The latest series of Doctor Who is striking a chord among fans, with a whole plethora of Doctor Who Easter eggs for viewers to get their teeth into! How many did you spot in ‘The Devil’s Chord’?
The breaking of the fourth wall
Of all the Doctor Who Easter eggs, this may be the most overt. The series has broken the fourth wall a few times over the years, but Series 14 has upped the ante. In ‘The Devil’s Chord,’ the cold opening ends with the episode’s villain Maestro keying the Doctor Who theme tune into a piano, which fades into the title sequence and, ultimately, the Murray Gold arrangement.
This may not have been a deliberate nod to the past, but the link was there. The Twelfth Doctor did a similar thing in ‘Before the Flood’ when he strummed his guitar in the TARDIS, and then started playing the theme tune. In this instance, the main theme was replaced with a new rock arrangement, performed by Peter Capaldi himself. And what’s funny about this scene is that it may be one of the biggest fourth wall-breakers of them all; the Doctor spends the entire scene talking to the audience about the Bootstrap Paradox!
There were other fourth wall-breakers in ‘The Devil’s Chord,’ too, although it’s debatable whether you could class these as Doctor Who Easter eggs. Maestro looks down the camera lens a couple of times, and at the very end of the episode the Doctor addresses the audience and tells them there is “always a twist at the end.” Was this a nod to William Hartnell, who famously wished his viewers a merry Christmas in ‘The Feast of Steven‘?
June Hudson
You have to be a certain level of Doctor Who fan to spot the next of our Doctor Who Easter eggs. June Hudson was the series’ costume designer in the late 70s and early 80s and, staggeringly, turned up in ‘The Devil’s Chord’ as one of Maestro’s unfortunate victims! She has continued to be involved with the show ever since, and even re-designed the Fourth Doctor’s costume to celebrate the 40th anniversary.
Obviously, June Hudson has never appeared in a Doctor Who episode before now, so the only way fans could know about her is through conventions and DVD / Blu-ray interviews (unless they spotted her in Class!) But what a great surprise! This is one of our all-time favourite Doctor Who Easter eggs.
Here’s what the future will look like…
The classic Doctor Who story ‘Pyramids of Mars’ featured a scene in which the Doctor took his companion Sarah Jane forward in time to 1980. He wanted to show her what would happen to the world if the evil Osirin Sutekh wasn’t stopped; he had to persuade her that time could be rewritten, and they had to fight Sutekh themselves if they were going to save humanity.
This is one of the more dramatic Doctor Who Easter eggs as, in ‘The Devil’s Chord,’ the Fifteenth Doctor does exactly the same thing with Ruby. She tries to convince him that the world didn’t end in 1963, and he has to prove otherwise. He takes her forward and shows her a decimated London, wiped out by a nuclear explosion. This is what will happen if they fail to defeat Maestro.
This is certainly one of the more deliberate Doctor Who Easter eggs on Russell T Davies’ part, being a huge fan of the classic series himself, and it’s a subtle nod for fans who are familiar with the show’s vast history.
Susan
The mention of Susan is one of the more obvious and elaborate Doctor Who Easter eggs in ‘The Devil’s Chord.’ The TARDIS has landed in London 1963 and, in-keeping with the show’s continuity, the Doctor rightly points out that there is an earlier version of him living in Shoreditch with his granddaughter.
For hardcore fans, this is a welcome reference. The Doctor is harking back to the very first story ‘An Unearthly Child‘ in which his granddaughter Susan is a pupil at the Coal Hill School in London, and the TARDIS – as the Doctor explained – is parked in a junk yard on Totter’s Lane in Shoreditch. Of course, we didn’t know the precise location of the school until 1988’s ‘Remembrance of the Daleks‘ (when the Coal Hill School returned) but otherwise this is a nice cementing of Doctor Who‘s continuity.
And in some ways, this is one of the most intriguing Doctor Who Easter eggs. Does it mean that the Doctor’s granddaughter could be returning to the show? Or was this a one-off reference to help new fans learn about the classic series?
Chris Waites and the Carollers
The last of our Doctor Who Easter eggs is subtle, and definitely one for the hardcore fans!
Towards the end of the episode, when the Doctor and Ruby return to the rooftop of Abbey Road, the camera pans back to reveal a billboard advertising the artist Chris Waites and the Carollers. Again, this is a nod to ‘An Unearthly Child‘ as Susan was listening to Chris Waites on her pocket radio in the chemistry lab.
Well, kind of. She was actually listening to John Smith and the Common Men, but during a discussion with her history teacher it transpires that ‘John Smith’ is actually a stage name for “the honourable” Aubrey Waites, who started his career as Chris Waites and the Carollers.
So this is a deep reference, and again it’s interesting to note that we now have two Doctor Who Easter eggs which point back to ‘An Unearthly Child’ and, more specifically, Susan. Is Russell T Davies trying to tell us something…?
Intriguingly, this scene came after the one in which Maestro warned the Doctor that, “the one who waits is almost here!” Was Maestro referring to Chris Waites, or is it just a coincidence? Or could Maestro be talking about Susan, who was been ‘waiting’ for the Doctor since he left her in 2164?
Hopefully, some of these questions will be answered as we head further into Series 14. In the meantime, tell us: did you spot any other Doctor Who Easter eggs in ‘The Devil’s Chord’? And is Susan going to make a return? Let us know in the comments below.
Susan Twist also appears in The Devil’s Chord and Maestro is the offspring of The Toymaker. Jeremy Limb played Timothy Drake in the Doctor Who television story The Devil’s Chord. He is the son of composer Roger Limb.