Cultural references to the Doctor Who universe/1990s

Cultural references to the Doctor Who universe by decade

Occasionally, elements of the Doctor Who universe are referenced in the broader popular culture. This page exists to throw a spotlight on some of these casual references made in television, comics, films and other media which happened during the 1990s.

In-universe references

These references functionally act as minor, unlicensed crossovers between the series and the DWU: some element of the Doctor Who universe makes a cameo, or is referenced, in such a way as to imply that it is real in the world of the story, or indeed that the story itself "unofficially" takes place in the Doctor Who universe.

Television

• In the Red Dwarf episode Demons and Angels (1992), as the crew is escaping the exploding Red Dwarf, the TARDIS can be seen in the background.
• In the third series of the 1989 show, Maid Marian and her Merry Men, "They Came From Outer Space" (1993), there is a brief audio cameo of the Daleks, who, as they always do, shout "Exterminate!".
• Green Courage (1999), an episode of Fox Kids' children's action series Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, featured an on-screen note claiming that a meteoroid field that had just collided with a planet was located at "ten zero eleven zero zero, by zero two from galactic zero," in the constellation of Kasterborous. In Pyramids of Mars, these coordinates are given as the location of Gallifrey.

The Fourth Doctor appears in The Simpsons.

• In addition to a number of Doctor Who references to Doctor Who as fiction in-universe (see below), the Fourth Doctor appeared in one 1995 episode of The Simpsons, Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming, as a representative of television.

Video games

The TARDIS appears in Fallout 2.

• In Fallout 2, the TARDIS can be found in the Desert, although it disappears after a while. As an additional reference, a speaking cyborg by the name of K9 is a recruitable companion for the player character (although he does not resemble any known "official" DWU K9 model); it refers to the player character as "Master" once it is an active member of the party.

The exit for one of the levels in Lemmings 2: The Tribes is the TARDIS.

• In Lemmings 2: The Tribes,the exit for the "Shadow Tribe" level is clearly the TARDIS.

Comics

Marvel

• In Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four Vol 3 9 (1998), Johnny Storm knows that Reed Richards got a second-hand phone booth that is bigger on the inside from his "weird 'doctor' friend". (While Johnny called it an "antique London police call box", it was drawn as a red telephone booth.) (The Seventh Doctor had previously interacted with elements of the Fantastic Four mythos in licensed crossover stories Time Bomb!, Clobberin' Time! and The Incomplete Death's Head.)
• The 1999 Donald Duck comic story The Last Time Lord was a mashup spoof of Doctor Who and Star Wars where Donald was accidentally confused for the last surviving Time Lord in the universe after digging up a "laser sword" clearly standing in for a Star Wars lightsaber (the Jedi and the Time Lords being conflated in the story's mashup cosmology), and beamed up to outer space to battle a cyborg tyrant. Regeneration is alluded to, as the cyborg tyrant readily accepts Donald as his old Time Lord nemesis due to knowing that "your lot can change faces".

Prose

• Lady Jennifer Buckingham from The War Games appears in The Bloody Red Baron (1995), the second volume of Kim Newman's crossover-intensive Anno Dracula universe.
• The Fifth Doctor makes an unnamed cameo as an unnamed stranger in a bar who helps the protagonist out of a sticky situation in the novel High Wizardry (1990) by Diane Duane, part of the Young Wizards series. A decade later, Duane, who confirmed the stranger's intended identity to a fan, ended up writing an official Fifth Doctor short story for the Short Trips anthology The Quality of Leadership.
• Good Omens, a 1990 novel cowritten by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, featured a brief appearance by three extraterrestrial beings compelled to come to Earth to convey a comically cursory "message of universal peace and cosmic harmony" by the powers of the supernaturally-gifted young boy, Adam Young. One of them is recognisably a Dalek, although not named as such, and indeed the three seem to get about in a Dalek flying saucer. (The 2019 TV adaptation of the book included other nods to the Doctor Who universe, as documented at Cultural references to the Doctor Who universe/2010s, but reduced the number of aliens to a single one, a green duck-billed woman with no resemblance whatsoever to either of the three aliens in the book.)

It looked like every cartoon of a flying saucer Newt had ever seen.
As he stared over the top of his map, a door in the saucer slid aside with a satisfying whoosh, revealing a gleaming walkway which extended automatically down to the road. Brilliant blue light shone out, outlining three alien shapes. They walked down the ramp. At least, two of them walked. The one that looked like a pepper pot just skidded down it, and fell over at the bottom.'Good Omens

Out-of-universe references

These references are to Doctor Who (or one of its spin-offs) as works of fiction. They merely establish that fiction about the Doctor or the Daleks exists in the fictional universe of the story, as it does in the real world.

Television

Two Daleks are seen on a toy shelf in Rugrats.

• In episode "Toy Palace" (1992) of Rugrats, purple Dalek toys can be seen in the background on a shelf.

Mr. Bean plays with a toy Dalek in the titular show.

• In the episode "Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean" (1992) of Mr. Bean, Mr. Bean plays around with toy animals in front of a diorama of Jesus's birth. He eventually begins to bring out a toy Dalek, and pretends that it killed a toy lamb.
• The 1996 The Vicar of Dibley Christmas special, "The Christmas Lunch Incident", Jim Trott hysterically attempts to recite a joke he had previously heard to Geraldine, the joke being none other than the overused knock knock in which the recipient is forced to ask "Doctor who?" at the end. As well as featuring Roger Lloyd Pack among its regular cast, the episode also coincidentally featured the second and final appearance of Peter Capaldi as Tristan Campbell.
• Several The Simpsons episode have referenced the Doctor Who franchise:
  • In Bart the Fink (1996), Comic Book Guy buys a hundred tacos from Tacomat and says "This should provide adequate sustenance for the Doctor Who marathon."
  • Mayored to the Mob (1998), Tom Baker appears in costume at Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con, along with a TARDIS prop.
  • In Treehouse of Horror X (1999), Comic Book Guy, under the guise of The Collector, has "Doctor Who" concealed in plastic.
• In the UK version of Queer as Folk (created by Russell T Davies), the character of Vince makes various references to Doctor Who in season 1 (1999).
  • In episode 1, Vince has a Dalek toy in his fish tank. He watches the cliffhanger to episode one of Pyramids of Mars.
  • In episode 2, Vince is at a pub with coworkers. One makes references to Star Trek while Rosaline says she did watch Coronation Street instead of Doctor Who.
  • In episode 3, Vince says Mickey Blake got him episode three of Planet of the Daleks in colour and can get him episode four of The Tenth Planet.
  • In episode 5, a Vince and a guy he brings home for a one-night stand end up watching his Genesis of the Daleks tapes. In the same episode, Cameron comments on "the one with the shop dummies" and "that one with the maggots". He said the show scared him as a kid.
  • In episode 7, Vince receives a replica of K9 for his birthday. (When asked where he got K9, Davies confirmed, "It was the original K9 from the BBC!")
  • In episode 8, Vince ends up breaking up with Cameron when he can't list "all the Doctor Whos". Stuart, Vince's long-time friend, can list all 7 actors in order, even remembering that according to Vince, "Paul McGann doesn't count."

Prose

Kim Newman

• One of Kim Newman's books in the Dark Future series makes references to an alternative timeline, ultra-nationalist, pro-English version of the Doctor Who television series in which the Doctor visits famous events in English history while fighting off extraterrestrial threats to the Crown.
• Newman's Life's Lottery (1999), a playful exploration of the concept of alternate universes, references Inferno in some detail (and a character fantasises somewhat colourfully about Jo Grant).
• Richard Calder's Dead trilogy features numerous dark alternative time lines involved in a sex war between men and woman. At least one features a version of Doctor Who. The last scene of the final volume, Dead Things (1996), shows the young protagonist watching a scene of the "Daleks exterminating the slave girls of Skaro" on television.