TARDIS pulled by reindeer – 2009 BBC Idents
Vinvocci spaceship – The End of Time
Fire Engine – The Eleventh Hour
Vortex manipulator – The Big Bang
Shark-drawn carriage – A Christmas Carol
TARDIS lash-up – The Doctor’s Wife
When it comes to our four-footed friends, the Doctor is also happy in the saddle. He rides horses in Marco Polo, The Masque of Mandragora, Survival, The Girl in the Fireplace, The Pandorica Opens and A Town Call Mercy (the last of which we discover is called Susan). When an old mare isn’t available he’ll also happily jump on top of a triceratops, as Dinosaurs on a Spaceship showed.
GOOD OLD BESSIE
Introduced in Doctor Who and the Silurians, the Doctor’s ‘Edwardian Roadster’ was in fact one of a number of limited-edition kit cars made by Siva / Neville Trinkett (Design) Limited of Blandford, Dorset.
Also available as a two-seater, the kit was designed to fit an E93A chassis, the same as the one used by Ford for its Ford Popular, Anglia and Prefect cars. The basic £160 kit purchased by the production team included the glass-fibre body, seats (four), bonnet, wheel trims, mudguards, foam cushioning, bonnet brackets, radiator, running boards and fuel tank. Numerous optional extras were also ordered including a luggage trunk, coach lamp, bulb horns, Cibie headlamps, hood (with side curtains) battery box, seat covers, carpets, screen and body straps plus the Ford chassis and engine. All of this pushed Bessie’s total cost to £502.
At the time of purchase, Barry Letts’ desired WHO 1 plate had already been purchased, so Bessie was registered as MTR 5. A fake WHO 1 number plate was used in the programme for close-ups and when the car could be driven around private grounds.
When Bessie was reintroduced in 1989’s Battlefield, the number plates had mysteriously changed to WHO 7.
Doctor Who and the Silurians
The Ambassadors of Death
Inferno
Terror of the Autons
The Mind of Evil
The Claws of Axos
The Daemons
The Time Monster
The Three Doctors
The Green Death
Planet of the Spiders
Robot
The Five Doctors
Battlefield
Bessie also made an appearance in the 1993 Children in Need story Dimensions in Time, driven by Captain Yates, as well as featuring in numerous Doctor Who comic strips and novels.
14 FACTS ABOUT THE WHOMOBILE
In January 1973, Jon Pertwee opened a new Ford dealership in the Midlands. There he was impressed by the Black Widow, a custom-built black and green car. He immediately asked Pete Farries, the chairman of the Nottingham Drag and Custom Club, to make him a custom car.
Pertwee gave Farries two requirements: the car needed to be street legal and it needed to look like it came from outer space.
The result was named ‘Alien’, a 4.3-metre-long by 2.1-metre-wide two-seater car built on a three-wheeled Bond Bug chassis.
A 20-centimetre rubber skirt hid the wheels giving the illusion that Alien was some kind of hovercraft.
Powered by an aluminium 975cc Hillman Imp Sports Unit, especially built by Chrysler UK, Alien could reach speeds of 105mph, although 55mph was its usual cruising speed.
The car also included a telephone, television screen and 44 lights which made up a mock computer.
It was painted using silver and red Bergacryl 1/32-inc metalflake and twenty coats of lacquer.
Alien’s official registration number was WVO 2M.
The Road Licensing department classified Alien as an Invalid Tricycle.
When Pertwee introduced Alien to the production team, a hasty rewrite saw the Doctor drive the vehicle around London in Part 4 of Invasion of the Dinosaurs. The sequence had been scripted to show the Doctor riding a motorbike.
Originally, the car had its name emblazoned along its glass fibre skin. Director Paddy Russell insisted this was removed before filming.
Alien wasn’t quite finished when filming began. The car’s canopy wasn’t added until its second and last appearance in Planet of the Spiders.
Alien remained the private property of Jon Pertwee until it was purchased by a private collector at auction in the early 1980s. Bought as a gift for his son, the car went for £1,700.
Although the car was referred to as the Whomobile in the script, the name was never used on screen and the vehicle remains unnamed within the Whoniverse.
SEVEN
RELATIVE DIMENSIONS
DOCTOR WHO AND POPULAR CULTURE
‘Books and stuff?’
The Doctor, Castrovalva
Doctor Who has always moved with the times, but along the way has picked up a host of cultural references and shared actors with some of the biggest TV and movie franchises on the planet.
SOAP WHO
‘Well, first of all Peggy heard this noise in the cellar, so she goes down…’
Jackie Tyler, Army of Ghosts
Soap operas are part of the great TV viewing tradition of Great Britain. Following Doctor Who, Frazer Hines began a 22-year stint in the ITV soap Emmerdale in 1972. In 2012, Emmerdale repaid the favour as Jenna-Louise Coleman had previously found fame on the rural soap before playing Clara in Doctor Who. Connections between Doctor Who and the soaps are many: Freema Agyeman’s first TV role was in the 2003 revival of Crossroads – a soap co-created by Peter Ling, writer of The Mind Robber. Here’s a selection of other actors who have appeared in Doctor Who and four of the nation’s favourite soaps operas currently broadcast.
DIMENSIONS IN TIME
To celebrate Doctor Who’s 30th anniversary in 1993, several Doctors visited Albert Square for a special Doctor Who-EastEnders crossover for the charity telethon Children in Need. The following EastEnders cast members appeared in character: