{"id":934,"date":"2025-07-22T14:41:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/draplenvuxio.com\/?p=934"},"modified":"2025-07-23T09:44:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T09:44:33","slug":"the-7-most-disturbing-doctor-who-episodes-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/draplenvuxio.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/22\/the-7-most-disturbing-doctor-who-episodes-of-all-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The 7 most disturbing Doctor Who episodes of all time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\"Doctor\t<\/div>
Only Doctor Who could make that costume one of the scariest things you\u2019ve ever seen (Picture: BBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For six decades now, Doctor Who<\/a> has disturbed and delighted audiences around the world with terrifying tales of evil aliens and malicious monsters.<\/p>\n

From devious Daleks to sinister Cybermen<\/a>, the Whoniverse is crawling (sometimes literally) with horrors beyond most people\u2019s imagining.<\/p>\n

Yet the question is, what are the most disturbing Doctor Who episodes<\/a>? Well, there are plenty of chilling tales from the Tardis that have forced audiences to hide behind the sofa.<\/p>\n

There are stories like The Satan Pit, The Ark in Space, and who could forget Blink? Honestly, I could spend days curating this list, so to make things easier, I\u2019ve done things a little differently<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve limited myself to the revived era (starting in 2005) and chosen one story (some of these are two-parters) from each Doctor\u2019s run. That means there\u2019s one entry for every Doctor from the Ninth to the Fifteenth, so you get as comprehensive a list as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tGet personalised updates on Doctor Who\t\t\t<\/h2>\n
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Wake up to find news on your TV shows in your inbox every morning with Metro\u2019s TV Newsletter.<\/p>\n

Sign up to our newsletter<\/a> and then select your show in the link we\u2019ll send you so we can get TV news tailored to you.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

So what are you waiting for? Here are the seven most disturbing Doctor Who episodes!\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Doctor Dances\/ The Empty Child<\/h2>\n
\n
\n\t\t\"The\t<\/div>
Are you my Mummy? (Picture: David Tarling\/BBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first truly scary episode of the revival era, this two-part story sees the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston<\/a>) and Rose (Billie Piper<\/a>) track a mysterious ship through time to London during The Blitz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While there, however, the pair learn there are things far more dangerous than German bombs awaiting them as a strange gas mask-wearing child prowls the ruins of the city, desperately searching for his mummy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a long history of body horror in the Whoniverse, but this was the first episode to marry those old ideas with modern effects. <\/p>\n

This leads to arguably the most chilling scene in all of Christopher Eccleston\u2019s run, where Doctor Constantine (Richard Wilson) painfully vomits up a gas mask as he loses his mind and body to the Empty Child\u2019s strange curse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Combine that with a genuinely creepy atmosphere, a razor-sharp script from Steven Moffat and some superb acting, and you\u2019ve a recipe for a truly sinister story. Is it any wonder these two episodes won a 2006 Hugo Award?<\/p>\n

Midnight\u00a0<\/h2>\n
\n
\n\t\t\"Doctor\t<\/div>
Allons-y! (Picture: BBC Studios)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Only the Tenth Doctor (or any of the Doctor\u2019s incarnations, actually) could go on the sci-fi equivalent of a coach trip and end up in a life-or-death situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, it might sound ridiculous, but this terrifying tale sees the Last of the Time Lords go on a solo adventure where he comes face to face with an impossible creature that slowly turns a coach-load of tourists against the Doctor (David Tennant<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

People may be surprised to see I\u2019ve listed Midnight here and not Blink, but honestly, I think this is the scarier story. Why? Well, Midnight is a story where the Doctor\u2019s most powerful weapons, his wit, words and wonderful brain are all turned against him.<\/p>\n

As the mysterious creature grows in power, it takes more and more of him, leaving him an empty husk. It\u2019s only through sheer dumb luck that he manages to save the day, and it\u2019s a story that demonstrates in a universe full of Daleks, Cybermen, and Weeping Angels, there\u2019s no creature more dangerous than a frightened human.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Girl Who Waited<\/h2>\n
\n
\n\t\t\"Doctor\t<\/div>
Gee, Rory. I thought someone with two wives would be happy (Picture: BBC Studios)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An underrated gem, The Girl Who Waited begins with the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith<\/a>), Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill)\u00a0 and Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) landing on the resort world of Apalapucia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What should be a relaxing break becomes a nightmare, though, when Amy is trapped in a faster time stream and the Doctor and Rory are forced to watch Amy grow older and older with no way to help her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What makes The Girl Who Waited such a disturbing episode isn\u2019t its villain or the monster. It\u2019s that it uses time travel to tell a really effective story about Amy\u2019s fears and anxieties while exploring a moral dilemma that even the Doctor can\u2019t talk his way out of.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the final moments of the episode, where our hero betrays and kills Amy (although not the one we know\u2026 it\u2019s all a bit timey wimey), is one of the darkest moments in the series\u2019 history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

World Enough and Time\/The Doctor Falls<\/h2>\n
\n
\n\t\t\"Doctor\t<\/div>
You really don\u2019t want a hole in your chest\u2026 (Picture: BBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi<\/a>), Master (Michelle Gomez) and Bill (Pearl Mackie) investigate a distress call in deep space, they discover a ship trapped in the event horizon of a black hole.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That might sound dangerous enough, but things take an even darker turn when the crew gun down Bill, and she\u2019s taken away by mysterious patients who claim they heal Bill\u2026 more than that, they can make her better than new, whether she likes it or not.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be honest, I never found the new Cybermen that scary. They looked too much like robots, so it was easy to think of them as cybernetic automata.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This two-parter, however, exposes the sheer horror of Cyber conversion by letting you see the human under the steel, a powerful and terrifying reminder that Cybermen are people who have had their humanity ripped away from them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This, coupled with the revelation that the Cybermen are and always have been the Mondasians (and potentially humanity\u2019s) ultimate destiny, is such a horrifying reveal that it gives me chills just thinking about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Power of the Doctor\u00a0<\/h2>\n
\n
\n\t\t\"Doctor\t<\/div>
The Power of the Doctor might be Jodie\u2019s best episode (Picture: James Pardon\/BBC Studios)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Power of the Doctor is the Thirteenth Doctor\u2019s (Jodie Whittaker<\/a>) final story and sees The Daleks, The Cybermen and Rasputin (yes, really) team up to defeat the Doctor once and for all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Okay, I thought long and hard about which of Jodie\u2019s episodes to include, and it really came down to two episodes: this and Village of the Angels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, though, I decided that there\u2019 something far more disturbing about this story for one specific reason. You see, so often the Doctor\u2019s enemies just want the Time Lord dead\u2026 or as dead as an immortal alien can be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here, though, the plan is to change the Doctor permanently <\/em>by forcing her to regenerate into The Master, effectively trapping them in their own body for all eternity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s such a horrifying thought to have \u2013 not to mention the subtext of a man taking a woman\u2019s body without her permission \u2013 that I thought it had to be included on this list even if it\u2019s not as \u2018scary\u2019 as the other stories I chose to include here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wild Blue Yonder<\/h2>\n
\n
\n\t\t\"Doctor\t<\/div>
My arms are too long\u2026 (Picture: James Pardon\/Bad Wolf\/BBC Studios)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After Donna (Catherine Tate) spills coffee on the Tardis controls, she and the Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant\u2026 again) are flung to the edge of the universe, where they encounter an abandoned ship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the duo explore the mysterious vessel, however, they quickly learn the ship might not be as abandoned as they thought.<\/p>\n

Wild Blue Yonder is a deliberately weird episode that makes brilliant use of the uncanny to unsettle viewers and leave them reaching for a sofa cushion to hide behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arguably, though, what makes this episode so effective is that we learn almost nothing about the \u2018Not-Things\u2019 that haunt the ship, with even the normally borderline omniscient Doctor baffled by where they came from and what they wanted. After all, what\u2019s scarier than the unknown?<\/p>\n

73 Yards<\/h2>\n
\n
\n\t\t\"Doctor\t<\/div>
More like \u2018Doctor Where\u2019 in this episode\u2026 (Picture: James Pardon\/Bad Wolf\/BBC Studios)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa<\/a>) accidentally steps inside a fairy circle, he mysteriously disappears, leaving his companion Ruby (Millie Gibson) all alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, not quite <\/em>all alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Everywhere Ruby goes, she\u2019s followed by a strange woman who\u2019s always 73 yards away and seems to terrify anyone who talks to her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Fifteenth Doctor\u2019s era leaned into the supernatural and mystical more than other seasons of New Who.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fitting then that its scariest episode is effectively an old-fashioned ghost story that relies more on an unsettling atmosphere and haunting visuals than big, bombastic scares to frighten you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Doctor Who is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Got a story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk<\/a> entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff<\/a> page \u2013 we\u2019d love to hear from you.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n


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