10 Times Doctor Who Went Too Far

Doctor Who might be a family show, but the Whoniverse has featured several dark and disturbing moments over the decades...

#DoctorWho #Torchwood

[karachter]

wilf saying "that's what they called them last time" is why i love turn left so much, rest in peace bernard cribbins

[tescobesco]

I loved how dark Capaldi’s era could get. It was amazing. I want more dark doctor who. I really really want more proper scary doctor who

[Trebuchet]

Yes, "Turn Left" is dark. But it's one of the very best episodes ever.

[greeneyes]

Bill Potts being abandoned, transformed and mostly forgotten in her final episode got me especially. Can't blame the creators for not pushing the envelope...

[sanddagger]

I will always applaud the fact that Moffet gave us 2 completely different itterations of the Doctor. For every happy-go-lucky moment of Matt Smith that was a much darker one for Peter Capaldi.

[GerryIII]

Watching the inevitability of every death, the doctor’s discomfort and Adelaide’s suicide makes “Waters of Mars” one of my favorite dark Who episodes.

[ozthebeeman]

i will never ever ever forget the scene where the patient is clicking the button that says pain and the nurse comes in to mute him its so horrid so cruel i have no other option then to love it one of the best scenes ever

[pikachucetthesecond]

The "Don't Cremate Me" scene made 10 year old me terrified of getting cremated after death

And I'm STILL terrified of it.

[raypsychodad]

The Italian family in turn left made me cry, coz it touched on reality. Wilfs line that's what they called it last time was so disturbing and truthful.

[pixywings]

The dark and "Deeply upsetting" parts of the show are what make it so damn good!

And if we're including Torchwood in here then the absolutely most disturbing thing is the episode "Small Worlds." Those fairies were freaking terrifying! The little girl who they wanted to take was even more terrifying than the fairies themselves because A. She knew the fairies protected her and was extremely happy when they violently killed the creepy pedophile who tried to take her. B. Whenever she didn't get her way she threatened people saying the fairies would get them. And C. The creepiest thing about that kid is that she WANTED to go with the fairies and even threatened her own mother with death if she wouldn't let the fairies take her.

[WarDragon]

I feel many people might not have seen this but one dark episode that haunts me to this day is Touchwood: Miracle Day.

To summarise everyone on earth can no longer die while Jack now can. The horrific scene plays when Touchwood infiltrate a camp that houses people who would have died from illness or seroous injury. The world can't cope with the mouths to feed so they use an incinerator to burn groups of people.

The horrific part the ash that remains is still alive combined together.

Touchwood had some of the horrific and motally questionable ideas with sci-fi.

[matthewhenthorn]

Speaking as someone who was genuinely traumatised by The Empty Child and can't be around a gas mask, I feel that one was deserving of a place on this list.

[jshplock]

I always found the Mondassian Cybermen particularly creepy so when they came back and brought Bill into their fold that was nothing short of horrifying

[andrewmorton]

"Turn Left" is one of the best pieces of Science Fiction in the last 2 decades

[foolonthehill]

I love series 3 and 4 of Torchwood because of how realistic it felt. We've never had aliens demanding our children, or a morphic field making everyone on Earth immortal, but if we did the reaction by our governments would be identical to the TV show.

[zyphbehr]

I understand under Torchwood, they felt they could get away with a lot more adult concepts, but it’s been more than 10 years since “Miracle Day” and as and adult, the sometimes very graphic “non-deaths” (they were still living but in all the pain), has stuck with me more than some of these. Such Episode 4- Escape to LA. While the character was a Villan, making the point of crushing Mayor Ellis Hartley Monroe in a car, but on TOP of it, getting a camera through and making a point of SHOWING the person’s eye still looking around, showing she is still ALIVE and living in the pain, isn’t “getting what they deserved” kind of scene, but a “OMG” one. I get they wanted to give the Villian an exit, but didn’t need to do the extra scene with the Eye. There were a lot about those getting burned and we are aware they have “lived” through it, but this was too far.

[StudioGhibliFan]

I thought another Torchwood episode went too far. The one where the little girl is protected by fairies. Her mum wasn't just aware her partner was abusing her daughter, she also wasn't bothered. Her daughter will have made it perfectly clear to her what her partner was doing, yet her mum disregarded her & was going to marry her partner. I could see quite clearly see why the little girl wanted to go with the fairies & I didn't blame her. In this day & age, it's harrowing to think there are people who know their children are being abused & killed & that their parents just don't care as they value their relationship with their child's abuser over the child.

[soopiniao]

Torchwood's Countrycide is easily one of the most horrifying episodes in the whole Whoniverse

[JekaterinaZyryanova]

They really went too far with Bill. She didn't deserve such fate... But in the same time I like that because it shows that traveling with the Doctor in fact is dangerous.

[pandastrix]

The waters of mars still stands in my opinion as the best one off doctor who episode, the concept is so unique and Adelaide’s character was so engaging to watch her fighting her own inevitable history