"Deep Breath" Stole More Than Just A Dinosaur From Doctor Who's Past

Sure, Doctor Who has entered a new era with "Deep Breath". But that doesn't mean that the past has been abandoned. In fact, this latest episode has so much love for Doctor Who history, that a ten-item list can't cover it all. The most obvious bit of continuity, though, is one we're not going to talk about directly. We'll only say that a certain phone was left dangling off a certain hook in the previous episode, "The Time of the Doctor" — and in this episode we found out why. If you have no idea what we're talking about, obviously that means you haven't seen "Deep Breath". Shame on you. Watch immediately. Then come back here and indulge in the top ten continuity-licious moments we at the Tardis Wiki noticed in last Saturday's episode!

10. Chalk it up to history

© 1982 BBC Worldwide / Via Tardis Wiki

Chalk has been a vital tool for the Doctor at least since 1964's The Sensorites. Most incarnations have carried good, old-fashioned chalk in their pockets. Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor isn't even the first incarnation to go crazy with chalk in his debut story. No, that honour goes to Peter the first in 1982's Castrovalva, where he used it to battle ... the concept of recursion.

9. Doctor Dolittle

The Doctor is able to talk and even translate "dinosaur" in this episode. Although his ability to "talk to the animals" is pretty new, there's a precedent for it. His ability to "talk horse" — something he also does in this episode — dates from 2012's "baby", first revealed on television in 2011's "Closing Time", and on audio in 1976's "Doctor Who and the Pescatons".

8. It's déjà vu all over again

© 2005 BBC Worldwide / Via Tardis Wiki

The scene where the Doctor collapses immediately prior to the opening titles steals its dialogue from the best. The interchange between Clara and Jenny is an almost word-for-word homage to the pre-titles exchange between Rose, Mickey and her mum in the Tenth Doctor's opener, "The Christmas Invasion".

7. "Here we go again."

© 1974 BBC Worldwide / Via Tardis Wiki

Meanwhile, Vastra's scene capper of "Here we go again" is likely a nod to the Brigadier's line at the beginning of the Fourth Doctor's 1974 debut in Robot.

6. "The Next Doctor" for the new Doctor

© 2008 BBC Worldwide / Via Tardis Wiki

Think the dinosaur was huge? What about the CyberKing from 2008's "The Next Doctor"? Apparently, the Doctor Who team love a good, giant beast roaming around the Thames during the Victorian era. (Not to mention a hot air balloon or two.)

If this was intentional homage to "The Next Doctor", it wouldn't be the first time Steven Moffat had referenced that particular Christmas Special. He mentioned the CyberKing once before, in 2010's "Flesh and Stone".

5. Getting the band back together

© 2012 BBC Worldwide / Via Tardis Wiki

In her heated confrontation with Vastra, Clara says that, as a teenager, the only pinup she owned was one of Marcus Aurelius, an ancient philosopher. Aurelius had been first mentioned a couple of episodes earlier, in the first line of 2013's "The Day of the Doctor".

For her part, Vastra mentions that Aurelius was a 'superlative bass guitarist" and that the Doctor could put together a good band. This is a probable reference to the Eleventh Doctor's penchant for music, shown most vividly when he rapped in "Pond Life", but also remarked upon in episodes like "Asylum of the Daleks" and "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship"

4. Of scarves past

© 1974 BBC Worldwide / Via Tardis Wiki

When talking to Barney, the tramp the Twelfth Doctor briefly pines for a long scarf, then dismisses the idea. This, as even casual Doctor Who fans will know, is a reference to the Fourth Doctor's iconic scarf.

What is perhaps less obvious is that Barney is played by Brian Miller, the husband of Elisabeth Sladen, who of course played the Fourth Doctor's longtime companion, Sarah Jane Smith.

3. A rose by any other name...

© 2014 BBC Worldwide / Via Tardis Wiki

This episode is in many ways a sequel to "The Girl in the Fireplace" — but the Doctor just can't seem to remember that earlier adventure. That's understandable: the Tenth Doctor never saw that the ship he was on was called the SS Madame de Pompadour. And although that episode was only eight years ago for us, it was about 1100 years ago for the Doctor!

What's even funnier is that he spends a good deal of time trying to remember while holding some yellow roses — a not-so-subtle reference to the fact that his companion on that adventure was Rose. Hilariously, he finally gives up after he takes a big sniff of the bouquet and then tosses it aside with the words, "Nope, not getting it."

2. You've redecorated — but you forget the roundels!

© 1983 BBC Worldwide / Via Tardis Wiki

Clara's line, "You've redecorated. I don't like it." has become a bit of a meme in Doctor Who. Originally a Second Doctor-ism that (more or less) debuted in The Three Doctors to describe his dissatisfaction with the way the Third Doctor had changed the TARDIS interior, it then made its way into The Five Doctors to disparage UNIT headquarters.

Most recently, the Tenth Doctor used it to describe the Eleventh Doctor's final console room in "The Day of the Doctor".

The Twelfth Doctor's response is equally interesting, as he pines away for "round things" on the walls of the TARDIS. Both of his predecessors did the same in the 50th anniversary special. Strangely, Moffat seems averse to the "proper" word for the "round things". According to 80s Who, they're roundels — and they used to have a lot of cool machinery inside, as this picture from 1983's Terminus shows.

1. Dinosaur. In London. Again.

© 1973 BBC Worldwide / Via Tardis Wiki

The opening shot of "Deep Breath" wasn't just a dinosaur. It was an opportunity for the Doctor Who production office to right the special effects wrongs of 1973's Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Still, some already think they didn't get it quite right. In 1973, the T-Rex was probably a bit small; in 2014 it was disproportionately huge.