Doctor Who: 6 Greatest In-Jokes On The Show

1. Doctor Who?

Of course no list of in-jokes in Doctor Who would be complete without a discussion of the Doctor's name and thus the now infamous asking of Doctor Who? While the Doctor's identity is almost always in question by someone, and has been answered in a number of ways by the Doctor and his friends, most commonly with misdirection, and sometimes by his favourite alias John Smith, there has been a handful of interesting other answers to his namelessness. There were also at least two instances where the Doctor called himself Who. In the Highlanders, the Second Doctor is posing as a German at the time, and calls himself Doctor von Wer. The other is in the Daemons when the Third Doctor is called the Wizard Qui Quae Quod (Latin for Who). It does seem the older the Doctor gets the more attached he is to being either John Smith when a human name is absolutely vital, or just the Doctor, but one particularly interesting departure is in a Christmas Carol when the Eleventh Doctor chooses to call himself a Ghost Of Christmas Past. The most obscure and thus perhaps most in-joke of all occurs in the course of the story commonly known collectively as The Gunfighters when the Doctor, getting carried away in inventing "some sort of suitable cover," calls himself Doctor Caligari, a very different madman in a box. It does not do him much good, as the immediate response is once again, Doctor who? The earliest instance is in the very first story when companion-to-be Ian Chesteron mistakenly calls the Doctor, Doctor Foreman, because of Susan's chosen name. The Doctor himself responds with the original "Doctor who?". Since then 53 of the approximately 250 story arcs contain in an instance of the words Doctor who. Of these, several, 22 by my count, do not appear to be intended jokes like this early instance in the Daleks' Master Plan where companion Steven Taylor says "Doctor, who are we waiting for?" There are examples like the conversation in the recent Bells of Saint John which are clearly poking at the Doctor who pun, which was as of late an integral plot point. Then there are instances like in the Modern Who story The Unicorn and the Wasp where Agatha Christie says "Just one mystery left, Doctor. Who exactly are you?" which seems to lie somewhere in between. From a statistical perspective it is interesting to note that in Classic Who the number of intentional and incidental instances of 'Doctor Who' are nearly even, whereas in Modern Who the balance shifts to more than two-to-one in favour of intentional references. Regardless of the era, and no matter the intent, from famous figures, to ordinary humans, to asylums full of Daleks, to the Doctor himself, we can be sure someone will always be asking Doctor Who?

Honourable Mention: The In-Joke That Never Happened Idiot's Lantern Lost Line

While the Idiot's Lantern is definitely already a nice tribute to early TV and early BBC and thus a tribute to the world that was soon to give birth to Doctor Who, its most grand in-joke, unfortunately, had to be cut. Writer Mark Gatiss had initially wanted the Doctor to become nervous during his long and daring climb up to battle The Wire and stop momentarily, declaring: "I've just got this thing about transmitters, I fell off one once." This, of course, in reference to the Fourth Doctor, who fell off a similar tower and regenerated. So there you have it. Six of Doctor Who's Greatest Ever In-Jokes (and then some). Did I miss your favourite? Have another good one to share? I hope so. I loved learning about these! Please feel free to add another below.