10 Unnecessary Doctor Who Details You Need To Know
2. Ten-nant Pound Notes (The Runaway Bride)
Money, money, money… it’s a running gag that the Doctor never has any.
Most of the time, this isn’t too much of a problem, as the companion can instead foot the bill. However, in The Runaway Bride, the Doctor meets his match: a companion who also doesn’t carry cash, for the very good reason that she’s wearing a wedding dress, and is about to get married!
Desperate times call for desperate measures, with the Doctor raiding a cash machine just to get Donna a taxi. However, if you think the banknotes used in this scene were just any old banknotes, think again.
Unsurprisingly, manufacturing fake cash is against the law, so the production team had to come up with an alternative – something which, from a distance, would look real enough, but also couldn’t be mistaken for legal tender.
In a deliciously ironic move, this counterfeit currency was adorned with a photo of the Doctor himself, together with the quotes “No second chances – I’m that sort of man”, and “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ten satsumas”.
These banknotes still appear on the second-hand market from time to time, so you too can own your own Tenth Doctor dosh if you know where to look. Just don’t expect to actually be able to get a taxi with it.