10 Times Doctor Who Has Ripped Off Other Franchises

5. Sherlock Holmes & Victoriana

It's no secret that Doctor Who has always had a dash of the world's first consulting detective to him. They're both eccentric geniuses and both mavericks. Over the course of the show, this influence has been felt more widely. Terrence Dicks created the Master to be the Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes for example, while Tom Baker even dresses up as him in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (as did Matt Smith in The Snowmen). The image of that Victorian era, so popularised by Holmes and by Charles Dickens, of fog, murky back streets and urchins eating roasted chestnuts, has also often been recreated in Doctor Who. Stories such as The Next Doctor and The Unquiet Dead are obvious examples, as are the Paternoster Gang, Madame Vastra being a female, lizard Holmes.