Official Doctor Who Tumblr

The Official Doctor Who Tumblr, occupying the "@doctorwho" namespace at the mini-blog hosting platform Tumblr, has been operated continuously by BBC America since April 2011.

Contents

News & practical information

Distinct from the primary blogging function of Tumblr, the platform also enables the creation of perennial pages. In the Official Doctor Who Tumblr's case, this takes the form of an up-to-date guide on how to legally watch the backlog of televised Doctor Who, whether in the United Kingdom or in the United States of America, under the title "Where To Watch Doctor Who online, in app, and on television!".

The website also advertises episodes and specials ahead of release, as well as being the medium for the announcement of various BBC events and competitions, often in relation to American conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con.

Adipose framing device

An Adipose enjoys a cup of hot cocoa for Day 3 of the tongue-in-cheek 2014 Advent Calendar.

Although not a serious narrative, the staff running the Official Doctor Who Tumblr instituted a metafictional running gag pretending that the Tumblr blog was in fact run by a group of Adipose "hopping on the keyboard" as early as 2013. There were recurring Adipose characters, such as "Adipose 6" and "Adipose 29".

This comedic framing device (which never stopped the narrating Adipose from acknowledging Doctor Who as a work of fiction) reached its apex in December 2014 with a "DW Advent Calendar" leading up to the release of the Christmas special Last Christmas. Every day, a new picture depicting Adipose in a holiday-related setting was released. The Adipose, as usual, were embodied by Adipose plush toys.

NewToWho

The #NewToWho Guide's "title card".

One of the recurring features of the blog, presented under the #NewToWho tag and listed as one of its main attractions in the header menu, was greetings directly from BBC America to Tumblr users who had recently announced that they'd just started watching Doctor Who, as well as advice on how to get started, including a fully-fledged introduction to the show and the basics of its televised continuity. (Written during the Peter Capaldi era, it mentions only twelve Doctors plus John Hurt.)

Though it presented alternatives, the basic approach of the website was to suggest prospective new viewers start with the 2005 BBC Wales revival of Doctor Who.

The very very early episodes (1963-1989), also called ‘Classic Who’ are excellent and definitely worth watching, but you can come back to them later.

Nevertheless, the blog was also notable for sometimes highlighting non-televised content, such as Doctor Who releases by Big Finish Productions.

Fan art and comics spotlighting

Through extensive use of Tumblr's reblogging function, the Official Doctor Who Tumblr has frequently given the spotlight to fan art published for free by fans on Tumblr with Doctor Who-related tags, crediting them for their work and commenting upon it. Indeed, the blog was used to promote several official BBC fanart competitions in the early 2010s.

Though the majority of the fan productions featured have been static sketches, paintings, or even edits of screenshots, a sizeable number of short comic strips have thus obtained a release on the Official Doctor Who Tumblr. However, despite this official acknowledgement, they are not covered or considered valid sources on this Wiki, because the nature of the reblogging function is such that commercial rights were neither sought from, nor granted by, the original artist; thus, they are not commercial products, and fail our four little rules. It is worth noting, however, that a few are the works of artists who had, or would later, contribute in an official capacity to the DWU.

Though these Doctor Who narratives were sometimes earnest portrayals of events in the Doctor Who universe, many were comedic in nature, varying from comedies in the vein of Titan Comics backup comics to parodies similar to Tim Quinn and Dicky Howett's Doctor Who? spoof strips.

The release dates given are below are of the "official" release of the comics as reblogs on the Official Doctor Who Tumblr, not of their potential earlier release either on the authors' personal blogs or through another medium.

Link	Title	Author	Featuring	Summary	Release date	Notes
[1]	Germinate	'@hungryfreaksdaddy-blog'	Gold Dalek	A Gold Dalek attempts to grow a flower.	8 April 2011	N/A
[2]	Eyepatches are—	'@katiabienvenue'	Eleventh Doctor, Amelia Pond, Rory Williams	The Doctor is briefly tempted to start wearing an Eye Drive until he realises they can give electric shocks to their wearer.	21 October 2011
[3]	I Want My Hat Back	'@the-giant-skeleton'	Eleventh Doctor, Amelia Pond, Rory Williams, River Song, Vincent van Gogh, Craig Owens	The Doctor looks for his fez, which Rory appears to have borrowed.	16 November 2011	References a popular Internet meme.
[4]	Red Light, Green Light	E. Moriconi, M. Castiello	Eleventh Doctor, Weeping Angels	The Doctor plays Statues with some Weeping Angels.	18 December 2011	Fan strip had further installments not promoted by the Official Doctor Who Tumblr.
[5]	N/A	'blackbirdrose'	Eleventh Doctor, Rory Williams, Amy Pond, Santa Claus	The Doctor reveals to the Ponds that he helped build Santa Claus's sleigh using Time Lord technology. However, to Amy's surprise, he does not know how Santa goes down chimneys.	22 December 2011	Created for the Brisbane Doctor Who Club's fanzine.
[6]		'@timewarcomic'	Bronze Daleks	Two Daleks watching the latest Doctor Who episode wonder if the Daleks will win in this one.	1 September 2012	N/A
[7]	The Lord of Mischief	'CircusDoll'	Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, Loki, Thor	The Eleventh Doctor has found a new quirky hat: the helmet of the Norse God Loki. Amy is dubious; Loki is distraught.	23 November 2012	Appears to feature the Marvel Cinematic Universe versions of Loki and Thor.
[8]	Where'd You Get The Milk?	Kelsey Wailes	Eleventh Doctor, Oswin Oswald	It turns out that the answer to "Where did you get the milk?" is that Oswin isn't huma, but rather... a cow.	22 March 2013	Part of the long-running Doctor Kawaii weekly parody webcomic.
[9]	N/A	'@hinoneko'	Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown	The Doctor and Peri debate whether "charming" is an appropriate description of the Doctor.	10 June 2013	N/A
[10]		Raine Szramski	Twelfth Doctor, Daleks	Extremely intimidated Daleks attempt to slink away from a glowering Twelfth Doctor.	28 November 2013
[11]		'@hinoneko'	First Doctor, Vicki Pallister, Steven Taylor	Visiting the "tacky gift-shop planet", Vicki badgers the Doctor into buying her and Steven matching T-shirts with the words "Trouble-makers" printed on them.	23 January 2014
[12]			Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald	The Doctor attempts to use the bright red of his cape to scare off an attacking monster, to Clara's confusion.	4 February 2014
[13]		'@okashishii'	Amy Pond, Rory Williams	After she lets herself be touched by the Weeping Angel, Amy and Rory have a tearful reunion in old New York.	2 May 2014
[14]		'@aiffes'	Ninth Doctor, Dalek	A Dalek has inexplicably become convinced that the Ninth Doctor is its parent and caretaker.	29 July 2014
[15]		'@halorvic'	Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald, Strax	The Doctor attempts to label Clara and Strax to avoid confusion, but gets further confused.	23 August 2014
[16]		Jennifer Lee	Twelfth Doctor, River Song, otters	After the Doctor has lived among otters for weeks, River tries to persuade him to leave, but he is reluctant.	28 September 2014	Part of "#DW_Otter_Hour" (event centred around visualising the Doctor's time living among otters following a spat with River, as mentioned in The Caretaker)
[17]		'Asna'/'@clarabosswald'	Eleventh Doctor, River Song, otters	River vents about the Doctor to the TARDIS console while he sleeps outside in a pond with otters; he somehow appears to hear what she is saying anyway, waking up and disturbing the otters.
[18]		'@szaniawa'	Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald, Eleventh Doctor, otters	The Eleventh Doctor tries to work through his fight with River with the help of an otter therapist while an otter which considers itself the Doctor's child tries to get his attention.	2 October 2014
[19]		'@harlovic'	Adipose	With Halloween imminent, one Adipose uses a tiny sheet to disguise itself as a rather unthreatening ghost, to the admiration of another.	3 October 2014	N/A
[20]		'@szaniawa'	Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald	The Doctor accidentally uses magic to shrink the TARDIS.	21 October 2014
[21]		'@chrisisdaname'	Twelfth Doctor, Third Doctor	The Third and Twelfth Doctors bond over their shared fashion sense — and the ways people misinterpret both their outfits.	16 November 2014
[22]		Johannes Chazot	Eighth Doctor, C'rizz, Charlotte Pollard	C'rizz has climbed up the Eighth Doctor's TARDIS control room's pillar to get a better view of the projected sky. Despite the Doctor's protests, Charley ends up joining him rather than helping to call him down — and even the Doctor ultimately joins them.	7 February 2015	Chazot has also created official DWU illustrations.
[23]		'@keatulie'	Jamie McCrimmon, Second Doctor	Jamie asks the Doctor if there are real Yeti even if the ones they met were alien robots. The Doctor answers with a pun.	19 February 2015	N/A
[24]		'@blueboxdrifter'	Fourth Doctor, Romana I	The Doctor and Romana discuss optimism.	6 March 2015	Based on dialogue in The Armageddon Factor.
[25]		'@ariathedog'	Tenth Doctor, cat	The Doctor is jealous of a cat's ginger fur.	10 March 2015	N/A
[26]		Johannes Chazot	Eighth Doctor, Charley Pollard, Ramsay the Vortisaur	Charley looks through the drawers in the filing cabinets in the Doctor's TARDIS control room while the Doctor is petting Ramsay, finding a variety of strange objects, including a plunger.	14 March 2015	Based on a statement by Nicholas Briggs in the DVD commentary of the TV Movie.
[27]	Arya Meets The Doctor	'@kefalay'	Twelfth Doctor, Arya Stark	Arya Stark, now the Doctor's companion, refuses to "run" when the Doctor says "run", preferring a more proactive approach to facing danger.	1 April 2015	Reaction to the announcement of Maisie Williams' casting in Series 9 of televised Who. Arya Stark is Williams's character on Game of Thrones.
[28]	The Bluest Blue Ever	'@mogamoka'	Eleventh Doctor, First Doctor, Amy Pond	The Doctor tells Little Amelia the story of how he got the TARDIS.	27 June 2015	Manga adaptation of the scene in The Big Bang. Also printed in the Doctor Who fanbook of the same name.
[29]	N/A	'@expertfieldmouse'	Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, Rory Williams	The Doctor is teaching Amy and Rory how to dance and although not as incompetent as might have been expected, the metaphors he uses in his advice are strange indeed.	1 July 2015	N/A
[30]		'@raspberry-merbutlers'	Daleks	A Dalek has began collecting large amounts of apples with the rationale that "an apple a day keeps the Doctor away". This reasoning appalls another, passing Dalek.	1 November 2015
[31]		'@missmorgana'	Clara Oswald, Jane Austen	Clara visits Jane Austen to get some sage advice on how to keep going even though "her story is done".	24 November 2015	Surprisingly predates Hell Bent despite already showing a post-Face the Raven version of Clara who is dealing with the fact that she survives but "her story is done".
[32]		'@thecrimsonchaos'	Twelfth Doctor, Dalek	While a Santa-Claus-hat wearing Doctor plays the guitar, a Dalek feels a sudden urge to put up Christmas decorations instead of exterminating.	16 December 2015	N/A
[33]	Doctor's Moving Box	'Ka-ren'	Sophie Hatter, the TARDIS	Sophie Hatter comes across the TARDIS and complains that this wasn't what she meant when she asked for "shelter".	13 February 2016	Features Sophie Hatter from the animated film Howl's Moving Castle.
[34]	N/A	'@joanacchi'	Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald	The Doctor and Clara land on a strange planet called Tumblr... on a Monday!	14 March 2016	N/A
[35]		'@underthekopje'		The Doctor mopes outside the TARDIS about turning 58 years old. Clara reminds him that it is a fixed point in Time which he cannot avoid by simply ignoring it.	14 April 2016	Drawn in celebration of Peter Capaldi's real-life birthday.
[36]		'@staypee'	Twelfth Doctor, Bill Potts, Dalek	A Dalek gets upset when, upon first meeting it, Bill calls it fat.	19 May 2016	N/A
[37]	Rescue Mission	Maryne Lahaye	Thirteenth Doctor, Opportunity	The Doctor rescues the Opportunity rover in her TARDIS after congratulating it for "doing a good job".	15 February 2019

External links

• The Official Doctor Who Tumblr on Tumblr.com