10 Doctor Who Episodes You Didn’t Know Were Connected

Australian Cinephile

Doctor Who's just a great big wibbly-wobbly web, isn't it?

Transcript

00:00At the risk of stating the obvious here, Doctor Who is a very timey-wimey show.

00:04It's like a big ball of string at this point, with so many threads from across the decades overlapping and criss-crossing.

00:11But what about the episodes with subtler links between them?

00:14Small background details, throwaway lines that mean way more than you think?

00:18Well, we're glad you asked, and with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhoCulture,

00:22here with 10 Doctor Who episodes you didn't know were connected.

00:26Number 10. Silver Nemesis and the Big Bang

00:31The 11th Doctor's unorthodox dress sense inspired a generation of teenagers to think that they were cool because they owned a tweed jacket.

00:38Not only did bow-tie sales shoot up when Matt Smith started wearing one,

00:42but his version of the Time Lord also inspired a fascination with a certain red hat.

00:48Number 11 first appeared in affairs in the Series 5 finale, The Big Bang.

00:51The headpiece would turn up throughout the rest of his time on the show,

00:54becoming a trademark of Smith's quirky portrayal of the character.

00:58But this was not the first time the Doctor had been seen in one.

01:01In Doctor Who's 25th anniversary special, Silver Nemesis,

01:05the 7th Doctor and his companion Ace turn up at Windsor Castle and have a rummage around.

01:10And at one point, the Doctor pops up holding a mop and wearing, you guessed it, a fez.

01:15Considering that 11 was also holding a mop when he was first seen with a fez,

01:19we can deduce that this moment is where he got the inspiration to wear one on the regular.

01:24Not a massive detail, but definitely a fun one.

01:27Number 9, 42 and the power of the Doctor

01:30For a moment, put Russell to one side.

01:34Sorry, Russell.

01:34And imagine that you are in charge of Doctor Who.

01:38It'd be pretty hard to resist the temptation to constantly reference your own episodes, wouldn't it?

01:42Surprisingly, it's a temptation that Doctor Who's showrunners generally resist.

01:46Either that or their script editors are ruthless.

01:49But inevitably, some of these self-referential nods do appear from time to time.

01:54Just take a look at Chris Chibnall's final episode, The Power of the Doctor,

01:57which includes an extremely subtle connection to the first Doctor Who episode he wrote,

02:02Series 3's 42.

02:04The space train that's under attack at the beginning of the episode is,

02:07as mentioned in the very first line, part of the Taraji transport network.

02:11The Taraji star system is where 42 took place,

02:14with the 10th Doctor and Martha attempting to fend off the vindictive,

02:18annoyingly sentient son, Taraji.

02:20It's a nice little full-circle moment for Chibnall's time in the Hooniverse,

02:24even if it does remind us that 42 exists.

02:27Number 8, Army of Ghosts and End of Days

02:30Series 2 finale, Army of Ghosts, saw the long-teased introduction of the Torchwood Institute,

02:36with head honcho Yvonne Hartman showing off her organisation's cool sci-fi tech to the 10th Doctor.

02:42One piece of tech in particular catches the Doctor's eye, a Jathar sunglider,

02:47which Yvonne tells him was shot down over the Shetland Islands a decade prior.

02:51Torchwood means business, and the Doctor is rightfully concerned.

02:55That mention of a Jathar sunglider might just seem like random technobabble invented purely for this

03:00moment, and it probably was, but this wasn't the last time they appeared in the Hooniverse.

03:06Early on in the Torchwood episode End of Days, a trio of sungliders are seen hovering over the Taj Mahal,

03:12in the wake of the Cardiff Rift opening and unleashing space-time chaos.

03:16Clearly, this was just a case of Torchwood reusing readily available assets,

03:20but it can also be viewed as a neat bit of world-building that connects the two shows together.

03:25Number 7, A Good Man Goes to War and Thin Ice

03:28One of the more intriguing relationships in Modern Who is the one between the Doctor and his wife

03:34slash friend's kid slash would-be assassin, River Song.

03:38The pair are star-crossed in the most literal sense, constantly bumping into each other at

03:43different points. They go on many adventures together, one of which is mentioned right at

03:47the start of the epic mid-series finale, A Good Man Goes to War.

03:51River tells Rory, who's dressed as a Roman because, well, reasons, that she's just come

03:56back from a birthday trip with her Time Lord Squeeze. She says the Doctor took her ice skating at

04:01the last Great London Frost Fair, which sounds like a lovely day out. Clearly, the Doctor thought so,

04:06because he took Bill Potts to the exact same spot in Series 10's Thin Ice. He even admits that he's

04:12been there before. In fact, there is a deleted scene from that episode where he talks about

04:16bringing his wife to that very moment. It's a nice little connection between these two different

04:21eras of the show, although taking two dates to the exact same place? Rookie mistake, Doctor.

04:27Number 6, The Five Doctors and the Time of the Doctor

04:30Is this the longest payoff in Doctor Who history? Well, it might just be. In 1983's 20th anniversary

04:37special The Five Doctors, the Master presents the third Doctor with the seal of the High Council

04:42of Gallifrey, only for the Doctor naturally to assume that his longtime foe has forged it.

04:48Turns out, it's the real deal, though, and so the Doctor vows to return the artifact at the

04:52first opportunity. But he never does. In fact, he's still in possession of the seal in 2013's

04:59Christmas special The Time of the Doctor, where he uses it, with an assist from Handles, to decode

05:05the message the Time Lords are sending through the crack in time. Now, the Doctor does pick up all

05:09sorts of junk on their travels, so we can only assume that the seal is now languishing at the

05:14bottom of a TARDIS cupboard somewhere. Or maybe the Doctor will actually return it one day. The long

05:18way round. Number 5, The Mysterious Planet and the Name of the Doctor

05:23Despite only appearing in a single season from 1986, Whovians still lose their collective minds

05:30any time the Valiard comes up in conversation. Said to be a mysterious future incarnation of the

05:35Doctor, the Valiard serves as the prosecution during the Sixth Doctor's trial on Gallifrey.

05:40He almost gets him sentenced to death before the Doctor seemingly puts him down. Or does he?

05:46Because at the end of the episode, the Valiard is shown to have survived. But just because we

05:50haven't seen old Vali since the 80s, that doesn't mean we've seen the last of him. Richard E. Grant

05:55basically confirmed as much. In the episode The Name of the Doctor, Grant's The Great Intelligence

06:00runs down a list of other monikers the Doctor will be known by in the future, and one of those

06:05is the Valiard. It's a quick mention that's easy to miss, but it implies that the Doctor's alter ego

06:11will return in the future, and will do something to gain himself notoriety.

06:16Number 4, The Magician's Apprentice and the Timeless Children

06:19Former showrunner Chris Chibnall definitely left his mark on Doctor Who, for better or for worse.

06:25His decision to reveal that the Doctor is the mythical timeless child that formed the

06:29base genetic code for all future Time Lords was extremely controversial. It was the Master

06:34who revealed this secret to his long-standing rival. But it turns out that he knew this story

06:39long before he led on. Well, probably not, but he certainly knew more about the Doctor's

06:43past than we did. In the episode The Magician's Apprentice, Missy tells Clara that she's known

06:48the Doctor since he was a little girl. Coincidentally, this is the form that the Timeless Child takes

06:53when we first meet them. A brilliant piece of foreshadowing? Well, at the time, obviously

06:57not, but in hindsight, you can certainly look at it that way. And it's interesting going back

07:02to watch this moment with the knowledge of the Timeless Child in hand.

07:05Who'd have thought that a throwaway line in a 1977 serial would suddenly become relevant

07:15almost 30 years later? In the first episode of the fourth Doctor story, Image of the Fendal,

07:21Dr. Fendelman instructs his colleague to tell Hartman, I want a security team here within two

07:26hours, after a corpse is discovered in the woods. Again, totally throwaway. We never actually meet

07:31Hartman, and he's never mentioned again. So why is this significant? Well, jumping once again to

07:36Army of Ghosts, and this is the episode that introduces us to Torchwood boss Yvonne Hartman.

07:42Might she be a relative? Perhaps the daughter of the faceless Hartman mentioned in Image of the

07:47Fendal? While the connection here is tenuous, Hartman is a fairly common surname, after all,

07:51many fans believe that these two are indeed related, with Yvonne's father being identified as

07:57John Hartman in the big Finnish audio drama The Rockery. Number two, The Web of Fear and The

08:02Snowmen. Back to the great intelligence now, and his second ever appearance in the show in 1968's

08:09The Web of Fear. The intelligence had already encountered the second Doctor when it lured him

08:14and his companions into the London Underground, where it planned to steal the Time Lord's knowledge.

08:19Fast forward to the 2012 Christmas special The Snowmen, and the Doctor runs into the intelligence

08:23once again, only this time before the villain has met him. In order to preserve the timeline,

08:29the Doctor decides to influence future events, or past events from his point of view, in a way

08:34only he could, by using a biscuit tin. He presents his foe with a tin bearing the London Underground

08:40map on it. The great intelligence remarks that it's never seen these symbols before, at which point,

08:45the Doctor sows the seed for The Web of Fear by saying that it's a key strategic weakness in

08:50metropolitan living. With the timeline now assured, the Doctor runs off to celebrate, presumably with

08:55a biscuit. Number one, Daleks in Manhattan and the End of Time. Daleks in Manhattan features the Daleks

09:03in Manhattan. A period piece set during the Great Depression in 1930s New York City, the episode does a

09:09fantastic job of recreating that time period. It doesn't feel like a cheap set, it feels like a living,

09:15breathing place. A bouncy musical number partway through the episode helps with that immersion,

09:20as singing, dancing, all-star Tallulah attempts to get over the fact that her boyfriend has been

09:25turned into a pig by doing what she does best, putting on a show. You would assume that the song

09:30here, My Angel Put the Devil in Me, which composer Murray Gold undoubtedly had immense fun putting

09:35together, would only be used in this episode. But it actually pops up later in the Tenant run,

09:41and in the most unexpected of places too. Flash forward to the closing moments of The End of

09:46Time Part 2, and the song can be heard again, playing at the bar where the Doctor bids farewell

09:51to Captain Jack Harkness. Mind you, this version is a cover, not the original Tallulah version,

09:57but if only she knew how far into the future her music would last.

10:02And that concludes our list. If you think we missed something, then do let us know in the comments

10:06below, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that notification bell

10:11so you never miss a Who Culture video again. Also head over to Twitter and follow us there,

10:15and Instagram as well, and I can be found across various social medias just by searching

10:20Ellie Littlechild. Don't forget to also look out for Sean Berwick and Dan The Meeks too.

10:25I've been Ellie with Who Culture, and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended