10 Doctor Who Episodes You Didn’t Know Were Connected
Doctor Who's just a great big wibbly-wobbly web, isn't it?
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00:00At the risk of stating the obvious here, Doctor Who is a very timey-wimey show.
00:04It's like a big ball of string at this point, with so many threads from across the decades
00:09overlapping and crisscrossing.
00:11But what about the episodes with subtler links between them?
00:14Small background details throw away lines that mean way more than you think?
00:18Well, we're glad you asked, and with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhoCulture,
00:22here with 10 Doctor Who episodes you didn't know were connected.
00:2610. Silver Nemesis and The Big Bang
00:31The Eleventh Doctor's unorthodox dress sense inspired a generation of teenagers to think
00:36that they were cool because they owned a tweed jacket.
00:38Not only did bowtie sales shoot up when Matt Smith started wearing one,
00:42but his version of the Time Lord also inspired a fascination with a certain red hat.
00:47Number 11 first appeared in affairs in the Series 5 finale, The Big Bang.
00:51The headpiece would turn up throughout the rest of his time on the show,
00:54becoming a trademark of Smith's quirky portrayal of the character.
00:58But this was not the first time the Doctor had been seen in one.
01:01In Doctor Who's 25th anniversary special Silver Nemesis,
01:05the Seventh Doctor and his companion Ace turn up at Windsor Castle and have a rummage around,
01:10and at one point the Doctor pops up holding a mop and wearing, you guessed it, a fez.
01:15Considering that Eleven was also holding a mop when he was first seen with a fez,
01:19we can deduce that this moment is where he got the inspiration to wear one on the regular.
01:24Not a massive detail, but definitely a fun one.
01:27Number 9, 42 and the power of the Doctor.
01:31For a moment, put Russell to one side, sorry Russell, and imagine that you are in charge of
01:37Doctor Who. It'd be pretty hard to resist the temptation to constantly reference your own
01:41episodes, wouldn't it? Surprisingly, it's a temptation that Doctor Who's showrunners
01:45generally resist. Either that, or their script editors are ruthless.
01:49But inevitably, some of these self-referential nods do appear from time to time.
01:53Just take a look at Chris Chibnall's final episode, The Power of the Doctor,
01:57which includes an extremely subtle connection to the first Doctor Who episode he wrote,
02:02Series 3's 42. The space train that's under attack at the beginning of the episode is,
02:07as mentioned in the very first line, part of the Taraji Transport Network.
02:11The Taraji star system is where 42 took place, with the Tenth Doctor and Martha attempting to
02:16fend off the vindictive, annoyingly sentient son, Taraji. It's a nice little full circle moment for
02:22Chibnall's time in the Whoniverse, even if it does remind us that 42 exists.
02:27Number 8. Army of Ghosts and End of Days
02:31Series 2 finale Army of Ghosts saw the long-teased introduction of the Torchwood Institute,
02:36with head honcho Yvonne Hartman showing off her organisation's cool sci-fi tech to the Tenth
02:42Doctor. One piece of tech in particular catches the Doctor's eye, a Jathar Sunglider,
02:47which Yvonne tells him was shot down over the Shetland Islands a decade prior.
02:51Torchwood means business, and the Doctor is rightfully concerned.
02:55That mention of a Jathar Sunglider might just seem like random technobabble invented purely
03:00for this moment, and it probably was, but this wasn't the last time they appeared in the Whoniverse.
03:06Early on in the Torchwood episode End of Days, a trio of Sungliders are seen hovering over the
03:11Taj Mahal in the wake of the Cardiff Rift opening and unleashing space-time chaos.
03:16Clearly, this was just a case of Torchwood reusing readily available assets, but it can
03:20also be viewed as a neat bit of world-building that connects the two shows together.
03:257. A Good Man Goes to War and Thin Ice
03:29One of the more intriguing relationships in Modern Who is the one between the Doctor and
03:34his wife-slash-friend's-kid-slash-would-be-assassin River Song. The pair are star-crossed in the most
03:40literal sense, constantly bumping into each other at different points. They go on many
03:44adventures together, one of which is mentioned right at the start of the epic mid-series finale,
03:50A Good Man Goes to War. River tells Rory, who's dressed as a Roman because, well,
03:55reasons, that she's just come back from a birthday trip with her Time Lord Squeeze.
03:59She says the Doctor took her ice-skating at the last Great London Frost Fair,
04:03which sounds like a lovely day out. Clearly, the Doctor thought so, because he took Bill Potts to
04:08the exact same spot in Series 10's Thin Ice. He even admits that he's been there before. In fact,
04:13there is a deleted scene from that episode where he talks about bringing his wife to that very
04:18moment. It's a nice little connection between these two different eras of the show, although
04:23taking two dates to the exact same place? Rookie mistake, Doctor.
04:276. The Five Doctors and the Time of the Doctor
04:31Is this the longest payoff in Doctor Who history? Well, it might just be.
04:35In 1983's 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors, the Master presents the Third Doctor
04:41with the seal of the High Council of Gallifrey, only for the Doctor, naturally, to assume that
04:45his long-time foe has forged it. Turns out it's the real deal, though, and so the Doctor vows to
04:51return the artefact at the first opportunity. But he never does. In fact, he's still in possession
04:57of the seal in 2013's Christmas special The Time of the Doctor, where he uses it,
05:02with an assist from Handles, to decode the message the Time Lords are sending through
05:07the Kraken Time. Now, the Doctor does pick up all sorts of junk on their travels,
05:10so we can only assume that the seal is now languishing at the bottom of a TARDIS cupboard
05:15somewhere. Or maybe the Doctor will actually return it one day. The long way round.
05:205. The Mysterious Planet and the Name of the Doctor
05:24Despite only appearing in a single season from 1986, Whovians still lose their collective minds
05:30any time the Valiard comes up in conversation. Said to be a mysterious future incarnation of
05:35the Doctor, the Valiard serves as the prosecution during the Sixth Doctor's trial on Gallifrey.
05:40He almost gets him sentenced to death before the Doctor seemingly puts him down.
05:44Or does he? Because at the end of the episode, the Valiard is shown to have survived. But just
05:49because we haven't seen old Vali since the 80s, that doesn't mean we've seen the last of him.
05:54Richard E. Grant basically confirmed as much. In the episode The Name of the Doctor, Grant's
05:59The Great Intelligence runs down a list of other monikers the Doctor will be known by
06:04in the future, and one of those is the Valiard. It's a quick mention that's easy to miss,
06:08but it implies that the Doctor's alter ego will return in the future, and will do something to
06:14gain himself notoriety. 4. The Magician's Apprentice
06:18and the Timeless Children Former showrunner Chris Chibnall definitely
06:22left his mark on Doctor Who, for better or for worse. His decision to reveal that the Doctor
06:26is the mythical Timeless Child that formed the base genetic code for all future Timelords was
06:31extremely controversial. It was the Master who revealed this secret to his longstanding rival.
06:37But it turns out that he knew this story long before he let on. Well, probably not, but he
06:42certainly knew more about the Doctor's past than we did. In the episode The Magician's
06:45Apprentice, Missy tells Clara that she's known the Doctor since he was a little girl. Coincidentally,
06:51this is the form that the Timeless Child takes when we first meet them. A brilliant piece of
06:55foreshadowing? Well, at the time, obviously not. But in hindsight, you can certainly look at it
07:00that way, and it's interesting going back to watch this moment with the knowledge of
07:04the Timeless Child in hand. 3. Image of the Fendal and Army of Ghosts
07:10Who'd have thought that a throwaway line in a 1977 serial would suddenly become relevant
07:15almost 30 years later? In the first episode of the fourth Doctor story, Image of the Fendal,
07:21Doctor Fendelman instructs his colleague to tell Hartman I want a security team here within two
07:26hours, after a corpse is discovered in the woods. Again, totally throwaway. We never actually meet
07:31Hartman, and he's never mentioned again. So why is this significant? Well, jumping once again to
07:36Army of Ghosts, and this is the episode that introduces us to Torchwood boss Yvonne Hartman.
07:42Might she be a relative? Perhaps the daughter of the faceless Hartman mentioned in Image of
07:47the Fendal? While the connection here is tenuous, Hartman is a fairly common surname, after all,
07:51many fans believe that these two are indeed related, with Yvonne's father being identified
07:56as John Hartman in the big Finnish audio drama The Rockery. 2. The Web of Fear and The Snowmen
08:04Back to the Great Intelligence now, and his second ever appearance in the show in 1968's
08:09The Web of Fear. The Intelligence had already encountered the second Doctor when it lured him
08:14and his companions into the London Underground, where it planned to steal the Time Lord's
08:18knowledge. Fast forward to the 2012 Christmas special The Snowmen, and the Doctor runs into
08:23the Intelligence once again, only this time before the villain has met him. In order to
08:28preserve the timeline, the Doctor decides to influence future events, or past events from
08:32his point of view, in a way only he could, by using a biscuit tin. He presents his foe with
08:38a tin bearing the London Underground map on it. The Great Intelligence remarks that it's never
08:43seen these symbols before, at which point the Doctor sows the seed for the Web of Fear by saying
08:48that it's a key strategic weakness in metropolitan living. With the timeline now assured, the Doctor
08:53runs off to celebrate, presumably with a biscuit. 1. Daleks in Manhattan and The End of Time
09:01Daleks in Manhattan features the Daleks in Manhattan. A period piece set during the Great
09:06Depression in 1930's New York City, the episode does a fantastic job of recreating that time
09:12period. It doesn't feel like a cheap set, it feels like a living, breathing place. A bouncy
09:17musical number partway through the episode helps with that immersion, as singing, dancing,
09:22all-star Tallulah attempts to get over the fact that her boyfriend has been turned into a pig by
09:26doing what she does best, putting on a show. You would assume that the song here,
09:30My Angel Put the Devil in Me, which composer Murray Gold undoubtedly had immense fun putting
09:35together, would only be used in this episode, but it actually pops up later in the Tenant Run,
09:41and in the most unexpected of places too. Flash forward to the closing moments of The End of Time
09:46Part 2, and the song can be heard again playing at the bar where the Doctor bids farewell to
09:52Jack Harkness. Mind you, this version is a cover, not the original Tallulah version,
09:57but if only she knew how far into the future her music would last.
10:01And that concludes our list. If you think we missed something, then do let us know in the
10:05comments below, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that
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10:15us there, and Instagram as well, and I can be found across various social medias just by searching
10:20Ellie Littlechild. Don't forget to also look out for Sean Ferrick and Dan The Meeks too.
10:24I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words of River Song herself, goodbye, sweeties.