10 Times Doctor Who Made Obvious Mistakes
Unlike the main character, Doctor Who's producers sadly don't have access to a time machine.
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00:00Everybody makes mistakes, even the Doctor, who at least has a time machine and infinite
00:05regenerations with which to make amends.
00:07In the high-pressure world of television production, however, there's never enough time and never
00:12enough money, as the constant grind to get something up on screen supersedes any concerns
00:17over how that thing will look or how poor the script is.
00:21So, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhoCulture, here with 10 Times Doctor Who Made Obvious
00:26Mistakes
00:2710.
00:28The Twelfth Doctor's Time Slot
00:30The Capaldi era would have likely done far better in the Sunday evening slot occupied
00:35by Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor.
00:38The issue with the 8pm, sometimes 8.30pm Saturday evening time slot for Peter Capaldi's episodes
00:44was that it was too late, designed to sit between Strictly Come Dancing and the subsequent
00:49results show.
00:50However, younger kids were being put to bed by the time the theme tune kicked in, while
00:53the older kids, who grew up with Matt Smith's Doctor, were out drinking cider on park benches.
00:58Worse still, the constant shuffling of start times only served to confuse those who stayed
01:03at home.
01:04If the Capaldi era had aired on a Sunday evening after Countryfile, however, it would have
01:08had a far more captive audience.
01:10In an era where pop culture juggernaut shows no longer air on Saturday tea time, instead
01:15preferring slots like Sunday, like House of the Dragon or The Last of Us, or Friday, like
01:20Star Trek Picard, maybe Doctor Who doesn't sit comfortably on a Saturday night anymore.
01:25It's not a hospital soap-like casualty, nor is it a glitzy light entertainment show.
01:31It's a prestige family sci-fi drama that might be better placed elsewhere in the week.
01:379.
01:38The Dalek Voices in Day of the Daleks
01:41When Day of the Daleks aired in January 1972, it had been five years since the last Dalek
01:47story, The Evil of the Daleks.
01:49In an age where repeat screenings were rare and VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming services
01:55were non-existent, it's no surprise that voice actors Oliver Gilbert and Peter Messerlein
02:00struggled to convincingly replicate the voices for this classic Third Doctor serial.
02:05However, it's not really Gilbert or Messerlein's fault, as the original Dalek voice actors
02:10were all still working when Day of the Daleks went into production.
02:13It's unclear why producer Barry Lett or director Paul Bernard didn't hire old pros like Roy
02:19Skelton, David Graham, or Peter Hawkins to reprise their roles, but on reflection, that's
02:24precisely what they should have done.
02:25This mistake led to the Daleks sounding quite shrill and unthreatening, made worse by the
02:30small number of Daleks revealed on screen.
02:38But on the plus side, Day of the Daleks is a classic in spite of this casting mistake
02:42and paltry Dalek count.
02:44It's essentially Terminator with Daleks, and both Terrence Dick's novelization and
02:49the 2011 CGI update of the story shows off its full glory.
02:54And of course, Nicholas Briggs steps in to record the new Dalek voices for that 2011
03:00update.
03:01Number 8.
03:02Shooting the Battle of Ransgor Av Koloss's first draft
03:05In a 2022 interview with Doctor Who magazine, Chris Chibnall revealed that Jodie Whittaker's
03:11first series finale, The Battle of Ransgor Av Koloss, was a first draft script that didn't
03:16feel enough like a finale.
03:18He's not wrong either.
03:19The whole plot of Tim Shaw attempting to use his planet smasher against Earth should have
03:24felt much more epic than it ultimately did.
03:26Having spent time introducing Yazza's family in previous episodes, it would have made sense
03:31to cut back to them watching in horror as Tim Shaw's plan was carried out.
03:35Instead, there was an overhead shot of a CGI Earth looking mildly scuffed from some sci-fi
03:40energy rays.
03:41Chibnall stated that he had to work on rewriting the scripts of other series 11 writers, which
03:46led to delays in redrafting the finale.
03:49It's a shame, because there's genuinely a decent story at the heart of The Battle of
03:53Ransgor Av Koloss.
03:54Not honestly, there is.
03:56It's a story about how travelling with the Doctor has helped Graham to move on from his
04:00grief as he chooses to let Tim Shaw live, rather than executing the toothy villain for
04:05causing Grace's death.
04:06The rewrite could have developed that further and excised the more extraneous sci-fi archetypes
04:12that clutter up the episode.
04:13Also, they could have chosen a title that was easier to pronounce.
04:17Just saying.
04:187.
04:19The Trial of a Time Lord There's an admirable degree of showmanship
04:23in John Nathan-Turner's decision to respond to the BBC's declining opinion of Doctor
04:28Who by putting the Doctor on trial.
04:30However, there's also a fundamental flaw in that plan, which is that it required viewers
04:35to sign on for a 14-week serial that had a fairly nonsensical plot due to the numerous
04:41behind-the-scenes issues that plagued the writing process.
04:44BBC One controller Michael Grade definitely set John Nathan-Turner up to fail by claiming
04:50that the show was cheap, but refusing to increase its budget.
04:53Still, ever-the-excellent producer John Nathan-Turner managed to do some incredible things to make
04:58the show look a little bit better.
05:00The flyby of the Gallifreyan space station is a fantastic opening sequence, but it rapidly
05:05falls back into the cheap nastiness that Grade had previously singled out.
05:10Colin Baker has softened slightly, but then a grotesquely miserable story like Mind Warp
05:15appears, which shows the Doctor being appalling to Perry.
05:18Yes, we know that the footage has been manipulated by the Valiard, but the issue remains that
05:23those who had been turned off Doctor Who by the grisliness of the Doctor throttling Perry
05:28in the Twin Dilemma wouldn't be keen to carry on watching when they see him chain her to a rock.
05:34Number 6.
05:35The New Paradigm Daleks
05:37You have to admire Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss for trying something new with Victory
05:42of the Daleks.
05:43Introducing a whole new class of colour-coded pepper pots with foreboding-sounding rolls
05:48feels like the perfect way to reinvigorate a decades-old scary monster for a new generation.
05:53But then, these multi-coloured, Duplo-style Daleks come rolling out of the dry ice to
05:58face off against Matt Smith's eleventh Doctor.
06:01Extermine, oh my god, what is that?
06:03The BBC admirably stuck by its big plasticky Daleks, giving them a Radio Times cover and
06:09promoting them as a new generation.
06:11However, it was very quickly agreed that a mistake had been made.
06:14In a commentary with Dalek aficionados Nicholas Briggs and Barnaby Edwards, Mark Gatiss noted
06:20that he didn't like the new shape of the Daleks, particularly the strange hump on their
06:25backs.
06:25Moffat clearly agreed, as he quickly reverted to the bronze RTD-era Daleks, stating that
06:30the Paradigm Daleks were the Officer Class, which sounds like a wibbly-wobbly writerly
06:35white lie to cover the fact that they'd spent a lot of money on a Dalek design that
06:40broke with the iconic silhouette.
06:41Next time, maybe don't design your Daleks with the sole purpose of making them look
06:45lickable.
06:46Seriously, that was Moffat's note to the design department.
06:48He wanted kids to want to lick them.
06:51Madness.
06:52Madness, I tell you!
06:53Number 5.
06:54Shooting almost an entire Doctor Who story on green screen
06:59Now that Doctor Who is about to be a global smash on Disney+, it has access to the virtual
07:04screens used by productions such as The Mandalorian.
07:07It's speculated that this technology will be used to realise Shooty Gap was impossible
07:12new TARDIS set, but that remains to be seen.
07:15Whatever the truth and whatever the result, it can't be any worse than what fans got
07:18with the 1978 serial Underworld.
07:22Underworld has the dubious honour of being the Tom Baker serial that is the worst regarded.
07:27One of the reasons for this, aside from the naff sci-fi retelling of Greek mythology,
07:31is that many of the locations are realised using colour separation overlay.
07:36Essentially, Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, and the guest cast performed their scenes in front
07:41of a big green sheet.
07:42This wasn't some bold attempt at pushing Doctor Who into the future of virtual sets,
07:47however.
07:47The construction of the Minyan ship set, one of the few physical locations in the story,
07:52was so expensive that they had to cut costs.
07:55So, 1970s Doctor Who was forced to push its love of green screen to the very limit.
08:01Number 4.
08:02Putting Dalek's sec on the radio times
08:05Russell T. Davis is unquestionably modern Doctor Who's greatest showman, and he knows
08:11how to put the show into the spotlight.
08:13However, RTD is just as capable of making mistakes as those before and after him,
08:19and one of his biggest errors was revealing the Dalek-Sec human hybrid
08:23before it was introduced in the cliffhanger of Daleks in Manhattan.
08:27Worse than the massive spoiler, the artfully shot cover photo on the radio times looked
08:32amazing.
08:32Sec was a glistening and horrific fusion of coloured, mutant, and human face cast in
08:38half-light and looking utterly terrifying.
08:40The on-screen representation in Daleks in Manhattan really didn't have any of the menace
08:45of that radio times picture.
08:47The moving tentacles looked ridiculous, while the rasping American accent didn't contain
08:52any of the wickedness of the iconic Davros.
08:55The radio times cover was a huge mistake because it raised expectations and promised something
09:00the show didn't deliver.
09:01It's hardly surprising that after this unloved attempt at a new Dalek mouthpiece,
09:06RTD brought back Davros for the next series.
09:093. The Sixth Doctor throttling Perry
09:13After the beige coat and cricket whites of The Fifth Doctor, it was a sharp contrast
09:18to have the bombastic, technicolour Sixth Doctor replace him.
09:21As actor Colin Baker had come from cruel, villainous roles in BBC shows like The Roads
09:26to Freedom and Brothers, it was a smart casting coup to subvert expectations of who could
09:32play one of the best hero roles on TV.
09:34However, his first serial, The Twin Dilemma, skewed far too much toward the villainy and
09:39arrogance that Baker had played in other roles.
09:42Now, being snarky to Perry was nothing new.
09:45The Fifth Doctor used to treat Adric and Tegan similarly, but was clearly too scared to have
09:49a pop at Turlough after he once tried to brain him with a rock.
09:52However, it's when the Sixth Doctor turns on Perry and chokes her on the floor of the
09:57TARDIS that it becomes clear that this abrasive Doctor has already gone too far.
10:01The Doctor is almost immediately repentant for his actions, deciding to exile himself
10:06to a barren planet, but the damage is already done.
10:09The Sixth Doctor struggled to escape the shadow cast by the mistakes made in The Twin Dilemma,
10:14making it hard for his era to communicate that he was a reassuring presence in an increasingly
10:19dark and violent Doctor Who universe.
10:22Number 2.
10:22The Thirteenth Doctor having three companions.
10:26For something as historic as Doctor Who's first female Doctor, it felt counterintuitive
10:31to lumber her with three companions.
10:33No disrespect to Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, or Mandip Gill, who were all excellent, but
10:38one of them would have sufficed.
10:40It was clear from the developing relationship between the Thirteenth Doctor and Yaz, the
10:44touching way that she stands up for Ryan's dad, or in the comedy partnership between
10:48her and Graham, that the perfect pairing was in there somewhere.
10:51The three-companion line-up worked for the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan, because
10:56the Doctor was an older man, so Ian could do the fighting, Barbara was the brains, and
11:00Susan was the audience surrogate.
11:02Plus, classic Who serials were way longer than modern Who episodes, allowing more time
11:06for each companion to get their due.
11:08That said, the Peter Davison era had already proved that a young Doctor with a large group
11:13of companions didn't work, which is why they're still scraping Adrick off the surface
11:18of prehistoric Earth.
11:19Having so many companions in Jodie Whittaker's first series, interacting in a cramped and
11:24unwieldy TARDIS set, meant that she struggled to shine.
11:28Again, no fault of Whittaker, but when writers are trying to give four characters substantial
11:32material in an hour of television, it's inevitable that some will get shortchanged.
11:37Shortchanging the title character, however, is a major mistake.
11:41Number 1.
11:42The Nightmare in Silver Cybermen
11:44While running zombies have become slightly more acceptable in the years following 28
11:49Days Later, the sprinting Cybermen of Neil Gaiman's difficult second Doctor Who episode
11:54haven't.
11:55The design is sleek and therefore feels slightly more like there are cybernetically augmented
12:00human remains housed within.
12:01However, the decision to make the Nightmare in Silver Cybermen infinitely adaptable was
12:06a step too far.
12:07They felt like machines learning how to respond to threats rather than the cold, logical cyborgs
12:13that were first created in 1966.
12:15The horror of the Cybermen is that there's a person inside each one, whose personality
12:20and emotions have been stripped away from them.
12:22They're augmented by all manner of horrifying cyber attachments, and there's a reason for
12:26that teardrop design on their eyes.
12:28It's telling that after introducing these comic book robot warriors, Steven Moffat went
12:33on to write two of the most horrific Cybermen stories ever told.
12:37Darkwater and Death in Heaven has the Cybermen offer a cure for death itself, while World
12:42Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls mutilated the Doctor's companion into cyber form and
12:47had her remain conscious of her fate after the procedure.
12:50After all the body horror, game and cyber sprinters now feel like a distant, unwanted
12:55memory.
12:56And that concludes our list.
12:57If you can think of any other examples, then do let us know in the comments below.
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13:10I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words of River Song herself, goodbye,
13:14sweeties.