Doctor Who? running joke

A number of references to the Doctor's apparent lack of name have appeared in the Doctor Who Universe, playing on the 'Doctor Who' joke. This is an ongoing attempt to document these instances.

See separate article for a discussion of the Doctor's true name from an in-universe perspective.

List of references

Television stories

Doctor Who

First Doctor

• The first occurs in the first Doctor Who story, An Unearthly Child when Ian Chesterton says, "Be reasonable Doctor Foreman". The Doctor then replies "Eh, Doctor Who — what's he talking about?" According to the DVD production subtitles, the response was actually added by William Hartnell himself.
• In the final episode of DW: The Chase, the Doctor attempts to pass himself off to a group of Daleks as the (now-destroyed) robot duplicate of him. It doesn't work, and after escaping the Doctor is heard to say "They now know who's Who." According to the DVD production notes the script capitalizes the second "Who" as an injoke. (The production notes also indicate that Terry Nation's original script for the story had no less than two lines of dialogue that would have directly referred to the Doctor by the name Doctor Who.)
• In The Gunfighters, the Doctor mumbingly introduces himself to Bat Masterson by the alias of Doctor Caligari. A rightfully confused Masterson asked "Doctor Who?" and The Doctor answered "yes, er, quite right."
• In The War Machines, WOTAN orders Dodo Chaplet to send the Doctor with the command, "DDDOCTORR WHOO ISS RREQUIREDD". This is the only time in the series that the Doctor is directly called Doctor Who. This reportedly caused angry mail to get sent to the production team. It is however possible, if belief is somewhat suspended, that the robot meant it in a different way; Doctor, who is required. This may be because WOTAN was referring to the Doctor's real name, which was too long so it was abbreviated to "Who", or being a logical computer, it simply meant it didn't know his surname.
• In The Five Doctors, Tegan says to the Doctor ""WHO" are you?"

Second Doctor

• The Doctor introduces himself as "Doctor von Wer" (German for "Doctor (of) Who") to which the sergeant says "Doctor who?". The Doctor then responds saying "That's what I said." (DW: The Highlanders)
• When the Doctor writes a note to Professor Zaroff, he signs it "Dr. W." (DW: The Underwater Menace)
• A moment after meeting the Doctor for the first time, Colonel Crichton asked "Who was that strange little man?". An UNIT employee answered "The Doctor.". To this Crichton replied "Who?". (DW: The Five Doctors)

Third Doctor

• In The Curse of Peladon, the Earth representative is outraged that the guards wouldn't let her in the palace, because she was the rightful representative of Earth, The Doctor claims to be the representative of Earth. The Earth representative then asks "Doctor? What Doctor? Doctor who?"
• In The Mutants, the Investigator asks Cotton "Doctor... who, did you say?"
• The Doctor's vehicle, Bessie, carries the licence plate "WHO 1". (However, the vehicle introduced later in Pertwee's era, while referred to as the Whomobile in publicity and by Pertwee himself, is never referred to by this name on screen.)

Fourth Doctor

• Continuing the in-joke from the Third Doctor era, the Fourth Doctor drives Bessie with its WHO 1 licence plate on one occasion. (DW: Robot)
• While searching for the Doctor, Stor inquires "Who is Doctor?" (DW: The Invasion of Time)
• During her initial meeting with the Doctor, Tegan refers to him as "Doctor whoever-you-are". (DW: Logopolis)

Fifth Doctor

• When Lady Cranleigh is introduced to the Doctor, she says "How do you do? Doctor... who?" (DW: Black Orchid)

Seventh Doctor

• Doris Lethbridge-Stewart asks the Brigadier "Who is the Doctor?" (DW: Battlefield)

Ninth Doctor

• Rose narrowly avoids asking the question in Rose when she responds to the the Doctor's name with "Doctor what?"
• While looking up any information on The Doctor, Rose stumbles upon a website titled "Doctor Who?"
• In The End of the World, the Steward sees the Doctor and asks "Who the hell are you?" to which the Doctor replies, "That's nice, thanks."
• In The Empty Child, when Rose introduces the Doctor to Jack as 'Mr. Spock' she says to him; "What was I supposed to say, you don't have a name! Don't you ever get tired of 'Doctor'? Doctor who?"
  • According to Steven Moffat a more explicit use of the joke was planned but cut. The Doctor was to have responded to Rose's bestowal of the name Mr. Spock by saying "I'd rather be Doctor Who than Star Trek."
• When meeting Margaret Blaine's (Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen in disguise) secretary Idris Hopper in Boom Town this discussion occurs:

The Doctor: "Just go in there, and tell her the Doctor would like to see her." Idris: "Doctor who?" The Doctor: "Just the Doctor. Tell her exactly that. The Doctor."

Tenth Doctor

• In The Christmas Invasion, the newly regenerated Tenth Doctor fainted in front of Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith after landing his TARDIS in front of them and wishing them a merry christmas. After Rose told the pair that was the Doctor, Jackie suspecting the Ninth Doctor and not knowing the concept of regeneration asked Rose; "What d'you mean, 'that's the Doctor'? Doctor who?"
• In The Girl in the Fireplace, after The Doctor and Reinette read each others minds, Reinette says sadly; "Doctor who? It's more than just a secret", before inviting him to the dance.
• In Love and Monsters, Elton Pope manages to avoid saying this question, while discussing the Doctor with Ursula Blake, saying instead "Doctor what?"
• In Blink, Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale watched an Easter Egg on a DVD, Sally said; "The Doctor." and Larry replied; "Who's the Doctor?".
• When Sylvia Noble encountered the Doctor for the second time in The Sontaran Stratagem, she said "Oh, it's you! Doctor... what was it?"
• In The Next Doctor, the Doctor introduced himself to Rosita as "The Doctor" and she replied "Doctor, who?".

Eleventh Doctor

• In a trailer for series 5, the Doctor and Amy Pond had the following conversation:

Amy: "Who are you?" The Doctor: "I'm the Doctor." Amy: "Doctor Who?"

The Sarah Jane Adventures

• In Revenge of the Slitheen, the Slitheen tell Sarah Jane that members of their family died in Downing Street. Sarah Jane tries to tell them that she may know "what happened. Or rather, who happened."

K-9 and Company

• When Brendan Richards asks "who is the Doctor?", K-9 Mark III responds, "Affirmative."

Audio

Fifth Doctor

• In BFA: The Kingmaker, the publishing robot that comes to interrogate The Doctor about his failure to produce his final in a series of children's books entitled Doctor Who Discovers, refers to him as 'Doctor Who'. When this is questioned by Peri and Erimem, he explains that 'some idiot' at the publishing company had misprinted the title, which was originally intended to be The Doctor, Who Discovers.

Sixth Doctor

• In BFA: Real Time, the President suggests contacting "the Doctor." His subordinate, Dean, responds, "who?"

This is one of the bonus scenes exclusive to the story's audio release, and does not appear in the webcast version.

Parallel universe Doctors

• In DWU: Sympathy for the Devil, the Doctor mentions that to the Chinese he is known as "Hu" ("the Tiger," for his courage), "Hu" ("the Fox," for his cunning), and "Xue" ("the Doctor," he who tends to the sick). The last is his personal favourite. All three names are pronounced much like the word "who."

Prose

• In ST: The Feast of Seven... Eight (and Nine), two (unspecified) incarnations of the Doctor ask each other knock-knock jokes, but they fall flat: 'Doctor.' 'Doctor who? Who's that?'

Novels

• In PDA: Salvation, General Marchant at one point addresses the Doctor as 'Doctor Whoever-You-Are'.
• In MA: The Dark Path, after the Doctor introduces his companions and himself - 'this is Victoria, Jamie, and I'm the Doctor', Adjudicator Secular Brandauer asks: 'Doctor who?' (to which the Doctor replies: 'Oh, don’t you mean Doctor whom? I do hate to be contrary, but...' and changes the subject).
• Special note should be given to the novelisation Doctor Who and the Zarbi for rendering any opportunities for the joke moot by referring to the Doctor throughout by the name "Dr. Who".

Short stories

• In ST: 64 Carlysle Street, Sergeant Dunston refers to the Doctor as 'this Doctor Whoever-he-was'.

Comic strips

to be added