I’m a fan of Doctor Who but not in a seen-and-memorized-every-episode kind of way, so I thought I would asking the Teeming Millions if this question has ever been addressed in the show:
Earth seems to have a lot of alien problems. Every other week there’s a new menace discovered or invasion of some sort, and every significant event seems to involve aliens in some way. Creation of the Earth? Aliens. Life begins? Aliens. Destruction of the dinosaurs? Aliens. 2012 Olympics? Aliens there too. This was even lampshaded a few times in the Tennant years - in the Space Titanic episode (“Voyage of the Damned”, I think) everyone leaves London at Christmas after the last two Christmases see invasions, and in “Turn Left” we get the full effect of all the alien-meddling without the Doctor’s intervention.
But why? Is this ever explained? Is there something about Earth that makes it so attractive to aliens or does this happen to every habitable planet? And why in particular is there a giant bulleye’s on London?
Naturally I understand that there are practical reasons for this - the show is made in the UK and people don’t want to watch a show about things always happening out in space. I’m just wondering if there is an in-show explanation that I missed somewhere.
Apparently, Humans are Special. Look at all of the Doctors travels to the far future, the very far future, and the ginormously far future: the universe, or at least our corner of it, always seems dominated by humans.
Besides, who says other planets don’t have wave after wave of alien visitors too? The fact that the Doctor keeps coming back here is because he likes us, not necessarily because we need him the most.
I know the Doctor hangs out with humans because he likes us. I just wasn’t sure whether the constant onslaught of alien interference happened everywhere or was just a localized phenomenon.
He’s visited Skaro (homeworld of the Daleks) several times, and generally on those the only aliens are him and his companions.
He’s had a few visits to Earth where the enemies are locals - the Cybus Cybermen are local to Pete’s World, so before they invaded the main universe, they counted. Silurians are native to Earth (and were here before we were), similarly the Sea Devils (who are related to the Silurians).
To be fair, I doubt the Daleks were really all that tolerant of alien invasions; I also doubt there were many outsiders on Gallifrey, either. Those two planets were probably the exception that proves the rule.
If we restrict it to “non-native life forms excluding the Doctor and his companions” then, oddly, Skaro, Mondas are the only two I can think of. IOW the home planets of the Daleks and the Cybermen seem to be the only planets in the universe that were never visited by aliens as far as we know. While it might seem like that’s because the natives are so kick-arse, they were both inhabited by basic humans before they transformed *themselves *into monsters. Yet Earth was visited by aliens *at least *half a dozen times before the industrial era.
As for why Earth gets more visitors, the real world explanation is that it’s cheaper. Within the story it’s not clear the Earth does get so many more. If we exclude the years when the Doctor was stuck on Earth then maybe 1/4 of all the stories focus on Earth. But as Alessan notes, the Doctor spends a lot of time on Earth, and whenever he goes anywhere else he nearly always runs into aliens too. So Earth probably isn’t unusual at all.
You could also probably make the case that its invaded so often because the Doctor stops them. After all, if a Sontaran invasion in the 14th century had succeeded then the Earth would be a Sontaran colony and the other races could not invade it. It is the fact that the Earth has never been successfully invaded that makes it look like an easy target. Plenty of other places have been successfully invaded.
Terror of the Zygons
Planet of Evil
Nigel Bennett’s Difficult Maths Exam
Pyramids of Mars
No Life at All on Pluto
The Android Invasion
Marks and Spencer
Planets the Doctor visited with no non-native life:
Zanek in “The Pirate Planet”
Tara in “The Androids of Tara” (IIRC, there’s no indication the people there are non-native).
Kastria in “The Hand of Fear”
Technically true, but not really accurate since Zanek itself had visited multiple other planets and still contained one of them. So it had contained non-native life forms numerous times in the past, albeit breifly. It’s a bit like saying that a butterfly net has never been visited by a butterfly. Technically true, but not really accurate.
Nope, it’s an important plot point that the baddie knows the history of the Time Lords. So the planet must have been previously visited by at least the Time Lords. Of course when the Doctor visits it has no life of any sort, indigenous or otherwise.
In Destiny of the Daleks there is a large contingency of humans who were brought there as slave laborers, and a Movellan invasion force. Also Gallifrey was invaded by the Vardans (I think that was their name) and the Sontarans. So, Mondas is the only place in the known “Whoniverse” that was never visited by alien races.
I vaguely recall a Jon Pertwee story (I think it was Day of the Daleks) in which companion Jo asked why the Daleks wanted to invade Earth. The Doctor answered that it was because building fleets of interstellar warships needs an awful lot of metal, and that “Earth is particularly rich in heavy minerals.”
Also, it is on the outskirts of the galaxy, so that any aliens travelling from another galaxy would likely stumble upon it first.
The Doctor seemed to have started his adventures on Earth. He was hiding out there after first stealing the TARDIS. And humans were his first non-Galifreyan companions. I think he just grew fond of us over time.
Furthermore, nearly all benevolent races seem to be at least quasi humanoid. Maybe he just likes defending people who look like him.
(I won’t mention the movie’s explanation if you won’t.)
One reason that so many aliens come to Earth is because of the presence of The Doctor. A lot of them are old enemies of his who have come looking for him. If, for instance, the 3rd Doctor had not been exiled to Earth, The Master would not have come there, and wouldn’t have brought several different alien invasion forces with him.
Another reason is given in Spearhead From Space, episode 1.
**BRIGADIER: **Figures from the Institute of Space Studies, Baltimore. Do you realise that in our section of the galaxy, there are over five hundred planets capable of supporting life? LIZ: Why is Earth any more likely to be attacked now than during the last fifty thousand years? BRIGADIER: In the last decade, we’ve been sending probes deeper and deeper into space. We’ve drawn attention to ourselves, Miss Shaw.
