Actually, if you don't mind...
I've decided to do a pointless trivia on Doctor Who. Not sure how many random useless facts I can think of, but I'll see what I can do.
As every fan of the show (except the most casual ones) will tell you, the main character's name is The Doctor, not Doctor Who. However, the British media, the BBC, series materials and the original credits all refer to him as Doctor Who, so it is okay to use the term (though it might make some people angry).
William Hartnell, who played the First Doctor, was eventually asked to leave the show due to his declining health. Rather than kill off the character, the BBC came up with the idea of the Doctor regenerating when he dies, allowing them to have an explanation for replacing the actor with someone younger and fitter.
While "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!" is seen as a catchphrase of sorts of the Third Doctor, he actually only ever said that exact phrase once (or maybe twice) in the entire series. He did reverse the polarity of a lot of other things, though, and once fused the controls to the neutron flow. In one episode, he simply says "Reverse the polarity!" (i.e. of the electrical power in general), and in another he warns the Master that "I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow" (and thus things were about to blow up). Note that the phrase is essentially meaningless - neutrons don't even HAVE polarity, for one thing.
Similarly, people don't say "It's bigger on the inside!" as much as people think they do. The first reaction (from Ian) was more along the lines of "But it was just a telephone box!". The first time the actual phrase "It's bigger on the inside!" was said, it was by The Doctor himself, during one of the multi-Doctor specials.
In the early days of the series, the Daleks actually didn't have their "Exterminate! Exterminate!" battle cry as they did later on. They did use the word "exterminate" a lot, but in actual sentences, such as "you will be exterminated" and such. They would often shout similar words, such as "kill", "destroy" and "annihilate", and would simply shout "Fire!" when attacking people.
Contrary to popular belief, the Fourth Doctor never told anyone to "spack off". This was actually the result of a blooper that was left in the show. The line was scripted as "Now back off", but Tom Baker says "Now" and then holds an S sound, probably about to say "Now stay back", before realising his mistake and correcting it to "back off", resulting in "Now sssssback off." The flub was kept in since there wasn't enough budget to do a retake of the scene.
The show was originally conceived as an educational show, with the Doctor travelling to and meeting significant people from important events in actual history. Then the Daleks were introduced, and it transformed into a science-fiction show.
Despite what some people think, the TARDIS actually takes the form of a police box, not a phone booth (though it does have a non-working phone on the outside, as most real police boxes did (though their phones hopefully actually worked) and the Doctor is seen operating a working phone connected to the TARDIS console. Police boxes like this don't actually exist in Britain anymore (and haven't for some time), which led to an interesting case where, when the BBC tried to register the appearance of the TARDIS as a trademark, the Metropolitan Police took them to court - and lost the case, as the judge ruled that the image was more associated with Doctor Who in the public eye.
The Weeping Angels take the form of statues whenever someone is looking at them. You'll notice that whenever a Weeping Angel is on screen, it'll be in its statue form, even if no character is looking at it - meaning they turn into statues even when the viewer is looking at them.
The TARDIS was originally going to be able to change its form to blend in with its surroundings due to its "chameleon circuit". However, the producers realised this would be much too expensive (the show was incredibly low-budget in its early days), so they decided that the chameleon circuit would be constantly malfunctioning, making the TARDIS always appear as a police box. Later, higher-budget incarnations of the show kept the appearance out of tradition, with the Doctor's in-universe explanation being that he just likes it that way.
TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space, not Distance.
The distinctive sound of the TARDIS was created by rubbing a piano's bass strings with a key. It is now officially considered a piece of music.
The words "Dalek" and "TARDIS" were added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
David Eccleston's last name has nine letters, David Tennant's full name has ten letters, and Peter Capaldi's full name has twelve letters. In case you didn't get the hint, they played the Ninth, Tenth and Twelfth Doctors respectively. Matt Smith, who played the Eleventh Doctor, doesn't have eleven letters in his name, but he is the eleventh Matt Smith listed on IMDB.
The scene in which Ace beats up a Dalek with a baseball bat was what inspired the Crowning Moment of Awesome (later renamed to just "Moment of Awesome") page on TVTropes. Doctor Who was also the first series to get its own Nightmare Fuel page on there. It's also a very popular joke in the Wild Mass Guessing pages over there to suggest that a character is a Time Lord (and some item or other character is their TARDIS).
The series producers are contractually obliged to bring the Daleks back at least once per season, due to a deal with Dalek creator Terry Nation's estate for the revival series.
David Tennant is a huge fan of the show, and his favourite Doctor was Peter Davison (Fifth), whom he often called "his" Doctor. He based his portrayal of the Doctor on Peter Davison's.
US broadcasters initially refused to buy the new series in 2005, reportedly because it was "too British". Fortunately for the sizeable American Doctor Who fanbase, episodes now air on BBC America.
Peter Kay has referred to his role as the monster Abzorbaloff in the episode "Love & Monsters" as the one thing in his career that he regrets. While he had fun making it, he was disappointed by the finished product, remarking "I'm a big green lizard running around Cardiff? Is that it?" He's also aware that the episode is considered by some fans to be one of the worst episodes ever.
Life, the Universe and Everything, the third novel in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy", was originally a four-part Doctor Who screenplay called "Doctor Who and the Krikketmen" which was rejected by the BBC.
Disney considered buying the rights to Doctor Who in the late '80s and early '90s, and would have opened up a "walk-through" TARDIS in Disneyland if they did.
In the revival series, the Doctor and the Master were originally going to be half-brothers.
As every fan of the show (except the most casual ones) will tell you, the main character's name is The Doctor, not Doctor Who. However, the British media, the BBC, series materials and the original credits all refer to him as Doctor Who, so it is okay to use the term (though it might make some people angry).
William Hartnell, who played the First Doctor, was eventually asked to leave the show due to his declining health. Rather than kill off the character, the BBC came up with the idea of the Doctor regenerating when he dies, allowing them to have an explanation for replacing the actor with someone younger and fitter.
While "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!" is seen as a catchphrase of sorts of the Third Doctor, he actually only ever said that exact phrase once (or maybe twice) in the entire series. He did reverse the polarity of a lot of other things, though, and once fused the controls to the neutron flow. In one episode, he simply says "Reverse the polarity!" (i.e. of the electrical power in general), and in another he warns the Master that "I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow" (and thus things were about to blow up). Note that the phrase is essentially meaningless - neutrons don't even HAVE polarity, for one thing.
Similarly, people don't say "It's bigger on the inside!" as much as people think they do. The first reaction (from Ian) was more along the lines of "But it was just a telephone box!". The first time the actual phrase "It's bigger on the inside!" was said, it was by The Doctor himself, during one of the multi-Doctor specials.
In the early days of the series, the Daleks actually didn't have their "Exterminate! Exterminate!" battle cry as they did later on. They did use the word "exterminate" a lot, but in actual sentences, such as "you will be exterminated" and such. They would often shout similar words, such as "kill", "destroy" and "annihilate", and would simply shout "Fire!" when attacking people.
Contrary to popular belief, the Fourth Doctor never told anyone to "spack off". This was actually the result of a blooper that was left in the show. The line was scripted as "Now back off", but Tom Baker says "Now" and then holds an S sound, probably about to say "Now stay back", before realising his mistake and correcting it to "back off", resulting in "Now sssssback off." The flub was kept in since there wasn't enough budget to do a retake of the scene.
The show was originally conceived as an educational show, with the Doctor travelling to and meeting significant people from important events in actual history. Then the Daleks were introduced, and it transformed into a science-fiction show.
Despite what some people think, the TARDIS actually takes the form of a police box, not a phone booth (though it does have a non-working phone on the outside, as most real police boxes did (though their phones hopefully actually worked) and the Doctor is seen operating a working phone connected to the TARDIS console. Police boxes like this don't actually exist in Britain anymore (and haven't for some time), which led to an interesting case where, when the BBC tried to register the appearance of the TARDIS as a trademark, the Metropolitan Police took them to court - and lost the case, as the judge ruled that the image was more associated with Doctor Who in the public eye.
The Weeping Angels take the form of statues whenever someone is looking at them. You'll notice that whenever a Weeping Angel is on screen, it'll be in its statue form, even if no character is looking at it - meaning they turn into statues even when the viewer is looking at them.
The TARDIS was originally going to be able to change its form to blend in with its surroundings due to its "chameleon circuit". However, the producers realised this would be much too expensive (the show was incredibly low-budget in its early days), so they decided that the chameleon circuit would be constantly malfunctioning, making the TARDIS always appear as a police box. Later, higher-budget incarnations of the show kept the appearance out of tradition, with the Doctor's in-universe explanation being that he just likes it that way.
TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space, not Distance.
The distinctive sound of the TARDIS was created by rubbing a piano's bass strings with a key. It is now officially considered a piece of music.
The words "Dalek" and "TARDIS" were added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
David Eccleston's last name has nine letters, David Tennant's full name has ten letters, and Peter Capaldi's full name has twelve letters. In case you didn't get the hint, they played the Ninth, Tenth and Twelfth Doctors respectively. Matt Smith, who played the Eleventh Doctor, doesn't have eleven letters in his name, but he is the eleventh Matt Smith listed on IMDB.
The scene in which Ace beats up a Dalek with a baseball bat was what inspired the Crowning Moment of Awesome (later renamed to just "Moment of Awesome") page on TVTropes. Doctor Who was also the first series to get its own Nightmare Fuel page on there. It's also a very popular joke in the Wild Mass Guessing pages over there to suggest that a character is a Time Lord (and some item or other character is their TARDIS).
The series producers are contractually obliged to bring the Daleks back at least once per season, due to a deal with Dalek creator Terry Nation's estate for the revival series.
David Tennant is a huge fan of the show, and his favourite Doctor was Peter Davison (Fifth), whom he often called "his" Doctor. He based his portrayal of the Doctor on Peter Davison's.
US broadcasters initially refused to buy the new series in 2005, reportedly because it was "too British". Fortunately for the sizeable American Doctor Who fanbase, episodes now air on BBC America.
Peter Kay has referred to his role as the monster Abzorbaloff in the episode "Love & Monsters" as the one thing in his career that he regrets. While he had fun making it, he was disappointed by the finished product, remarking "I'm a big green lizard running around Cardiff? Is that it?" He's also aware that the episode is considered by some fans to be one of the worst episodes ever.
Life, the Universe and Everything, the third novel in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy", was originally a four-part Doctor Who screenplay called "Doctor Who and the Krikketmen" which was rejected by the BBC.
Disney considered buying the rights to Doctor Who in the late '80s and early '90s, and would have opened up a "walk-through" TARDIS in Disneyland if they did.
In the revival series, the Doctor and the Master were originally going to be half-brothers.
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