List of references to other DWU media in live-action and animated BBC stories

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Abslom Daak, a recurring character from the Doctor Who DWM comic stories, had a cameo in TV: Time Heist.

References to non-televised works in live-action BBC DWU stories can be few and far between, but over the years, writers have slipped in references to characters, places, and events which originated in media other than the parent show.

Although starting as early as the show's second season, with Terry Nation striving to maintain continuity between televised Dalek material and the Skarosian tyrants' solo appearances in printed media, this behaviour became more common with the advent of the 2005 series of the show, with writers having lived through, and even participated in the writing of, the novels, comics, and audio stories of the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s.

Doctor Who[[edit] | [edit source]]

Classic era[[edit] | [edit source]]

Season 2[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The Dalek Invasion of Earth [+]Loading...["The Dalek Invasion of Earth (TV story)"] used the term "Dalekanium" to refer to the metal that comprises the casing of a Dalek. The term, spelled "Dalekenium", had first been used several months earlier in the comic The Humanoids [+]Loading...["The Humanoids (comic story)"] in The Dalek Book. It would remain a frequently used term, both on television and in other media, through to the 21st century.

Season 4[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • David Whitaker's The Power of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Power of the Daleks (TV story)"] was set on the planet Vulcan, which first appeared two years earlier on a star chart in the comic Invasion of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Invasion of the Daleks (comic story)"]. The comic was co-written by Whitaker and fellow television writer and Dalek creator Terry Nation.
  • The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (TV story)"]:
    • This story marks the first televised appearance of the Dalek Emperor, not counting their brief appearance in The Man from MI.5 [+]Loading...["The Man from MI.5 (TV story)"]. The Dalek Emperor also first appeared in Invasion of the Daleks. It was implied at the time that the two Emperors were the same individual, and later works would confirm this by identifying them as the Dalek Prime.
    • Although in his early appearances the Dalek Emperor operated a small and mobile casing, he had been shown to transition to a huge, static casing located in the Great Hall of the Dalek City for the sake of increased intelligence the year prior in The Secret of the Emperor [+]Loading...["The Secret of the Emperor (comic story)"], a story printed in The Dalek Outer Space Book.

Season 6[[edit] | [edit source]]

Season 9[[edit] | [edit source]]

Season 10[[edit] | [edit source]]

Season 11[[edit] | [edit source]]

Season 12[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • In Robot [+]Loading...["Robot (TV story)"], Sarah Jane Smith berates Benton after he chases off K1, prompting him to reply: "The US Cavalry never got treated like this." Sarah previously called for the US Cavalry to fend off the Daleks during the audio segments meant for the live performance at Goodwood Motor Circuit on 18 May 1974. Robot began airing in December of that year. (In the novelisation, the line is less specific: "The US Cavalry never get treated like this.")
  • Genesis of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Genesis of the Daleks (TV story)"]:
    • The Fourth Doctor's recollection of the conclusion of the Dalek invasion of Earth fails to tally with the on-screen events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth [+]Loading...["The Dalek Invasion of Earth (TV story)"], but references accounts of the invasion given in spin-off media:
    • Additionally, while it conflicts with its event, the story does borrow some elements from the previous account of the creation of the Daleks given in the first The Daleks comic story, Genesis of Evil [+]Loading...["Genesis of Evil (comic story)"]. Beyond the similarity of title, details present in both Geneses but not previously mentioned in (or even conflicting with) the account of the Daleks' origin in The Daleks [+]Loading...["The Daleks (TV story)"] include:
      • The Daleks' casings having been invented by one of the Daleks' humanoid ancestors before the actual Dalek mutants (instead of the Daleks having built them themselves after mutating).
      • The Daleks' ancestors having already been the aggressors in the war against the Thals, rather than initially innocent victims of warmongering, slave-driving Thals as suggested in the original Dalek story.
      • The Daleks' ancestor taking refuge in a bunker, and becoming one of the last survivors of the original Dalek race.
      • The Daleks vowing to conquer the rest of the universe almost immediately after being created and supplanting their makers.
    • Although interpreted by later lore as a once-normal-looking man who was disfigured in an explosion, Davros seems originally to have been intended to be a mutant himself; indeed, he would be identified as such by the Movellans in Destiny of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Destiny of the Daleks (TV story)"]. His appearance recalls the humanoid Daleks of Genesis of Evil, with an enlarged, wrinkled forehead. The History of the Daleks would later point to the comics' humanoids as later descendants of the Kaleds at a later stage of mutation.
    • Davros creates the Dalek mutants by "accelerating the evolution" of the Kaleds. In a different pre-1975 account of the Daleks' origin, We are the Daleks! [+]Loading...["We are the Daleks! (short story)"], also written by Terry Nation, he had already presented the Dalek mutants as the result of artificially accelerated evolution, that time of transplanted humans at the hands of the Halldons.

Season 13[[edit] | [edit source]]

Season 17[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • Destiny of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Destiny of the Daleks (TV story)"]:
    • This story features a Dalek lie detector, which first appeared in the comic story City of the Daleks [+]Loading...["City of the Daleks (comic story)"].
    • The Doctor uses his hat to block a Dalek's eyestalk, just as he did in the comic story The Trodos Ambush [+]Loading...["The Trodos Ambush (comic story)"].

Season 19[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • In Castrovalva [+]Loading...["Castrovalva (TV story)"], the Doctor levitates himself, which he learned to do in a TV Comic story.

Season 22[[edit] | [edit source]]

Season 25[[edit] | [edit source]]

30th Anniversary Special[[edit] | [edit source]]

BBC Wales era[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 1[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Number 22 to Putney Common appears in Rose.

Series 2[[edit] | [edit source]]

One such advert of Millingdale ice cream was seen on Victor Kennedy's copy of The Daily Telegraph. (TV: Love & Monsters).
  • In The Christmas Invasion [+]Loading...["The Christmas Invasion (TV story)"], the Doctor refers to Arthur Dent as a "nice man". Dent had written about encountering the Doctor in the Have You Seen This Man? [+]Loading...["Have You Seen This Man? (short story)"] section of the Who is Doctor Who? website.
  • School Reunion [+]Loading...["School Reunion (TV story)"]:
  • In The Girl in the Fireplace [+]Loading...["The Girl in the Fireplace (TV story)"], young Reinette asks what monsters have nightmares about and the Doctor responds, "Me." A similar exchange took place in the novel Love and War [+]Loading...["Love and War (novel)"].
  • The two-parter Rise of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Rise of the Cybermen (TV story)"] / The Age of Steel [+]Loading...["The Age of Steel (TV story)"] is loosely based on the audio story Spare Parts [+]Loading...["Spare Parts (audio story)"], with Marc Platt being thanked in the end credits of the story.
  • The Satan Pit [+]Loading...["The Satan Pit (TV story)"] mentions the existence of a Kaled God of War. The novel Father Time [+]Loading...["Father Time (novel)"] had previously mentioned that the Klade (implied to be the future descendants of the Daleks, themselves offspring of the Kaleds) worshipped a God of War.
  • Love & Monsters [+]Loading...["Love & Monsters (TV story)"] contained several adverts and posters for Millingdale ice cream. Millingdale ice cream was a fictitious brand of ice cream created for an in-universe website to coincide with the first few series of the 2005 revival of the series.
  • Army of Ghosts [+]Loading...["Army of Ghosts (TV story)"] hinges on the existence of "the Void", being the space between universes. Although the "dimensional divide" was first referenced on television in Inferno [+]Loading...["Inferno (TV story)"], it was the DWM comic story Voyager [+]Loading...["Voyager (comic story)"] which first described what lay beyond the Doctor's universe with the name of "the Void" — and, incidentally, the first story to attempt to depict it visually.
  • Doomsday [+]Loading...["Doomsday (TV story)"] includes the first televised reference to rels, a Dalek measurement of time. A Dalek unit called a "rel" was created in 1964's The Dalek Dictionary, where it measured "hydro-electricity"; it was first depicted as a unit of time in the film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. [+]Loading...["Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (theatrical film)"], and had since appeared in comics and audios.

Series 3[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 4[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 5[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 6[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 7[[edit] | [edit source]]

50th Anniversary Specials[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 8[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 9[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 10[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 11[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • In The Ghost Monument [+]Loading...["The Ghost Monument (TV story)"], the Thirteenth Doctor says she knew Pythagoras, whom the Fourth Doctor mentions knowing in the audio The Labyrinth of Buda Castle [+]Loading...["The Labyrinth of Buda Castle (audio story)"] and the comic Gaze of the Medusa [+]Loading...["Gaze of the Medusa (comic story)"].
  • In Rosa [+]Loading...["Rosa (TV story)"], the Doctor mentions knowing Elvis Presley. The Doctor's friendship with Elvis was previously referenced in the novel Ghosts of India [+]Loading...["Ghosts of India (novel)"] and video game Blood of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Blood of the Cybermen (video game)"].
  • In Arachnids in the UK [+]Loading...["Arachnids in the UK (TV story)"], the Doctor refers to an encounter with Amelia Earhart. Such an encounter was first mentioned in the novel Seeing I [+]Loading...["Seeing I (novel)"].
  • In The Tsuranga Conundrum [+]Loading...["The Tsuranga Conundrum (TV story)"], the Doctor says she loves the musical Hamilton and had seen all 900 casts. The Doctor's fondness for the musical had previously been explored in the comic story The Long Con [+]Loading...["The Long Con (comic story)"] in which the Second, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors attended a performance of Hamilton.
  • In The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos [+]Loading...["The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos (TV story)"], the Doctor summons the TARDIS with the sonic screwdriver, which the War Doctor first did in the audio The Thousand Worlds [+]Loading...["The Thousand Worlds (audio story)"].
  • Resolution [+]Loading...["Resolution (TV story)"]:
    • The reconnaissance scout variant of Dalek was introduced. A similar concept — a hitherto unseen type of Dalek specialised to "spy out the land for an imminent full-scale invasion", which also arrived on Earth — was seen in the 1966 short story Have Daleks Invaded Scotland? [+]Loading...["Have Daleks Invaded Scotland? (short story)"]. Dalek reconnaissance missions were also cited in the Dalek Survival Guide.
    • Dalek laughter is shown to be off-putting to humans, just as it was in the comic City of the Daleks [+]Loading...["City of the Daleks (comic story)"].

Series 12[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 13[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • Once, Upon Time [+]Loading...["Once, Upon Time (TV story)"]:
  • In Village of the Angels [+]Loading...["Village of the Angels (TV story)"], Weeping Angels demonstrate an ability to hide inside solid rock, which they previously did in the audio Fallen Angels [+]Loading...["Fallen Angels (audio story)"].
  • In The Vanquishers [+]Loading...["The Vanquishers (TV story)"], the Doctor encounters the embodiment of Time. The Virgin New Adventures had established that Time was a sentient being, specifically an Eternal. However, the episode conflicts with the novels since the Doctor says she had always wondered what Time looks like even though the Seventh Doctor had met Time in Lungbarrow [+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"].
  • In Eve of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Eve of the Daleks (TV story)"], the Doctor remarks that she has not seen so much gunpowder since 1605. She and Yasmin Khan had witnessed Guy Fawkes' attempted destruction of Parliament in the short story Black Powder [+]Loading...["Black Powder (short story)"]. The First Doctor also became involved with these events in the novel The Plotters [+]Loading...["The Plotters (novel)"], as had the Eleventh Doctor in the video game The Gunpowder Plot [+]Loading...["The Gunpowder Plot (video game)"]. However, since all three stories conflcit with one another, the episode is most likely referencing Black Powder.
  • The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"]:
    • This story refers to Ace parting ways with the Doctor due to a falling out between them. While no details are given in the episode, a falling out did occur in the novel Love and War [+]Loading...["Love and War (novel)"].
    • The story also reveals that aspects of the Doctor's previous incarnations continue to exist in their mind after regeneration, something that had previously been explored in the novel Timewyrm: Revelation [+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Revelation (novel)"] and audio drama Zagreus [+]Loading...["Zagreus (audio story)"]. The concept is also prominent with the Big Finish character known as "the Eleven" (and other incarnations of the Time Lord) whose previous incarnations are retained following regeneration and frequently manifest and influence the actions of their successors.
    • The story also features a Type 75 TARDIS, which first appeared in the short story Going Once, Going Twice [+]Loading...["Going Once, Going Twice (short story)"].
    • Additionally, the story also features the Holo-Doctor, who debuted in the Seventh Doctor novel Infinite Requiem [+]Loading...["Infinite Requiem (novel)"].
    • Although not named as such, the story features the first televised retro-regeneration. The Doctor and other Time Lords had been subject to this concept numerous times in other media. Examples include the novels State of Change [+]Loading...["State of Change (novel)"] and Sky Pirates! [+]Loading...["Sky Pirates! (novel)"], the comic The Fountains of Forever [+]Loading...["The Fountains of Forever (comic story)"] and the audio The Lost Magic [+]Loading...["The Lost Magic (audio story)"].

60th Anniversary Specials[[edit] | [edit source]]

Bad Wolf era[[edit] | [edit source]]

Season 1[[edit] | [edit source]]

Torchwood[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 2[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 3[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Sarah Jane Adventures[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 1[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 2[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith [+]Loading...["The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith (TV story)"] features the deaths of Sarah Jane's parents in a car crash. The fact that they died in a car crash was first established by The Roving Reporter [+]Loading...["The Roving Reporter (short story)"], a fictional biography of Sarah Jane published in the 1992 Doctor Who Magazine Holiday Special. However, some details differ, such as the year of the crash and her parents' names.

Series 3[[edit] | [edit source]]

Series 4[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • In Death of the Doctor [+]Loading...["Death of the Doctor (TV story)"], it is mentioned that Liz Shaw is working for UNIT on the Moon, which was established in the novel Eternity Weeps [+]Loading...["Eternity Weeps (novel)"]. However, it also conflicts with her death in the same story.

Class[[edit] | [edit source]]

Tales of the TARDIS[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mini-sodes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Other[[edit] | [edit source]]

There have been times when a reference to other DWU media was meant to appear in a live-action story but did not for various reasons. These include:

  • The never-produced The Dark Dimension [+]Loading...["The Dark Dimension (unproduced TV story)"] would have featured a character named Summerfield who would be an alternate universe version of Bernice Summerfield from the Virgin New Adventures. Ace's name would be revealed as Dorothy McShane, just as it was in the novels.
  • Planet of the Dead [+]Loading...["Planet of the Dead (TV story)"] would have featured the Chelonians from the Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Missing Adventures. However, the heat of the Dubai desert was thought to be far too intense for an actor in a turtle-like costume to endure.
  • The Mad Woman in the Attic [+]Loading...["The Mad Woman in the Attic (TV story)"] was to have featured a clip from Downtime [+]Loading...["Downtime (home video)"] but Reeltime Pictures refused permission.
  • The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)"] originally had Kate Stewart walk past posters for the Peter Cushing films while noting the need to screen the Doctor's associates. However, the production team could not afford the rights to the posters. This scene does appear in the novelisation.

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. Lance Parkin, an author for the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures line, discussed the development of this, its impact on the book line, and the behind-the-scenes thought process here.
  2. ‘DOCTOR WHO’: 10 THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT ‘PRAXEUS’ on BBC America via the Wayback Machine
  3. Mark Corden: "I cast him for that reason - and I got a cameo as Omega on the far left."[1]
  4. @twilightstreets. Twitter (23 July 2013). Retrieved on 4 August 2013. “Ahhhh but, Freema, do you know * why* we used the name Samantha Jones?”
  5. @twilightstreets. Twitter (23 July 2013). Retrieved on 4 August 2013. “All those followers of yours who said it was cos of Sam Jones the book companion to the 8th Doctor get a gold star :-)”
  6. REF: DWMSE 39