Back to the Future

Back to the Future was a popular film about time travel released in 1985.

Direct references

The film was mentioned by the the Doctor to help explain the mechanics of time travel to companion Martha Jones.

Martha didn't see any threat from the Carrionites because she knew that the world didn't end in 1599. However the Doctor referenced this movie when he told her about how Marty McFly, after he travelled back in time, and did something that almost erased him from existence in the present. (DW: The Shakespeare Code)

On the Contact Clive page of whoisdoctorwho.co.uk, one of the sightings is from Marty McFly, with the message "I know that man, he stole my DeLorean!!!"

Allusions

• In Blink there was an allusion to Back to the Future Part II, as someone was told to give a letter to the main character (or in the Doctor Who episode Blink's case, Sally Sparrow) at a specific date and time, no earlier, no later. Also, when Kathy Nightingale arrives in 1920, she doesn't believe where she is and reads the date from the paper, in a similar way to Marty McFly in the film.

• Peri and Erimem use the same method to get letters to the Fifth Doctor in BFA: The Kingmaker. Peri notes that she got the idea from a film.

Behind the Scenes

• Christopher Lloyd, who played time traveler Dr. "Doc" Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future tilogy was almost cast as the Master in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie. However, Universal (the studio which financed both the television movie and the trilogy) baulked at the pay he was asking for.

• The trilogy provided the name for the band McFly, which had a cameo in The Sound of Drums.

• Years before the original series of Doctor Who was cancelled, Disney was attempting to buy the rights to the franchise from the BBC, the trilogy's producer Steven Spielberg was their choice to run the Doctor Who office, Spielberg was more then willing to do it, he has stated in interviews he would have been the producer of the series for a couple of seasons, then pass the job of producer onto the trilogy's director, Robert Zemeckis.

• Robert Zemeckis was considered to direct the 1996 Doctor Who television movie.