October 17, 2013
We hope you’ve seen the 50 year trailer for The Day of the Doctor (if not, watch the trailer now!) and enjoyed it as much as we did. Because it was crammed full of “blink and you’ll miss it” moments (and we’ve warned you about blinking before), here are 11 things we really loved seeing in this celebration of 50 years of adventures:
1. Tiny Yeti
A topical one, considering the recent return of The Web of Fear (1968), the little Yeti sculptures act as a homing device for their larger, more terrifying counterparts. To anyone who finds one of these, our best advice would be to get rid of it quick!
2. Clockwork droids
Hanging next to the Yeti is the mask from one of the SS Madame de Pompadour’s single-minded clockwork robots, who spent years opening time windows into the life of the real Madame de Pompadour, in an effort to harvest her for parts (The Girl in the Fireplace, 2006). Other masks seen nearby include the mask of the Brethren from The Masque of Mandragora (1976), and the golden head of one of the Santa “Pilot Fish” from The Christmas Invasion (2005).
3. Fob watch
Or is it a Time Lord Chameleon Arch? The fob watch was a device used by both the Doctor and the Master to rewrite their biology and disguise themselves as humans. The watch carries a perception filter, so the carrier is often unaware of its true importance (Human Nature, The Family of Blood, Utopia, 2007)
4. The Key To Time
Glimpsed through the legs of the unfortunate extermination victim, is the brightly coloured tracer wand, given to the Doctor by the White Guardian to aid him in his search for the Key To Time. Next to the wand and key is the robot parrot Polyphase Avatron, owned by the captain of The Pirate Planet (1978), and encountered while the Doctor and Romana were finding the second segment of the Key.
5. Dalek saucers
“Rebels of London, come out of your hiding places. The Daleks offer you life!” These saucers were last seen (will be seen?) blasting London to the ground, around the year 2150, when the Daleks invade the Earth (The Dalek Invasion of Earth, 1964)
6. TARDIS key
In several of its guises. The “silver spade” key shown here, was first seen in the Third Doctor’s final season in 1974, and was used sporadically up until Doctor Who: The Movie in 1996. The more standard-looking key has also been used numerous times – most notably glowing in the Doctor’s hand to show that the TARDIS had finished repairing itself (The Eleventh Hour, 2010).
7. The Empress of the Racnoss
The multi-legged villainess of 2006’s Christmas special The Runaway Bride, the Empress of the Racnoss, is seen scuttling behind the Eighth Doctor and an Ood. She was last seen being flushed into her own pit to the centre of the Earth, like a spider down a plughole.
8. Bessie
Favourite of the Third Doctor, Bessie was an Edwardian roadster, that the Doctor had extensively modified. Customisations include an anti-theft device that sticks the thief to the car, remote control operation and massive acceleration, combined with safe breaking, so as not to harm the occupants. He was seen driving it when Clara was scattered into the Doctor’s timestream in The Name of the Doctor (2013).
9. The Shard
Location for the climactic events of this year’s The Bells of Saint John, London’s tallest skyscraper the Shard appears in the trail, not far from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge – a nod to the location of Doctor Who: The Movie (1996) perhaps?
10. Laser Screwdriver
HERE COME THE DRUMS! The Master trumped the Doctor with his laser screwdriver in The Sound of Drums / The Last of the Time Lords (2007), when it was seen to age the Doctor hundreds of years.
11. 17162311
That number. It had us foxed for a bit (to the point where we wondered if it spelled something when viewed upside-down). And then we realised: it’s the time and date of broadcast for the first episode of Doctor Who. According to the official paperwork, An Unearthly Child episode one, began transmission on the BBC at 17.16 and 20 seconds, on November 23, 1963. And that, after all, is why we’re still here…