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From quaint villages and a love for chips to run-ins with iconic historical figures, this video counts down the 10 most quintessentially British moments from the beloved sci-fi series, Doctor Who.
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01:00Sure, The Doctor doesn't recite God Save the King every five minutes while drinking tea, eating scones and riding a
01:05red double-decker bus, but the show does often display its Britishness in quite a few ways.
01:11Ways like...
01:12Number 10. Quaint British Villages
01:15With their natural character and old-fashioned charm, small British villages have offered escapism to television audiences for decades, most
01:23commonly in the cosy crime genre.
01:25These are the types of places you can see for half a second and instantly know that they're located somewhere
01:30in the British countryside, and they've appeared quite a lot in Doctor Who over the decades.
01:36Clearly, aliens love their old-fashioned sweet shops and pubs just as much as we do.
01:40Perhaps most famously is the 1971 serial The Demons, which involved strange goings-on in the picturesque village of Devil's
01:48End, featuring scenes of Morris dancing on the green, the Doctor and Joe in the local pub, and the Master
01:54posing as a vicar.
01:55The most iconic new series village would have to be Ledworth, as introduced in The Eleventh Hour.
02:00It's another one that plays up to all the stereotypes, boasting a perfect village green, a duck pond, an ice
02:06cream van, red phone boxes, a quirky old resident played by Annette Crosby, and the crushing realisation that you're at
02:12least 30 minutes away from any sort of modern civilisation.
02:15In fact, the only unrealistic thing about Ledworth is that Amy and the Doctor managed to get good phone signal.
02:21In reality, trying to make a phone call from one of these places is the equivalent of being stuck on
02:25the moon with a plastic cup and some string.
02:28Number 9. Iconic Historical Figures
02:31Fittingly, for a show that is itself an integral part of British history, Doctor Who has delved into its homeland's
02:38past countless times.
02:39These adventures have taken place across multiple eras and involved encounters with a number of celebrity historical figures, many of
02:46them writers, including William Shakespeare, Gothic icon Mary Shelley, Victorian authors H.G. Wells and Charles Dickens, and the Queen
02:54of Crime, Agatha Christie.
02:56And surprise, surprise, it turns out that them aliens have been the inspiration for many renowned works of fiction, such
03:03as the Gelf informing Dickens' later ghost stories, the Carrier Knights inspiring the witches in Macbeth, and the Lone Cyberman
03:10influencing Frankenstein.
03:12Another popular category is Inventors, with railway engineer George Stevenson saving the Sixth Doctor during an encounter with the Rani,
03:20and Isaac Newton discovering Mavity after an encounter with the TARDIS.
03:24Considering that Doctor Who's original remit was primarily to educate, adventures like these have always been at the heart of
03:32the show.
03:32Not that they're as good as documentaries or anything, but there are undoubtedly kids out there who've learned a thing
03:37or two about history by experiencing the Doctor's trips to the past.
03:41You know, like the fact that Queen Victoria is a werewolf, and that Jack the Ripper got eaten by a
03:45lizard. Factual things like that.
03:48Number 8. Everyone Craves Chips
03:51It's basically lore, that at least once a fortnight, the people of Britain must exclaim,
03:56I really fancy fish and chips tonight, haven't had that in ages!
03:59The people of the Hooniverse clearly feel the same way, especially in that first RTD era.
04:05Captain Jack longs for fish and chips when imprisoned on the Valiant, Donna offers to get them with the last
04:10of her wages in turn left,
04:11and later on, Clara recalls eating them with her mum after getting lost on Blackpool Beach.
04:16It's one of those warm, comforting treats that reminds people of the seaside trips with their grandparents as a kid,
04:22or popping into the chippy on the way home from school for a butty with some scraps.
04:25In a way, it's a dish that defines the nation.
04:28You only need look so far as Rose's constant desire for Chips,
04:32and even the fact that they were a major plot point in School Reunion, to see their importance.
04:36Chips even formed a part of Bill's character in Series 10,
04:39and proved so tempting that the Eleventh Doctor tried to lure Amy and Rory away with them at the start
04:45of the Rebel Flesh,
04:46so he could go off and do some solo investigating.
04:48And an honourable mention has to go to some of the Doctor's other favourite foods as well,
04:53including Jelly Babies, Jammie Dodgers, and Custard Creams.
04:56I hope he packed his toothbrush when he ran away from Gallifrey.
04:59Now if you'll excuse me.
05:00I'm gonna go and get some fish and chips, I really fancy that, I haven't had it in ages!
05:04Number 7. British Pop Culture References
05:07Though the Doctor Who universe is different from our own in many ways,
05:11it still has loads of the same pop culture touchstones.
05:15Over the years, the show has featured specially shot segments of other television programmes,
05:19usually those owned by the BBC, starring real-world actors and presenters.
05:24In the early years of New Who, we had children's educational show Blue Peter
05:27showing viewers how to make a Slothene spaceship-inspired cake,
05:31soap opera icon Peggy Mitchell coming face-to-face with a ghost,
05:34and Alan Sugar firing someone for failing to sell Shackrey cubes in The Apprentice.
05:39More recently, we've had cameos from presenters such as Emily Maitlis,
05:43Amol Rajan, and Davina McCool, all playing versions of themselves.
05:47These moments became a staple of the show during RTD's Grounded and Relatable revival,
05:52intended to give that bit more credibility to the Hooniverse
05:55by making it feel like it takes place in our world.
05:58And if the aim was to make the people of Britain do that Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme,
06:02then they definitely succeeded there too.
06:04There are also those less obvious references,
06:06like Graham revealing that he's seen every single episode of Call the Midwife,
06:10or the 13th Doctor revealing herself as a great British Bake Off fan
06:14by giving Joseph Williamson a Hollywood handshake.
06:16What next?
06:17A cameo from Louis Theroux?
06:18The Doctor becoming the new host of Strictly?
06:21Donna Noble entering the Big Brother house?
06:23Stranger things have happened.
06:25Number 6.
06:26The weather is always terrible.
06:29Anyone who lives in the UK knows that good weather is a rarity,
06:33even in the spring and summer months.
06:35Even when it's blue skies and cracking flags,
06:38there's always that little voice in the back of your mind going,
06:41you better take a coat with you, just in case.
06:43This is something Doctor Who has always acknowledged,
06:46sometimes by choice, sometimes not.
06:48Bad weather is such a British normality that it's been featured as a plot point at times,
06:53like the Jadoon's H2O scoop in Smith & Jones,
06:56the same rain in Blink,
06:58and the clouds of cyberpollen in Death in Heaven.
07:00On a similar theme,
07:01there's the joke about Amy being dressed for Rio in The Hungry Earth,
07:05and therefore totally unprepared for rural Wales.
07:08Bad weather has made it into the show unintentionally as well,
07:11such is its inevitability.
07:13For instance, the Doctor and Martha's reunion at the end of The Family of Blood,
07:17when you can literally hear the rain falling?
07:19Torrential rain also forced Stephen Moffat to relocate certain scenes in the time of Angels
07:23from the Byzantium crash site to the warmth and dryness of the TARDIS console room.
07:28Rule one, the weather forecast lies.
07:31Basically, that image of the 10th Doctor looking all sad in the rain
07:34is how the average Brit feels at most points during the year.
07:38Number five, iconic British landmarks.
07:41In 1964, Doctor Who conducted its first major location shoot,
07:45venturing onto the streets of London to capture material
07:48for the Dalek invasion of Earth.
07:50Ever since, iconic landmarks, particularly those in the UK capital,
07:54have been central to the show's visual identity,
07:57adding scope to invasion stories
07:58and making everything seem that little bit more real.
08:01More often than not,
08:02this has involved transplanting iconic enemies into recognisable locations,
08:06thus bringing the horror home for viewers.
08:08We've had Daleks crossing Westminster Bridge,
08:11Yetis patrolling the tunnels of the London Underground,
08:14Sladeen in Downing Street,
08:15and Cybermen marching down the steps near St. Paul's Cathedral.
08:18Twice.
08:19Elsewhere, iconic parts of London's skyline have been home
08:22to some of the Hooniverse's most powerful alien entities,
08:25including the Nesteen Consciousness at the London Eye
08:28and the Great Intelligence at the Shard.
08:30UNIT has also had headquarters in the city,
08:33most notably in the Tower of London,
08:35but most recently with that huge glistening skyscraper,
08:38which, in the Hooniverse, has become a landmark in its own right.
08:42The rest of the UK has gone in on the landmark action too,
08:44from Stonehenge to Gloucester Cathedral to Cardiff Bay.
08:48It's only fitting that a show filmed in the UK
08:50and that often has episodes set in the UK
08:52should show off some of its most interesting locations, after all.
08:57Number 4. Rubbish Reality TV
08:592005 finale Bad Wolf and the Passing of the Ways
09:02took Doctor Who's obsession with British telly to another level,
09:06devoting an entire finale to futuristic, deadly versions of 2000s game shows.
09:11Three of these were shown, with the host replaced by android versions,
09:15all voiced by their real-life counterparts.
09:17First up was a spin on Big Brother,
09:19the show in which a group of strangers must live together under constant surveillance,
09:23with players evicted until there's just one left.
09:26Host Davina McCool became the Davina droid,
09:29with banished players blasted by a disintegrator beam,
09:32which actually transported them to Dalek sources.
09:35There was also a version of The Weakest Link,
09:37the show in which players must work together
09:38to answer a string of questions and bank money,
09:41while voting out the weakest contestant in each round.
09:44Host Anne Robinson became the Anne droid,
09:46with another disintegrator beam emanating from her mouth.
09:49Fashion show What Not to Wear was the last to be parodied,
09:52with original hosts Trini Woodall and Susanna Constantine
09:55reimagined as the robotic Trini and Susanna.
09:59It's a proper time capsule of 2005 telly.
10:02Shows of this ilk, and especially the trio included in Bad Wolf,
10:06were immensely popular throughout the 2000s,
10:08despite many people also acknowledging that they were essentially junk food.
10:12On the downside, the inclusion of these parodies does mean that the episode hasn't exactly aged gracefully,
10:18with the shows in question having long since stopped being prominent features in the TV guide.
10:23But it's certainly fun to look back on.
10:25Number 3. Royal Cameos
10:27The royal family are a big part of Britain's cultural identity.
10:31It's also impossible to enter a gift shop in England without spotting royal faces plastered over mugs and key rings
10:37and plates and tea towels,
10:38you name it, their faces are on it.
10:40And they've also played a big part in Doctor Who.
10:42Most significantly, Queen Elizabeth II had a whole story devoted to her coronation.
10:47She also cropped up twice in the show, in the background of Silver Nemesis when the 7th Doctor and Ace
10:53pay a visit to Windsor Castle,
10:54and in Voyage of the Damned to thank the 10th Doctor for steering the Titanic away from Buckingham Palace.
11:00Interestingly, Buckingham Palace was meant to be cleaved in half in earlier drafts of the story,
11:05but this was changed to the more light-hearted scene in the final episode.
11:08On both occasions, the Queen was played by Impressionists,
11:12though cameos have been offered to her sons, Prince Edward and Prince, now King Charles, over the years.
11:18What's more, it's rumoured that the real Queen Elizabeth was a Doctor Who fan,
11:23requesting DVDs of each new series to watch during her annual stay at Balmoral Castle.
11:28Reportedly, her favourite Doctor was Christopher Eccleston,
11:30and like so many of us, she was hugely disappointed when he left.
11:34Additionally, many previous monarchs have featured in historical storylines,
11:38the 10th Doctor crossing paths with Queen Victoria and marrying Elizabeth I,
11:43the 1st Doctor meeting Richard the Lionheart, and the 13th Doctor butting heads with James I.
11:492. The TARDIS
11:51These days, the image of the TARDIS is quintessentially British in its own right,
11:55so it's easy to forget that it borrowed from another long-forgotten piece of British design,
12:01the police box.
12:02Of course, many will know that these exact police boxes used to line the streets of Britain during
12:07the mid-20th century. Essentially miniature police stations, they allowed officers to
12:11temporarily contain prisoners or even fill out paperwork, while also enabling members of the
12:16public to report crimes using the built-in phone. They would have been very familiar to
12:21original Doctor Who viewers in the early 1960s. In universe, the TARDIS looks like a police box
12:27because that's the form it took when the first Doctor and Susan arrived in 1960s London,
12:32but of course the real creative reason was to ground the show in the everyday. It's one thing
12:36to ask viewers to accept a bigger-on-the-inside time machine, but if you disguise that time machine
12:41as something familiar, something that you might find on a random street corner, then it becomes
12:46real. And what of those original police boxes? Well, most were destroyed, but some do still exist,
12:51including in Glasgow, where at least five remain. Londoners can also grab a selfie next to a police
12:56box outside Earl's Court tube station, which is a popular spot for fans and non-fans alike.
13:02Given its roots, the TARDIS is arguably the most British thing about Doctor Who,
13:07although it never really gets looked at that way. Probably because most people now associate the
13:11police box shape with the TARDIS more than they do its original historical function,
13:16and you can't really blame them. Number one, tea is the most important drink in the universe.
13:23It's estimated that 100 million cups of tea are drunk in Britain per day, because as every Brit will
13:30know, the best way to stay calm in a crisis, and honestly just the best way to react to almost
13:35any
13:35situation life throws at you, is to have a cuppa. Feeling poorly? Cuppa. Football team just lost?
13:41Cuppa. Excuse to leave the front room when your in-laws visit? I'm gonna pop the kettle
13:45on. Doctor Who has demonstrated this on countless occasions. Tea has been used as an icebreaker by
13:51characters such as Jackie Tyler, Madame Vastra, and Susan Triad in Empire of Death, who apparently
13:56makes it badly, but that's not the point. It's also been used by villains to lure their victims
14:01into a false sense of security. See Missy in Into the Dalek, Razor in World Enough and Time,
14:07and most famously of all, the Ironside Daleks. Tea is so powerful that it even snaps the Doctor out of
14:14his post-regenerative haze in the Christmas Invasion. And in the classic series, the Unit Tea Lady was
14:19the only person other than the Brigadier who was permitted to enter the Third Doctor's Lab.
14:24It may be hot brown water to some, but to us Brits, tea is a sweet golden nectar. That's the
14:30answer
14:31to almost everything. No wonder Cherry Sunday wouldn't stop until she'd got one.
14:36And that concludes our list. If you think we missed a major Britishism, then do let us know in the
14:41comments down below. This was a very fun list to put together. I hope you all enjoyed it, and you
14:46should all go and put the kettle on and have a nice cup of tea. In the meantime, I've been
14:50Ellie
14:50for Who Culture, and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye sweeties.