For a long time, I used to just assume that Earth of the early 21st century was exactly the same in Who canon as it is in real life, aside from the invasions. However, I'm re-watching The Enemy of the World which is set just two years from now, in 2018. It's made me realize that if we want to build a picture of modern day Earth in Doctor Who using all the canon, even from as far back as then, we get quite a different picture.

Firstly, the existence of aliens is common knowledge. There was the Mondas incident in the 80's, as well as the Sycorax, the Racnoss star, Battle of Canary Wharf and the Dalek invasion of 2009. I might be missing some examples, but you get the general idea.

Secondly, space travel seems totally routine in the early 21st century. There is the Wheel in Space, sent up in circa 2000 (The Wheel in Space). It's possible to travel from Australia to Europe in about two hours via rocket. (The Enemy of the World)

Thirdly, the world is divided into zones, controlled by zone controllers (The Enemy of the World). There is an Australasian zone, a central European zone and probably others. Climate change is by far worse, but there is a man named Ramon Salamander who has invented the Sun Store, which can alleviate the problems.

It may or may not be known that we share the planet with a race known as the Zygons.

There is a mysterious organization called UNIT which is known about, but it's exact nature is unconfirmed.

Can anybody think of any other differences between our world today and the modern world as seen in the show?

The situation with Salamander and other sinilar ones are probably just going to count for an alternate timeline now, since the show's history is never consistent. I can't imagine them trying to recreate an Earth with hoverboats and the like though for the sake of one story.

I think the 2005-2009 invasions have actually been aborted and no longer a part of most people's memories (which is good because they got a bit carried away with those constant invasions).

Didn't all previous events get erased in the big bang episode when the universe got rebooted?

That was certainly the Moffat reset to get rid of the idea that everyone in the Doctor Who universe knows all about aliens, and their attempted invasions of Earth, something that was promoted by RTD both in Doctor Who and Torchwood.
I think we're supposed to assume now that it's back as it was in the 20th century series, where the general public have no idea that alien races actually exist and have been here.

Torchwood always amused me when the members of this top secret, beyond the government, above the law organisation careered about Cardiff and environs in souped up Range Rovers emblazoned with the name.

I guess the main differences have already been given: alien threats and invasions are common knowledge and the authorities have organisations (UNIT, Torchwood), contingency plans (the Doctor to become world president) and doomsday devices (Osterhagen keys) in place for Earth's protection.

Oh, and humans can survive being dead with their heart stopped for much longer than a few minutes and be revived successfully without any ill effects.

An undersea base in 2084, as seen in Warriors of the Deep and 35 years late (2119) in Under the Lake.

Can you imagine the Doctor and Clara arriving in the 'Warriors of the Deep' location. Clara would have spent the whole episode laughing and pointing.

"Deal with it"

To be fair, when The Enemy of the World was written I don't think they ever expected the show to last all the way to 2018. For some reason the novelisation added around another 20 years (I think they changed the date to 2036 but I might be a little off).

I think all the bright lighting used in those episodes would have caused the Doctor to wear those tedious sonic shades throughout the whole story.

All that terrible lighting! I wonder if the story would be more favourably remembered if it had been darker. I do remember one scene where one of the Silurians was clearly becoming untucked at the back.

How about an episode set wherever the sixth Doctor's clothes were fashion?

Warriors of the Deep suffered from being a sequel to two far better stories. It lacked the maturity and depth of Silurians and the fun and charm of Sea Devils. Warriors was just neither, really, but a lifeless story with some poor production. Eric Saward's script editing must have rubbed off on it too because characters were just being killed off one after the other for the sake of it (there's a difference between that, and actually killing everyone off effectively, such as in Horror of Fang Rock).

The Myrka and its kung-fu fight with that lady was just adding insult to injury.

That was a particularly cringe-worthy scene. I recall the body count in Resurrection of the Daleks being pretty high too. Season 21 was quite dark.

Interesting that the violence issue didn't seem to be raised until Colin Baker's first season. They were only midday through his season when they announced the showing was going on hiatus. I've often wondered how much of that was really about Michael Grade personally disliking Colin, and if season 22 had been exactly the same, only with the 5th Doctor staying on for one extra year, would the show have been rested?

Resurrection was an Eric Saward script so the body count was typically very high. The problem was there was no weight to these countless deaths and they just felt thrown in the script whenever things got too quiet, and I couldn't help but feel most of the characters were created purely for the sake of being expendable.

As much as it pains me to say it, because I do pity Colin Baker for his time on the show, I think Season 22 would have been a lot more successful if Davison had stayed on. He was never as popular as Tom Baker but he was generally well-liked. Colin had his fans but generally didn't go down well... the "anti-hero" idea they were going for was a good one, but they didn't actually use it because they portrayed him as a downright villain who for some reason saved the world. It was the portrayal of Colin's Doctor, not Colin himself, which I think brought that season down.

There were characters who played a key role in those stories who were killed off without ever meeting the Doctor (Rula Lenska). I don't know if that is a Saward thing, but it did feel like exactly what you're describing - characters thrown in just for the body count.

I agree with a lot of above comments, many which have been discussed many times before.

Sometimes I think it's ironic that Eric Saward thought Colin Baker was miscast as The Doctor but in a certain way the Sixth Doctor gave him a greater opportunity than ever to show of the violence he loved depicting on screen.

I don't think the violence would have been as great in Season 22 had Davison stayed an extra year but Ressurrection Of The Daleks and it's high body count is a sure indicator how he'd got round that if he had.

Compare that to The Horror of Fang Rock, where every character besides the Doctor and Leela are killed. The deaths are actually unpredictable and you don't know who's going to die next or when. The characters actually have their own personalities and backstories and varied interactions with each other, leaving you to forn your own opinions of them. Generally I think they just handled the killing off of everybody a lot better in that story.

A few more differences: the UK space shots; that world war that we just averted in the late 1990s; the time that London was completely evacuated because of dinosaurs.

Not sure when T-Mat was invented?

And 'classic Who' never showed a future world where everyone lost their ability to think and became subservient to a mobile phone.

I love Horror of Fang Rock, such a brilliant story.

No. the invasions still happened. Look how easily people believe aliens exist now, even in Moffat's term of office. The two Osgoods in The Zygon Invasion had a newspaper behind them which specifically stated that an alien was accepted for a job into the White House.

Hardly a reboot.

I must admit, I'm not sure there was a reboot either. Certainly there's not been anything said on screen that I can remember that would suggest this. Maybe I've missed it somewhere.

If anything, I thought (as an example) Amy's lack of knowledge of the Dalek/Cyberman battle at Canary Wharf was a sign to the Doctor that something was wrong with time that needed to be fixed.

No, it's never been explicitly stated on screen.
The universe reboot does give the writers a get out though when people say "hang on, what about what happened back in that story". They can now conveniently hand wave it away as something that now didn't happen because everything was reset.
Only the Doctor and perhaps a very few others presumably now know the full sequence of events.
It applies when it suits the writers and doesn't apply when it suits the writers!
The lack of memory of the battle at Canary Wharf is a good example, there being apparently no record of a gigantic Cyber King stomping up the Thames in the 1800s another.
At least the explanation for Amy not remembering Daleks and Cybermen fighting a pitched battle over central London is better than Donna's, which IIRC was that she was "away on holiday at the time" or some other similar boll*cks!

The cracks erased people's memories but the events still happened. See: duck pond scenario

Yes, the events did still happen of course, before the reset.
They have just disappeared, presumably permanently, from almost everyone's collective memory, so as far as people are now concerned, they did never happen.
Of course what happened to the physical historical records and other traces of them, is another story!

But has this memory wipe been established on screen? The Season 5 references made me think Amy's lack of knowledge was a red flag to the Doctor that something was wrong with time and the 'Big Bang' reboot fixed it all.

It's never been explicitly stated about the memory wipe - Moffat often used to leave the explanation in our own minds - and Amy's memory was likely restored. Just because the invasions haven't been mentioned, doesn't mean to say they haven't happened. That has never been explicitly stated either. Like I said earlier, people in Moffat's seasons do seem to take an alien presence at face value. The Big Bang reboot to me, fixed the Universe and stopped the Tardis from exploding.

An example is when a computer is rebooted when starting up. The same files and programs remain. That's what the reboot did to the Universe. If the recent invasions over the last 10 years didn't happen, then why are UNIT and Torchwood still in existence? Surely everybody's mind would be wiped of the even earlier invasions such as the Cybermen, Yeti, Zygons etc.

I think we're on the same page Airborae. As you say, just because the invasions haven't been mentioned, doesn't mean to say they haven't happened.