A disclaimer: The blog author wishes to make it abundantly clear that the text below does not infer or imply a dislike of all things American. This post is not intended as a racial slur or a rant in favour of Anti-Americanism. The intent is to promote the humour inherent in the views of those who are passionate about the television series Doctor Who.Over the last few days I’ve been active in an online discussion based on the statements below:
The latest Pirate outing for the Who shows the commercial desire to beg fiscal favour from the American market.
An obvious pillage of Depp's franchise, as to make the Who instantly familiar to the American audience
The previous episodes were festoon with star spangled reference
To flatter to enrich BBC coffers
Isn't there a basic essential Englishness to Who?
And aren't we losing it as commercial forces corral to Americanise the franchise?
All the great American standards will be s[t]ucked into the creative vortex as Moffat resells the Who as distinctly American in flavour.
Expect future programs to include: Western, War Movie, Romantic Comedy, Horror, Action, Gangster, Melodrama, Social Conscience, Musicals
The author of that twaddle continually refers back to this as a support for the debate, when some makes a post that disagrees with or disproves his claims they are either ignored or the comment is cherry picked for any possible comment that supports the opening comments.
I did a bit of research and looked through the last few years of Doctor Who episodes, I was intentionally looking for any link, no matter how tenuous, to the Americanisation of the series, this is what I found:
Rose: The first thing we see is the American continent from space, the episode also features a conspiracy theorist, the episode also features animated shop window dummies.
End of the world, A song by American band REM, robotic spiders similar to those in Runaway with Tom Selleck and Minority Report.
Dalek: set in Utah and features many American characters.
The long game, Adam Mitchell leaves a message on an answerphone, the first commercially available answerphone was in the US.
Fathers day, the first time the tradition of Fathers Day was observed it was in Fairmont West Virginia.
The Empty Child: American Air force, “Are you my Mummy?” The modern series of Mummy film star Brendan Fraser, he’s American don’t you know!
The Doctor Dances: features music from American band leader Glenn Miller.
Boomtown, A nuclear Power station is going to be built, the first operational nuclear power station was built in Idaho.
Bad Wolf: There are wolves in North America, and it features an American character.
The parting of the ways, Features an emergency hologram of the doctor, an emergency medical hologram featured heavily in star trek: voyager, The link; emergency hologram doctors.
The Christmas invasion, the doctor quotes the lion king, a Disney film.
New earth, set in new new new new new new York.
Girl in the Fireplace, Set in France, the French assisted the American during the war of independence, this episode is clearly a nod of gratitude for that help.
Rise of the cybermen, over the course of the two parter we see airships, one of the most famous airships is the Hindenburg which crashed in America.
The idiots lantern, the Doctor was planning to take rose to New York to see Elvis Presley, you can’t get more American than Elvis, The Doctor sports a very Elvis like quiff.
Smith and Jones, the title is clearly a reference to a series set in the old west called Alias Smith and Jones, also features a moon landing, the first man on the moon was American.
Gridlock, Gridlock is the American term for a traffic jam, and again new new York.
Daleks in manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks: New York Again High rise buildings, elevators not lifts, lots of American accents The American iconography in these episodes are too many to list in full.
The Lazarus experiment, marvel comic rip off: a good old mad scientist, with an experiment gone wrong, and an outrageous super-villain on the loose. The monster is very scorpion like in its design, the Scorpion King featured an American wrestler known as “The Rock” The Rock is an alternative name for Alcatraz, a notorious American prison.
Blink: Billy Shipton refers to Sally Sparrow as “hot” an American term used to express how atractive a male finds a female.
Utopia, Has an American in it.
The sound of Drums, features a track by Rogue Traders entitled Voodoo Child, The F-101 Voodoo is an American jet fighter .
Last of the time lords, features the Valiant, Chrysler, an American car manufacturer built the Valiant and the plymouth Valiant, it also made the Chrysler valiant, The USS Valiant NCC-74210 featured in a DS9 episode of the same name, DS9, as we know is an American series.
Voyage of the damned, In 1912 the Titanic was sailing to New York.
Planet of the Ood, An Ood says Do’h! A phrase in constant use by Homer Simpson.
Eleventh Hour, Young Amy gives the doctor an apple, the Big Apple is an affection term for New York City ,
The time of Angels, the City of Angels is Los Angeles, which is where Hollywood is!
There have been 76 episodes from Rose to The Doctors Wife
Discounting the current season, 29 of those episode contain blatant or concealed references to The United States, 6 of those contain or indirect references to New York City.
Bearing in mind that many of the links are extremely sublime, my intent with the above was to illustrate the fact that if you set your mind hard enough to find a thing you will find it even in the smallest reference. If you were to do the same you would find links to almost any subject you chose,
