Have just watched the whole Star Wars Films this week and have found myself thinking how many ideas I've seen in Doctor Who, some before the original trilogy and some from the prequels that have popped up in New Who.

I've forgotten many of them, but the two that stick in mind are some similar metal bugs like the ones in The End Of The World and there was also a similar warning system like Sentinel Six from Warriors Of The Deep in one of them as well. Can't tell you which SW movie they were from as they've come a bit jumbled in the ole brain!

It's clear Star Wars has had some influence over the show, especially in the 1980's when JNT cited it as a reason for updating the show for his era and introduced such things as the starfield sequence etc.

However, Doctor Who itself has also influenced many shows like Blakes 7, Crime Traveller and several others.

So the big question is, do you think Doctor Who has been influenced more by other TV Shows and films or do you think the other way round and think Doctor Who has had huge influence in Sci-Fi and other types of program due to it's longevity?

Bit of both. Doctor Who has a long history of deliberate homages, though more to other genres than to other sci-fi shows, but it's certainly influenced a few in its time. The metal insects from The End of the World, by the way, were themselves not the first such creations to appear in Doctor Who-the Cybermen had metal insect like servants as far back as 1967. And of course, Star Trek's Borg were inspired by the Cybermen, too.

Yes, I was using that as an example of how things from Star Wars have appeared in Doctor Who but in that case, seems it was there before Star Wars as you say. I think with Star Wars it was more a case of Who influencing that than that influencing Who in return....if that makes sense!

Some of the DW stories in Douglas Adams' period were clearly dry runs for Hitchhikers, which
in turn would influence stuff like Red Dwarf and Futurama.

Andrew Cartmel admitted being influenced by graphic novels like "Halo Jones" for his DW script run, which was a few years before the first GN-influenced Hollywood movie (Tim Burton's Batman).

I know the planet Vulcan was in Doctor Who first. But i was also wondering: who shot lightning first? Davros or the Emperor in Star wars?

I think the Emperor got in there first. Didn't see Davros do it until '85 but I'm open to correction.......

Nope, you're right. Davros obviously learned it from Palpatine.

Maybe Davros IS the Palpatine...maybe there is more of a influence than we though!!!!!

I'm sure Alien was partly inspired by The Ark in Space.

Actually, the Borg, and possibly the Cybermen themselves were inspired by a novel wrote at some point in the 50's or 60's, it eludes me currently.

It may have been and I've seen it said before, though O'Bannon mentioned several specific inspirations, and been fairly open about them, without naming Doctor Who as far as I know. He was American so I'm not sure how likely it is he would have seen the story on TV - it was syndicated during the 70's I think, but I don't know of he was a fan or even casual viewer. As a sci-fi nut he may have been aware of it through fanzines etc, even if the actual show wasn't available to him, but still. Alien was written around the time / not long after Ark in Space though.

I tend to think coincidence, particularly as there were a good many sci-fi things with similar ideas in them that might inspire both.

The Ark in Space - what a belter! (What I do like is that people reading about Alien often come across mention of Ark so it's a nice thought that some people might get into Doctor Who that way.)

"No, Davros. I'm your father!

Now, let me show you this cool trick."

would that be the one David Banks mentions in his book, 'Cybermen' ? I have read pieces on Star Trek though, which cite the Cybermen as the inspiration for the Borg. Maybe a bit of both...

One of the things I think is good to mention is how much influence Doctor Who has had on itself.

I have noticed a lot stories in New Who that are suspiciously like Classsic Stories.

The Impossible Planet/The Satan's Pit. The ship being dragged towards a black hole was very reminscent of Planet Of Evil

Turn Left-The Creature on Donna's back, a bit like the Spiders in Planet Of The Spiders.

Victory Of The Daleks- Like The Power Of The Daleks, even down to using some of the same dialogue.

Voyage Of The Damned-Just a substandard rip-off of Robots Of Death.

And Donna's Fate was almost identical to Jamie and Zoe's in The War Games.

I think there are other examples of well, but aside from maybe Vovage Of The Damned, it's good the Classic Series can provide new ideas for stories, thoughh maybe they shouldn't be so blatant at times!

The opening of Four To Doomsday was reminiscent of Star Wars with the close-up of the huge spaceship coming towards you, as was the impressive opening to Trial Of a Timelord.

The Borg were definitely inspired by the Cybermen. Hence their debut episode being titled Q Who.

/ Post 1,963. Fitting it was on the Doctor Who forum.

I think you're always going to see recurrences/rehashing of similar ideas/themes in a show that's 47 years old, just because there's a limit to how many ways there are to do certain things or tell certain stories. I don't think it detracts though, because each story is different overall and has its own things to say.

Plus of course it's very easy to spot small similarities and exaggerate them, such as your comment: "Donna's Fate was almost identical to Jamie and Zoe's in The War Games."

That's really not very accurate, is it? The similarity is simply that they had their memories removed, which was just the final consequence (in the same way that all the people who have ever been exterminated by Dalek's have had "almost identical" fates). The journey that led them there, however, and their own perception of events, was very different.

ooh ooh me me, I know. They were inspired by the original robot in Fritz Lang's 1920's(?) film Metropolis. Is that right Tingram? I know I could google it but you're like a human google on here from what I've read.

Intelligent question by the way OP.

Well, it could be argued that all humanoid robots/cyborgs were indirectly inspired by Metropolis, but since Maria wasn't actually a cyborg I don't think there's a direct connection there (though I think Torchwood's Cyberwoman owes something to her, visually). No, as Darley says, there was a novel later on concerning a society in which humans had voluntarily had their limbs removed in order to stop antisocial behaviour(!) which may have inspired Kit Pedler to some extent in the creation of the Cybermen, though Pedler always said they were simply a reaction to the growing interest in transplant surgery.

Limbo '90 by Bernard Wolfe.

Seems to have been out of print since the sixties, though...

That's the one...

Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure: travelling through a time vortex in a phone box? Thanks very much, classic Doctor Who!

And then, Steven Moffat's complex plots dealing with the possibilities of time travel and predestination paradoxes? Thanks very much, Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure!

Just quickly, there have been some episodes in nu-who closely resembling films, sometimes released even the same year. [LIST][*]The christmas invasion: highly evocative of independence day, anyone?[*]The shakespeare code: deliberately and openly borrowing from the da vinci code.[*]Daleks in Manhatten/Evolution of the Daleks: does the period setting and amphasis on Hooverville remind anybody else of similar elements in Peter Jackson's King Kong remake?[*]42: I'm amazed the owners of the rights to Danny Boyles film Sunshine didn't sue. [/LIST]However, the unique figure of the doctor striding through all of these plotlines adds a twist to the stories that means the show doesn't really feel derivative, even when episodes borrow from other sources with abandon.

Cool, thanks. would i still be able to find a copy somewhere?


Maria! that's the one. I had Eve in my head for some reason. I studied Metropolis at college many years ago and what with my wibbly wobbly brain and the crack, my memory isn't what it used to be! Striking resemblance to Cybermen though, visually.


Bill and Ted, yes definitely! Also 42 obviously a nod to The Hitchhikers guide, like so many other scifi shows.

Off course it's not wrong to re-use ideas from the past, Doctor Who even did it to itself in the classic series. Ressurrection of The Daleks was not too dissimilar to Earthshock in some ways and there are various other examples that can be quoted. I wasn't knocking the above examples that I gave, apart from Voyage Of The Damned, which unlike the other examples was a basic retelling of the The Robots Of Death, rather than sharing a similar theme in small parts of the story.

As for Jamie and Zoe, the word I used was 'similar' in that they had there memories erased as well. There was no other sinister comparison I was trying to make!


Why Thank You!