I was recently reading The Forest Bride 13th Doctor DWM comic and I realized that it has almost the same plot as one of the Christmas Anthology short stories, We Will Feed You To the Trees. Trees that are actually technological stasis pods and people who believe theyâre magic.Given the breadth of Doctor Who double-ups like this are bound to happen. Does anyone know any other examples where two stories have almost the same plot?
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There are definitely concepts that are reused over and over, but I feel thatâs natural for a universe of thousands of stories that has been going for 60 years.
I find it fun to find the similarities, which is why I started the âtropesâ section of the site so you can easily find stories with the same basic tropes like Base Under Siege or Evil Vegetation.
Youâre talking about a much more specific reuse of plot though. I know some stories have been heavily influenced by others, but nothing comes to mind right now.
I hope some others can think of some 
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Terry Nationâs pretty much the expert when it comes to this one. I love Planet of the Daleks, but itâs more or less a rehash of what the Dalek stories that came before, especially influenced by the original.
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The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood is basically a blow by blow re-do of Doctor Who and the Silurians just without UNIT involvement.
And the similarities between the Lodger and the Pilot always struck me, even though theyâre very different stories as a whole (the Doctor âstuckâ on earth with an alien that very much wants to leave and kills people to find a pilot)
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One thing I always loved on the Pilot was the multiple meanings of the title. Besides being about a pilot, itâs also basically framed as if it was the pilot episode of a Doctor Who rebootâŚ
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Thereâs the Series 12 episode The Haunting of Villa Diodati and the audio Maryâs Story which both tell differing accounts of the creation of Frankenstein. Add to that, the audio The Silver Turk continues on from Maryâs Story and features the Cybermen as well.
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There was also a comic strip calld The Creative Spark in the Battles in Time magazine which featured Mary Shelley and âFrankensteinâ tropes.
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Let us not forget Remembrance of the Daleks and Silver Nemesis - similarities so blatant its even mentioned in the script for Nemesis.
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When I watched The Happiness Patrol I saw similarities with Smile, as they are both have characters trying to create happy societies by killing people who are unhappy.
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There is one very specific concept that has been used many times across Doctor Who and its spin offs.
Plot device: Robots that have been designed by an alien species to cure / heal have effectively become lethal due to being insufficiently familiar with human biology.
Examples I can think of off the top of my head:
- The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
- The Curse of the Black Spot
- The Girl Who Waited
There are definitely others though - can you think of any?
There are also stories that have come quite close to re-using the idea of the nanogenes resolution in different ways. Examples I can think of - The eternity gate changing everyoneâs genetic template in The End of Time. A cure instantaneously being provided to all the plague victims in New Earth.
A popular trope!!
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similarly iâve noticed that moffat has written multiple stories where everyone thinks that if they donât subjugate an alien, the alien will be super dangerous, but then it turns out that the alien will leave them alone and/or continue helping them. beast below, kill the moon, thin ice all have this. iâm sure other writers have done similar but iâve noticed it the most with moffat!
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Boom? Almost?
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Add Smile to that list.
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I want to point out that Kill the Moon was by Peter Harness and Thin Ice was by Sarah Dollard, so Moffat didnât write those episodes, he was just showrunner while they happened
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Rewatching The End of the World and itâs very similar to Voyage of the Damned with the villain engineering a disaster for money.
Iâm sure itâs happened more than that too?
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I just wanted to say, I wanted to introduce someone to the show through this story, and it didnât work at all, she didnât even catch the fact this show had time travel lol. So it doesnât really work as a pilot imo.
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oh yeah no i just meant it happened three times in his era. which still feels significant for him to approve/contribute to that idea three times. i donât have an issue with it (except that i donât like the rest of whatâs going on in kill the moon) but itâs interesting to me
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