Distress call A distress call was any signal that requested assistance . It was typically sent by an individual or group that encountered a problem they could not handle on their own . The purpose of the signal was to summon those who could help . The Twelfth Doctor loved distress calls , and considered them " [ his ] theme tune " . As he had learned , " You only see the true face of the universe when it ' s asking for your help . " ( TV : " Oxygen " ) According to the Fourth Doctor , the first rule after surviving a crash landing was to set up a distress beacon . Indeed , it was what a survivor Rutan Scout intended to do after crashing on Fang Rock . ( TV : " Horror of Fang Rock " ) Most Dalek s could emit an automatic distress call if their casings were tampered with . ( TV : " Planet of the Daleks " ) In the year 37 , 166 the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith responded to a distress call from Zeta Minor . A space crew landed shortly after their arrival on the planet . ( TV : " Planet of Evil " ) Lord Cardinal Hemal sent a distress call to the Fifth Doctor to investigate a Time Lord murder . It was soon discovered that the murder had been caused by a vampire . ( COMIC : " Blood Invocation " ) When Turlough and the Fifth Doctor went to Sarn , Turlough sent a distress call to Trion requesting assistance for the people , who were threatened by a volcanic eruption during the Time of Fire . ( TV : " Planet of Fire " ) When they learned of the imminent arrival of a blue star to their solar system , the Antarian s sent out a distress call , but were shortly afterwards wiped out by the Valeron s , who also destroyed their world , with Dynil the only survivor . ( PROSE : " A Universe Called Fred " ) The Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones received a distress call from New Earth when the Cybermen and Judoon joined forces to catalogue all the humans on the planet . ( COMIC : " In - Flight Entertainment " ) Alonso Frame sent a distress call for the " Titanic " to be salvaged . ( TV : " Voyage of the Damned " ) K9 was capable of sending an emergency distress call , as K9 Mark 2 attempted to do when he was attacked by the Anubian Nehetka . ( TV : " Curse of Anubis " ) Hundreds of Time Lord s , who were stranded in the bubble universe by House , used hypercube s to send distress calls . The Corsair ' s hypercube arrived in the main universe and found the Doctor ' s TARDIS . After the Eleventh Doctor arrived in the bubble universe , he heard the distress calls on Nephew ' s translation sphere and assumed this meant there were living Time Lords . Unfortunately , all the Doctor found was a cabinet filled with hypercubes , as House had murdered every Time Lord whom it had encountered . ( TV : " The Doctor ' s Wife " ) During the Battle of Demons Run , the Doctor had a squad of Dalek - upgraded Spitfire s destroy the communications array of Demon ' s Run so Colonel Manton would not be able send a distress call to his fleet . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) The Eleventh Doctor also picked up a distress call inside his TARDIS from Terrin and Alyst Blakely , who were being attacked by Dalek s . ( PROSE : " The Dalek Generation " ) Renegade Time Lord Drax made the Shadow a device which would transmit an Intergalactic Computer Distress Signal , which he then used to capture K9 Mark II . The Fourth Doctor picked it up in the TARDIS , and used a portable receiver to try to find the source , but was captured instead . Drax claimed to the Doctor that he had built it to try to escape from the Shadow , but that it had gone missing . ( TV : " The Armageddon Factor " ) A sentient cell culture ( the Culture ) , endangered by a virus infection , was able to send a telepath ic distress call to the Seventh Doctor . ( COMIC : " Culture Shock " )