Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Referenced By / Doctor Who

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_vicar_of_dibley_wedding___alice_as_the_tenth_doctor_and_two_daleks.jpg

As one of the most iconic and long-running TV shows in British pop culture, Doctor Who is a major source of homages and gags in other works.

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • A series of Prime Computer adverts in Australia explicitly featured Tom Baker and Lalla Ward as the Doctor and Romana, and became notorious among Doctor Who fans for the open Four/Romana shipping in one of them.
  • David Tennant did a series of adverts for Virgin Media with heavy Doctor Who references, until the BBC threatened a lawsuit.
  • At one time Vodafone did a series of TV ads in the UK which had Captains Ersatz of Mulder and Scully from The X-Files investigating rumoured paranormal events that turned out to be misunderstandings of people discussing new features on Vodafone handsets. One of them was themed around time travel. As "Mulder and Scully" departed down the street, Jon Pertwee stood in the road behind them, checking his watch before walking into a garage with "Doctor On Call" painted across the doors and a strange glow emerging from it.
  • A 1980s UK magazine ad for Mazda, describing how deceptively spacious their cars were, was illustrated with a photo of a police box on wheels.

    Comic Books 
  • 2000 AD: In the comics spoof on Flash Gordon, "Dash Decent", Dr Zellamy builds a matter transporter in the shape of a pillar box, which is "surprisingly spacious". When Dash falls into it, he lands next to a mushroom-shaped console with a transparent central column, and in a pile of old clothes including a floppy hat and very long scarf.
  • Anno Dracula: Anno Dracula: Seven Days in Mayhem has a scene set in the fictional London district of Coal Hill, where the Council of Seven Days hold an emergency meeting in I.M. Foreman's scrapyard in Totter's Lane.
  • Adventure Time: In the computer virus arc, one of Marceline's costumes includes a shop assistant's uniform shirt with a name badge that reads "Rose".
  • Britain A Prophecy: In issue #3, the soldier standing between The Fair Folk and Buckingham Palace looks a lot like Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. #4 names him as General Nicolas Stewart, after the Brig's actor Nicholas Courtney.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight: One panel of the comic has a cameo appearance by the Tenth Doctor and Rose.
  • Doom Patrol: In Doom Patrol (2016) #10, when Agantha appears and then takes Lucius and his family to the Daemonsphere, the sound effect used both times is "VWORP", which in Doctor Who Expanded Universe comics is the sound effect used for a materialising or dematerialising TARDIS, originating in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip.
  • Excalibur: Brigadier Alysande Stuart of the Weird Happenings Organisation is a Gender Flipped version of Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. Her twin brother Alistaire is WHO's "scientific advisor", the same job title that the Doctor had with UNIT. At one point in the Cross-Time Caper, Alistaire encounters a Dalek who insists they've met before.
  • Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.: Father Time regularly changes his appearance in what is almostly certainly a Doctor Who reference, although Depending on the Writer this is either when he is severely injured (like a Time Lord), regularly every year, or regularly every decade.
  • Freakwave: One panel of the bizarre Peter Milligan/ Brendan McCarthy Ocean Punk comic included a human character in what appeared to be an empty Dalek casing.
  • Spider-Man: In Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man #19 (which involves time travel), there's graffiti reading "Bad Wolf".
  • Gotham Academy: It may be a coincidence, but when Derek "Blight" Powers appears as a surprise crossover villain in the Annual, he is a skeletal-looking time-travelling villain whose time machine is disguised as a long-case clock, which also describes the Crispy Master in "The Deadly Assassin" and "The Keeper of Traken".
  • Harley Quinn: In an extremely nerdy and obscure shout out, a list of Fantastic Drugs in one of the Harley Quinn (Rebirth) issues includes spectrox from "The Caves of Androzani".
  • Irredeemable: Qubit is a clear Expy of the Tenth Doctor, with messy hair, a Gadgeteer Genius who has created teleportation tech, is something of an Insufferable Genius and is also the only one who believes the Plutonian is not beyond redemption (mirroring Ten's relationship with the Master).
  • Justice League of America: In Grant Morrison's JLA Classified arc, the upper section of a Dalek is visible in Batman's "sci-fi closet".
  • League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: In League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, the Doctor's TARDIS is visible as a detail in a map. Century: 2009 had a two panel cameo appearance by both the First and Eleventh Doctors. Century: 1969 had a similar cameo by the Second. In The Tempest, the Daleks (not named but obvious) are among the many alien races to invade Earth during the ending.
  • Love and Rockets: In volume 4, the in-universe Professor Enigma show is a blatant Captain Ersatz for Doctor Who. At one point, Professor Enigma says that he's just had lunch with the Doctor and Professor Quatermass.
  • The Muppets: In Muppet Sherlock Holmes, Holmes, Watson and Lestrade are on stake out, hiding in a bush, a pillar box and a police box. Lestrade calls out that he's got lost inside the police box, which is Bigger on the Inside. There's also a brief mention of the Torchwood Institute.
  • Power Man And Iron Fist: Issue #79 introduced a heroic time-travelling outlaw named Professor Gamble and his enemies the Incinerators, who were blatant Captains Ersatz for the Doctor and the Daleks. (Gamble himself looked like a cross between Patrick Troughton's version of the Doctor and Benny Hill.) He later reappeared in The Avengers Annual #22. Since Marvel UK was actually publishing Doctor Who Magazine at the time, the reason for the use of a Captain Ersatz rather than an actual crossover is mysterious.
  • Rick and Morty (Oni):
    • Doctor Tock is a Hero Antagonist who travels through time and space with the mission of arresting those who abuse time and space. He looks like a cross between the First Doctor's elderly appearance with the Sixth Doctor's multicolored clothes.
    • Peacock Jones is an alien adventurer who travels across space in a magic elevator who seeks out female companions to take on adventurers. He expects and insists upon earning sexual favors in exchange for taking them on his adventures. If they die, he immediately looks for the next sexy companion and carries on. This is a jab at how the Doctor usually has at least one female companion at one point or another to accompany them, and in particular how Nu Who has frequently portrayed this as a romantic relationship.
  • Rocket Raccoon: In Rocket (2017) #2, Gatecrasher of the Technet (who are, of course, connected to the Special Executive, who originally appeared in Doctor Who Magazine) is shown having tea with an unseen figure who accidentally tells her about her future, then offers her a jelly baby. In #3, Rocket feigns madness by screaming "I CAN'T STAND THE CONFUSION IN MY MIIIIIIND!!", a line from "Resurrection of the Daleks".
  • Scarlet Traces: In Scarlet Traces: The Great Game a diagram shows the original inhabitants of the solar system, all from different works. The Earth is represented by Silurians and Sea Devils.
  • Silver Surfer: In Dan Slott's run, the Surfer was turned into essentially the Marvel Universe version of the contemporary Tenth Doctor, a galaxytrotting do-gooder with a hero-worshipping everygirl companion from contemporary Earth.
  • The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis: In a commercial starring Malfunctioning Eddie and Gil, the latter shows a few sci-fi vehicles, one of them being the Doctor's TARDIS (except it's red instead of blue).
  • Superman:
  • Top 10 : The Reference Overdosed series has a Dalek among a group of wheelchair-using characters in an accessibility protest, and the Fourth Doctor among a group of "Doctor" characters in a hospital scene.
  • The Transformers (Marvel): The design of minor Decepticon Octus implies he may transform into a Dalek. This was confirmed by Word of God.
  • U.S.Avengers: In issue #4, the Germanic Mad Scientist Victor Vandoom (no relation) declares "Nothing in the vurld can stop me now!", a line made infamous by the Germanic Mad Scientist Professor Zaroff in "The Underwater Menace".
  • Viz: The comic has had several Doctor Who parodies and references:
    • One single-issue parody script was called "Doctor Poo", and featured a caricature of the Fourth Doctor wandering the universe in fruitless search of an opportunity to go to the toilet in peace.
    • A "Suicidal Syd" strip had him trying to provoke a group of stereotypical Doctor Who fanboys to kill him by calling them gay. They happily agree.
    • A "Roger Mellie" strip had Mellie going to an SF fan convention to try to cheat money out of fans by pretending to have been a Dalek operator in the 1970s. He's quickly rumbled, but they don't actually beat him up until he calls them "Trekkies".
  • X-Men: Uncanny X-Men #218 had a cameo by the Brigadier and Benton, taking the Juggernaut into custody after he caused some trouble in Edinburgh.

    Comic Strips 
  • In the Oor Wullie strip for 12 May 2019, Wullie builds a police box for PC Murdoch to shelter from the rain. As he tries to squeeze into it, Murdoch comments that it's wee-er on the inside than they used to be. Wullie retorts that Murdoch is bigger on the outside than he used to be.
  • Retail: As three of the stockroom workers are immense nerds, Doctor Who has been mentioned a few times.
    • In 2008 Cooper dressed up as the Fourth Doctor for Halloween. Everyone else thinks he's Sherlock Holmes, though, irritating him to no end.
    • In 2018 Donnie dressed up as the Third Doctor. He was unrecognizable because for once both his eyes were visible.
    • Lunker, secret genius, either has or will build a working TARDIS. Time travel's weird like that.

    Fanfiction 
  • Calvin & Hobbes: The Series:
  • Several characters reference the show in Child of the Storm, far too many times to list. Examples include Doctor Strange lampshading his own resemblance to the Doctor, Harry and Carol's UST-heavy psychic therapy session straight from The Girl in the Fireplace, and one of Zola's AIs going haywire and shouting "Exterminate."
    • The Fourth Doctor and the TARDIS even make a brief cameo during the Final Battle, during which reality is warping and the usual laws of the universe have been tossed out the window thanks to Chthon's emergence breaking down the walls between universes. Darcy swiped his jelly babies.
  • Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space
    • A 'dustbin droid' tries to exterminate Buster Kincaid only to fall down the stairs, get confused and try to molest Captain Proton with its toilet plunger.
    • Dr Zarkendorf denies being "an impotent time-traveling twit with no fashion sense", but later mentions time-traveling in a blue box to Cardiff where he complains about having barely escaped being "buggered by that randy captain and his gang of Welsh perverts!"
  • Shards To a Whole, an NCIS fanfic: Tim McGee and Abby Scuito go clubbing in one chapter with Jimmy and Breena Palmer and Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David. Tim shows up wearing a v-neck t-shirt and leather jacket, while Tony wears a suit and necktie and Jimmy wears a brown jacket and bow tie. When Tim sees the others, he points to himself, Tony and Jimmy in order, commenting, "Nine...Ten...Eleven!"
  • A Storm of Chaos: A Doctor Whooves Adventure is this with regard to a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic version, although, unlike the source material, it's closer to the version seen on the cartoon. This fanfic makes them into a Composite Character of various Doctors, notably Tennant's portrayal. It also takes elements of various Doctor Who stories and remakes them to fit the universe of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
  • It's Not Just a Stick - A Wand Crafter's Story, Harry and Hermione, both Doctor Who fans, realize when they meet Argus Filch that he was the First Doctor, using the stage name William Hartnell. Hermione winds up making friends with Filch and tends to follow him around to talk to him and even help him with tasks. He appreciates the friendliness.

    Film — Animated 

    Film — Live-Action 
  • In All Superheroes Must Die, Rickshaw's outfit heavily resembles that of the Eleventh Doctor, complete with a bowtie.
  • In Carry On Screaming!, during a Who's on First? conversation with Detective Sergeant Sidney Bung, Dr Watt claims that Doctor Who is his uncle.
  • In Ghostbusters (2016), the plastic dummies that come to life and chase Patty are reminiscent of the Auton duplicates.
  • In Iron Sky, the Doctor's TARDIS is visible in the international space fleet at the climax.
  • In Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Daleks appear as alien prisoners in Area 52. Fun fact: Steve Martin agreed to appear in the film on the condition that they were in it.
    • Other fun fact: It's rumoured that the film-makers didn't get permission from the Terry Nation estate because they assumed the Daleks were public domain, and that this pissed the Nation estate off so much that it nearly prevented the Daleks from appearing in the 21st-century Doctor Who revival at all.
  • In Pacific Rim, Tendo Choi has a VERY similar outfit to the Elventh Doctor.

    Literature 
  • Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess: When Rivet shows Agatha her collection of tools, Agatha finds a sonic screwdriver.
  • The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica: In one of the later books, Jules Verne shows John a room full of time machines in the basement of the house where former Caretakers live, one of which is clearly the TARDIS. Verne says it was "stolen by a doctor from London with delusions of grandeur".
  • Noah from Clade used to have a complete collection of figurines of the Doctors. His mother's favorite was the fourteenth, which was the first one she saw as a kid. As an adult, Noah thinks the whole collection is lost, until his mother manages to unearth the sixteenth.
  • "Doctor Who" (sic) is one of a lengthy list of party guests in one of The Cornelius Chronicles, which incorporates people from many Michael Moorcock works, other literary characters, and historical figures. (Moorcock would later write an authorized Doctor Who novel, The Coming of the Terraphiles, with links, as always, to his larger multiverse.)
  • Averted in Discworld. Many fans suspected that there was a Doctor Who reference intended with Death having a house that is Bigger on the Inside and a grand-daughter named Susan. Terry Pratchett said that it was unintentional. Some have theorised that the time-travelling pyramids in Pyramids making a "CHE-ops, CHE-ops" noise while the tips glow is one, though.
  • In Even If We Break, Liva's quilt is made of scraps from costumes she's made, including a Time Lord coat.
  • "The Travelling Doctor" is one of the many familiar characters who wander through the Nightside.
  • Rick Riordan:
    • The Kane Chronicles: While not mentioned by name, Sadie Kane is revealed to be a fan of the series in the thrid book. Her brother mentions that she once built a shabti out of a Thermos that "levitated around the room, yelling 'Exterminate! Exterminate!' until it smacked [Carter] in the head." Later in the same book, Sadie distracts the goddess Neith by channeling her inner Fourth Doctor and spinning a story about a Jelly Baby conspiracy.
    • The Heroes of Olympus: In book 5, The Blood of Olympus, Leo Valdez reveals he's a fan of the show.
    • Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: Magnus reveals he's a fan, too, and says he thinks the towers of Boston's Longfellow Bridge look like Daleks.
  • Kim Newman:
  • Pilgrennon's Children: In The Emerald Forge, Eric speculates that the mechanical wyvern that attacked him and Dana might be a cyborg with a mechanical exoskeleton, "like the Daleks on Dr Who."
  • Prudence Penderhaus: In 17 Gilmore Lane, Cassius does a Dalek impression and pretends to be exterminating Prudence. Later, he dresses as the Tenth Doctor at the Halloween party.
  • Rivers of London has a fair amount of references due to the author being a former scriptwriter for the show. Main character Peter Grant is a fan, and occasionally mentions the show as the source of his knowledge on some subjects.
  • Emmet from The Roosevelt wears a Dalek T-shirt whenever he's angry.
  • In The Salvation War, an officer in charge of the evacuation of Sheffield is named as "Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart".
  • In Save the Enemy, Ben wears a Doctor Who T-shirt.
  • Sherlock Holmes
    • In the short story "The Waters of Death" by Kel Richards, in the collection Footsteps in the Fog, the crew of the Bruce-Parlington submarine include Captain Harry Sullivan, Commander Ralph Lethbridge-Stewart and Lieutenant Philip Benton. The submarine is tested on Loch Ness, and the local landowner is the Duke of Forgil from "Terror of the Zygons".
    • The novel The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird mentions one character attends St. Cedd's College, Cambridge, from "Shada". (Or possibly from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.)
  • Shades Of London: In the first book, The Name of the Star, Charlotte goes to the Bonfire Night dance as Amy Pond (policewoman kissogram). Rory initially thinks she's dressed as a stripper.
  • In The Someday Birds, Joel suggests naming the puppy he and Jake have just adopted Dr. Who.
  • Star Trek Expanded Universe novels:
    • In Ishmael, there are cameos by unnamed characters whose descriptions match the second and fourth Doctors, as well as a mention of "Metebelis crystals", and when it becomes apparent that the plot involves an attempt to change the past through time travel, Kirk mentions a legend he's heard about a planet in the Kasterborous constellation where they invented time travel.
    • In My Enemy, My Ally, the head of the Recreaton department is working on converting Doctor Who episodes into 3-D format.
    • In the Star Trek: Myriad Universes novella "Seeds of Dissent" by James Swallow, the Botany Bay crewmembers who didn't wake up include Brown, McShane, Summerfield, Tyler and Jones; all the surnames of Doctor Who companions.
    • In the Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations novel Forgotten History, the time-travel obsessed Starfleet officer Antonio Delgado is named after two actors who played the Master. He's also described as having a short, grizzled beard. In the same book, the mysterious element that facilitates the Enterprise's time travel is taranium, from "The Dalek Masterplan". "Tigellan chronic hysterisis" in Watching the Clock is a reference to "Meglos".
  • Grace from The State of Grace is a huge Doctor Who fan. She wears a Tardis T-shirt to a party, even though a popular girl makes fun of her for it. Gabe turns out to be a Doctor Who fan too, and they talk about the show on their dates. He buys her a Tardis keychain.
  • Stim: During Chloe's hypomanic episode in Kaleidoscope, she pounds on the door of the port-a-loo Robert is using and asks him to help her build a time machine. A woman waiting outside scoffs, "It's a freaking port-a-loo, not a Tardis. It doesn't go anywhere, and it's definitely no bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside."
  • There's a notorious erotic romance novel called The Stranger by "Portia Da Costa" (rumoured to be a pseudonym for a regular Doctor Who Expanded Universe prose writer) that is blatantly a Divorced Installment or Serial Numbers Filed Off for the Eighth Doctor Adventures. Published at the same time as an arc in the novel series that had the Eighth Doctor suffering from amnesia and taking The Slow Path through Earth's twentieth century, the novel is about a woman who has a passionate relationship with an amnesiac man called "Paul", who is described as looking exactly like Paul McGann, the Eighth Doctor's actor. It also includes many unsubtle Doctor Who allusions, despite not including anything explicitly SF or fantasy.
  • Stravaganza: In book four, City of Secrets, Matt's girlfriend Ayesha, upon being told that he and his new friends are Dimensional Travellers, asks if it's "like Doctor Who?"
  • Underdogs:
    • Ewan hides behind a sofa during a fight with Oliver. Oliver taunts him, "Hiding behind the sofa, mate? Seriously? This is war, not an episode of Doctor bloody Who!"
    • Kate's missing brother James used to watch the same David Tennant - era episode over and over again. Kate misses watching it with him, and the sense of security and consistency it brought them both.
  • The novelization of The World Is Not Enough compares the Millennium Dome to a monster which might have appeared on Doctor Who.
  • Young Wizards: In book three, High Wizardry, Dairine is at one point helped by a man who fits the description of the Fifth Doctor.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agents Fitz and Simmons are noted multiple times as being fans of the show.
    • Agent Simmons is asked what object she'd most like to find on a deserted island, based on what first comes into her mind. Her answer is the TARDIS.
    • Fitz's apparently self-chosen codename during a mission is "Time Lord".
    • In different Freeze-Frame Bonus, Simmons' birthday cake can be seen as shaped like a TARDIS, while a small TARDIS decorates Fitz's quarters.
  • In the final season of Angel, Illyria has major similarities in backstory, make-up, dress sense and personality to Eldrad's first on-screen incarnation in "The Hand of Fear".
  • In the Arrow episode "Public Enemy", Ray Palmer ends up in the hospital due to being shot with an arrow by Maseo, and when Felicity is chatting with her mother she mentions that Ray is a massive fan of the show.
  • The Big Bang Theory:
    • In one episode, Sheldon Cooper wanted to watch Doctor Who re-runs, but other people kept distracting him. He says that now it's more like Doctor Why Bother.
    • Here's a compilation of Doctor Who references on The Big Bang Theory and a more recent one.
  • The Brittas Empire: A toy TARDIS can be seen in reception during the events of the episode "The Chop".
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • In "Smashed", Johnathan claimed at one point to own all of Doctor Who on DVD. This caused some amusement among Doctor Who fans given the number of Missing Episodes, and that many surviving stories had yet to be released on DVD at the time the Buffy episode was broadcast.
    • "Listening to Fear" featured significant plot and conceptual similarities to the Doctor Who story "Terror of the Autons", and "The Wish" to "Inferno".
  • Call the Midwife
    • In Season 8, episode 4, the cast are shown watching "The Aztecs". Most of them are unsure about it, especially Nurse Crane, but Sister Monica Joan insists "But it's so exciting!"
    • In Season 11, episode 7, Sister Monica Joan has apparently stuck with the series post-regeneration, putting it on for the Turner children (one of whom immediately hides behind a cushion) although we don't see what episode.
  • In CASUAL+Y, Season 34, episode 38, Ethan attends Holby Comic Con in costume as the Fourth Doctor, and exchanges some banter with a kid cosplaying as Eleventh, just before the inevitable emergency situation.
  • The Roman Britain sitcom Chelmsford 123 had a Funny Background Event in which a police box appears in the background, and a mysterious figure steps out of it and wanders around for a few seconds before going back into it and taking off again.
  • The Stylistic Suck British sci-fi series Inspector Spacetime on Community is one long Affectionate Parody of Doctor Who. Also, within the Community universe, Doctor Who does still exist, but only as the less-popular ripoff of Inspector Spacetime.
  • Referenced a few times in Criminal Minds, as Dr. Spencer Reid & Penelope Garcia turn out to be fans of the show. In one episode, Reid tells Ashley Seaver that Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is just a rip-off of the show. In another episode, Reid & Garcia cosplay as Four and Eleven, respectively. And when Reid is in the hospital, Garcia places Doctor Who action figures on a table in front of his bed to make cheer him up when he wakes up.
  • On Cobra Kai, Eli and Demetri have a brief discussion about Steven Moffat's departure and the new doctor being a woman.
  • One of Dave Allen's many sketches about priests had a priest walking past a baptismal font, which starts following him. As he get closer to the altar, the font starts shrieking "EX-TERM-IN-ATE! EX-TERM-IN-ATE!". The priest ducks behind his pulpit, which promptly fades away with a TARDIS dematerialisation sound effect.
  • In Derry Girls, James is a Doctor Who fan; in one episode he dresses up as the Fourth Doctor.
  • The British daytime soap Doctors had one episode with Sylvester McCoy Adam Westing as a fictional actor best known for his part as "The Magical Lollipop Man".
  • EastEnders and Coronation Street both had characters who were Doctor Who fans. Unfortunately both were stereotypical Basement Dwellers.
  • The Expanse: Avasarala's contact list shown briefly in "Tribes" contains "Who, Dr.", "Stevens, D.", and "Clegane, G.", among others. All names of characters in shows that had been recast (like her husband's character had been).
  • In G.B.H., a major scene is set at a hotel where a (surprisingly realistic, and hilarious) Doctor Who fan convention is taking place.
  • The Goodies
    • Graeme has shot his two friends into space in a rocket and they're not happy. Tim suggests they call the fire brigade to get them down. Bill asks how they're supposed to make a telephone call in outer space whereupon a police box flies past.
    • In the spoof of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Graeme asks his robot how to talk to the aliens. The robot trundles into the room wielding a toilet plunger and blaring "EXTERMINATE!"
  • Good Omens:
    • When Crowley is going through the pages of an astronomy book, trying to find a new home to flee from Armageddon to, one of the pages shows Gallifrey, even listing it by name.
    • The license plate of the Youngs' car is SID RAT (TARDIS spelled backwards).
    • Newton's necktie has the same pattern as the Fourth Doctor's scarf.
    • In season 2, Aziraphale promises a shopkeeper a rare Doctor Who annual in exchange for his presence at a meeting. During this scene, Crowley (played by David Tennant) is playing with a fez in the background.
  • One episode of the Russell T Davies series It's a Sin features Ritchie being cast as a space trooper in a fictional Doctor Who story with elements of "Resurrection of the Daleks". Said trooper is named after real Who actor and personal friend Dursley McLinden, who portrayed Mike Smith in "Remembrance of the Daleks" and became an HIV awareness activist after being diagnosed with AIDS in 1990.
  • In the Halloween Episode of Knight Rider (2008), Billy is in costume as "Captain Jack Harkness, the time travelling bisexual".
  • From Season 2 of Legends of Tomorrow, the team's time-ship, the Waverider, has a hexagonal console at the back of the bridge.
  • Life on Mars (2006):
    • The main character Sam Tyler was inadvertedly named after Rose Tyler. Show creator Matthew Graham asked his daughter to suggest a surname for Sam, and she suggested "Tyler" after Rose from Doctor Who. Graham has said that if he'd known where she got the name from, he would have come up with a different name for Sam.
    • Given that the protagonist has apparently traveled back in time it's an Obligatory Joke, so when Annie asks Sam if he's having any more of these 'delusions', Sam jokes that he saw Doctor Who and he gave him some pills. This became Hilarious in Hindsight when John Simm was cast as the Master.
  • Referenced in, of all things, Liv and Maddie, a Disney Channel sitcom; Liv, in order to make sure her brother Joey signs her up for the Brain Olympics (him fearing she may not be smart enough), destroys his "nerd cred":
    Liv: I heard he doesn't think time travel is real. He was like, "Doctor who??"
  • In Lucifer, the title character gets called "Doctor Who" in Season 3. Funnily enough, Tom Ellis also appeared on Doctor Who.
  • In the Mr. Bean episode "Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean", a miniature Louis Marx toy Dalek (painted to resemble an imperial guard unit from "The Evil of the Daleks") is included among the many trinkets the title character uses when messing around with a Nativity set in a toy store.
  • In the On the House episode, "Take Me to Your Leader", Dr. Stanley's henchmen arrive on the building site with spray guns full of nerve gas, causing Harvey to remark, "Blimey, it's the Daleks!". Doubles as Actor Allusion, as Dr. Stanley was played by Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor.
  • In the British Queer as Folk, central character Vince is a Doctor Who fan. This is a reference to Doctor Who's famed LGBT Fanbase, which included QaF's creator, who would later make some contributions to Who.
  • In the Red Dwarf episode "Demons and Angels", the TARDIS is briefly visible in Red Dwarf's landing bay as a Starbug takes off.
  • The ending of the Sherlock episode "The Sign of the Three", with Sherlock leaving John's wedding reception early knowing that John's marriage will inevitably make their relationship less all-consuming, is a homage to the ending of "The Green Death" with the Doctor driving away alone from Jo's wedding reception. Mark Gatiss confirmed this as intentional on Twitter.
  • In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Neutral Zone", the display of Clare Raymond's descendants includes the first six actors to play the Doctor as a Freeze-Frame Bonus. The Blu-ray release of the episode reportedly dropped this (and other shout-outs) in favour of something duller and more serious.
  • An episode of Star Trek: Enterprise involved a timeship from the future that was Bigger on the Inside. Apparently the episode had once be intended as a crossover before the idea was dropped.
  • One episode of Strange had a pair of animal rights activists named Jamie and Zoe, after Two's companions.
  • Supernatural had a Monster of the Week named Amy Pond after Eleventh's first companion.
  • The climax of the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles involves a disassembled time machine hidden in various safe-deposit boxes in a bank vault. As the main characters enter the bank, there is a gratuitous close-up shot of a plaque on the outside of the building stating that it was opened in 1963, the year that Doctor Who was first broadcast.
  • Top Gear (another BBC series):
    • In the "Masters of the Universe" segment of the 8th episode of season 2, the Cyberman and the Daleks (later joined by the Sixth Doctor, who messes up the Cyberman's lap with his TARDIS) are seen among the villains from various sci-fi franchises driving the Honda Civic Type R around the track. The Daleks decided to exterminate other competitors after finding out they couldn't fit in the Civic.
    • In the news segment of the 2nd episode of season 11, Jeremy Clarkson says that their show's tame racing driver, the Stig, was moonlighting as the people in white suits and helmets in the Doctor Who episode "Forest of the Dead". Jeremy then jokingly says that the Stig tore his own face off in close-up shots of the visor to hide his real identity.
    • Several Doctor Who stars appeared in the "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" segment, including Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, David Tennant and Matt Smith.
  • One episode of Total Wipeout has Richard Hammond jokingly claim that Crash Mountainnote  once auditioned as a Dalek for Doctor Who. Cut to a clip of its arms looped to move like a Dalek eye while exclaiming "Exterminate!".
  • One episode of Vision On, a BBC series like Doctor Who, features a segment with cameos from several Daleks.
  • In Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads??, when Bob wakes up befuddled in the police station after his non-stag-party and asks what happened, Terry tells him they had an encounter with a strange doctor in a police box.

    Music 
  • The beginning of Aesop Rock's "Grace" samples Roth's "I can't do it!" from "Bad Wolf", placing the moral dilemma of playing the Deadly Game next to a young Aesop considering whether or not to eat his greens as a matter of life and death.
  • Mitch Benn:
    • Two songs specifically about the series: "Be My Doctor Who Girl" and "Call Me During Doctor Who and I'll Kill You".
    • Doctor Who gets mentioned three times in "Proud of the BBC".
    • "Richard Dawkins", about Richard Dawkins, contains the lines "He's evolution's top banana/And he's married to Romana", referencing Dawkins's marriage to Lalla Ward.
  • The Human League's "Tom Baker" is named after the Fourth Doctor's actor, includes a promotional photo of him in-costume as its cover art (as the B-side to "Boys and Girls"), and pastiches the Doctor Who theme.
  • The cover for the Iron Maiden album Somewhere in Time features a TARDIS near a Rainbow Club billboard.
  • The Koit song "Sci-fi Rocks" shows the TARDIS on the lyric "Jump out of your box".
  • Kylie Minogue had a whole section of her 2006-7 live shows based around dancers in Cybermen costumes. This was before she appeared in "Voyage of the Damned".
  • "One of These Days" by Pink Floyd contains a quote from the Doctor Who theme.
  • "Nothing to Fear" by Depeche Mode interpolates the Doctor Who theme's bassline.
  • The Pogues' instrumental "Cats of Kilkenny" sounds suspiciously like an acoustic and Hibernised cover of the Doctor Who theme.
  • "Up on the Ladder" by Radiohead opens with the line "I'm stuck in the TARDIS, trapped in hyperspace."
  • "Exterminate, Annihilate, Destroy" by German electronic group Rotersand includes samples of Daleks shouting the song title.

    Professional Wrestling 

    Puppet Shows 
  • In one "Veterinarian's Hospital" skit on The Muppet Show, Dr Bob gets confused when Nurse Janice says "Who, doctor?", pointing out Doctor Who is a different show.
  • The "Pigs in Space" skit in the live show The Muppets Take the O2 was one massive Doctor Who reference, guest starring David Tennant and Peter Davison in different performances. The Doctor accidentally turns Link Hogthrob into a Time Lord and he regenerates through various Muppets dressed as Doctors, starting with Sam the Eagle as William Hartnell and ending with Miss Piggy as Jodie Whittaker. The title of the skit is "The Stolen Mirth" (Tennant version) or "Mirthshock" (Davison version).
  • In the "Numeric-Con" episode of Sesame Street, Mando wears a Fourth Doctor costume as "Doctor Two", and "the new Doctor Two" (a Muppet version of the Eleventh Doctor) makes an appearance later, along with Muppet versions of the Cybermen and Daleks. The Muppet Daleks have appeared in the show since, and also in a Deleted Scene from The Furchester Hotel.

    Radio 
  • John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme
    • One episode features a Doctor Who fan whose ambition is to make the TARDIS noise.
    • In the Storyteller's time travel story, Dr Krupenstein's time machine makes "a noise like a Radiophonic Workshop".
    • In the last episode of Season 6, when the other actors are all giving John their ideas for sketches, Carrie Quinlan's is "Doctor Who and all the Doctor Who adventures, only Carrie is the Doctor."
  • In the Mitch Benn's Crimes Against Music episode "Journey to the Centre of Rick Wakeman", which opens with a Putting the Band Back Together scene, Mitch has become a recluse, writing a Doctor Who rock opera.
  • In Ashley Blaker: 6.5 Children, Blaker speculates that the reason his daughter's school bus has had multiple drivers but they've all been named Barry is bacause they're different incarnations, and the erratic arrival time of the bus is therefore because it's a TARDIS.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Multiple in GURPS:
    • In GURPS Illuminati University (published in 1995, when there were seven Doctors), the head of the titular university's time travel and history college is Dr. What7, a time-traveller who roams the timestream Doing Good, with seven distinct versions of him, from different points in the timeline, running around the university. His home and office is the Public TOILET, a pocket dimension disguised as a portable toilet, which pops up in different places around the campus. His character art depicts what's basically a black Fourth Doctor.
    • In a Pyramid magazine article describing a chain of private Extranormal Prisons for a superhero setting, one of the prisoners in the UK Mega-Max is "the Professor", an eccentric inventor who claims to be a time traveller, says his time machine is disguised as an everyday object, can escape from a normal prison using household items, and has been charged with multiple child abductions, with his own story being that he took them on "adventures", and then left them in the past.
    • Spaceships 7: Divergent and Paranormal Tech presents the Operator-Class Reality Police Cruiser, a ship for the so-called Reality Police. It's Bigger on the Inside, can travel through time, and is able to disguise itself as most anything marginally larger than a person — the book even suggests a phone booth.
  • Mutants & Masterminds:
    • In the Halt Evil Doer! setting, Merlin is often described in terms reminiscent of the Doctor.
    • In the Freedom City setting:
      • UNISON (the UN-sponsored superspy agency) spent the 1960s battling an alien invasion force and their time-travelling backer. The invaders were based in a British quarry.
      • The Freedomverse's UK superhero team, the Bulldogs, is led by a Brigadier Douglas Courtney. Nicholas Courtney played Doctor Who's Brigadier, and Douglas Camfield was the director who cast him.
    • A subtle one in the fan setting A World Less Magical, But No Less Fantastic: Kent Wildman is a Doc-Savage-like character who currently lives in a pocket universe, occasionally visiting other universes. When the portals to other unverses open it makes "a strange noise, like a key being dragged along a piano string", and nobody knows why. This is the TARDIS noise, described via how the Radiophonic Workshop made it.
  • The Toon Ace Catalog includes the Ducktor and his arch-enemy the Mouseter who are Time Nerds from the planet Gollygee.

    Theatre 
  • In Matilda, when Bruce has to eat an entire cake, the children sing a song encouraging him to eat it and wondering how it's possible. One lyric goes, "I think in effect, this must confirm, Bruce, what we all suspected: you have a worm, Bruce, or maybe your largeness is a bit like a TARDIS: considerably roomier inside."
  • In Back to the Future: The Musical (at least the West End version), the TARDIS briefly appears on the background screen during "21st century", alongside the hoverboard and the time-travelling train.

    Video Games 
  • In Ace Of Spades, the London map has a blue police box next to Big Ben.
  • In Ad Venture Capitalist, the Gravity Booth item resembles a TARDIS.
  • In Anno 2025, there is a reference to two unidentified people simply walking into a crater and searching for a blue box.
  • The teleporter pod in the ZX Spectrum game The Dark Side is Bigger on the Inside with a very TARDIS-like console (though it's square rather than hexagonal because of game engine limitations).
  • The Darkside Detective: Examining a winged statue results in Dooley warning, "Don't blink!"
  • In Discworld Noir, Lewton's argument with one of the villains is closely based on the big Doctor/Davros scene in "Genesis of the Daleks", replacing a killer spell with a killer microbe.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins, the little boy sitting on the bridge in Lothering will open conversation with "Have you seen my mother?" with the exact same inflection as the boy asking for his "mummy" from the two-parter "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances". The voice is also identical. All the kid needs is a gas mask.
  • Fallout series:
  • In Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Spider says something about "reversing the code polarity."
  • The description of the Simple Red Fez in Flight Rising is simply "Fezzes are cool."
  • Frenzy have a minor robotic enemy modelled directly after the Daleks.
  • The Macintosh game Gamma Zee uses "TARDISes" as teleporter spaces.
  • The ZX Spectrum game Herbert's Dummy Run, about a baby in a department store, has a room containing a shooting gallery of Daleks which Herbert can fire his dummies at (an attack he doesn't have anywhere else). No explanation for this is given.
  • The JauntTrooper series has sonic screwdrivers, chameleon circuits, and transmat booths as usable objects. Whovians had an advantage in knowing that a sonic could pick locks, disable traps, and repair items; others tended to discover one of these uses and assume that was it.
  • LEGO Adaptation Game:
  • Easy to miss in the Lair of the Shadow Broker (literally) DLC for Mass Effect 2: The Shadow Broker says: "You travel with fascinating companions, doctor."
  • In Life Is Strange, Max nicknames an owl "Doctor Hoo".
  • In Pokémon Black and White and the sequels, the lead scientist for the Pokétransfer says "Well, let's begin. Allons-y!"
  • In Shaun the Sheep: Home Sheep Home 2: Lost in Space, one of the hidden areas contains the TARDIS, which dematerialises as soon as you've found it.

    Webcomics 
  • In All Over The House, Tesrin has the Seal of Rassilon on her bedroom wall.
  • Doctor Who characters have appeared in And Shine Heaven Now, however, only sporadically because according to Erin, Shine takes place in a continuity where the Doctor preferred another planet to Earth. Notably, the Sixth Doctor briefly appeared in the "All's Well that Ends Wells" storyline to explain why Integra was de-aging and direct her in the right direction to fix that. It's placed sometime after "Timelash", as the Doctor is trying to return the real H.G. Wells to his timeline. Later, during the Battle of London, a young Rose and Jackie are seen fighting the fires that broke out, Ace is blowing up vampires, and Luke, Clyde, and Sarah Jane are hiding in Aziraphale's bookshop. (The Rani also apparently is a member of Eurekon staff, as she ends Doc's panel to make room for the next one, while the Master-the Ainley one, by appearances-is also in attendance.)
  • In Arthur, King of Time and Space, Merlin is loosely based on the Doctor (and physically on William Hartnell with a Wizard Beard). The twelve aged Roman emissaries in the baseline arc are twelve Doctors (1-10 plus the alt-ninths from "Scream of the Shalka" and "Curse of Fatal Death"), just because he "needed twelve faces".
  • In Charby the Vampirate Menulis brings up the TARDIS as something Bigger on the Inside when Charby is explaining the nature of Kellwood Forest to Tony.
  • Dumbing of Age
    • One of the names Walky calls Jason when making fun of his Britishness is "Mr Who". (The fact Walky gets all his British references wrong annoys Jason even more than the jokes themselves — which may be the point.)
    • Lucy has a t-shirt with the Moffat era DW TARDIS logo. In a double reference, it forms part of the slogan "When you're in trouble, you call DW".
  • In El Goonish Shive
    • Doctor Physics Professor looks like the Eleventh Doctor, apparently this wasn't intentional, but Dan went with it once he noticed (he thinks it's just that the Eleventh Doctor looks like a physics professor).
    • Dex wears a Fourth Doctor scarf in a flashback.
    • A Dalek appears in a Q&A strip about why El Goonish Shive won't have time travel.
    • There's a Halloween sketchbook with Grace and Tedd as the Eleventh Doctor and Amy (yes, respectively).
    • Another sketchbook has "Tedd as the Eleventh Doctor, Justin as a the Tenth Doctor, Grace as a happy Dalek."
  • Part 2 of Ensign Sue Must Die kicks off when the Tenth Doctor comes to tell the Star Trek (2009) crew that having the titular Ensign Sue killed unleashed Sues across the multiverse, and, upon taking Sherlock's advice, use Poke Balls to capture them all and bring them to the Trek universe only to find that was 'Sherlock's'...or rather, Khan's plan the whole time. In part 3, as the Sues' Reality Warper powers mess with reality, the Doctor starts regenerating...out of order. (10, 11, 12, 9, 6, 2, 4, 8, 1, 3, 5, War, Joanna Lumley's Doctor, and back to 10 once the crisis is resolved.)
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: In chapter 32, "From the Forest She Came", Annie, while attempting to stage a Relationship-Salvaging Disaster, has Robot pretend to go crazy and suggests they need to "reverse the polarity" to fix him.
  • In the time travel arc of Irregular Webcomic!, the time machine looks like a police box.
  • Mountain Time includes a Dalek among things that are not a horse.
  • In The Non-Adventures of Wonderella strip "London GALLING!", a Doctor-like character summons Wonderella and a Kamen Rider-like character concerning an alien invasion. They then start arguing as to which city the aliens will be invading based on their own genre traditions: London, New York, or Tokyo. The aliens picked Antarctica.
  • The Petri Dish:
    • In one strip, Bob has to clean the toilet and when he picks up the plunger, he says, "Exterminate!".
    • When Thaddeus and Bob are sent into another universe, Bob appears as a Cyberman.
  • Realmwalker has several Doctor Who references. Thrym refers to Gunhild as "Doctor Who", Luke wears TARDIS pyjamas, and Fulla's outfit looks like a blue version of the Sixth Doctor's coat.
  • Square Root of Minus Garfield references:
    • Jon is shown wearing the Sixth Doctor's outfit here.
    • This strip edits an earlier SRoMG to give Jon a gas mask and replace his original Madness Mantra of "Talk?" with "Are you my mummy?" in reference to "The Empty Child".
    • This one edits a strip where Jon panics over not getting any e-mails or texts because he thinks there's been alien abductions. This version changes it to "Eknodine", the townspeople-wiping aliens from "Amy's Choice", and shows Garfield subsequently turning into one.
    • The next day, we got an edit of a strip where Garfield retorts to Jon calling him a worthless lump of blubber. His real response was "Lumps of blubber have feelings too", here it's "The Adipose are lumps of blubber, and they're Doctor Who's most popular aliens!"
  • Unwinder's Tall Comics: In this comic, Barbecue Sauce is reading "some non-canon comic continuations of old, canceled, BBC science fiction shows". We get a closeup of the Professor Bluebottle comic cover, featuring a scientist hero in a goofy white suit, accompanied by two younger companions, squaring off against aliens known as the Dops.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • Arthur:
    • The episode "Carried Away" revolves around Kate, Pal, and Mei-Lin travelling across the Solar System with Pal's cousin, Dr. Yowl, who owns a doghouse-shaped spaceship called the BARKTIS.
    • The episode "D.W. and Dr. Whosit" is about D.W. wanting to watch a Show Within a Show called Dr. Whosit but being told she's too young to watch it because it's too scary. Not only is the name Dr. Whosit clearly referencing Doctor Who, but it's even got characters with British accents, aliens, and a mailbox spaceship meant to be a stand-in for the TARDIS.
  • Ben 10: Ultimate Alien has Professor Paradox, who is very clearly modelled on the Doctor and falls more into being an Expy than a Captain Ersatz of him, although he has all the hallmarks of the Doctor, and is a Composite Character of the Byronic Hero Fourth Doctor (a reference to jelly babies is mentioned) and the Lighter and Softer Fifth and Sixth Doctors.
  • Family Guy
    • In "Episode 420", Brian mentions that since marijuana was legalized in Quahog, ratings for the show are through the roof.
    • In "Blue Harvest", Peter/Han mentions that "hyperspace always looks so freaky", whereupon the mid-1970s "time tunnel" opening sequence from Seasons 12-17 is displayed.
  • In the Harvey Street Kids episode "It's a Wonderful LARP", the Bloogey Boys mention watching a Show Within a Show called Professor When.
  • Infinity Train: When Tulip meets robot One-One, the first thing they ask her is "Are you my mum?" And it's the British-accented Glad-One personality that asks this.
  • In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, a K-9 can briefly be seen on Tony's shelf.
  • Milo Murphy's Law has the Show Within a Show The Dr. Zone Files, which parodies the general concept of Doctor Who as well as its more absurd aspects.
  • In Miraculous Ladybug:
    • A door in Alya's room is painted like the TARDIS door.
    • The time-travelling heroine Bunnyx can enter her Burrow, a Pocket Dimension from which she can view and travel to different eras. The Burrow appears as a white space full of round windows opening to different times. Ladybug comments upon entering it that it is Bigger on the Inside.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The character of Doctor Whooves/Time Turner started out as a random background pony who happened to resemble David Tennant, and became one of the show's many Ensemble Darkhorses. At some point, the writers embraced the concept and started deliberately showing him as a pony version of the Doctor, most notably in the Lower-Deck Episode "Slice of Life".
  • Phineas and Ferb:
    • "Ferb TV": Baljeet's Show Within a Show seems to be some hybrid of this, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Adventures of Dr. McNinja.
    • "For Your Ice Only": Doofenshmirtz has decorated his Abominable-Inator with a familiar-looking colorful scarf.
    • "Mission Marvel": Ferb brags about the "British sci-fi technology" he used to make the shed Bigger on the Inside.
    • "Save Summer": In their global concert, the kids dress as various doctors (with Isabella as Rose Tyler) in the UK.
    • "Last Day of Summer": The "time loop" animation brings to mind the opening of Series 8 and 9.
  • In the Rugrats episode "Toy Palace", toy Daleks are among the things that can be seen in the toy store that Tommy and Chuckie are exploring.
  • In the Shaun the Sheep episode "Party Animals", when the sheep gatecrash the Farmer's fancy dress party in homemade costumes, one of them comes as a Dalek, and is later shown failing to get up the stairs.
  • The Simpsons:
    • The fourth incarnation of the Doctor appears as one of the representatives of TV in "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming", as well as "Mayored to the Mob".
    • In "Bart the Fink", Comic Book Guy carries a wheelbarrow of 100 tacos, saying that it should get him through a Doctor Who marathon.
    • In "Treehouse of Horror X", Comic Book Guy has the Fourth Doctor concealed in plastic as part of his collection.
    • In "Springfield Up", Homer says to Declan Desmond: "Check with me in 8 years, Doctor Who. I'll be kicking your ass with a golden boot!"
    • In "Love Is A Many Splintered Thing", the TARDIS shows up for just a moment in the British movie the kicked out men were watching.
    • In "Holidays of Future Passed", some Dalek policemen appear in future Springfield.
    • In "Diggs", Diggs' cast with a list of people he wanted to visit included the TARDIS and Dalek #7.
    • In "Husbands and Knives", after Milhouse is scratched by some pop-up claws from a banned Wolverine comic book and sheds tears on the page of it, an angry Comic Book Guy mocks him by calling him "Doctor Boo-Hoo".
  • Star Trek: Prodigy: The Vau N'Akat members of the time-travelling Order abandon their original names in favour of portentuous nouns like "the Diviner" and "the Vindicator".
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
  • Steven Universe: In "Are You My Dad?"/"I Am My Mom", Homeworld Gem Aquamarine, who has a British accent and looks like a Creepy Child, goes around asking people "Are you my dad?" while ignoring all other inquiries from others, á la Jamie from "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances".
  • In an early Young Justice episode, a teleporter exit is concealed inside a blue police box (in the middle of an American city...).

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top