10 Most Meta Doctor Who Moments EVER

4. The BBC Continuity Announcer

Doctor Who Time Crash
BBC

Seventh Doctor adventure Remembrance of the Daleks was set in November 1963, which any fan will recognise as the month and year that Doctor Who appeared on our screens for the very first time. It seems the show's creators couldn't resist using this to their advantage by sneaking in a cheeky meta reference to the show's airing. In Episode 2, Ace just misses the very first episode of a brand-new science-fiction television programme on the BBC.

As she leaves the room, the camera zooms in on a television set with a BBC ident on display, as a continuity announcer says the following:

"This is BBC television, the time is quarter past five and Saturday viewing continues with an adventure in the new science fiction series Doc—"

Unfortunately (though of course deliberately) the rest of the announcement is cut off by a change of scene, but even casual viewers will understand that this is a meta joke in reference to Doctor Who itself. Science-fiction, Saturday, November 1963... it all adds up! This has pretty massive implications, as it implies that Doctor Who exists as a TV show within the show itself. So how come the characters have never acknowledged it? Maybe they've never seen it! I doubt the Doctor has a TV license...

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Patch is a pop culture enthusiast and purveyor of puns. He writes about media in a vague attempt to justify the alarming amount of time he spends consuming it. Nobody's convinced... but nobody's told him that yet. He spends his spare time working on Portal 2: Desolation, an ambitious fan-made sequel to Valve's beloved puzzle games.