Five Doctor Who Moments That Live In My Head Rent-Free

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of great moments in Doctor Who, but those here are a very particular sort of great moment. They’re ones that hit me in the chest, made me hold my breath and lean forward as they seared themselves into memory. They made me feel…as though the universe had made a sudden swerve, or got slightly bigger. They were exciting in a wondrous way. And they remain so today.

That probably sounds like A Lot. It is A Lot. They’re moments that evoke a lot of emotion in me; that’s why they stay with me. Sometimes it’s obvious why they hit so hard, sometimes it’s because I was six years old and they broke my tiny little brain with wonder. Sometimes I’m not entirely sure why…the acting or direction or writing just warp together in a magical way that’s particularly attuned to what gets to me, and I’m so delighted I can’t help but remember the moment at random times as I’m just going about my day.

So, yes, that was explained brilliantly. I hope I’ve managed to get the gist across of the sort of moment I’m talking about here. For me, they are the most precious ones.

Onwards then, to the Doctor Who moments that live rent-free in my head!

“You’re trapped in a temporal paradox! Styles didn’t cause that explosion and start the wars. You did it yourselves.”

The Third Doctor, Day of the Daleks, Episode

The Daleks have once again successfully invaded Earth, and they had an easy time of it because in the 20th century World War III broke out, and by the time the Daleks arrived, humanity was unable to defend itself. But this time the resistance have nicked the Daleks’ time tech, and plan to go back in time to stop the war before it begins. Woo! An exciting time travel tale in a series about time time travel! Awesome.

All the resistance have to do is kill the British diplomat Reginald Styles – the man who decided to blow up a peace conference, which resulted in an international response that blew up civilisation. No Reginald Styles, no conference for him to blow up. The perfect plan!

The magical moment is when the Doctor figures out that that it wasn’t Styles who blew up the conference, it was the resistance fighters from the future. They, in their war-torn, Dalek invaded Earth, came back in time, and created their war-torn, Dalek invaded Earth. Imagine being six years old and presented with this idea for the very first time. Cause preceding effect??! What madness is this?!

I remember so vividly how giddy I felt as the Doctor explained what had really happened, how happy it made my brain. And every since, I’ve adored paradoxes.

[The War Chief and the Doctor’s eyes meet.]

The War Games, Episode Four

If pressed on my favourite Doctor Who story, I say The War Games. (I qualify it as when you have a show with hundreds of stories, it can be a smidge tricky to pick one single favourite, but The War Games is as close to a real answer as I have.) There are dozens upon dozens of reasons for its brilliance, but there is one moment that stands out above all.

Like Day of the Daleks, I vividly remember seeing this moment for the first time. I did go in with some spoilers. I knew the Time Lords were introduced in the final episode, I knew Jamie and Zoe’s fates, I knew that the War Chief was a Time Lord. I did not know that the moment the Doctor and War Chief first locked eyes was electrifying. That swift recognition, surprise, connection, fear, respect, wtf does it mean that *he’s* here? bouncing back and forth between them in no more that a second or two.

The Doctor has met goodness knows how many people over the years, and none of those meetings comes close to beating this one for a sense of wonder. There’s an aura of more-going-on-between-them-than-I-could-possibly-understand. A sudden, profound elevation of the stakes in the story, and yet no explanation in the moment as to why. It’s just a look. And it’s brilliant.

“When I became a man, I put away childish things. Now abideth faith, hope, love. These three. And the greatest of these is…and the greatest of these is…”

The Curse of Fenric, Episode 2

The Curse of Fenric is another early childhood watch (there’s a bit of a theme here – but when you’re very young so much more of the universe is brand new to you, it’s a lot easier to be hit with wonder) and has fReverend Wainwright, our or five moments that, were this a top fifty list of This Sort of Moment, would be included. As a kid, it felt profoundly meaningful. It has ideas that felt like they were on the very edge of my understanding. Faith, trust, identity – it went deep on themes that were not exactly explored with nuance in Malory Towers. This made it pretty addictive to me; I can’t guess at how many times I rewatched it.

This moment is when the local vicar, brilliantly played by Nicholas Parsons (*insert rant here on how terribly annoyed I was as an adult to discover fans have mocked, *mocked*, his top tier guest starring ways*), stands in his pulpit, addressing an empty church. He recites the First Letter to the Corinthians, and falters, unable to finish. His faith had been challenged in an earlier scene: he’s not afraid of German bombs, but British bombs killing German children? That’s destroyed his belief, so say the vampires, anyway. And here he is, trying desperately to hold on to it, and failing. He accepts it’s gone, and that breaks him in a different way.

That crumbling away of something so fundamental to Wainright’s identity, that’s something wondrous in the most tragic of ways.

“Did you think I cared for you so much betraying me would make a difference?”

The Twelfth Doctor, Dark Water

A new Who moment! One that twists up my insides in the best way. The first time I watched Clara destroy the Doctor’s TARDIS keys one by one as she tried to persuade him to take her back in time so she could save Danny Pink’s life, I expected anger from the Doctor. Maybe that was naïve of me, but, hey, it meant that when the final key was destroyed the Doctor’s response hit me hard. Because he’s not angry, he’s kind, he’s empathetic. She betrays him, and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t poison his love for her. For him, it changes nothing between them. And there’s something incredibly powerful in that, his steadfastness, his strength of feeling.

Is this emotionally healthy? That’s a scale. How far would she have to go for us to be morally outraged, and appalled if the Doctor forgives her? I don’t know, but certainly further than melting TARDIS keys, at least for me.

The twelfth Doctor and Clara are one of my most beloved TARDIS teams. The chemistry between them, their trust, and understanding, commitment, and intensity to one another is something special. Even when it really does become unhealthy, that only makes it more compelling. And this is the moment for them.

There are other moments in New Who that hit wondrously hard, but none so much as this one. It’s utterly beautiful. It breaks my heart then puts it back together.

“Appreciate it? Appreciate it? What, you commit mass destruction and murder on a scale that’s almost inconceivable and you ask me to appreciate it? Just because you happen to have made a brilliantly conceived toy out of the mummified remains of planets”
“Devil storms, Doctor! It is not a toy!”
“Then what’s it for? Huh? What are you doing? What could possibly be worth all this?”

The Doctor and the Captain, The Pirate Planet, Episode 3

Probably the most underappreciated moment on the list, one that I’d cheerfully place higher than any of those iconic moments in Genesis of the Daleks, and I love Genesis of the Daleks. (Not saying Genesis doesn’t have incredible moments! But they don’t have particular power of the emotional hit I’m exploring here.)

The Pirate Planet overflows with charm, wit, and weird telepaths. There’s a talking robot parrot, a delightful flying car, a moving walkway that clearly requires better safety regulations. And then there’s this moment, where all playfulness is stripped away and you see the Doctor’s fury. And the fourth Doctor’s fury is a thing to behold, especially at this point in his run – the much lighter, more fun Graham Williams’ era – where we expect charm and whimsy at every turn.

The first time I saw this scene, I recall suddenly being acutely aware that this silly pirate captain was actually terrifyingly dangerous, and the Doctor’s fury, the depth of his moral disgust, shocked me. Not because it was unwarranted, but because his fury at evil was so rarely this naked. And that made it all the more magical. It’s magnificent, Tom Baker at his height, magnificent. Hits you in the chest and remind you that, yes, fury in the face of evil is an entirely legitimate response. Anger can be a positive thing. And the Doctor’s anger is spectacular.

And that’s the lot! It was pretty tricky getting this list down to only five moments; Doctor Who is not stingy on the wonder.

Finally, a quick bit of promo: I have a Doctor Who book coming out in April! Where We Stand, Where We Fall is all about six areas of politics in Doctor Who that I find particularly fascinating, and that the show has been enthusiastically engaging with across it’s sixty plus years. There are epic ramblings and insights into how the show handles transhumanism, colonialism, environmentalism, nuclear anxiety, feminism, and fear of technology (aka We Welcome Our New AI Overlords). And it’s available now to pre-order at Herne Books.