Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and this week in honor of Doctor Who doing Robin Hood I
wanted to do a video for my top 10 favorite Fictional and Historical Characters inside
the canon.
I just limited myself to Fantasy and Science Fiction literature characters the doctor has
previously met or actual characters on screen.
I also included real life historical people they’ve parodied.
Quick Reminder on the weekly giveaway, this round is still open.
All you have to do is be a subscriber and leave a comment.
On this video or my episode 3 review.
The comments are what I just randomly select people from.
There aren’t any spoilers for Episode 3 here so don’t worry if you haven’t watched
the episode yet.
But starting with Number 10 - Stevie Wonder in Good Man Goes To War Series 6 Episode 7.
The Doctor snatched Stevie Wonder to play for River’s birthday and took them both
back to 1814.
It’s implied that it was Matt Smith’s Doctor but it’s hard to tell since River
talks about meeting several of his different incarnations.
Like the time the doctor overlapped with his own time line so that two of him were at one
of River’s birthday’s.
I’m sure The Doctor Paid Stevie a very generous fee.
I also wonder how old Stevie was when the doctor picked him up.
Like did classic stevie wonder play for river or current stevie wonder?
Number 9 - Sigmund Freud in Curse of the Black Spot from Series 6 Episode
This was just a name drop, Freud was one of those real life historical figures that showed
up in a lot of the expanded material but he get name dropped in the Doctor Who movie.
Both time were references of the Doctor having sat on Freud’s infamous couch.
Given the psycho sexual nature of Freud’s work we can only imagine what their conversations
must have been like.
I feel like a good anniversary box set extra would be a data file on freud’s analysis
of the Doctor.
If any of you are real life psychology students maybe you can confirm this, I heard that in
real life the actual Sigmund Freud felt like people ended up twisting his ideas so that
most of what we think about psychoanalysis is wrong.
Number 8 - William Shakespeare In Shakespeare Code from Series 3 episode 2
Another recurring historical character in the canon.
He’s been a part of at least 4 tv stories not including shakespeare code.
But the David Tennant one made him central to the plot.
It’s a very magic based story
I love how they have fun with the legend of shakespeare versus the reality.
Or the reality inside the doctor who universe.
“Shut your big fat mouths” just sounds so much better coming from the mouth of the
bard.
The episode was written by Gareth Roberts who wrote episode 6 of the current series.
The Caretaker.
He’s written a bunch of doctor who episodes.
Number 7 - Houdini from Planet of the Ood series 4 episode 3
I love Donna and the Tenth Doctor.
Such a great buddy cop flick when those two are together.
Houdini was really used as a joke in this story.
Several different doctors mentioned meeting and learning escape tricks from him.
Planet of the Ood was funny because it was a big joke on how the Doctor either couldn’t
competely figure out Houdini’s handcuffs trick or that the trick was useless in the
future.
Donna is one of the few people I can stand ripping on the Doctor, she does it so well
it just feels right.
Clara has made fun of Capaldi’s doctor a little so far.
But it’s a very different vibe than 10 and Donna.
Number 6 - Leonardo Davinci
He’s been featured in the comics but on the show he’s mostly been referenced in
some way by various Doctors.
The Sixth Doctor had a business card that read davinci in the two doctors and the fourth
doctor talked about meeting him during City of Death.
When I asked you guys for some of your favorites the davinci speech from City of Death was
a common pick.
The other funny thing is that Tom Riley actually plays Leonardo Davinci on Davinci’s Demons.
I’m not current with the show right now.
But it’s a cool coincidence that bumped him higher up my list.
Crossover interactions like this are a lot more common in British Television just because
projects tend to run for shorter periods of time so actors have more free time and it’s
just more a part of the acting culture in general for actors to float around.
In the united states for example, especially for bigger shows that run 20 or more episodes.
Actors are book for most of the year so they just don’t have as much time to guest star
on other shows.
Number 5 - Winston Churchill in so many things
Ian McNiece is one of my favorite character actors, usually when he’s playing villains.
But it’s hard to forget his winston churchill.
He’s another real life historical figure that’s so famous, he just ends up being
parodied a lot.
Not that I think Doctor Who’s version of him was poking fun too much.
I think the series 6 finale is probably my favorite appearance in recent memory.
The episode is just so crazy that you kind of forget about him at a certain point.
But the idea that Churchill has become the Holy Roman Emperor is so funny.
It says a lot about what Moffat thinks of his ego.
To make himself an emperor.
We’re not meant to dig too deep, but you start to wonder how he was able to depose
all the previous emperors.
They way they treated the time paradox was a little confusing.
but whatever.
Number 4 - Dracula in the Big Finish story Son of the Dragon
It’s a fifth doctor story about Vlad the Impaler.
The Doctor travels back to 1462 and it’s more of a Vlad Dracula story than a traditional
vampire story.
I’m a big fan of dracula stories that aren’t straight up re-tellings of the Bram Stoker
tale.
There’s even a new Dracula prequel of sorts starring Luke Evans coming out October 10th.
In the Big Finish story the voice of dracula is provided by James Purefoy from the Following.
Number 3 - Queen Nefertiti in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
I love the ‘ship that develops between her and Rupert Graves from Sherlock.
So many fandoms in that episode.
Including Harry Potter.
One of the best moments she had was when she met Amy and asked her if she was also a Queen.
I feel like Amy let that go to her head thereafter in a really adorable way.
I’d say most if not all the female companions are queen material.
I feel like one of the reasons they chose to use Nefertiti in the episode was because
Cleopatra had already been done so much.
There are only a handful of very notable ancient queens.
I would say Catherine the Great would be one they haven’t used.
I think the Cold War probably kept Classic Who from using her character.
But let me know if there are any big queens or powerful female figures from a long time
ago you want the show to do.
Foxes the singer is going to be in Mummy on the Orient Express this year.
So we might see some more Cleopatra references.
Number 2 - HItler from Let’s Kill Hitler
This came after Inglorious Basterds did their crazy version of Hitler and that came after
the Hitler Downfall movie.
The one with that scene of Hitler going insane.
In case you missed it, it was parodied to infinity.
Just search google or tumblr for Hitler goes insane to find all the memes.
This time they reduced the role to the point of non speaking almost.
It almost wasn’t even about Hitler.
And I love that they make one of the most infamous villains in modern history window
dressing in a River Song story.
Of course crazy Melody Pond would show up in a hitler episode.
Number 1 Vincent Van Gogh (other great artists got shout outs)
He’s my favorite mostly because the episode in general is an emotional touchstone for
the Matt Smith era and for me personally but because of the way it tied things back to
the Doctor’s future.
Most of the episode is spent trying to analyze the psychology of genius in a way that’s
relatable.
Mostly genius doesn’t makes sense to all of us because you’d have to be a genius
to fully understand genius.
But you have two mad men, one with a brush and canvas and one with a blue box.
Both will not be able to escape their destiny.
They couldn’t alter Van Gogh’s timeline and all the terrible things from the Doctor’s
future that we’ve learned about so far will probably end up happening no matter what he
does.
I think solutions to changing the past like the pocket universe in the 50th are just side
steps.
Ultimately, left to their own devices.
The Time Lords will come back and the Time War will restart.
It’s going to be really interesting to see how future doctor who series deal with that.
Right now I think the only solution is for the writers to keep Gallifrey in the pocket
universe.
I do think Capaldi will find it eventually, but I don’t think they’ll rush to bring
it back into normal space.
I think part of the reason they saved it in the 50th from a production standpoint was
so that someday they’d be able to do time lord stories again.
But let me know who your favorite fictional or historical character is from doctor who
and do you want to see the time lords come back, like full on gallifrey come back, before
Capaldi leaves the role.
In case you didn’t see my earlier videos, he’s signed on for series 9, it’s Jenna
Coleman that’s still undecided.
Or at least unannounced.
I’m still working on my Q&A for tomorrow.
Be sure to subscribe to get it.
Still plenty of time to submit questions.
I’ve been seeing a lot of good questions about the promised land so far.
Right now click here for that video, I’ll update the annotation as soon as I post it
and click here for my episode 3 review.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tomorrow.
High Fives!