whoisdoctorwho.co.uk
- You may be looking for the real-world website or Mickey's blog.
- You may be looking for other topics titled "Who is" or other topics titled "Have You Seen".
- You may be looking for the parodical comic series or the webcast Defenders of Earth.
whoisdoctorwho.co.uk was the website created by Clive Finch in the early 21st century to document the Doctor in Earth's history. It was run by Mickey Smith after Clive's death during the "Dummy Massacre" and by David Roberts after Mickey remained in Pete's World.
The website carried an icon for Campaign for Real Aliens and an award from Conspiracy GOLD by April 2005 (PROSE: Dummy Massacre [+]Loading...["Dummy Massacre (short story)"], Rose sighting confirmed [+]Loading...["Rose sighting confirmed (short story)"], etc.) and began advertising GEOCOMTEX in 2006. (PROSE: Henry Van Statten [+]Loading...["Henry Van Statten (short story)"], etc.)
According to one account, Mickey never took over the website and instead ran a blog. (PROSE: Mickey's Blog [+]Loading...["Mickey's Blog (short story)"])
Name
While the website had the url www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk, (PROSE: Rose Tyler [+]Loading...["Rose Tyler (short story)"]) the name of the website varied between accounts. When Rose Tyler visited it in 2005, it was under the name Doctor Who?, (TV: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (TV story)"], PROSE: Have You Seen This Man? [+]Loading...["Have You Seen This Man? (short story)"], Mickey's Blog [+]Loading...["Mickey's Blog (short story)"], GAME: Rose [+]Loading...{"page":"33","1":"Rose (game)"}) although another account indicated it was called Have you seen the Doctor????????. (PROSE: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (novelisation)"]) When Mickey first began using the site, he renamed it to Who is Doctor Who? to match the url, (PROSE: Dummy Massacre [+]Loading...["Dummy Massacre (short story)"], Mars [+]Loading...["Mars (WiDW short story)"]) and by 2007, he renamed it to Defending the Earth!. (WC: Lifeboat Museum, etc.)
History
2005
Beginning sometime around March, Clive Finch released an open call on whoisdoctorwho.co.uk for anyone who had seen the Doctor to contact him and tell their stories. He got replies from hundreds of people, including A. Fergus, Peri Brown, Arthur Dent, Mr Yates, and Sarah Jane Smith. Some of the readers, such as r willimas, met the Ninth Doctor on the very same day they wrote to Clive. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man? [+]Loading...["Have You Seen This Man? (short story)"])
The website had several photographs of the Ninth Doctor on it. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man? [+]Loading...["Have You Seen This Man? (short story)"]) On 5 March 2005, Rose found the website as the first listed result for the search term "doctor blue box" on search-wise.net. Upon accessing the site, Rose was greeted with a photograph of the Ninth Doctor standing in a crowd, accompanied by a single sentence: "Have you seen this man[?]". Beneath was a link to contact Clive. (TV: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (TV story)"])
According to one account, in which the website was named Have you seen the Doctor????????, Rose found the website as the sixth listed result on the search engine she used, while Mickey's band No Hot Ashes worked on a new name in Mickey's kitchen, settling on "Bad Wolf". In this account, the website had a photograph of the Ninth Doctor running away from what seemed to be the Taj Mahal, with "big blurred birds" in the sky. There was a gallery of photos, primarily pictures of a curly haired man in a long scarf, taken in a variety of locations, from Paris, Berlin, Rio, the Great Wall of China, a beach, to a tundra. In three of the photos, Rose saw the same chunky wooden box.
Rose read about Clive and his family, and his plight to find the Doctor, calling upon his readers to contact him, to send photos, anecdotes or top-secret documents, via his email address or his telephone number. Rose found an "About Me" section on the website, which contained photos of Clive and his family, one at Thorpe Park. She mused that these photos could be stolen by someone with ill-intent, but these doubts were dissuaded when she clicked the provided link to the estate agents where Clive was employed, which contained a "staff bio" about Clive. Rose emailed him, and within twenty minutes got a response and they agreed to meet. (PROSE: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (novelisation)"])
Immediately after what he called the "Dummy Massacre", (PROSE: Dummy Massacre [+]Loading...["Dummy Massacre (short story)"]) following Clive Finch's death, (TV: Rose [+]Loading...["Rose (TV story)"], PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters [+]Loading...["The Secret Lives of Monsters (short story)"], etc.) Mickey Smith (PROSE: Rose Tyler [+]Loading...["Rose Tyler (short story)"]) took over the website anonymously and renamed it "Who is Doctor Who?". On the website, he shared stories from the site's readers who had witnessed the attack, also leaving an area for new submissions. (PROSE: Dummy Massacre [+]Loading...["Dummy Massacre (short story)"]) On 2 April, the webmaster updated the site about how there was very little physical evidence of the Doctor's involvement despite the many eyewitnesses that had seen him, about the attack of a "special model" of the Killer Dummies at Kennington restaurant involving Rose and the Doctor, the growing conspiracy that involved the lack of media coverage and the willingness of people to forget the attack, the death of Clive, and the claims that millions of people heard a "strange disembodied voice" over the weekend. The webmaster emphasised his determination to prove the truth, which he valued more than his life. (PROSE: The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre [+]Loading...["The Doctor Was Involved in the Dummy Massacre (short story)"])
Later in April 2005, the website received the "website of the month" distinction from Conspiracy GOLD. (PROSE: Rose sighting confirmed [+]Loading...["Rose sighting confirmed (short story)"])
2006
Shortly prior to the return of Rose Tyler and the Ninth Doctor on 6 March 2006, Mickey Smith (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]) wrote on the Who is Doctor Who website after not posting for a while, where he revealed that he had been taken in for questioning again, despite the police's lack of evidence as well as his discovery of evidence to the contrary, an old photograph of Rose and the Doctor present in 1869 Cardiff, (PROSE: Rose sighting confirmed [+]Loading...["Rose sighting confirmed (short story)"]) a time period which Rose and the Doctor did travel to, (TV: The Unquiet Dead [+]Loading...["The Unquiet Dead (TV story)"]) although the police didn't look at the photograph properly and believed it wasn't real. This culminated in Mickey giving up trying to convince them, however Mickey was relieved that Rose was at least was safe, despite being "out of reach". Mickey continued on, expressing his belief that a government conspiracy was growing since MP Joseph Green's weight gain, and that he was scared that he may be arrested again, and admits that the only thing keeping him going was the support and belief in him from his readers. (PROSE: Rose sighting confirmed [+]Loading...["Rose sighting confirmed (short story)"])
After Mickey ran off when Rose and the Doctor were escorted to 10 Downing Street on 6 March 2006, (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]) under the alias "Mx", he wrote on the Who is Doctor Who? website about the crash, ecstatic about how he and Clive would finally be believed about the Doctor — how where he goes, danger and death follows — and how the government would have no choice but to respond to alien life, unable to deny it any longer. He shared pictures of the spaceship and its pilot, convinced that it wasn't a hoax, despite not knowing many specifics about the alien itself. He was glad that everyone knew he was innocent, lovingly welcomed Rose back, and asked his readers for their stories of the crash. (PROSE: Alien landing confirmed [+]Loading...["Alien landing confirmed (short story)"])
The day following the defeat of the Slitheen family on 7 March, (TV: World War Three [+]Loading...["World War Three (TV story)"]) Mickey again wrote on his website, about how he helped the Doctor, coming to believe that the Doctor did mean well but was still presumably indirectly responsible for the events unfolding in the first place. He also confessed to the times he began doubting the evidence he had collected, as well as the shadowy organisation UNIT now had "a dotcom" as well as the computer virus given to him by the Doctor and his unwillingness to use it. He also asked his readers for their stories of the day preceding as well as telling them to go to the secure parts of the UNIT website before the passwords were changed. (PROSE: Hoax This! [+]Loading...["Hoax This! (short story)"])
A week later, Mickey released an interview he conducted with US dotcom giant Henry Van Statten about his thoughts on aliens. Van Statten spoke about the willingness of "small mind[ed]" people to forget the "unacceptable situation" and his vested interest in collecting alien artefacts, of which he divuleges the existence of the Gray Market and some of the leftovers left by those who visited Earth. After the interview concluded, Mickey announced a competition for a pile of Geocomtex Hardware, as generously provided by Van Statten, which would be the prize for the best response to the prompt: "Why I want to meet an alien." (PROSE: Henry Van Statten [+]Loading...["Henry Van Statten (short story)"])
The following week, Mickey wrote on the website again, revealing the winner of the essay competition to be fourteen-year-old Adam Mitchell. Mickey also wrote about how, now that his name had been cleared, people around the estate were being more "helpful" to Mickey. Jackie, Rose's mother, had found an old video of a wedding from the 1980s and shared it with Mickey, and upon watching it, he found that the Doctor and Rose were visible, leading to him to speculate about the Doctor's intentions. (PROSE: Essay Competition [+]Loading...["Essay Competition (short story)"])
At this point, Sergeant Catherine Petts submitted a report on one of the secure operations boards which detailed www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk having sensitive information which compromised the security of the UNIT website. Sergeant J Frinkstein changed the passwords to the site, though Major Jenny Maguire's suggestion to plant misinformation onto the site was seemingly denied by Sergeant A. Frederick. (PROSE: Rose Tyler [+]Loading...["Rose Tyler (short story)"])
A week after the Cardiff Earthquake in September 2006, (TV: Boom Town [+]Loading...["Boom Town (TV story)"], PROSE: Cardiff Earthquake [+]Loading...["Cardiff Earthquake (short story)"], The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Loading...["The Time Traveller's Almanac (reference book)"]) Mickey wrote on the Who is Doctor Who? website, not giving much heed to his help in saving the world, as he felt dejected with coming to terms with his relationship with Rose Tyler being over. (PROSE: World Saved. Who Cares? [+]Loading...["World Saved. Who Cares? (short story)"])
In late 2006, months later, Mickey wrote about how he felt Rose had died (PROSE: Mars [+]Loading...["Mars (WiDW short story)"]) following her short return to Earth after the Ninth Doctor sent Rose away from the Game Station before the ensuing Dalek attack and subsequent return to the future after breaking into the TARDIS and absorbing the Time Vortex through the TARDIS's heart and becoming Bad Wolf, (TV: The Parting of the Ways [+]Loading...["The Parting of the Ways (TV story)"]) and that Daffodil had informed him that the Guinevere probe was hiding something, which Mickey became convinced of when he investigated the Guinevere website despite initially not thinking much of a seemingly mundane Mars probe. However, he was unable to investigate further, until Christmas Day. He told his readers, in the meantime, to remember the truth of the alien attacks. (PROSE: Mars [+]Loading...["Mars (WiDW short story)"])
2007
The readers of the website were contacted by Ricky Smith, a native of Pete's World, instead of Mickey as usual, who told them they had to look on the Internet for a code to take down Cybus Industries. (WC: Secret Code [+]Loading...["Secret Code (webcast)"]) After going into a chatroom to speak with "ChatGuest1", the readers were sent across the Internet to find the correct code, going to websites belonging to International Electromatics, Cybus Industries, Cybus Fitness, Henrik & Son, and Millingdale. They eventually found the correct password, "binary9", after using the Cybus Industries Staff Intranet. (GAME: Cybus Spy [+]Loading...["Cybus Spy (video game)"])
After Mickey remained in Pete's World to fight off the Cybermen, (TV: The Age of Steel [+]Loading...["The Age of Steel (TV story)"]) David Roberts, (PROSE: Lights In The Sky) aka David R, took over the website, having previously met Mickey. He announced on his Cheapserve profile that he was leaving the site to focus on (PROSE: Who Am I? [+]Loading...["Who Am I? (feature)"]) Defending the Earth!. (GAME: The Wire [+]Loading...["The Wire (video game)"], etc.)
When the Tenth Doctor looked up H.C. Clements on a mobile phone on Christmas Eve 2007, one of the pages he went past when he used his sonic screwdriver on the phone was Defending the Earth!, which had an interview with Henry van Statten. (TV: The Runaway Bride [+]Loading...["The Runaway Bride (TV story)"])
The website Mickey formerly edited, Wilfred Mott's friends, and LINDA were the results of the Doctor becoming noticed on Earth; regardless of if the Doctor wanted it, he had a "quiet, polite, support network". A group of adventurers may have been conspiracy theorists and investigators like those who came before them, possibly even forming splinters of LINDA, such as MELINDA, among other possibilities. (GAME: Love & Monsters [+]Loading...{"page":"100","1":"Love & Monsters (game)"})
Undated events
Clive Finch's website was mentioned in The Secret Lives of Monsters, a book written to expose the previously classified information surrounding Earth's alien invasions; the book's author acknowledged the updates to the website even after Clive's death, and that if the information that was contained on the website was truthful, then it "impl[ied] a terrifying possibility" that the Nestene Consciousness was collective mind that controlled plastic and had a long-spanning history of the colonisation of other planets for millions of years. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters [+]Loading...["The Secret Lives of Monsters (short story)"])
Behind the scenes
- Main article: Who is Doctor Who? (tie-in website)
The BBC Web Team created a real-life version of the in-universe Who is Doctor Who? website, which is available at whoisdoctorwho.co.uk. This website included a variety of fiction as well as an alternate reality game.
Other information
- The name of the website being "Doctor Who?" was mentioned by Rebecca Levene in her review of Rose.[1]
- The webcomic Incognito, part of the naturist webseries The Bare Pit, which crossed over with the Jenny Everywhere mythos, featured a website with the url "whoisjenny.com" with an explanation it was set up by "some nutter", a clear homage to whoisdoctorwho.co.uk.
