It’s a new week and the beginning of a new story - and a two-part story at that!Included here are some of the points you may have missed in Under The Lake.
References
We learn that Clara once had an argument with Gandhi. The spiritual leader has, in fact, appeared in Doctor Who before - on two occasions! In 1970’s Spearhead from Space, a waxwork of Ghandi could be seen in Madame Tussauds and in the very first
Matt Smith episode, The Eleventh Hour, the Atraxi projected an image of him.
“I was begging for the brush of death’s merciful hands,”the Doctor bemoaned when the pop hit Mysterious Girl by Peter Andre became an earworm for the Time Lord. The song was a UK hit during the same month
Paul McGann starred in the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie!
The TARDIS has a clockwork squirrel - Jenna Coleman recently revealed in an interview that she stole it as a leaving souvenir!
The Psychic Paper is back. It was first used in Series One with
Christopher Eccleston and
Billie Piper and was last used in the Series Eight finale, Dark Water.
The Doctor has met Shirley Bassey! The singer, known for her big James Bond theme tunes, was born in the home of
Doctor Who, Cardiff.
The popular film franchise Ghostbusters is once more mentioned in Doctor Who. Its first came in the Series Two finale with David Tennant and there was another in the Matt Smith story Hide. Santa also used the phrase, “Who you gonna call?”, which is synonymous with Ghostbusters, in Last Christmas.
Familiar Faces & Places
Colin McFarlane, who plays the doomed Moran, starred alongside Peter Capaldi in
Torchwood: Children of Earth and also provided the voice of the Heavenly Hosts in the Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned.
The Doctor is familiar to O’Donnell.
“You really the Doctor? I’m a huge fan!”she gushes.
One of the ghosts is an alien from the planet Tivoli. We last saw a member of this race in The God Complex where David Walliams played the cowardly Gibbis.
Past Episodes
Under The Lake is set in Scotland, the last time the Doctor appeared in the country was at the end of Peter Capaldi’s first episode Deep Breath, when he and Clara stopped off in Glasgow. Other famous Doctor Who stories set in Scotland include Terror of the Zygons, the aforementioned Tooth & Claw and The Highlanders.
Scottish city Aberdeen is mentioned on the cards shown to the Doctor by Clara. Aberdeen has been mentioned in the Tom Baker story Underworld, 2006’s Tooth & Claw and School Reunion - where we discovered the Fourth Doctor actually dropped former companion Sarah Jane Smith off instead of Croydon.
The story is written by Toby Whithouse, who created Being Human and The Game and also write the Doctor Who episodes, School Reunion, The Vampires of Venice, The God Complex and A Town Called Mercy.
The Drum base features a “Faraday cage” - in the 2009 David Tennant special,
Planet of the Dead, a London bus became a Faraday cage and saved those within as they traveled to another world.
The Doctor mentions Autons, first seen in 1970’s Spearhead From Space and last seen in the Doctor Who Series Five finale.
We hear the Cloister Bell ring in the
TARDIS, quite a common occurrence for The Twelfth Doctor as we heard it four times in
Doctor Who Series 8.
The Cards
I completely understand why it was difficult not to get captured
It was my fault, I should have known you didn’t live in Aberdeen
I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t care
No-one is going to get eaten/vapourised/exterminated/upgraded/possessed/mortally wounded turned into jelly we’ll all get out of this unharmed
I’m very sorry for your loss. I’ll do all I can to solve the death of your friend/family member/pet