Today is the fourth day of the A-Z Blogging Challenge! The aim is to write a post for every day of the month except for Sundays, with each post representing a different letter of the alphabet. This year I’m doing an A-Z of Great Britain, covering as much as I can about British music, literature, TV and film, food, wildlife and culture.
I’ve no real direction for this post (what can I say about Doctor Who that hasn’t been said already?) so I’ve decided to provide a collection of random links and facts associated with this great series.
Some fun Doctor Who Links:
- The TARDIS has become an iconic symbol. You can even make a statement by incorporating it into your home décor. I love the TARDIS bookshelf below, made by Morgan. Check out her tutorial if you fancy making one for yourself.
TARDIS bookshelf by Morgan. |
- Professor Brian Cox did a TV show called The Science of Doctor Who explaining how the technology that features in Doctor Who (sonic screwdrivers, time travel etc.) might actually work. You can watch some clips here.
- How well do you know the series? Test your knowledge with The World’s Toughest Doctor Who Quiz.
- What can you get the Doctor Who fan who has everything? How about Dining with the Doctor: The Unauthorized Whovian Cookbook!
- Which Doctor are you? Take this test and find out!
Some Interesting Doctor Who Facts:
- Doctor Who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running science fiction TV show in the world-it first aired in 1963 so will be 51 years old this year!
- Tom Baker’s long scarf was supposedly created by accident. Legend has it that the costume designer, James Acheson, gave several balls of yarn to a knitter who was supposed to choose one she liked for the scarf of the Doctor. Instead she misunderstood and knitted it into one huge scarf, which Acheson loved.
- Matt Smith is the youngest Doctor ever at 27 years old. William Hartnell and Peter Capaldi are joint oldest, both being 55 when they took on the role.
- ‘TARDIS’ stands for ‘Time and Relative Dimensions in Space’.
- 103 episodes of the series were destroyed by the BBC in the 1960s and 1970s-some by accident and some to save space. The BBC and fans keep requesting copies to be returned so they can complete the archives.
- Doctor Who employed the BBC’s first ever female producer, Verity Lambert.
- Stephen Fry once wrote a script for the series but it was never used because it was too complicated to film.
- In the early days, the sound of the TARDIS taking off was created by jangling a bunch of keys!
- The Doctor really is a doctor. He earned his degree in Glasgow in 1888!
- The spin-off series Torchwood, is an anagram of Doctor Who. Russell T. Davies used it as a code name to label the series tapes so that no one would find them and leak spoilers to the press.
- The words ‘Dalek’ and ‘TARDIS’ now feature in the Oxford English Dictionary. The latter is used to describe anything that is bigger on the outside than the inside.
- The latest actor to play the Doctor, Peter Capaldi, applied to be the head of the Doctor Who fan club as a teenager.
- Original 1963 Daleks are now collector’s editions and worth over £20,400 each.
- Michael Jackson was considered for the role of the Doctor in a film by Paramount Pictures!
- Georgia Moffett, the daughter of Peter Davidson (who played the 5th Doctor), played the timelord’s daughter alongside David Tennant and later married him!
- Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, was a Doctor Who writer in the ’70s.
Bill Nighy and Benedict Cumberbatch both turned down the role of The Doctor.
I am OBSESSED with Doctor Who! I just love it so much and could watch it all day. The TARDIS bookshelf looks awesome and I'd love to have one of my own! 🙂
-Kimi at Geeky Chiquitas
Tom Baker was awesome! I grew up watching old episodes of Doctor Who with my dad. My mom once knitted a replica of Tom Baker's scarf for him. Doctor Who is a lifelong love of mine, and I can't see it being any other way.
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I started watching Doctor Who with my father when I was just a baby, and I've watched it ever since. My favorite classic doctor is Peter Davidson, and my favorite modern doctor, so far, is Matt Smith.
Ooo…that book case is awesome! I loved Dr. Who growing up, but since it didn't air in Germany, I missed out on many, many years. Guess, I have some catching up to do 🙂
Thanks for the link to Brian Cox. I actually also wrote about about Doctor Who, but I compared the Doctor to Data from Star Trek (in a sloppy, I've had a long day kind of way).
Fantastic post.