Shoe
Shoes were a common item of clothing worn by humanoid species as fashion and to cover or protect their feet. Even some non-humanoid species wore shoes – around 3,000,000,000 BC Venusians wore goldenwood shoes. (PROSE: Venusian Lullaby)
Leela thought River Song's shoes were especially impractical, when it came to running. (AUDIO: Emancipation) Polly Wright also found that her own shoes were a hindrance to running fast with soldiers behind her in pursuit, and removed them in order to keep up with Kirsty McLaren. (TV: The Highlanders)
Whilst in England in 1911, Sarah Jane Smith observed that the Fourth Doctor's shoes needed repairing. (TV: Pyramids of Mars)
In 1941 due to the war shoes were in short supply and would be mended if damaged. (PROSE: Just War)
When the newly regenerated Third Doctor was found unconscious by UNIT soldiers in the 20th century, he was taken to the hospital. The hospital nurse, who was already concerned about his unusual vital signs and diagnostic test results, found him leaning out of bed, muttering about shoes. She put him back to bed and he appeared to fall asleep. When he later got to his shoes, the TARDIS key was hidden in one. (TV: Spearhead from Space) After his own regeneration, the Fourth Doctor searched his person for his TARDIS key before remembering it was in his shoe. (TV: Robot)
Tegan Jovanka immediately recognised the 1970s based on the fashion girls wearing denim caps and platform shoes. (PROSE: Deep Blue)
In 1976 UNIT Corporal Claire Tennant wore flat shoes as part of her 'plain clothes' civilian clothing during a Broadsword opertation. (PROSE: No Future)
in 1996 Grace Holloway gave the Eighth Doctor a pair of shoes which originally belonged to her ex-boyfriend Brian. After wearing them for a while, the Doctor happily claimed they "fit perfectly". (TV: Doctor Who)
In the Unbound Universe in 1997, after he'd escaped his exile to Earth, the Doctor noted that he would need to find new shoes as the one he'd inherited from his predecessor no longer fit him. (AUDIO: Sympathy for the Devil)
In 2008 the Tenth Doctor complimented Martha Jones on the shoes she wore to the party commemorating the unveiling of Richard Lazarus hypersonic soundwave manipulator. (TV: The Lazarus Experiment)
When the Eleventh Doctor went to St John's Monastery in the 22nd century to meet the early version of the Flesh, he stepped in some of the acid that they were mining. He removed his shoes and then borrowed another pair from the miners. When the Eleventh Doctor Ganger arrived, then stabilised, they encouraged the others to use the shoes to tell them apart, then switched shoes so that the Doctor and his Ganger could assess Amy. (TV: The Rebel Flesh, The Almost People)
In 2887 robot-influenced fashion in Kaldor City meant shoes based on the robots there was considered high fashion. (PROSE: Corpse Marker)
In 2982 Roz Forrester told robots in a shop in Europe that she wanted genuine leather shoes in order to attract attention; the leather available was bison. (PROSE: So Vile a Sin)
By the time in her travels with the First Doctor Barbara Wright had learnt the value of 'practical dress' for travelling which included a loose jumper and slacks and sensible flat shoes, which she donned when the TARDIS landed on Avalon in 2991. (PROSE: The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
When Bernice Summerfield was shopping at the Gigamarket in the 27th century the shoes on sale turned back into cows due to temporal anomalies present. (AUDIO: The Greatest Shop in the Galaxy)
In the year 200,100 on The Weakest Link, Rose Tyler was asked in what area of fashion Stella Bopbates was famous in. She incorrectly guessed shoes; the correct answer was hats. (TV: Bad Wolf)
Before the Siege of Trenzalore, Clara Oswald's foot was grabbed by a Weeping Angel. When the Eleventh Doctor asked if she could pull her foot out, she responded that she couldn't even pull it out of her shoe, only for the Doctor to remind her that, as she was naked and wearing a hologram shell, she was not wearing any shoes. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
Types of shoes[[edit] | [edit source]]
High heels[[edit] | [edit source]]
Leela had strong feelings about footwear, thinking high heels impractical, and preferred to engage in combat barefoot, (AUDIO: The Renaissance Man) though she did typically wear leather boots. (TV: Image of the Fendahl, Underworld, The Invasion of Time)
Indeed, Romana I came to regret wearing high heels, which the Fourth Doctor warned her would not be suitable. By the time she admitted they were not practical, Romana's feet were sore, and she could not go on. She later discarded her shoes entirely, and simply travelled barefoot. In the TARDIS, the Doctor found Romana a pair of more sensible boots, for which Romana was thankful. (TV: The Stones of Blood)
Tegan Jovanka also considered high heels to be impractical, and even after abandoning them found the stockings equally as irritating for their lack of grip on the floors of the Crystal Bucephalus. (PROSE: The Crystal Bucephalus)
River Song walked on Alfava Metraxis with her red high heel shoes in her hand when she signalled Father Octavian at the crash of the Byzantium. (TV: The Time of Angels) An identical pair of shoes were present in the UNIT Black Archive. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Sport shoes[[edit] | [edit source]]
Known as trainers, sneakers, sandshoes and running shoes these sport and running influenced shoes were worn by many Doctors and their companions.
Running shoes were more rubbery, but easier to slip on. (PROSE: Dead Romance) The running shoes the Fifth Doctor wore were white. (PROSE: Fear of the Dark)
The Tenth Doctor wore trainers on his travels, the colour of which varied from adventure to adventure. When he met his war and eleventh incarnations, the latter kept calling them sandshoes; when the Tenth Doctor insisted that they weren't, the War Doctor responded by saying, "Yes, they are." (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Chris Cwej had wanted to wear sandshoes, but only managed to find (and lace) one in the TARDIS. (PROSE: The Room With No Doors)
When she was in 1969 Sam Jones briefly worried about her very 1990s-era trainers. (PROSE: Revolution Man)
Sam Jones was wearing trainers when she and the Eighth Doctor arrived in a swamp on Paratractis in an alternate 2108. (PROSE: Genocide)
Loss of shoes[[edit] | [edit source]]
Susan lost one of her shoes on Marinus when it fell into a pool of acid and dissolved. (TV: The Keys of Marinus) Susan later had only one shoe when the First Doctor left her behind on 22nd century Earth. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth) By this time, she had hundreds of pairs of shoes aboard the TARDIS, but none were on hand when the Doctor departed. (AUDIO: After the Daleks)
Jeremy Fitzoliver briefly lost one of his shoes when it got stuck in mud. (AUDIO: The Paradise of Death) Both of Harry Sullivan's shoes were destroyed by the auto guard on the Nerva. His second shoe was deliberately thrown across the room by the Fourth Doctor, in an attempt to distract the guard, which targeted organic matter. (TV: The Ark in Space)
Secondary uses[[edit] | [edit source]]
When they were trapped in the Daleks' city Barbara Wright used the mud on Susan Foreman's shoes to make mud. (TV: The Daleks)
While the Tenth Doctor was trapped on the Moon with Martha Jones in the Royal Hope Hospital, he used the sonic screwdriver to multiply the output of an X-ray machine to use it as a weapon to stop the Slab that was chasing him. When Martha questioned him about the dose of radiation, the Doctor told her roentgen radiation wasn't dangerous to him. He squirmed around, saying he was concentrating to expel it into one of his shoes, then threw the shoe in the rubbish. When Martha called him mad, he said, "You're right. I'd look daft with one shoe," and threw the other away as well. (TV: Smith and Jones)
Maisie Pitt used the heel of one of Clara Oswald's high heeled shoes to break the lock of the door to the room on-board the Orient Express where she believed the body of her grandmother was being kept. (TV: Mummy on the Orient Express)
UNIT Time Fracture incident[[edit] | [edit source]]
On 18 August 2020, the 14682nd day of observing the Time Fracture, 30 minutes before beginning the recording of a field log, Errol Courtney and Evelyn Yates were witness to the fracture becoming active 'in a manner undocumented since observations began', where a 'huge spike of chronon and artron energy was detected radiating from the fracture.' When the energy readings reached their peak, 'a flash of light emanated from the fracture' and, when the light subsided, the fracture increased in size, and a shoe, (WC: 14682 UNIT Field Log) correctly (WC: 14684 UNIT Field Log) claimed by Doctor Yates to be "clearly one of his shoes", although it was referred to by Doctor Courtney as a "mysterious item", was found to have travelled through the fracture. Doctor Courtney then claimed that the item would be thoroughly tested by their scientific team, which he described as a 'slow process', due to cutbacks causing them to be 'woefully understaffed'.
Another spike then occurred (WC: 14682 UNIT Field Log, 14683 UNIT Field Log) during the recording of the field log for day 14682, (WC: 14682 UNIT Field Log) which caused Time Lords (one shown in footage) to appear by London Bridge, a Cyberman to appear at St. Paul's Cathedral, a Dalek to emerge from the River Thames, and another shoe to come through the fracture, making a "pair... more or less". (WC: 14683 UNIT Field Log) The next day, the Doctor's private channel for encrypted communication with the UNIT Black Site came online with the message "Did you get my shoes?", as recorded in another field log, with Yates turning to Courtney and stating "I told you they were their shoes!". (WC: 14684 UNIT Field Log)
