Fantastic Beasts: 10 Ties To Doctor Who You Might Have Missed

3. Coming To A Department Store Near You. Smashing!

Fantastic Beasts Doctor Who
Warner Bros.

If the multitude of stories are to be believed, then department stores have long been popular locations for aliens and fantastic creatures to cause havoc and draw attention to themselves.

In Doctor Who one alien species (the Nestene Consciousness) capitalised on the fact by making shop mannequins their footsoldiers. A scene, first shown in 1970, of the plastic Autons smashing out of window displays and shooting down innocent shoppers was so iconic that Russell T Davies recreated the same effect for the first episode of the revived show in 2005.

In that story, the Doctor’s companion to be, Rose, is working in the fictional London department store Henricks. Five minutes into the episode and the whole building explodes causing mayhem on the streets of London and putting Rose and her colleagues out of a job.

The iconic New York department store Macy’s might have suffered a destructive fate of an altogether different kind, were it not for the last minute interventions of Newt, Tina and Jacob. Hunting for the Demiguise Dougal, our heroes find him babysitting an Occamy who can grow or shrink to fit any available space. Some quick-witted thinking from Newt, combined with Tina’s dexterity and a lucky throw from Jacob, prevents any further damage to the store as the trio trap the Occamy with a teapot and a cockroach.

Contributor
Contributor

Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.