Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty, also known as Liberty Enlightening the World, (PROSE: The Time Travelers' Almanac) was an American landmark located on Liberty Island (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters) in the river contiguous to New York City.[1][2]
Travelers entering New York State by New York Harbor were greeted by the Statue of Liberty. It stood at 46.5 meters from its base to its highest point - the tip of the torch it held in its right hand. (PROSE: The Time Travelers' Almanac)
A sonnet by the poet Elizabeth Lazarus appeared on a plaque inside the statue's pedestal, and included the lines:
- Give me your tired, your poor,
- Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
(PROSE: The Time Travelers' Almanac)
History
The statue was donated to the USA by the people of France in 1886. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)
By 1903, the Statue of Liberty had already been built. (TV: Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror)
In 1930, the Doctor's TARDIS materialized at the base of the Statue, and remained parked there while the Tenth Doctor and Martha fought an attempt by the Cult of Skaro to rebuild the Dalek race. In showing off the Statue to Martha, the Doctor quoted from the Statue's famous inscription, saying, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free." (TV: Daleks in Manhattan)
As the TARDIS' time rotor began to slow down on approach for landing in 1966, the First Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, and Vicki Pallister turned to toward the monitor to see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and numerous other New York City landmarks. (TV: The Chase)
During the first seconds of 1 January 2000, the Statue of Liberty, along with the rest of the world, was nearly destroyed by the Eye of Harmony. (TV: Doctor Who)
In 2254, the Statue of Liberty survived a Dalek invasion of Earth which saw New York liberated by the Doctor. (GAME: Dalek Attack)
In the Doctor's eighth incarnation, the Threshold took the Statue of Liberty and other items of Earth culture to the town of Wormwood on the Moon. (COMIC: Wormwood)
A Statue of Liberty, possibly a replica or the original recovered from Earth before it's destruction, was present in New New York in 5,000,000,023. (TV: New Earth)
Alternate timelines
In an alternate timeline in which Morbius conquered Earth, he took the Statue of Liberty in order to have it installed atop the palace of Morbius on Karn; this timeline was later erased from reality. (AUDIO: The Vengeance of Morbius)
In Roma I, a giant statue of Jupiter called the Jupiter Libertatis stood in the bay south of Marcus Americanius Scriptor's family home. It too was designed and built by Gaulish sculptors, and one of its arms was held aloft and bore a lightning bolt. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
In another timeline in which the Weeping Angels were using New York City as a "battery farm" for feeding on humans' time energy in 1938, the Statue of Liberty had become one of the many statues in the city that were taken over by the Angels. Sometimes the Statue of Liberty would travel from Liberty Island to the Winter Quay in order to send the Angels' imprisoned victims back in time. This specific angel, though mobile, did not seem to be capable of moving its limbs. It is unknown why this was the case.
When Rory Williams and Amy Pond jumped from the Quay's roof to negate an alternate timeline in which Rory remained imprisoned at Winter Quay for the rest of his life, a paradox was created. This paradox killed the vast majority of the Weeping Angels at Winter Quay and removed the Quay from time. As a result of this, the timeline in which the Statue was converted into an Angel never happened. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
In an alternate timeline in which John Hart took control of the Torchwood Institute and became King of the British Empire, he had the Statue of Liberty altered to look more like him. He flew to New York to cut the ribbon. (AUDIO: The Death of Captain Jack)
Mentions and other appearances
The Doctor occasionally encountered it at different locations, or at least referenced its iconic design, at other points in his life. During his fifth incarnation, he compared a statue of the Divine Empress of the Earth Empire to the Statue of Liberty on Earth. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)
During his tenth incarnation, the Doctor noted that one of the features of the Gameslaves' pinball table was a life-sized Statue of Liberty. (COMIC: Pinball Wizard)
Behind the scenes
The Statue of Liberty features on the finalized cover for The First Doctor Adventures: Volume One, replacing the anachronistic Empire State Building which had not been built yet during the time period depicted in the story The Great White Hurricane. However, the new cover also required adjustments because the green patina familiar to listeners in 2017 was the result of copper oxidation. When the statue was newly assembled, it was the bronze color of copper, as is reflected in the final cover.
The Statue of Liberty turned into a Weeping Angel is one of the Weeping Angel enemies in the Doctor Who: Legacy mobile game.
The Statue of Liberty, with its torch's flame molded into the shape of the number 13, featured in a promotional teaser for Meet the Thirteenth Doctor.
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ The only in-person encounter of a TARDIS crew with the statue on-screen, Daleks in Manhattan, was silent as to the precise real-world location of the island on which the statue is located. The Tenth Doctor's exclamation, "Smell that Atlantic breeze!" and James Strong's camera angles — which ignored the statue's greater proximity to New Jersey — gave the impression that it was perhaps in the open Atlantic Ocean. In fact, of course, it sits in the Hudson River on Liberty Island.
- ↑ An aerial view of the Statue of Liberty in The Chase episode 3 "Flight Through Eternity", however, showed the statue in its proper location, with Ellis Island a half-mile in the background and Jersey City immediately beyond.
