10 Most British Doctor Who Moments
Is there anything more British than a Dalek offering you a cup of tea?
The TARDIS can travel anywhere in time and space. But it has a tendency to keep coming back to Earth. Or more specifically, Britain.
Likewise, despite hailing from Gallifrey, the Doctor is a quintessentially British character.
The original Doctor reimagined the archetype of the Victorian traveller for the 1960s – an age in which technology was developing rapidly, space travel was becoming possible, and Britain was navigating its place in a post-war, post-imperial world.
With each subsequent incarnation the character has evolved to reflect current British ideas and concerns, to the point where they are now as embedded in our culture as Sherlock Holmes or Robin Hood.
And along the way, various elements of British culture have worked their way into Doctor Who.
Ok, the Doctor doesn’t recite “God Save the King” every five minutes while drinking tea, eating scones and riding a red double-decker bus. But there are quite a few things about the show which, when you stop and think about it, are quite specific to the British Isles.
From iconography and stereotypes to past and present cultural references, Britishness runs deeper in Doctor Who than you might think…
10. Quaint British Villages
With their natural character and old-fashioned charm, small British villages have offered escapism to television audiences for decades, most commonly in the cosy crime genre.
These are the types of places you can see for half a second and instantly know that they're located somewhere in the British countryside, and they've appeared quite a lot in Doctor Who over the decades – clearly, aliens love their old-fashioned sweet shops and pubs just as much as we do.
Perhaps most famously is the 1971 serial The Daemons, which involved strange goings-on in the picturesque village of Devil’s End, featuring scenes of Morris dancing on the green, the Doctor and Jo in the local pub, and the Master posing as a vicar.
The most iconic new series village would have to be Leadworth, as introduced in The Eleventh Hour. It’s another one that plays up to all the stereotypes, boasting a perfect village green, a duck pond, an ice cream van, red phone boxes, a quirky old resident played by Annette Crosbie, and the crushing realisation that you're at least 30 minutes away from any sort of modern civilisation.
In fact the only unrealistic thing about Leadworth is that Amy and the Doctor manage to get good phone signal... in reality trying to make a call from one of these places is the equivalent of being stuck on the Moon with a plastic cup and some string.