Doctor Who

Show generally

Question: If Davros created The Daleks from his own cells then why don't they fully trust him? He's been shown to manipulate The Daleks on the genetic level, so couldn't he use that to some way make them more obedient?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: When Davros created the Daleks, he conditioned them to hate everything that was not a Dalek. They decided that although he was their creator, he was not one of them.

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: She is only ever mentioned by Rory as being a fan of Dusty Springfield in "The Rebel Flesh".

MasterOfAll

Answer: The Time Lords gave the Doctor a new regeneration cycle before the last crack in the universe was closed, in "The Time of the Doctor". (They've been shown to have the ability to do so before, as in "The Five Doctors," The Master was offered a new regeneration cycle if he rescued the Doctors).

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: No.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: Why are the vast majority of stories set on modern day Earth as opposed to the 1963-1989 series where nearly every story was set on an alien planet?

ExcellentCryer

Chosen answer: One of the 'quaint' aspects of Doctor Who of old was the utter cheapness of the BBC in spending as little money as possible on the original series. Visits to 'alien planets' were laughably poor looking, clearly were Earth like with a few 'alien' touches, and it was something that writer Russel T Davies didn't want to return to.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: Yes. The Daleks tried to destroy the Earth's core and replace it with an engine to pilot it through the universe in the first Doctor story "The Dalek Invasion of Earth."

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: For TV episodes only, her timeline is as follows: spoilers ahoy! Baby Melody, "A Good Man Goes to War." Child Melody, "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon." Mels, regenerating into River, "Let's Kill Hitler"/ River, "Closing Time." "The Wedding of River Song", simultaneous with her appearance as the mysterious astronaut in "The Impossible Astronaut." Adult River, "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon." Adult River, "A Good Man Goes to War'." "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang." "The Time of Angels"/"Flesh and Stone." Her appearance at Amy and Rory's house at the end of "The Wedding of River Song." "The Angels Take Manhattan." "The Husbands of River Song." "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead." As a ghost in "The Name of the Doctor."

Chosen answer: River's timeline does start in "A Good Man Goes to War" but ends in "Forest of the Dead," when the 10th Doctor sees her die. Have fun piecing it together from there. If it helps, the BBC adventure games are considered canon, so her appearance in "The Eternity Clock" is also part of her timeline, as are the mini-episodes of "Night and the Doctor."

Captain Defenestrator

Chosen answer: The 8th Doctor regenerated into the War Doctor by his ship crash landing on Karn. See "The Night of the Doctor". The people on Karn recognised him and allowed him to have a regeneration because he had helped them before. He got to choose who he regenerated into, and decided on the War Doctor, saying "Doctor no more". The War Doctor regenerated into the 9th Doctor in "The Day of the Doctor" apparently just due to old age, saying "Oh yes, of course. I suppose it makes sense. Wearing a bit thin. I hope the ears are a bit less conspicuous this time."

Shadow5

Chosen answer: The show, at the time, was suffering badly in the ratings, mainly from a poor time slot, which put it directly up against a highly popular soap opera. The series was also going through something of a bad patch anyway - Colin Baker had proved controversial as the sixth Doctor, leading to his eventual dismissal from the role, a prior eighteen month hiatus had lowered public interest, and a number of issues behind the scenes were deemed to have had a detrimental effect on script quality. While things arguably improved somewhat in the final couple of series with Sylvester McCoy's seventh Doctor, the damage was done and, although pre-production work had already started on the next series, the decision was taken to suspend production.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: This is actually for Doctor 1 but I couldn't find it anywhere. I heard it somewhere that they were going to do only 10 series, but when Doctor 1 fell ill they put in the idea he can regenerate. Is this true? Also is this why a lot of the later episodes were destroyed?

Shadow5

Chosen answer: The show was intended to be ongoing, with no particular plan as to how many series might be involved. But you are indeed correct that William Hartnell's failing health was the principal factor that led to the concept of the regeneration being introduced, with Hartnell himself suggesting Patrick Troughton as his successor, a suggestion that was taken up. This is not, however, why many episodes from that era are missing. At the time, it simply wasn't standard policy to keep episodes indefinitely after transmission, due to the limitations in storage space, and thus many early episodes were simply wiped.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: My understanding of The Daleks is that they draw their power from their vertical shoulder slats. The new paradigm Daleks have no shoulder slats, so where are they drawing their power from?

Josman

Chosen answer: Don't know where you got that information from, but there doesn't seem to be much around to support it. Models of Dalek shown in very early episodes of the original series got their power from external sources, but since then they have operated entirely on unspecified internal power sources concealed within their armour. No reason to think that the new Daleks are any different.

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: What exactly made Jack Harkness immortal? I know Rose brought him back to life, but how? The Doctor mentions something about him being a fixed point in time and space, but what exactly does that mean?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: In the series 1 episode 'The Parting on the Ways', Rose stared directly into the heart of the TARDIS which infused her with the time vortex. This power enabled her to disintegrate the Daleks and also allowed her to bring Jack back to life. However, Rose was not fully aware of how her powers worked and by bringing Jack back she also removed his ability to die. The Doctor referring to Jack as "a fixed point in space and time" refers to the fact that Jack cannot be removed from existance through death as a normal person could.

Show generally

Question: Does anyone know why the BBC isn't showing these in the States at the same time they're released in the U.K.? The Christmas Special JUST aired on BBC America on the 27 June. I find it odd that they don't just release them on both stations at the same time.

padfootrocksmysocks

Chosen answer: BBC America is a separate entity. It is not a "station" of BBC. It airs shows from other UK networks (ITV etc). So, for one reason, it must arrange its schedule to show the shows it wants to show. For another reason, the shows shown on BBC in the UK are paid for by taxes on UK TV sets. It wouldn't be very fair for BBC America not to pay for the rights to show the shows after all there are a lot more of us than them. All these payments and broadcast rights must be worked out for every show. In addition, BBC can sell to other networks as well (e.g. Dr Who and Primeval on SyFy, and Dr Who on PBS are generally another year behind BBC America)

Myridon

Chosen answer: Few details have been revealed within the show itself, although Russell T Davies has given a few pointers in an article that he wrote for a Doctor Who annual. He suggests that the Daleks consider the War to have begun with the Time Lords sending the Fourth Doctor back to interfere with their creation, as seen in Genesis of the Daleks. The Daleks took this personally and first tried to replace prominent Time Lords with duplicates, in a similar fashion to their attempt to infiltrate Earth as seen in Resurrection of the Daleks. A peace treaty was attempted, with both sides offering compromise (the Time Lords, for example, handed over the Master for execution, as seen in the 1996 TV movie), but ultimately failed, leading to escalation and eventually the declaration of full-scale war between the races. The war apparently lasted for several years, if a war that takes place on a temporal level can really be said to have a set duration, before the Doctor brought it to its apocalyptic conclusion of destroying all Time Lords and Daleks, as seen in "Day of the Doctor."

Tailkinker

Show generally

Question: Why does the Doctor not generally travel with children? I mean 5 had Adric, and 11 was going to take Amy with him when she was just 7. Is there an in-show reason or is it because of how the show is made e.g. filming on location, maybe long hours shooting etc?

Answer: He doesn't, some may have been young, a few teenagers, but he's never taken anyone under 15 years of age.

More mistakes in Doctor Who
More quotes from Doctor Who

Season 2 generally

Trivia: "Torchwood" is an anagram for Doctor Who. Russell T Davies came up with it during the filming of Series 1 to label the tapes in order to prevent theft and potential leakage, and decided to use the name in the show proper.

More trivia for Doctor Who

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.