Trivia / Doctor Who (Titan)

• Actor Allusion
  • One verging on Take That! - in "Weapons of Past Destruction" the Ninth Doctor says that "no-one thought of looking for anything in Swindon"... which is the real-world birthplace of Billie Piper.
  • The Twelfth Doctor's first companion after Clara Oswald is Hattie, a Punk Rock musician, continuing the invocation of this trope with Twelve that began with his guitar becoming an Iconic Item for him in Series 9: Peter Capaldi was a punk rock musician in the early 1980s.
  • In the Twelfth Doctor story "Terror of the Cabinet Noir", Cardinal Richelieu is one of the antagonists. Peter Capaldi's last major role prior to that of the Doctor was Richelieu in Series 1 of The Musketeers.
• Ascended Fanon: The ending of "The Good Companion" in the Tenth Doctor series strongly implies that Nick Abadzis buys into the common Rose-exceptionalist fanon that the Moment actually was BadWolf!Rose instead of just copying Rose's appearance from the Doctor's timeline.
• Author's Saving Throw: The UK release of “The Swords of Kali” removes the Unfortunate Implications and Sadly Mythtaken aspects of the US printing by removing all the Hindu mythology terms and changing the name of the titular character to “Otki”.
• Channel Hop: A print variant. In the UK, the Tenth Doctor stories originally appeared alongside the Eleventh's and Twelfth's in Doctor Who Comic, but after 10 issues, he moved over to new sister title Tales from the Tardis, alongside the Ninth Doctor. Two issues later, the original DWC was discontinued and the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors also moved over to Tales, effectively a Comics Merger.
• Development Gag:
  • The section of the Eleventh Doctor Year Two comics relating to "Shada" includes several in-jokes about the story's cancellation and ambiguous canonical status.
  • Also in the Eleventh Doctor Year Two, the design of one of the Volatix Cabal member's casings is based on a "spider Dalek" design from the unfulfilled 1990s plan for a US-made reboot series.
  • In the Ninth Doctor comics, the Slitheen claiming to be "Doctor Who" has a companion called Penny, which is the name of a might-have-been companion who, according to Russell T Davies, might have appeared in the show if Catherine Tate had been unable to appear in Series Four as Donna.
  • The first issue of the Eighth Doctor miniseries features living paintings as the monsters. This had earlier been reported as an abandoned proposed story in the Doctor Who Magazine Eighth Doctor comics.
  • The Twelfth Doctor story "The Wolves of Winter" features Ice Warriors facing off against Vikings. The medieval Norse were the original inspiration for Ice Warrior culture and the Ice Warriors' appearance was initially intended to be based on them before the costume designers went for something more alien.
• Fandom Nod:
  • The trick the Tenth Doctor comes up with in "The Weeping Angels of Mons" to wink alternate eyes as a means of ensuring constant sight on an Angel has been a common fan suggestion, even showing up in old Rage Face meme comics: [1]◊
  • In "Terrorformer", the Twelfth Doctor suggests that a group of people rescued into the TARDIS find a sofa to hide behind if they're scared. "It won't save you, but people seem to find it comforting."
  • At the beginning of "Fractures", the Doctor says "You can never have too much gravitas", an in-joke about the frequent concern of traditionalist Doctor Who fans that any actor who plays the Doctor must have "gravitas".
• Milestone Celebration: Some of the miniseries crossovers capitalized on anniversaries.
  • Four Doctors: 10th anniversary of the television revival.
  • Supremacy of the Cybermen: 50th anniversary of the Cybermen's first television appearance.
  • The Master Plan: 50th anniversary of the Master's first appearance.
  • Empire of the Wolf: 25th anniversary of the Eighth Doctor's first appearance.
• Reality Subtext: According to Paul Cornell, the Third Doctor's final speech in his miniseries, about his need to leave the comforts of the "UNIT family" and move on to new things, relates to Cornell's own decision to not write any more works for Doctor Who or other corporate franchises, and concentrate on his own totally original work. Oddly, this was not Cornell's final contribution to the Whoniverse, as he wrote the Novelization of "Twice Upon a Time" in 2018, but the chance to contribute to the revival of the Doctor Who novelisations might have been a case of Awesome, Dear Boy.
• Schedule Slip: Seems to be happening a lot, with the first two multi-Doctor miniseries among the examples.
  • Four Doctors was promoted as a five-week event, but Part Five hit stands two weeks late.
  • Supremacy of the Cybermen was advertised as a biweekly five-parter, but what should have thus taken one-and-a-half months to release took over five.
  • The second year of the Thirteenth Doctor's ongoing series fell particularly badly to this trope. The first four issues contained the story A Little Help from My Friends, which involved a team-up between the Thirteenth and Tenth Doctors, and ended on a cliffhanger in which Thirteen discovers that her adventure with her past self caused a timeline-damaging paradox. The storyline that would have picked up from said cliffhanger, Alternating Current, was originally advertised as beginning in issue 5 of Thirteen's second year, then set for a June 2020 release. What ended up happening was that Thirteen's second year was cancelled after the fourth issue, and the follow-up arc wouldn't end up being published until November as its own limited miniseries. To make things more confusing, the Defender of the Daleks miniseries (Titan's entry into the multi-medium Time Lord Victorious event) retained its original early autumn release date, despite being set after Alternating Current chronologically. Worse still, Alternating Current ended its own cliffhanger which has yet to be followed up on.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original plan for the Twelfth Doctor title was to keep Clara as a companion through Year Two, then bring in her successor Bill or an original character to fill companion duties in Year Three. But between Clara's dramatic departure at the end of Series 9 and the delay of Bill's debut in Series 10 to Spring 2017 (rather than Fall 2016), this was changed: Clara is dropped after Issue 2.5 and the issues from 2.6 through 3.4 feature Twelve either alone or with original companion Hattie.
  • The Tenth Doctor's storyline with Gabby and Cindy was set to continue with a Twelfth Doctor crossover.
  • A miniseries starring Captain Jack Harkness was set to be published mindway through 2021, serving as a tie-in to the then-upcoming Series 13. The series was pulled from release following controversy over John Barrowman's sexualised interactions with other cast members during the Davies era of the series, which had been publicly discussed and treated as comedic at the time, but which following the Me Too movement were re-evaluated as offensive sexual harassment.
• Written by Cast Member: Drawn rather than written, as the backup story to the Seventh Doctor miniseries, prominently featuring Mags from the TV story "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy", is drawn by Jessica Martin, who played Mags.