“Bad Wolf” was a repeated meme particularly associated with Rose Tyler. In its simplest form, "Bad Wolf" was merely a synonym for Rose herself, since she became the Bad Wolf. However, it perhaps more specifically described the link between the Doctor, the TARDIS and Rose — across space, time and even dimensions. Its meaning was thus highly contextual, depending on the perspective of the recipient. For Rose, it was seen as a largely positive concept, a "breadcrumb trail" which inspired her to save the Doctor's life despite adversity. For the Doctor, it generally represented extreme peril. It prefigured the end of one of his lives, the beginning of his separation from Rose, and her return — which could seemingly only be effected by the collapse of all realities.
"Bad Wolf" was thus alias, warning and signpost.
Timeline
Ninth Doctor’s era
The phrase was most commonly found in graffiti during the 20th and 21st centuries (DW: Aliens of London, Father's Day, The Parting of the Ways), but the first chronological occurance was in 1869, in which Gwyneth, a parlour maid and clairvoyant, looked into Rose's mind and declared that she had seen “The Big Bad Wolf”. (DW: The Unquiet Dead)
However, the first occurrence of the phrase in the Doctor’s and Rose’s timestream was in the year 5,000,000,000 on Platform One orbiting the soon-to-be-destroyed Earth, in which the Moxx of Balhoon told the Face of Boe that the current situation was “the classic Bad Wolf scenario”. (DW: The End of the World)
It was also found in other languages - it was used in relation to a Nazi bomb used in World War II, the “Schlechter Wolf”[1] (DW: The Doctor Dances), and to a nuclear power station, built in September 2006, the “Blaidd Drwg” power station. (DW: Boom Town)
Many companies also used the phrase “Bad Wolf”, such as GeoComTex, who used it as their helicopter call signs, for example Henry van Statten’s private helicopter was “Bad Wolf One”. (DW: Dalek)
The phrase became more common in the years 199,909 to 200,100, in which the Dalek-controlled Bad Wolf Corporation and the television channel “Bad Wolf TV” made use of the phrase. (DW: The Long Game, Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways)
It was later shown that, to save the Doctor’s life, Rose Tyler had opened the Doctor’s TARDIS, looked into its heart, and become the Bad Wolf. She had then used her seemingly unlimited reality-warping powers to destroy the Dalek Imperial Fleet and spread the Bad Wolf clues throughout space and time, so she would eventually realise she could use the TARDIS to save the Doctor (thereby creating an ontological paradox). Rose was later restored when the Doctor saved her life by taking the Time Vortex energy from the Heart out of her body and regenerating. (DW: The Parting of the Ways, Children in Need Special)
Tenth Doctor’s era
The playground chalk drawing of “Bad Wolf” was still faintly visible after he and Rose returned to earth following his regeneration (DW: The Christmas Invasion).
In 1879, the Host, a Werewolf, stated that Rose had “something of the wolf about her” (DW: Tooth and Claw). The Torchwood files on Rose had been corrupted by the “Bad Wolf” computer virus (DW: Love & Monsters) and, after the Doctor and Rose had been separated in different universes, the last hole through the Void linking them led into “Dålig Ulv Stranden” — Bad Wolf Bay — in Norway. (DW: Doomsday) It also appeared in the year 5,000,000,053, on the side of a Japanese Car (DW: Gridlock)
In Captain Jack's Monster Files: Judoon, an insurance company is advertised called Good Wolf, a play on Bad Wolf. In CJMF: Trickster's Brigade, there is a man playing some kind of board game. One of the spaces has “BAD WOLF” written on it.
While Donna Noble was traveling with the Doctor, it appeared on a wall in Pompeii. (DW: The Fires of Pompeii). A red wolf was spray-painted onto the wall of an alley in England during the the Sontaran/Atmos crisis. It was further seen in a poster advertising the play “Bad Wolf” in an abandoned Opera house that the humans were using on the planet Messaline. (DW: The Doctor's Daughter). It could even be said to have been seen in the virtual reality of Charlotte Lux’ house, wherein her living room had two portraits: one of a wolf and another of a blonde girl. (DW : Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead)
Perhaps the clearest usage of the meme in the Tenth Doctor's era came when Donna was forced to alter her own past, thereby creating a parallel world around herself (DW: Turn Left).
Rose Tyler was able to enter this reality, but she was very cautious about revealing her identity or her level of knowledge about events. "One word in the wrong place," she warned, "can change an entire causal nexus". Thus, special significance may be attached to the fact that she whispered the words, "bad wolf" in Donna's ear only at the point that the Donna of Donna's World was about to die. Thereafter, the "real" Donna vaguely remembered the words whispered to he other self, which she imparted to the Tenth Doctor as a warning. Immediately thereafter, the whole of Shan Shen was covered with the words "bad wolf". Even the Doctor's TARDIS was altered to include the phrase in all of its exterior signs. The Doctor tells Donna it means the end of the universe, as the various parallel universes were beginning to collide, as he had predicted at the time he and Rose were first separated.
Websites
Many websites also made use of the phrase “Bad Wolf”, such as the UNIT website (unit.org.uk), which had “badwolf” as the password to one of its secure areas, and a clip on Mickey Smith’s website identified the newsreader who reported the spaceship crash into Big Ben tower as “Mal Loup”, French for “Bad Wolf”. Micky also described the Doctor on the same site as “making another decision for us, all ‘I’m the big bad wolf and it's way past your bedtime.’ ”
(whoisdoctorwho.co.uk)
On the FAQ of the Geocomtex website the correct sequence of the pins in the first question is morse code for badwolf.
Notes
- ↑ Technically, the closer German translation is “Böser Wolf”, the name of the character in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, "Little Red Riding Hood".