- 2 weeks ago
Is Doctor Who more than just a TV show? There's certainly evidence to suggest as much...
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Go with us for a moment. What if Doctor Who was real? I mean, it isn't, but what if it was?
00:05What are some of the coincidences and mysteries that could be interpreted as the greatest show
00:10in all of time and space happening out there in the great wide universe? I'm Ellie with
00:15WhoCulture here with 10 Real Things That Prove Doctor Who Exists.
00:20Number 10. A Crack in Time and Space
00:22The fine folks over at NASA are always finding oddities and amazing sights in the great wide
00:28universe, and back in 2006, they discovered this potentially hazardous link to one of Doctor
00:34Who's most famous series arcs. When observing infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope,
00:40astronomers noticed a strange shape. It was long and spindly, winding around like a large black snake.
00:46After much science was done, it was discovered that this is the core of a huge dark cloud that
00:51could, and we quote, swallow dozens of solar systems. This dark snake doesn't look a million
00:56miles away from the crack that Amelia Pond found on her bedroom wall. That particular crack turned
01:01out to be a gateway to an Atraxia prison, and other tears would reappear throughout the series
01:06before the universe was ended and then rebooted in the Pandorica Opens and the Big Bang. Like
01:11NASA's discovery, the cracks in Doctor Who were also capable of swallowing things they came into
01:17contact with, such as Scottish parents or dead nurses. If such a thing also exists in our own
01:23reality, does that mean the end of the universe is nigh? I really hope not.
01:27Number 9. The TARDIS in Utah. Imagine living thousands of years ago and stumbling across a
01:33piece of technology that is infinitely more advanced than anything you can even comprehend. It would
01:38completely and utterly blow your mind. Just ask old Kaikilius. That leads us to this curious image,
01:44which depicts a cave painting where people can be seen worshipping something that looks suspiciously
01:49like the TARDIS. Horseshoe Canyon is an area of Utah in the United States, known for its ancient
01:56pictographs. These pictures show people standing around a large box-like structure with what appears
02:01to be a light on top, congregating around it as if they're in awe. Clearly, one of the Doctors took a
02:06trip back to ancient times and made quite the impression on the locals. The people the Doctor leaves
02:11behind never forget their encounters. See Lorna Bucket joining the military just to get the chance to meet
02:16him again. And a TARDIS would no doubt be something these primitive folk would memorialise. We should
02:22of course mention that the Doctor does visit Utah in the Series 6 premiere, along with Amy, Rory and
02:28River, the best character. Perhaps some unexplained force was drawing him back to a location he'd previously
02:34visited. I mean, it's probably a coincidence, but what if it's not? Number 8. Moving Statues.
02:40The Weeping Angels might have doomed the Pond, but they're still one of the most lauded villains in
02:46all of Who. The Angels were the brainchild of former showrunner Stephen Moffat, and the chilling
02:51real-life tale behind their creation is almost as creepy as the monsters themselves. The story goes
02:56that Moffat was out for a stroll one day while holidaying in Dorset, when he came across a graveyard
03:02that was sealed off to the public. He decided to investigate anyway, and found a lone Weeping Angel
03:07standing within. A few years later, Moffat returned to that sane graveyard, only to find that the
03:13Angel had vanished. It's possible that someone moved the statue in the several years between
03:17Moffat's two visits, but here's the spooky bit. He never found any evidence that the Angel even
03:23existed. I think I clearly saw a Weeping Angel, he said, but I can't find it anywhere. I can't find it
03:29in the records. So, what if the statue was never meant to be there? What if it moved there of its own
03:35accord and left of its own accord? Certainly does make you wonder, doesn't it?
03:39Number 7. A Familiar Agitator
03:42Eric Ludwig Henningsen was a painter who lived between 1855 and 1930. Over his lifetime, Henningsen
03:49created numerous works in the social realist style, mainly focusing on groups of underprivileged
03:54people. In the 19th century, he wasn't short of subjects. One of his works, 1899's An Agitator,
04:01depicts a scene from a major strike by Danish workers. A group of protesters watch on as a
04:06man gives a rousing speech, while police on horseback keep an eye out for any trouble.
04:10The speaker is wearing a brown suit, is very skinny, and has hair that can best be described
04:16as tousled, along with some impressive sideburns. You can see where this is going. It would be
04:21very in character of the Tenth Doctor to get himself involved in a labour movement in the 1890s,
04:27and inadvertently end up in a famous painting in the process. Not only would Ten love the attention
04:32and the chance to deliver a speech, but the Doctor is always looking out for ordinary people.
04:37As Eleven would later explain, there isn't a person in the universe who isn't important.
04:42Number 6. Doctor Who?
04:45NASA has helped the human race expand its knowledge of the stars. Even in the face of scepticism and
04:50budget cuts, the organisation continues to boldly go where no human has gone before.
04:56Haha, we like a lovely cross-reference to Star Trek. Oh, and they may have also discovered that
05:00Time Lords are real. In August 2023, the James Webb Space Telescope discovered a rather unusual shape,
05:07some 1,400 light-years from Earth. In a new image of the forming stars, Herbig Harrow 46-47,
05:14just rolls off the tongue, that one, doesn't it? I also might have said it wrong. I apologise if I did.
05:18I don't really know stars. Anyway, we can see what appears to be a glowing question mark,
05:24just sitting there. But what could it mean? One of the overarching plotlines of Stephen Moffat's
05:29first few years in charge was The Question, a question that must never be asked or answered.
05:35It was later revealed that this was actually a plot by the Time Lords to escape from their pocket
05:39universe, and that they were broadcasting said question throughout all of time and space.
05:44Doctor Who? If the question could take any shape, it would obviously be a question mark.
05:48So could the Time Lords be out there somewhere broadcasting their query for all to hear? And
05:53if so, will the Doctor respond? Number five, a famous scarf. Before I even start this entry,
06:00I'm just going to apologise now for any really awful French pronunciations here. As you might have
06:05noticed, I'm not French, but I'll give it a go. Ambassadeur is a lithograph poster printed in 1892 by
06:12French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Again, sorry if I just butchered those words. It depicts a man with
06:18wild hair standing triumphantly in the foreground with a long scarf wrapped around his neck. Sound
06:23familiar? This man bears more than a slight resemblance to Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, despite
06:28the fact that the poster was released 82 years before Baker ever appeared in the role. Ambassadeur
06:33was actually used as an inspiration for the Fourth Doctor's look, specifically his iconic multicoloured
06:39scarf. There's also a Fourth Doctor big Finnish story called The Demon of Paris that incorporates
06:45Ambassadeur into its plot, and the cover is even a cheeky wink to the original 1892 creation.
06:51So, what if the Fourth Doctor travelled back to 19th century France, met Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,
06:57and the pair got along so famously that the artist decided to immortalise him? Like the timey-wimey
07:03loop of the ponds naming their daughter after their daughter? Could Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor
07:08have been inspired by the real Fourth Doctor? Hmm, my head hurts.
07:12Number 4. Sunset at Mont-Major. Again, sorry for my awful French.
07:18Vincent and the Doctor features the TARDIS crew teaming up with Vincent van Gogh to battle an
07:23invincible creature, and to convince the legendary painter that his work was actually worth something.
07:28Vincent would turn up later in the series painting an image of the TARDIS exploding,
07:32which predicted that this very same monumental event was to come. And as it turns out, the famous
07:37artist might have made allusions to the Doctor's faithful transport in his real-life work too.
07:43In Sunset at Mont-Major, a beautiful landscape from 1888, van Gogh depicts a natural scene complete
07:49with trees, a glowing sky, and a strange blue rectangle in the distance. A rectangle that looks
07:55oddly TARDIS-shaped at a glance. This building is actually Mont-Major Abbey. But what if Vincent's
08:01adventure with the Doctor somehow, subconsciously, bled into the way he chose to paint it? There's
08:06no denying that it's a similar shape to the TARDIS, and it's even got the light on top. It's heartwarming
08:10to imagine Vincent actually having an adventure with the Doctor. Maybe he did get to visit that
08:15art gallery after all. Number 3. The Weeping Angel Effect.
08:19The Weeping Angel's main party trick is sending unfortunate victims back in time, but they're also
08:25known for their inability to move while being looked at. Combined with their lightning quickspeeds,
08:30this instantly made them one of the scariest monsters in Doctor Who history. As it turns
08:34out, there's something else that cannot move while being looked at, and to find out what
08:38it is, we must journey into the horrifyingly complicated world of quantum physics. Yikes.
08:44In 2015, researchers at Cornell University ran a series of experiments on atoms to simulate
08:50what would happen if somebody was constantly watching them, without even blinking. Think of
08:55it as a reverse Schrodinger's cat, which is all about something not being seen. Their studies
09:00turned out some interesting results. If an atom is constantly being measured, then it never
09:05changes, effectively freezing it in place. This is the Weeping Angel Effect. There's no
09:10denying that the science behind the Weeping Angels is fascinating, and if it's possible
09:14for things to freeze in place through mere observation, then we can speculate that the angels might
09:19actually exist. Just be careful the next time you're exploring an abandoned house, okay? And
09:23remember, don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck. Number two, Amy and Rory in
09:321959. The Weeping Angels were all too real for Amy and Rory Pond, who was zapped back in time by the
09:38stone assassins in the Angels Take Manhattan. Don't remind me, I don't need to cry again today.
09:43The Ponds were sent back to 1938, when they were in their early twenties, which would have put them
09:49somewhere in their forties in 1959. Why is that important? Well, because of this painting. Created
09:56by Russian-American artist Raphael Sawyer, Consolation depicts a man sat on a chair cradling a standing
10:02woman. It's an incredibly intimate piece, one worthy of two star-crossed lovers, perhaps? The male figure's
10:09face is a little distorted, but he looks exactly like everyone's favourite plastic roman. As for the
10:14woman, she's the spitting image of Amy Pond. Red hair, round face, pale skin, the works. Sawyer was
10:20known for painting everyday New Yorkers, and he spent a lot of time in the city around the same period
10:26that Amy and Rory lived there. Even the name, Consolation, sounds like the perfect word to sum up
10:32the Pond's journey. Star-crossed lovers who've seen the universe. Perhaps Sawyer was taken by the pair's
10:37devotion to one another. Or maybe this was the Pond's way of winking at the doctor, planting
10:41themselves in the history books just as he did for them in The Impossible Astronaut.
10:46Number 1. Bigger on the Inside
10:48During the summer of 2023, news outlets across the world picked up on the testimonies of US
10:54Air Force whistleblower David Grush, who claimed that the American government was hiding alien
10:59spacecrafts from the public. Sounds like the X-Files to me. But this sparked numerous other claims
11:05that extraterrestrials had visited our world, and there was one particular revelation that
11:10Whovians went wild for. According to the Daily Mail, the lawyer for a separate whistleblower was told
11:15that they had seen a UFO that distorted space and time. Allegedly, the crew recovering this craft sent a
11:22man inside, and what he discovered was totally mind-blowing. Though the ship measured only 30 feet in
11:28diameter, the interior of the vessel was supposedly the size of a football stadium. In other words,
11:33it was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Though the Doctor's TARDIS is definitely
11:38not 30 feet wide. Remember that not all Time Lord vehicles have broken chameleon circuits? This
11:43could mean that a real Gallifreyan has visited our world, or that this lawyer fell asleep while
11:48watching old reruns of Doctor Who. If this account is to be believed, it certainly makes you wonder if
11:53the Doctor is out there right now, battling aliens and doing all that running. Maybe they'll need to
11:58come to Earth to retrieve their ship. This wouldn't be the first time they've been separated from it
12:02after all. And that's everything for this list, but Doctor Who has popped up in all sorts of places,
12:07so why not check out 10 more times Doctor Who appeared in other TV shows? In the meantime,
12:12I've been Ellie with Who Culture, and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.
Be the first to comment