm not allowed to upload xls files.) If you don't have Excel or the necessary unzipping program, it sucks for you. Find an Excel viewer and unzipping program, or download OpenOffice.org suite and WinZip and open it. From now until the end of season six, I will revise it weekly using clues from the new episodes to help complete it, but as I said, please place any suggestions (or questions or comments) that you may have in this thread.
Enjoy!
Attached are older versions.
At least for now, I believe I have perfected my timeline. The valuable piece of information that I needed, that I felt it just couldn't be finished without was supplied in last night's ep Lois Battles Jamie: Reese's birthday. I still cannot pinpoint it to an exact month, but I did deduce it had to be sometime in summer, and that piece helped me to finish it.
I'll still be adding to it until the end of season six, but any revisions you can think of should be posted here and I can update it.
Improvements and Notices from the last version I posted in the old forums:
--each boy now has an age next to thier birthday. This is found by assuming (or inferring) an age during at least one season, and then adding or subtracting a year for each of the other seasons. Lois and Hal don't have ages because it's irrelevant, but if anyone does know them, I can add them. Also, I have season one now beginning in December, 1999 instead of January, 2000 in order to show Malcolm's birthday, which is in December.
--it is assumed that episodes that aired in the order that they take place, however not necessarily at the time they take place. I'll use the three most current ep's: Hal's Christmas Gift, Hal Sleepwalks, and Lois Battles Jamie as an example. They must be placed in that order on the timeline, but from an earlier ep, I deduced Hal and Lois' anniversary is in April, thus Hal Sleepwalks takes place in April. Lois Battles Jamie must, then, take place later than Hal Sleepwalks. Because the boys are still wearing general cool-weather clothing, I deduced the ep must take place in April as well, since by May that type of clothing would no longer be necessary.
--since no location is explicity told to us (we generally assume anywhere from Idaho to California) I assume a general American climate, which includes a warm summer and cool winter. The timeline is also based on the American school system, with grades 1-12, Dewey in first grade in the first season; Malcolm in 6th grade, Reese in 7th, and Francis at the age of 16, or a sophomore, at the military academy.
--not everything is explicitly told to us. In these situations, I either use other episodes to infer the missing details (for a recurring event, such as an anniversary, or to help pinpoint a time zone) or look to details in the episode in question, including clothing, weather, school (or not), time of day, etc.
--it is probable that the writers were not even thinking this deeply when they wrote the ep's, and I do realize that. For that reason, not everything makes perfect sense. There are some episodes where Malcolm has to be taking summer school, and even then it is a stretch for it to work properly. For some reason, May always seems to be an especially busy month. For those months with more than two episodes, I used a calendar to verify it was possible to fit the entire plot in that month. For example, if we see the episode takes place over the course of three weeks, then no other ep's can occur during that three-week period.
--the timeline is color-coded by season and is in the Excel format, inside of the zipped file (because I'm not allowed to upload xls files.) If you don't have Excel or the necessary unzipping program, it sucks for you. Find an Excel viewer and unzipping program, or download OpenOffice.org suite and WinZip and open it. From now until the end of season six, I will revise it weekly using clues from the new episodes to help complete it, but as I said, please place any suggestions (or questions or comments) that you may have in this thread.
Enjoy!
Attached are older versions.
Last edited by a moderator:
