>>>
>>>>Should I be glad I don't get it?
>>>
>>>It's relatively trivial. The Doctor was confined to Earth for a few
>>>seasons, and UNIT created the identity of "Dr. John Smith" for him.
>>
>>
>>That's not actually what Bob was referring to - he was making a
>>reference to Doctor Zachary Smith, the cowardly, sniveling
>>villain of the piece in Lost in Space (whose catchphrase was
>>"oh, the pain") - but it's true that "Dr. John Smith" is a
>>long-standing alias of the Doctor's. (It's also the name he used when
>>he was hiding out as a 20th-century human schoolteacher in the 2007
>>two-parter "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood".)
>>
>>The middle initial used here, of course, is because "J" is the tenth
>>letter of the modern Basic Latin alphabet.
>>
>Okay. Familiar as I was with the Doctor, I'd not made that
>connection, and never realised they'd given him an ID as John Smith.
>I'd THOUGHT maybe Bob was referring to Lost in Space, but was also
>sure that wasn't quite right either.
>
>Thanx all.

I was actually wondering if it was a reference to E. E. 'Doc' Smith...

dstar