10 Times Doctor Who Accidentally Predicted Our Future
The TARDIS is notoriously unreliable, after all...
As sci-fi series go, Doctor Who has a less impressive track record in influencing the onward march of technology than Star Trek. There's an adage in fan circles that Star Trek inspires people to strive for scientific excellence or join the armed forces while Doctor Who inspires people to become writers and artists.
Given the career success of the past three 21st century showrunners prior to Doctor Who, there's likely some truth in that. However, this is a show about time travel and as such, sometimes makes some fairly spot-on predictions, purely by accident.
Some of these are ad-libs by actors that turn out to be spot-on, while other predictions are drawn from contemporary scientific theories that authors extrapolate into solid story ideas. Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, for example, were expired by the development of prosthetics and turned that positive step into the terrifying Cybermen. Other times, Doctor Who predicts our future in retrospect. A TV show is obviously a product of the time in which it's made, but it can also take on new life when watched under different circumstances.
One of the reasons that Doctor Who has endured is because the stories still stand up decades later, and still have things to tell us about today. This list collects all of these accurate but purely accidental predictions!
10. The Return Of The Weakest Link
In 2005's Bad Wolf, Russell T Davies depicts a nightmarish future where reality television has run rampant. A vast "Game Station" orbits the Earth, stacked floor to ceiling with studios producing futuristic versions of some old favourites - but with murderous results.
On Big Brother, you get evicted from life, while a makeover show will eviscerate your unsightly body parts.
Anne Robinson - the host of the UK version of the game show The Weakest Link - also made a cameo as the voice of... well, herself. Just a deadlier robot version. The Weakest Link eventually went off the air in 2012 when Robinson declined to renew her contract. As various reality shows and talent competitions were dwindling at that time, this was probably a wise move.
But then, in 2021, the show returned to our screens. There weren't any killer androids, but instead a much more affable host in the form of comic and former maths teacher Romesh Ranganathan.
Whether this format runs until the year 200,000 remains to be seen.