10 Unnecessary Doctor Who Details You Need To Know

Rather like the UK in May of this year, The Idiot’s Lantern won’t let you forget that there’s a coronation on. Indeed, this story surely contains more Union Jacks (sorry, Union Flags) than any other.

But aside from all the red, white, and blue bunting, one of the other things that hits the Doctor and Rose when they arrive in London on coronation day is the sheer number of households with televisions – many more than you’d expect for the time.

As we later learn, these televisions, manufactured by Magpie Electricals, are key to the story’s villain, providing it with the means to steal the faces of unwitting residents.

However, it wasn’t just the television sets that you should've been paying attention to.

As production designer Edward Thomas revealed on the episode’s DVD commentary, just as much thought went into the television aerials, which were shaped like swastikas to allude to the shadow World War II continued to cast over 1950s Britain. As the Doctor explains to Rose, rationing was only just ending when Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the throne.

The symbol cast by these aerials can hardly be described as subtle. But in the context of the episode, this is a pretty obscure detail – and, rather appropriately, given the location of the aerials, will no doubt have gone over many viewers' heads.