Doctor Who

The Happiness Patrol - S25-E2

Corrected entry: Why does the Doctor need to ask the forum doorman whether Ace is performing tonight, when he's standing right next to a big poster of her with "Tonight at the Forum" emblazoned right across the top?

Correction: Because people DO ask questions like this, especially if they're not paying attention. I work for an online retailer whose "Free Shipping on orders over $49" offer is on every screen of our website, and I still take 10 calls a day from people asking "How do I get the free shipping?"

Correction: The Doctor studied medicine under Joseph Lister in 1885. While he presumably hasn't taken the exams required to officially become an MD, he does have the skills to be considered qualified.

Terror of the Autons - S8-E1

Corrected entry: The only surviving Nestene control sphere has changed colour. It was previously red-pink but is now light blue. Except in the scene where the Master brings the first Autons to life, when it is pink...

Correction: The Nestene sphere is light blue because it is inactive, it becomes pink when the master "wakes it up".

Underworld - S15-E5

Corrected entry: A newly formed planet would be molten rock for several million years and thus totally impossible for human life to exist on (or in). Any spaceship caught up in such evolutionary processes would be crushed immediately.

Correction: This anomaly is explained within the story. The "planet" has formed by the gravitational effect of the ship attracting a build-up of rocks and debris around the outside of it.

Show generally

Corrected entry: When Doctor Who mentions his age, it seems to vary enormously between stories. In 'The Tomb of the Cybermen', the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) tells Victoria that he's 450 Earth years old (Since Gallifrey's other qualities are Earth like, and since the Doctor continually boasts of his age to humans, we might assume that there's not much difference between Gallifreyan and Earth years). However, by the time of 'Time and the Rani' (in "real time" 20 (Earth) years later) the Doctor (now Sylvester McCoy) claims that his age is '953'.

Correction: The fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) went on a midnight errand during his first story "Robot" - the results of this undocumented adventure came back to haunt him in Leela's first story "Face of Evil". Therefore the 30 year chronicle of his adventures is incomplete and his personal timeline (and age) is not tied to ours.

Correction: The term "crown" implies royalty. Gallifrey is ruled by presidents rather than kings and queens. Therefore the relics of Rassilon don't count, as he wasn't a king as such. The Doctor is splitting hairs, of course, but then the Sixth Doctor was a very pedantic incarnation.

The Brain of Morbius - S13-E5

Corrected entry: At the climax, the Doctor and Morbius engage in a mental duel. When the Doctor appears to be losing, the faces of the First Doctor appears, followed by several other adult male faces in various period clothing. The suggestion appears to be that these are previous incarnations of the Doctor prior to William Hartnell's version. Indeed, this was the idea at the time the story was broadcast (the faces themselves were those of various production members). However, if the William Hartnell incarnation was not the first Doctor Who, but the fourth (at least) that goes against the entire continuity of every Doctor Who story..

Correction: There are unknown faces shown, but Morbius was a Time Lord, too; they are HIS past incarnations.

The Green Death - S10-E5

Corrected entry: When Jo is calling for help she keeps saying "Calling Greyhound One..." then when Benton answers he says "Station to Greyhound One."...so which one of them is "Greyhound One", Jo - or Benton?

Correction: Answer: neither of them. The callsign 'Greyhound One' is actually the callsign of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who uses it in at least two stories ('Invasion of the Dinosaurs' and Season 25's story 'Battlefield'). So why is Benton answering using the Brigardier's callsign? Hasn't he got one of his own? Perhaps that's another error althogether...

The Curse of Fenric - S26-E3

Corrected entry: Commander Millington should not have been wearing a moustache. King's Regulations of the 1939-45 period required Royal Navy officers and personnel to have either a full beard and moustache...or else to be clean shaven. Moustaches only were NOT permitted.

Correction: This is another of Millington's attempts to identify with 'the enemy', as can be seen with his office.

Image of the Fendahl - S15-E3

Corrected entry: These events take place on Lammas Eve, 31st July, yet everybody in the bar Leela visits wears winter clothing and the woods are shrouded in mist. It must have been the coldest July on record...

Correction: Perhaps it was. England is not known for its summery spells. This could also have been influenced by the Fendahl.

The Trial of a Time Lord 13-14 (aka The Ultimate Foe) - S23-E4

Corrected entry: In episode 13, Glitz refers to the bronze coloured metal that decorates the court room as Maconite, saying it is very valuable. But in episode 14, he refers to a Maconite overcoat, meaning a form of restraint. The question is, why would you make straight jackets out of valuable metals?

Correction: I think the Maconite he's referring to is actually a type of wood; therefore the 'Maconite Overcoat' would be a coffin.

Battlefield - S26-E1

Corrected entry: A round of drinks costs £5, which the Doctor pays for with a £5 coin. The £5 coin became legal tender in 1990 but is only minted occasionally in commemorative issues...they are not actually used as currency. (They could be, but as commemorative issues, they are worth more than their face value). After the £1 note was replaced by a coin in 1983, the £5 note was expected to be replaced at any time. Instead, the Bank of England introduced a £2.

Correction: This may be well and true, however this all happened after the show was cancelled (in 1989). You can't really call this a mistake just because the writers failed to predict the future.

Correction: It's been stated that Time Lords are partially telepathic "at least with each other" (stated by Dr. 4 in The Deadly Assassain). The Master probably recognized the Doctor by this telepathy. Otherwise, in a society that uses regeneration, people would have a hard time recognizing each other.

Time and the Rani - S24-E1

Corrected entry: In an earlier episode the Doctor states that he is about three hundred years old, in this episode however the pin code on the Rani's door is three digits long and starts with nine, to which the doctor responds "hmm, that's our age." he can't have aged that much as none of his companions aged more than a couple of years.

Correction: Bear in mind that this is a show about time travel. The Doctor has many adventures off-camera as well, and although it's implied otherwise, there's no saying that companions aren't occasionally dropped off and picked up again later, making it entirely possible for decades or centuries to pass for The Doctor between adventures.

The War Games - S6-E7

Corrected entry: After the second doctor's regeneration, the TARDIS lands in a field with trees around it. When the third doctor comes out of the TARDIS, the background changes completely.

Comedyfan74

Correction: Correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't the Third Doctor not actually appear at the end of "The War Games"? As I understand it, the serial ends with Two being punished by the Time Lords by being made to regenerate, but the results of the regeneration aren't seen until Three arrives on Earth at the beginning of "Spearhead From Space."

The Talons of Weng-Chiang - S14-E6

Corrected entry: When the Doctor recovers from being made unconscious as a result of the Dragon Ray, he suddenly sits bolt upright, and says to Litefoot and Jago: "There's a one eyed yellow idol to the North of Khatmandu. There's a little marble cross below the town." "Kipling?", Litefoot asks. "Harry Champion, 1920", replies the Doctor. However...it was a certain J.Milton Hayes who wrote those lines, and many years AFTER the period in which this story is set.

Correction: This isn't the only occasion where The Doctor just makes something up. I believe it was supposed to be "impishly amusing" rather than incorrect.

Doctor Who mistake picture

The Three Doctors - S10-E1

Revealing mistake: (Part 4) After Omega takes off his mask and looks in the mirror, when he sees that his physical body doesn't exist he puts his mask back on and screams, but when he shouts, "If I exist only by my will, then my will is to destroy," Omega's mask pops up off his face, and we can see the actor's blackened face as he shouts the last bit of his dialogue. (00:07:10)

Super Grover

More mistakes in Doctor Who

Terror of the Zygons - S13-E1

The Doctor: You can't rule the world in hiding. You've got to come out on the balcony sometimes and wave a tentacle, if you pardon the expression.

More quotes from Doctor Who

Planet of Giants - S2-E1

Trivia: This Doctor Who story was originally scripted and produced as a four-episode story, but, just two weeks before transmission, upon viewing the story, co-creators Sydney Newman and Donald Wilson felt that the final two episodes (Episode 3, 'Crisis'; and Episode 4, 'The Urge to Live') should be combined into a single episode. The new 'condensed' episode incorporated the opening titles of 'Crisis' with the closing credits of 'The Urge to Live'.

More trivia for Doctor Who

Show generally

Question: In which season and episode is Gallifrey destroyed, or is it just a shocking new plot development for the new series?

Answer: It was never destroyed on-screen; it was intact at the end of the TV movie, and destroyed by the start of the 2005 series. It was destroyed in the novel "The Ancestor Cell," but in a completely different manner to what happened in the series.

DaveJB

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