10 Doctor Who Facts Most Fans Don't Know

The Doctor who, what, where, and why of almost 60 years in the TARDIS.

Doctor Who Eleventh Doctor Captain Jack Harkness
BBC Studios

Doctor Who has been around for nearly six decades, and has become an indelible part of British culture. Everyone knows about the big actors who turned down the title role, and the fact that David Tennant is the only person in his house whose father didn't play the Doctor.

However, a show can't run for almost sixty years without a few weird and wonderful facts falling through the cracks (in time). However, thanks to those dedicated Doctor Who fans who have unearthed various story outlines, trade announcements, and internal letters, these facts eventually surface into the world.

It was this dedication to discovery that led to the original Sarah Jane Smith actor being revealed as April Walker, after decades of mystery. Given how many Doctor Who fans there are in the world, it's difficult to find a concrete fact that absolutely nobody has heard before. For example, it would be great to reveal that, as stated on social media, IMDB, and Wikipedia, Steve Martin and Jon Pertwee were good friends, but sadly, there's absolutely no cast-iron evidence of this.

So, instead, here are ten lesser-known Doctor Who facts that have actually been corroborated, and present all manner of exciting "what if?" moments.

10. Ridley Scott's Involvement With Doctor Who

Doctor Who Eleventh Doctor Captain Jack Harkness
Warner Bros. Pictures

The iconic design of the Daleks has been key to their longevity in the popular imagination, and has led to the villains appearing in some truly unexpected places over the years. Designed by Raymond Cusick and built by Bill Roberts (along with the team at Shawcraft), Terry Nation's classic creations rolled plunger-first onto screens in December of 1963, and changed the course of Doctor Who's future.

Cusick wasn't the original BBC set designer assigned to the first Dalek serial, however. Also working as a set designer at the time was future sci-fi director Ridley Scott, and the job of designing the Dalek city and the Doctor's iconic foes was originally assigned to him.

It's an enticing "what if?" scenario, but Scott left the Beeb before work commenced on the Dalek serial. Unfortunately for sci-fi fans, this means that there's no hidden treasure chest of Dalek designs drawn by the director of Blade Runner and Alien.

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Citizen of the Universe, Film Programmer, Writer, Podcaster, Doctor Who fan and a gentleman to boot. As passionate about Chinese social-realist epics as I am about dumb popcorn movies.