I've noticed, over a couple of series with DT and MS doctors, that a red balloon reoccured as part of a story (can't remember the episode titles but the one with DT was where he was cloaked as a human and a little girl was a member of the family of blood). The MS one involved a ganger episode - and I think I saw it in another episode as well (can't remember what though).

Did we ever find out if there was a significance to this? Or was it just sheer fluke that they used the same coloured ballon both times?

Didn't we decide the props department must have bought a job lot of red ballons cheap?

I think they must've!

But yes, I remember, in series 6.

And, of course, there was a red AND blue balloon in "Hide"...

I love a recurring symbol, me. Sad, I know.

Were there 99 of them ?

The clown in The God Complex was holding a red balloon. And in A Good Man Goes To War, the Doctor protests that he couldn't have known what humans get up to on their wedding nights because "they don't put up a balloon or anything".

If there is anything to it beyond coincidence, nothing has come of it yet. I swear they put this stuff in just to keep us guessing.

But will we ever find out who blew them up...or is that a different story arc?

The Red Balloon in Human Nature was because the Little Girl character in the original book had one.

There were but then all but one of them were destroyed in a nuclear war. Or something.

Knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze:

I bought a jigsaw of a picture of the 4th Doctor in Bessie out of 'Robot' from a toy shop called the Red Balloon in Altrincham when I was a kid. The shop has now closed.

I don't know what this all means but it could be significant?

I often wondered about the clown and at the time he looked like The Doctor.

Maybe one for a Big Finish to revisit in about 2030!

That's a long time, the clown will have lost the balloon by then.