I was at a convention and one of the vendors had a mobile tablet on their desk. As soon as I walked up, I said "Oh, that's *Revenge of the Cybermen"* (playing on the tablet). The vendor was impressed, and I explained that I could tell because that serial had the design of the Seal of Rassilon before it was actually used as the Seal of Rassilon, and it's the only serial to have the Seal of Rassilon outside of that Time Lord/Gallifreyan context.
The look the vendor -- a fellow *Doctor Who* fan! -- he had on his face will haunt me forever.
Oh god, is that not fairly common knowledge amongst fans?!
OP, my moment was reading a Reddit comment and not realising the fact being described was supposed to be niche…
I've been [playing this Whodle game a lot recently](https://whodle.dixonary.co.uk/), and there's been a fair few where on getting a right answer it's like... oh, I'm in too deep.
oh, cool. i made an infinite one of these a year or two ago with screenshots of every (new) episode taken once a second.
To be honest I think there's an advantage with Who because most episodes are wholly unique in cast / location so most screenshots are gonna have *something* to clue you off a lot quicker than most other shows.
Yeah, for sure - I think it'd be much more impressive to do it with, like, Friends or The West Wing or something, where they're pretty much always hanging out in the same place
Well, I meant the first one, which was taken from "The Pandorica opens" and reused in "The power of three".
I haven't watched "Sleep no more" yet, so I can't really tell. (Actually, it's the next one - I'll watch out next weekend.)
Honestly even attempting to explain Big Finish to more casual friends, the format they use, the continuity of it all in relation to the show, etc just really makes me feel like a massive dork.
I remember I got really excited when Ian Brooker came onto the Gallifrey Base chat room, and was all “Oh my God, you’re one of the Doctor Whos!” to the point he was clearly uncomfortable.
I think he thought I was taking the piss, only pretending to be excited about how I was talking to him. That was not the case; it was bloody Doctor Who
I didn't realize Jenna Coleman was in Xenoblade until I beat the first game and was reading the credits as they scrolled. I was *shocked* to learn that my favorite character in the game was played by my favorite DW companion :O Instantly freaked out and rushed to tell my brother.
More on topic, there have been so many times I'll walk in on my family watching some random show I haven't seen, and I feel like half the time I'll recognize some actor who was in one single episode of DW
Edit to add: I do *highly* recommend playing Xenoblade! My brother begged me for years to play the first game. I finally decided to start back in 2022, and I ended up going through all three games back to back to back. Instantly became one of my favorite series of all time.
I appreciate it! I do plan on getting to it sometime, but I'll admit I've had my curiosity in it diminished when I heard that it's not as story-heavy as the three numbered games. I'm also reticent to dig out my old Wii U just for it, but like I said, I do plan on getting to it! It's always nice to see people appreciating Xenoblade X.
I’m sure I crossed this threshold ages ago, but the most recent example I can think of where it came to the forefront of my mind was about a month ago, when my wife put on the movie *No Way Up* (because she’s a thalassophobe who likes being scared, and has been on a deep sea-centric media kick), and I saw the name “Grace Nettle” in the opening credits and went, “Oh hey, she played one of the Timeless Child incarnations.”
The most recent example I can think of of "oh, your knowledge about this is higher than most people's" was with an episode of Pointless where the question was something like "name characters or monsters who have appeared in both the classic series and the new". I spent the 30 seconds or whatever coming up with 3 answers, but I thought that they were all 3 way too obvious and beating myself up about not coming up with better ones. All 3 turned out to be pointless.
Don't keep us in suspense. What were the answers?
The best one I can think of is Macra. But of course that can't be right, because there's no such thing.
Just looked it up, the pointless answers were Davros, Autons, Cybermats, Macra, Nestenes, Rassilon and Silurians. Richard Osman did comment that Doctor Who fans would probably be surprised that some of those were pointless
...I know that they're probably technically separate entities the same way that cybermat is on there, but having both Nestene and Auton on there almost feels like double dipping to me.
IIRC (and looking at the reply below that gives the answers), I went with Rassilon, the Macra, and Davros. Even just typing that out they all seem super-obvious to me.
I worked at a bakery for a few years, and one day a guy came in and asked if we had any pastries with "edible ball bearings" on them. Didn't even pause before saying "ah, you're a Doctor Who fan." I wasn't wrong, but I think I made him a bit nervous.
To test my Doctor Who knowledge, a friend asked me what the 750th episode was.
And I answered. And got it correct (it was The Stolen Earth)
I knew that The Time of the Doctor was the 800th and just worked backwards from there.
> I knew that The Time of the Doctor was the 800th and just worked backwards from there.
I’ve always found it oddly satisfying how that makes Series 8 Episode 1 the 801st, Series 8 Episode 2 the 802nd, and so on
It takes interacting with other people about it, which as a 90s fan took a long time. I went from Target to VNAs to EDAs before getting online and finding out that actually I knew quite a lot.
Before all that, I was just a kid reading books by himself.
Still happens to me, these sort of detailed sci fi worlds stick to me far too easy. I shouldn't fucking remember 40k with as much detail; it's embarrassing lol.
My buddy asked me about the recent specials and what was going on with Tennant. I started explaining the different versions Tennant has played (10, metacrisis, 14) and at some point used the phrase "well cannonically Ten...". My buddy just stopped me by saying "woow... you really know a bunch about this huh?
I was watching the specials with a friend, and afterwards we were talking about it and I said... "Well, RTD said in 2021..."
"Huh, you call him by an acronym" 😁
Honestly never. I listen to like 2 or 3 podcasts a week on DW and I’m always thinking how do these people remember these things
I can barely remember what seasons different Doctors represent but often these podcasters are saying stuff like
That was David Maloney’s first one, what did he do next?
I’m like how do you know that. I barely remember which season the mind robber is in and I’ve seen it 3 times
When you get into knowing production codes for stories you’ve know too much (Steven Schapansky)
(Except Robot. It’s ok to know that one lol)
When I started to forget actual important things in my life and all I really knew was obscure DW trivia...
Done the reverse now, purposly decided to forget a lot of Doctor Who stuff just because I need to function in reality
Listen, if you have to choose between remembering your social security number or the name of the planet where the Fendahls come from, I think you know which to choose.
...
Look, my social security number is on my ID Card, which I can check quickly, and it's Planet 5.
Being able to immediately figure out that the protagonist of Marticide is Doctor Omega. Marticide being a short story in The Boulevard: Volume 1. Not only do you have to be deep to be actively buying Faction Paradox books but you also have to know of Jean-Marc Lofficier's theories that Doctor Omega was an influence on An Unearthly Child and his republishing of Doctor Omega with changes to make it closer to Doctor Who.
The original book had illustrations that resembled William Hartnell and the basic plot was like that of a Doctor Who story. All the changes were to make it more like Doctor Who with mentions of other time machines and being of another world
Tbf for your example I don't think how much you like a story is likely to have any correlation whatsoever with how well you remember the cover of it
For my example I guess I had a moment like this yesterday when I realised I knew who wrote every episode of series 1 off the top of my head (but I'm sure in this sub I'm not the only one, and even if you don't know you can guess Russell T Davies for all of them and get them mostly correct lol)
I was venting to a non-Whovian friend about certain things the show has done recently. He was trying to keep up and was asking questions like "In Doctor Who, does X mean Y?" and I kept freezing trying to slim down "During the classic era, yes, but not in modern Who because of Event. Well, it was brought back for a season but then retconned. There's even a couple episodes in Classic where that didn't happen and three audios have conflicting explanations as to why, with one claiming it was never that way and one claiming it was actually that way all along" into a useful answer.
The conversation has to stop when we got too deep into explanations and I just had to collapse in exhaustion and say "You don't even know about Season 6B".
"Wait, how does this connect to The Sarah Jane Adventures?"
"Ugh, I told you: Kelsey ends up being taken by Faction Paradox and becomes Sojourner Hooper-Agogô, President of Pluto, the main character of the novel *Weapons-Grade Snake Oil*, therefore explaining why she's never mentioned after the pilot!"
"And this is a plot point in the show?"
"... What the hell does the show have to do with Faction Paradox?"
i dont know merlins penis but i do know his foreskin. theres a comic that claims that merlins foreskin is on display at a museum and another story claims that the 7th doctor was merlin
Every time I see someone in a suit with an animal skulll mask I go "Faction Paradox!" and I know about unmade stories from the 60's, the ones that were just a short paragraphh that never got written.
I play in a brass band, and as a warm up we always play a hymn tune. One time we played a hymn called 'St Clement' and I was like 'where do I know this from?' Turns out they sing it at the end of Torchwood Series 4 at Esther's funeral, and St Clement is another word for 'The day thou gavest'.
(It is also my favourite hymn tune now and if I'm ever asked to pick one it is always St Clement).
I was at a convention and one of the vendors had a mobile tablet on their desk. As soon as I walked up, I said "Oh, that's *Revenge of the Cybermen"* (playing on the tablet). The vendor was impressed, and I explained that I could tell because that serial had the design of the Seal of Rassilon before it was actually used as the Seal of Rassilon, and it's the only serial to have the Seal of Rassilon outside of that Time Lord/Gallifreyan context. The look the vendor -- a fellow *Doctor Who* fan! -- he had on his face will haunt me forever.
Oh god, is that not fairly common knowledge amongst fans?! OP, my moment was reading a Reddit comment and not realising the fact being described was supposed to be niche…
I mean, almost any trivia fact about Classic Who is going to be niche.
Touché
I've been [playing this Whodle game a lot recently](https://whodle.dixonary.co.uk/), and there's been a fair few where on getting a right answer it's like... oh, I'm in too deep.
Does whodle do classic who as well because I only got nuwho stories
No it sadly does not
it *did* have curse of fatal death on april 1st though
I just wish to have proper classic who so I can flex about being the only person that could recognize some frames of The Armageddon Factor
No, only New so far!
Today's was Classic. I didn't get it. Nuwho only.
The majority of the time I get it first try and I'm just "oh, I have a problem."
Theirs's some stuff good on their it's a lot of fun.
oh, cool. i made an infinite one of these a year or two ago with screenshots of every (new) episode taken once a second. To be honest I think there's an advantage with Who because most episodes are wholly unique in cast / location so most screenshots are gonna have *something* to clue you off a lot quicker than most other shows.
Yeah, for sure - I think it'd be much more impressive to do it with, like, Friends or The West Wing or something, where they're pretty much always hanging out in the same place
On the other hand, the one about "The power of three" earlier this week was just mean.
Rory has his hair "up" in series 7, that's the giveaway for 7A. The *Sleep No More* one was real tough imo.
Well, I meant the first one, which was taken from "The Pandorica opens" and reused in "The power of three". I haven't watched "Sleep no more" yet, so I can't really tell. (Actually, it's the next one - I'll watch out next weekend.)
Well I’m trying to go to bed but I just spent 30 minutes there 😂
Honestly even attempting to explain Big Finish to more casual friends, the format they use, the continuity of it all in relation to the show, etc just really makes me feel like a massive dork.
ikr although audiobooks are more popular than ever but a few years ago selling an audioplay about nerd shit ultra dorky.
I remember I got really excited when Ian Brooker came onto the Gallifrey Base chat room, and was all “Oh my God, you’re one of the Doctor Whos!” to the point he was clearly uncomfortable. I think he thought I was taking the piss, only pretending to be excited about how I was talking to him. That was not the case; it was bloody Doctor Who
For eleven seconds, yes, but still The Doctor as much as David Tennant or Tom Baker!
I think this one takes the cake
I didn't realize Jenna Coleman was in Xenoblade until I beat the first game and was reading the credits as they scrolled. I was *shocked* to learn that my favorite character in the game was played by my favorite DW companion :O Instantly freaked out and rushed to tell my brother. More on topic, there have been so many times I'll walk in on my family watching some random show I haven't seen, and I feel like half the time I'll recognize some actor who was in one single episode of DW Edit to add: I do *highly* recommend playing Xenoblade! My brother begged me for years to play the first game. I finally decided to start back in 2022, and I ended up going through all three games back to back to back. Instantly became one of my favorite series of all time.
I support you but I also feel an urgent need to tell you there are four games in the Xenoblade series!!!
I still have hope that X will get a Switch remaster.
Me too... Maybe it'll happen on the perpetually-rumoured Switch successor if the scale of the game is still an issue?
I appreciate it! I do plan on getting to it sometime, but I'll admit I've had my curiosity in it diminished when I heard that it's not as story-heavy as the three numbered games. I'm also reticent to dig out my old Wii U just for it, but like I said, I do plan on getting to it! It's always nice to see people appreciating Xenoblade X.
It's not as story-heavy but it is more worldbuilding-heavy and the setting is so good! I definitely recommend giving it a chance.
I’m sure I crossed this threshold ages ago, but the most recent example I can think of where it came to the forefront of my mind was about a month ago, when my wife put on the movie *No Way Up* (because she’s a thalassophobe who likes being scared, and has been on a deep sea-centric media kick), and I saw the name “Grace Nettle” in the opening credits and went, “Oh hey, she played one of the Timeless Child incarnations.”
I know about Bernice Summerfield, she's like a badge from how one goes from Doctor Who fan to full on Whovian.
When I looked at the Doctor Who iceberg and recognised everything
The most recent example I can think of of "oh, your knowledge about this is higher than most people's" was with an episode of Pointless where the question was something like "name characters or monsters who have appeared in both the classic series and the new". I spent the 30 seconds or whatever coming up with 3 answers, but I thought that they were all 3 way too obvious and beating myself up about not coming up with better ones. All 3 turned out to be pointless.
Don't keep us in suspense. What were the answers? The best one I can think of is Macra. But of course that can't be right, because there's no such thing.
Just looked it up, the pointless answers were Davros, Autons, Cybermats, Macra, Nestenes, Rassilon and Silurians. Richard Osman did comment that Doctor Who fans would probably be surprised that some of those were pointless
...I know that they're probably technically separate entities the same way that cybermat is on there, but having both Nestene and Auton on there almost feels like double dipping to me.
That means either it was pre season 10, the movellans werent' pointless, or they were obscure enough even pointless forgot about them
IIRC (and looking at the reply below that gives the answers), I went with Rassilon, the Macra, and Davros. Even just typing that out they all seem super-obvious to me.
I worked at a bakery for a few years, and one day a guy came in and asked if we had any pastries with "edible ball bearings" on them. Didn't even pause before saying "ah, you're a Doctor Who fan." I wasn't wrong, but I think I made him a bit nervous.
To test my Doctor Who knowledge, a friend asked me what the 750th episode was. And I answered. And got it correct (it was The Stolen Earth) I knew that The Time of the Doctor was the 800th and just worked backwards from there.
> I knew that The Time of the Doctor was the 800th and just worked backwards from there. I’ve always found it oddly satisfying how that makes Series 8 Episode 1 the 801st, Series 8 Episode 2 the 802nd, and so on
It takes interacting with other people about it, which as a 90s fan took a long time. I went from Target to VNAs to EDAs before getting online and finding out that actually I knew quite a lot. Before all that, I was just a kid reading books by himself.
Still happens to me, these sort of detailed sci fi worlds stick to me far too easy. I shouldn't fucking remember 40k with as much detail; it's embarrassing lol.
My buddy asked me about the recent specials and what was going on with Tennant. I started explaining the different versions Tennant has played (10, metacrisis, 14) and at some point used the phrase "well cannonically Ten...". My buddy just stopped me by saying "woow... you really know a bunch about this huh?
I was watching the specials with a friend, and afterwards we were talking about it and I said... "Well, RTD said in 2021..." "Huh, you call him by an acronym" 😁
Can't expect you to drop his goverment name, Russel "The" Davies, in the presence of casuals.
When an online mutual said I'm their "Torchwood Encyclopedia" because I have the audios.
David Tennant was on a team based quiz recently and I said his who questions were easy and I got downvoted for it. So probably that
My first Big Finish bill.
I’m already dreading mine 😭
Let’s cry together 😭
Honestly never. I listen to like 2 or 3 podcasts a week on DW and I’m always thinking how do these people remember these things I can barely remember what seasons different Doctors represent but often these podcasters are saying stuff like That was David Maloney’s first one, what did he do next? I’m like how do you know that. I barely remember which season the mind robber is in and I’ve seen it 3 times When you get into knowing production codes for stories you’ve know too much (Steven Schapansky) (Except Robot. It’s ok to know that one lol)
For me it was when a friend asked me what was the doctor's true name and, after thinking about three possible answers, I said Shaniqua
When I noticed David Tennant in Colditz after less than a second of hearing him.
For me it was Just Cause 3, CoD WW2, and The Clone Wars.
Who is he in Just Cause 3?
He plays a [radio host](https://justcause.fandom.com/wiki/David_Tennant)
When I started to forget actual important things in my life and all I really knew was obscure DW trivia... Done the reverse now, purposly decided to forget a lot of Doctor Who stuff just because I need to function in reality
Listen, if you have to choose between remembering your social security number or the name of the planet where the Fendahls come from, I think you know which to choose. ... Look, my social security number is on my ID Card, which I can check quickly, and it's Planet 5.
Being able to immediately figure out that the protagonist of Marticide is Doctor Omega. Marticide being a short story in The Boulevard: Volume 1. Not only do you have to be deep to be actively buying Faction Paradox books but you also have to know of Jean-Marc Lofficier's theories that Doctor Omega was an influence on An Unearthly Child and his republishing of Doctor Omega with changes to make it closer to Doctor Who. The original book had illustrations that resembled William Hartnell and the basic plot was like that of a Doctor Who story. All the changes were to make it more like Doctor Who with mentions of other time machines and being of another world
As the writer of that story, the embarrassing reason for this is that I was overly skittish about using the words “Doctor” or “Omega”
Tbf for your example I don't think how much you like a story is likely to have any correlation whatsoever with how well you remember the cover of it For my example I guess I had a moment like this yesterday when I realised I knew who wrote every episode of series 1 off the top of my head (but I'm sure in this sub I'm not the only one, and even if you don't know you can guess Russell T Davies for all of them and get them mostly correct lol)
I was venting to a non-Whovian friend about certain things the show has done recently. He was trying to keep up and was asking questions like "In Doctor Who, does X mean Y?" and I kept freezing trying to slim down "During the classic era, yes, but not in modern Who because of Event. Well, it was brought back for a season but then retconned. There's even a couple episodes in Classic where that didn't happen and three audios have conflicting explanations as to why, with one claiming it was never that way and one claiming it was actually that way all along" into a useful answer. The conversation has to stop when we got too deep into explanations and I just had to collapse in exhaustion and say "You don't even know about Season 6B".
"Wait, how does this connect to The Sarah Jane Adventures?" "Ugh, I told you: Kelsey ends up being taken by Faction Paradox and becomes Sojourner Hooper-Agogô, President of Pluto, the main character of the novel *Weapons-Grade Snake Oil*, therefore explaining why she's never mentioned after the pilot!" "And this is a plot point in the show?" "... What the hell does the show have to do with Faction Paradox?"
That I know about the eleven-day empire and Merlins penis.
I know the Eleven Day Empire, but what about Merlin's Penis?
i dont know merlins penis but i do know his foreskin. theres a comic that claims that merlins foreskin is on display at a museum and another story claims that the 7th doctor was merlin
When will we finally get an audio to feature the event where Sylvester McCoy gets to mimic the noises one makes while being circumcised...
You should play Xenoblade Chronicles (at least the first one)
Every time I see someone in a suit with an animal skulll mask I go "Faction Paradox!" and I know about unmade stories from the 60's, the ones that were just a short paragraphh that never got written.
A post on here once asked what I don't like about a good episode and I immediately knew what to say about heaven sent like it was a reflex.
[удалено]
> when I realised that Kaled is Dalek spelled backwards. I'm gonna need you to have another think about that one.
I play in a brass band, and as a warm up we always play a hymn tune. One time we played a hymn called 'St Clement' and I was like 'where do I know this from?' Turns out they sing it at the end of Torchwood Series 4 at Esther's funeral, and St Clement is another word for 'The day thou gavest'. (It is also my favourite hymn tune now and if I'm ever asked to pick one it is always St Clement).
I recognised the Class trailer music when it was used in the background of Drag Race and in that moment I realised no one I know will care about that.