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A few of the nice touches were: [spoilers below]
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1. The "message cube" was first and last seen in the 1968 story The War Games, wherein Troughton's Doctor uses one to summon the assistance of the Time Lords (who were named for the first time in that story).
2. This tale is the first time on screen that there's been confirmation of the hotly-contested fan speculation about whether Time Lords can change sex when regenerating.
3. The technique of "jettisoning" rooms to add extra power to the TARDIS was first mentioned in Davison's first story, Castrovalva, and only once since.
4. The TARDIS' own description of the Doctor - "my thief!" - echoes the charges laid against the Doctor just before his exile as Pertwee's Doctor. Indeed, an inscription plate on the TARDIS console which identifies it as a Type 40 also warns of dire penalty for using the vessel without authority, including the possibility of exile.
5. The internal corridors of the TARDIS include some design features from earlier versions of the TARDIS, as does the cobbled-together junkyard TARDIS that the Doctor creates.
6. Davison's Doctor spent many episodes coaxing the TARDIS to finally get him to the scenic Eye of Orion. He finally got there in The Five Doctors, only to collapse as someone pulled his four previous incarnations out of time.
7. Some of the TARDIS' dialogue - especially "MY Doctor" - is reminiscent of what Rose said in The Parting of the Ways when she was "part me, part of the TARDIS"
8. We've seen the TARDIS console travel without the police box shell before, first in Inferno, 1970.
9. The now-sadly-jettisoned swimming pool first appeared (complete with satisfyingly wet swimming Leela) in the Tom Baker story The Invasion of Time. A pool scene Gaiman planned for this episode was cut because Karen Gillan can't swim.
10. The various parts of the junk-constructed TARDIS have all been previously referenced.
11. The Doctor fails to open the TARDIS doors with a snap of his fingers - the "impossible" trick he learns in The Forest of the Dead and has used a few times since - presumably because the TARDIS matrix is no longer running the ship at that point.
12. The TARDIS' complaint that the Doctor always opens her door the wrong way is an in-joke to an old fan criticism about the "unrealistic" version of the police box used in the series. A previous episode's comment that "The windows are all wrong" addresses the same whinge. In actual fact the writing on the door may refer to the little phone cupboard behind the notice which was how members of the public got a direct line to the police station in the days before phone boxes; the general public couldn't get inside the actual police box without a key. We only get confirmation that there's actually a telephone in the TARDIS cupboard as late as Ecclestone's The Empty Child.
13. Rory and Amy's marital bunk beds remind us that the original TARDIS crew likewise had bunks in their rooms; at least Barbara and Susan's shared accomodation did. On the other hand Tegan and Nyssa both had double beds.
14. Rory's question about whether the Doctor has a bedroom echoes an oft-raised fan discussion.
15. The story's title, The Doctor's Wife, harks back to an in-joke from the tenure of producer John Nathan Turner. When the Doctor Who Appreciation Society came to interview Turner they cleverly noted and published the spoiler planned series titles written on a production board behind him. Anticipating their spying, the staff had changed a key story title from Destiny of the Daleks to The Doctor's Wife, thus provoking massive fan speculation and avoiding giving away the return of the sadists from Skaro.
16. The dialogue where the Doctor accuses the TARDIS of naver taking him where he wants to go and she responds that she always took him where he needed to be echoes and makes canon a long-cherished fan belief. Indeed, Gaiman's actual script for the episode ends with the stage direction about the TARDIS operating the console to send herself to her next destination, noting that "The TARDIS spins away through time and space to where her Doctor is needed - almost certainly not the Eye of Orion."
IW
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