Fun Facts

Question 1

What historical event overshadowed the release of the original Doctor Who episode?

Hint: Doctor Nine is shown in a picture of this event

Answer 1

Kennedy’s Assassination

Question 2

What was the name of the first episode?

Answer 2

An Unearthly Child

Question 3

How many episodes are Lost?

Answer 3

103 or 106 depending on who you ask

Question 4

Where does the name Torchwood ORIGINALLY come from?

Answer 4

When the first series of Doctor Who was being filmed, BBC execs were apparently so concerned about piracy that they code-named the tapes ‘Torchwood’ to protect them from being stolen in transit. The name was then an obvious choice for the later spin-off series.

Question 5

What famous actors refused the role of Eleven?

Answer 5

Bill Nighy and Benedict Cumberbatch

Question 6

Who married his on screen daughter?

Answer 6

David Tennant (Doctor 10) married Georgia Moffet (Jenny)

Question 7

What actor was both the ‘groom’ and the father of the bride?

Hint - Do not take this literally.

Answer 7

Peter Davidson (The Fifth Doctor)

His daughter Georgia Moffat married David Tennant (who played the tenth Doctor)

Question 8

Which Doctor Who director wanted a female Doctor and why?

Answer 8

When the original series was struggling with ratings in the 1980s, the show’s creator, Sydney Newman, wrote a letter to BBC One Controller Michael Grade, admonishing the state of the show. He called for a temporary return of Patrick Troughton, who played the Second Doctor, before metamorphosing The Doctor into a female incarnation – a Time Lady.

Newman also suggested adding ‘a trumpet playing schoolgirl in “John Lennon-type spectacles” and her graffiti-spraying “yobbo” elder brother’ to the cast lineup.

Question 9

What Earth terror inspired the Daleks?

Answer 9

Nazis
After growing up during WWII, the Daleks’ creator, Terry Nation, originally based the aliens on the Nazis, citing them as “the unhearing, unthinking, blanked-out face of authority that will destroy you because it wants to destroy you.” In fact, they were so similar that Donald Wilson, Head of BBC Serial Dramas, said the first Dalek-based script was “absolutely terrible”.

The episodes written by Nation carry more salient Nazi undertones, most notably in “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” and “Genesis of the Daleks,” which include allusions to the Nazis in the straight-armed, heel-clicking salute of the Daleks, mentions of taking over the world and destruction of the human race as ‘the Final Solution,’ the explanation that the Daleks were bred for racial purity, and the clear Nazi references in the uniforms worn by the Daleks’ ancestors, the Kaleds.

Question 10

What iconic method if Transportation used by the Doctor was created at the request of Jon Pertwee (the Third Doctor)?

Answer 10

The WhoMobile!
Jon Pertwee, the actor who played the Third Doctor, privately commissioned the futuristic vehicle that later came to be known as the Whomobile. When Pertwee convinced Doctor Who‘s producers to include the vehicle in the show, it was hastily added into the episode “Invasion of the Dinosaurs,” with a motor-boat windscreen added to make it roadworthy, since it was not fully completed at the time of filming.
In Pertwee’s last episode as the Third Doctor, “Planet of the Spiders,” the car was used once again, this time in its complete form. Pertwee retained ownership of the vehicle after he left the series, naming it the Whomobile during press interviews (without the consent of the show’s producers, who apparently had a rule about not making plays on the show’s name).

Question 11

What Doctor Who actor joined a monastery at the age of 15?

Answer 11

Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor)
Although he later ridiculed the ‘wonderful cunning of Catholicism,’ Tom Baker, who played the Fourth Doctor, was ‘intensely Catholic’ but said he joined a monastery when he was 15 as a way of getting out of Liverpool. Although he says it was ‘annihilatingly boring,’ Baker stuck it out in the monastery for five years before moving on to the Royal Army Medical Corps, where he became interested in acting.

Question 12

What iconic addition to the Doctor’s wardrobe was a mistake?

Answer 12

The Fourth Doctor’s Scarf
When costume designer James Acheson provided more than enough wool for the bohemian-style scarf required for Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor, the knitter, Begonia Pope, misunderstood his instructions and knitted all the wool she was given. Baker liked the overly-long scarf, and went on to wear it for the show anyway!

Question 13

Who is the only actor that appears in Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Star Trek?

Hint - He was also in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a few dozen times!

Answer 13

Deep Roy
Doctor Who 1977- Mr. Sin
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - Droopy McCool
Star Trek: 2009 - Keenser (Scotty’s green alien friend)
Chocolate Factory - Oompa Loompa

Question 14

Which Doctor filmed the most episodes?

Answer 14

Four

Tom Baker

Question 15

What common Earth Medicine does that Doctor claim a single tablet could kill him?

Answer 15

Aspirin

Mind of Evil (1971)

Question 16

How many times can a Time Lord regenerate?

Answer 16

12 (Deadly Assassin (1976))
507 (Sarah Jane Adventures)
Live Forever (War Games (1969))

Question 17

What Doctor played both his doctor and the Doctor that died, in his regeneration Scene?

Answer 17

Sylvester McCoy
Due to Colin Baker’s frustration at the way he was treated (having been blamed for low ratings and fired from the show as a result, among other things), he refused to return to the show for his regeneration scene. McCoy, who took over as the Seventh Doctor, was left to stand in for Baker instead.

Question 18

What Doctor reaches the list of Top Twelve Worst Scifi Deaths of All Time?

Answer 18

Doctor Six
Colin Baker refused to return to the show for his regeneration scene. McCoy, who took over as the Seventh Doctor, was left to stand in for Baker instead. The scene is often lambasted by fans, and io9 named it one of the 12 worst deaths in science fiction history.

Question 19

What was Nelvanna (the Studio that created Care Bears and the animated bits of Star Wars Holiday Special) wanting to do to Doctor Who?

Answer 19

Make an Animated Series of course!
The series envisaged K9 as floating rather than moving on the ground (as if that would ever happen!). The Daleks would be able to transform into tank like creatures that no longer had guns or sucker arms but a drill and a weird mirror thing. The Doctor’s companion would be a young black girl, beating Martha Jones appearance as the first female black companion by twenty years.

Question 20

What famous comapanion was originally going to be killed of?

Answer 20

Sarah Jane Smith
In 1976, Elisabeth Sladen decided to leave Doctor Who. A story was devised in which The Doctor and Sarah would go to North Africa and discover two alien races trying to destroy one another, which would have concluded with Sarah being killed by one of the aliens.
When Sladen finally left the programme in 1976 her final scene was improvised on the day with Tom Baker as the two actors still were not happy with the way Sladen left the show. She would later return in The Five Doctors before getting a brief spin of series entitled K9 and Company which only had one pilot episode before being cancelled due to poor ratings.
Sladen eventually returned to the revived series in 2006 and between then and her untimely death in 2011, she inspired a whole new generation.

Question 21

What Nemesis was originally to be the Doctor’s Brother?

Answer 21

The Master
In 1984, with Peter Davison leaving, a story was conceived called Planet of Fire in which The Master would be killed off, and in his last dying moments, The Master would plead with The Doctor to save him, saying: “Doctor, help me! I’ll give you anything in creation! Would you show no mercy to your own brother!”
However, John Nathan Turner, anticipated some fan backlash from this and so the last word “brother” was cut. Subsequently, The Master gave us instead a tantalising idea about what connection The Doctor and The Master have.
Incidentally, Russell T Davies made a direct joke to the idea of the two Timelords being brothers – in The Sound of Drums, Martha Jones asks The Doctor if The Master is his evil brother to which The Doctor responds “You’ve been watching too much TV!”

Question 22

What actress and popular companion wasn’t even a planed cast member?

Answer 22

Elizabeth Slayden
Back in 1973 after Katy Manning left Doctor Who, Barry Letts started auditions for a new companion. April Walker auditioned and Letts gave her the part, however, on meeting Jon Pertwee, Letts realised that they had no chemistry. Pertwee agreed and Walker was sacked but was paid for the whole series that she would have done.