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Fob watch

A pocket watch, sometimes known as a fob watch, was a watch carried in one's pocket, frequently worn on Earth on waistcoats and jackets during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

The Doctor's pocket watches[]

The First Doctor wore a watch on a short ribbon and pendant fob in his beige tweed waistcoats' outer right pockets. (TV: An Unearthly Child-The Tenth Planet, The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, Twice Upon A Time) At one time in his life, the Seventh Doctor used this same Hunter watch. (PROSE: All-Consuming Fire)

The Second Doctor used a coverless watch on a chain and clip to hypnotise Vana after she exited the Kroton spaceship under conditioning. (TV: The Krotons)

The Third Doctor wore a gold tone fob watch on his crimson velvet waistcoat. (TV: The Green Death)

The Fourth Doctor recurrently wore a watch across his waistcoats, with dchain threaded through a buttonhole (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) or hanging loose. (TV: Horror of Fang Rock) He used it on Ribos for hypnotic suggestion. (TV: The Ribos Operation)

The Sixth Doctor had a silver watch on a silver chain in his coat pocket whilst traversing the infrastructure of Space Station Camera, using it hypnotically on a deranged Jamie McCrimmon. (TV: The Two Doctors) Zoe Heriot asked him for it so she could hypnotise herself to keep a Cyber-Planner out of her head. (AUDIO: Last of the Cybermen)

More commonly, he wore a double-chained pocket watch on one of several styles and colours, held in his outer waistcoat pockets with chain threaded through a buttonhole. (TV: The Twin Dilemma, The Trial of a Time Lord) It was gold-tone with an enamel-painted cover. After it too was used in an attempt at hypnosis on Necros, its movement was accidentally broken by Peri Brown, who promised to replace it. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) The Seventh Doctor carried this watch in his jackets' outer-left breast pocket, on a silver-tone cord chain clipped to the buttonhole in his lapel. During his travels with Ace, it featured a digital display. (TV: Silver Nemesis, Survival)

At the end of his life, the Seventh Doctor carried a different, silver-tone watch in his waistcoat, its chain looped through a buttonhole, which he kept along with several others. When opened, it revealed a traditional analogue clock face and played subtle music. This watch was stolen along with the Doctor's other possessions by Chang Lee after the Doctor had apparently been killed, but was later returned to the Eighth Doctor when Lee and he parted ways.

Shortly after regenerating, the Eighth Doctor acquired a new pocket watch as part of the Wild Bill Hickok ensemble he took from a hospital locker, wearing it in the same way he had immediately previous. (TV: Doctor Who) He would continue to use a gold pocket watch throughout his life, (COMIC: The Pictures of Josephine Day, A Matter of Life and Death, The Lost Dimension; TV: The Night of the Doctor, ) once using it as a communicator to broadcast a video message to the occupants of his TARDIS. (COMIC: The Final Chapter)

The War Doctor wore a double-chained fob watch of bronze on his double-breasted waistcoats of moleskin. (COMIC: The Clockwise War; PROSE: Engines of War; TV: The Name of the Doctor) up to his death after the 1562/2013 Zygon Invasion of Earth and the Fall of Gallifrey. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

The Eleventh Doctor owned a fob watch, which he produced to defuse a standoff between Captain Britt and the leader of the Cei in 1874. (AUDIO: The Runaway Train) He began to regularly wear a fob watch after going into retirement and continued wearing it after his return, when he changed his clothing style. (TV: The Snowmen, The Bells of Saint John) He often wore double-chained fob watch of gold with a gold "fob" pendant worn fastened to his waistcoats. (TV: (TV: The Rings of Akhaten, Cold War, Hide, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, Nightmare in Silver, The Name of the Doctor, The Day of the Doctor, The Time of the Doctor) He used a fob watch to lure Lepus Warriors through a warp gate. (COMIC: The Hat Trick) His successor, the Twelfth Doctor, sold it for a coat. (TV: Deep Breath)

The Curator, a future version of the Doctor, wore a gold fob watch in his Sixth Doctor form. (AUDIO: The Artist at the End of the World)

Biodata module[]

Main article: Biodata module
Fobwatch1

The Doctor's biodata module (TV: The Family of Blood)

The biodata module (COMIC: The Promise) was a crucial part of the Chameleon Arch that often looked like a watch. Biodata modules of this form once held the Time Lord essences of both the Tenth Doctor and the War Master. Such watches were recognisable, as Martha Jones learned, by distinctive Gallifreyan script on the obverse. (TV: Human Nature / The Family of Blood, Utopia)

The Ninth Doctor once gifted a modified biodata module to his friend Plex, with the purpose of creating a clone race. It would be used in his twelfth incarnation as proof to said clone race that he was an old friend of Plex's. (COMIC: The Promise)

Other watches[]

On meeting Jackson Lake and seeing his "fob watch", the Tenth Doctor thought that it might be a biodata module. When the Doctor opened the watch, however, its movement fell out, revealing it as an ordinary watch. Mr Scoones, Mr Cole, Mr Fetch and Mr Milligan wore fob watches with double chains up to their deaths in the 1851 Incident. (TV: The Next Doctor)

The War Master wore a bronze fob watch when he used Ood as his pawns on Callous. (AUDIO: Call for the Dead, The Glittering Prize, The Persistence of Dreams, Sins of the Fathers)

Josiah Samuel Smith wore a watch with a fob pendant as part of his Victorian outfit. (TV: Ghost Light)

John Riddell, an Edwardian hunter, wore a gold fob watch on his beige waistcoat when he met Queen Nefertiti and helped rescue dinosaurs on a Silurian Ark during 2367. (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)

The Toymaker wore a fob watch on his single-breasted waistcoat of plum and sapphire tartan. (TV: The Giggle)

Reuben Whormby wore a fob watch on his waistcoat, right to his death in the Fang Rock Incident. (TV: Horror of Fang Rock)

The Dream Lord wore a watch on his beige waistcoat when he taunts the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, and Rory Williams during the beginning of the Eknodine assault. (TV: Amy's Choice)

A small very well crafted pocket watch belonging to a Mr Harrison of Yorkshire, England around 1765 was part of the symbolic price for the loom used to make the first babels. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

The Half-Face Man wore a fob watch during the 1890s. (TV: Deep Breath)  

Dorothea Ames owned a Sekonda pocket watch. (TV: The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did)

Behind the scenes[]

  • The Seventh Doctor's digital pocket watch was made from the casing of a common "hunter" style watch and the inner components of a Casio Twin Graph II digital wristwatch.[1]
  • Character Options made replica Tenth Doctor fob watches available in their 2007 toy range.
  • A metal version of the Master's Fob watch was released by Wesco and later it was re-released as 50th Anniversary Collectors FOB Watch for the 50th anniversary, with a new clock face.
  • A more accurate Prop version of Metal Fob watch was released under the title "Chameleon Arch Pocket Watch" by The Celestial Toystore.

External links[]

Footnotes[]

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