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If even half of these happened, Doctor Who would've been quite different indeed.
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00:00It's no secret that TV shows like Doctor Who chop and change a lot between the scripting
00:05phase and the end result. And Doctor Who is no exception to this rule. While some of these
00:09amendments are minor, like the companion standing a centimetre to the left, or there's seven Daleks
00:15in the scene instead of six, or David Tennant appears because he often does do that, some
00:19was so huge that they would have changed the course of the show. And so with that in mind,
00:24I'm Ellie with WhoCulture, here with ten Doctor Who deleted scenes that would have changed
00:30everything.
00:31Number 10. A load of pants in the Shakespeare code.
00:35In this underrated Series 3 adventure involving Big Billy Shakespeare, witches, and a missing
00:40play, a subtle piece of comedy plays out. Martha, who is head over heels for the Doctor,
00:46is left embarrassed when he obliviously offers to share a bed with her. It's cringy enough
00:50as it is, but unfortunately for poor Miss Jones, this scene was nearly a lot worse. The original
00:57version saw the tenth Doctor stripped down to his undies. No, no, really. Before getting
01:02into bed. This makes the situation a million times more embarrassing for Martha, and for
01:07the audience watching at home. Thankfully, the scene was rewritten, because the creators
01:11deemed it inappropriate. You don't say.
01:14Ten already gets a ton of flack for his treatment of Martha, so just imagine what the backlash would
01:19have been to him showing off his budgie smugglers right in front of her. Considering the more
01:24sensitive world we live in today, what might have seemed like harmless comedy in 2007 could
01:30have seriously come back to bite the show in the… well, you know where. You almost saw it.
01:35Number 9. Playing Capaldi off in The Zygon Inversion.
01:40Peter Capaldi is, not to mince words, a bloody good actor. Capable of comedy, drama, and everything
01:47in between, the Scot commands the screen in everything he does, and his time as the Doctor
01:52was no exception. Perhaps his finest piece of acting came in the Series 9 episode The
01:57Zygon Inversion. During a tense standoff between Kate Stewart and a Zygon disguised as Clara,
02:02the Twelfth Doctor unleashes a tirade against them both, all about the dangers and futility
02:08of war. It's a moving, timeless speech, framing conflict as a pointless endeavour while promoting
02:14the positives of diplomacy. Capaldi delivers every line perfectly, balancing the character's rage with
02:20the guilt of the Doctor's past actions on the battlefield. But as good as the finished product
02:24is, more of this monologue exists. According to writer Peter Harness, the speech was scripted to
02:30be way longer than it actually was, with sections of it cut from the final episode. Capaldi himself
02:35read some of the dropped lines at a convention in New Zealand in 2015. You can have too much of a good
02:42thing, though. The speech is perfect as it is, and an elongated version would have risked ruining one
02:47of the greatest moments in the show's history. Number 8. This is the BBC in The Keys of Marinus.
02:54First Doctor serial, The Keys of Marinus, isn't about our heroes being locked out of their houses,
03:00but rather a quest to restore a supercomputer. It also very nearly revealed a key part of the
03:05Doctor's origin story. In an early version of the story, the Doctor revealed why he and granddaughter
03:10Susan were on Earth during the events of An Unearthly Child, the very first Doctor Who serial,
03:15and why he was in a bit of a grump during that time. The TARDIS scanner was broken, typical,
03:21and it was only showing images in black and white. So who does the Doctor turn to in his time of need?
03:26Why, the British Broadcasting Corporation, of course. The Doctor was on Earth visiting the BBC,
03:32seeking help to fix the TARDIS scanner. He would, however, find them infernally secretive.
03:37This is all kinds of meta, especially when you take into account that The Keys of Marinus is in
03:42black and white, not colour. Revealing that the Doctor had visited the actual BBC would have been
03:47a bonkers idea, but this sequence was removed before filming, probably for the best.
03:53Number 7. Wardrobe Malfunction in Twice Upon a Time.
03:57Sticking with the first Doctor now and his reinvention at the hands of David Bradley.
04:02In the 2017 Christmas special Twice Upon a Time, the Twelfth Doctor meets his original
04:07self, as played by Bradley. The two have a chinwag, rescue a soldier, and then go their
04:12separate ways to regenerate into a new form. Regeneration is the subject of this entry,
04:18as Twice Upon a Time almost answered a question about the process that had gone unanswered for
04:22decades. When the first Doctor regenerated into the second Doctor in the Tenth Planet,
04:27he famously changed clothes too. This has been a question mark for all this time, but
04:33Twice Upon a Time almost explained it away. Writer Stephen Moffat confirmed this in an
04:38interview, but he never actually revealed what the answer was going to be, because the scene
04:42was cut. This could have potentially been a huge deal, revealing something about regeneration
04:47that we didn't know before, while also solving a decades-old plot hole.
04:51Of course, now that we've seen the Thirteenth Doctor's regeneration also feature a clothes change,
04:57maybe some answers are imminent. Or maybe Neil Patrick Harris is just messing with us.
05:02Number 6. The Voice of Reason in The Bells of St. John
05:06The Bells of St. John is the episode where the Doctor finally meets the proper version of
05:11Clara Oswald, after running into two different incarnations of her. Jenna Coleman earning the
05:16triple paycheck there. What a boss!
05:18In the episode, the Eleventh Doctor meets Clara in modern-day London, after she is given the TARDIS's
05:23phone number by a mysterious woman. That woman would turn out to be Missy, the latest incarnation
05:28of the Master who first appeared in the next series. However, a deleted moment almost gave her a bigger
05:35part to play in this episode, in which she is merely referred to as the woman in the shop.
05:40Towards the end of the story, the Doctor would have received another phone call. Rather than trying
05:44to sell him insurance, the voice on the other end would have instructed him to trust this new
05:48version of Clara, and to take her with him. An alternate version of this scene would have had
05:53the voice telling the Doctor, run you clever boy, and save her, echoing one of Clara's most iconic
06:00phrases. While Missy presumably wouldn't have been revealed here, incorporating her in such a direct
06:05way would have made a great tease for what was to come. Admittedly, this would have been totally
06:10unnecessary, which is likely why it was cut. Number 5. Liquid Courage in Father's Day.
06:17In Father's Day, Rose Tyler asks the Ninth Doctor to take her back to the day of her father's death
06:23so she can be with him when he dies. Instead, she ends up saving him, creating a paradox with
06:28disastrous consequences. Later on, Rose's dad Pete does the right thing and jumps in front of the car
06:34that was meant to kill him in the first place. But flinging yourself in front of a moving vehicle
06:39isn't an easy task. As such, Pete very nearly had some extra help, as he was at one point going to be
06:46shown taking a swig of wine. However, a lot of kids watched Doctor Who, and drawing a link between
06:51consuming alcohol and bravery was not a message the BBC wanted to send its young audience. This moment
06:56would have also changed how we viewed Pete's sacrifice, one of the strongest emotional beats of
07:01this series. Consequently, the wine scene was cut, though if you look closely, Pete can actually be
07:07seen taking a swig of drink right before his final conversation with Rose, so fragments of this scene
07:12did actually survive. Number 4. More than meets the eye in Survival. Survival is perhaps the most
07:20ironically named Doctor Who serial of all time, as it was the final one to air during the show's
07:25original run. At one point in time, the serial was also set to drop this massive bombshell.
07:31Thank heavens it didn't, as fans would have been waiting almost two decades for a follow-up.
07:35The revelation in question would have come from the seventh Doctor, while in conversation with
07:39the Master at the very end of the serial. After a battle on the planet of the Cheetah People,
07:45yep, that's a thing, both characters were originally supposed to transport back to Earth,
07:49where the Master would accuse the Doctor of not being a Time Lord anymore. Shockingly,
07:53the Doctor would have revealed that his nemesis was right. He would go on to say that he had
07:59evolved into something new, and that he was now multi-talented. However, producer John Nathan
08:05Turner decided not to include these lines, feeling they were too explicit in how they hinted at a
08:10different past for the Doctor. It goes without saying that meddling with the Doctor's backstory
08:14would have huge ramifications for the show. That said, considering how little an impact the
08:19Timeless Child has had, maybe not. Number 3. Here comes the bogeyman in Hyde.
08:25The episode, eventually called Hyde, went through a surprising number of changes before it hit the
08:30small screen. Written by Luthor creator Neil Cross, Hyde was originally called Phantoms of the Hex,
08:37which is a much cooler name, but let's not dwell on that. Instead of the crooked man-villain that ended
08:42up appearing in the actual broadcast, the episode almost contained a throwback to Gallifrey's distant
08:47past. Cross wanted the villain to be the Lost Lord, an ancient Time Lord locked in a prison
08:52called the Hex. The Lost Lord had been stuck there so long that he had become a myth, basically
08:58Gallifrey's very own bogeyman. So the Doctor would have been seriously spooked when he learned that he
09:04was real. In the end, the plot was drastically changed to feature the two crooked men searching
09:09for each other in a 1970s mansion. While the end result was fine, imagine how much more exciting Hyde
09:15would have been if it had introduced a brand new Time Lord. Even after all these years, there's still
09:21so much about Gallifrey we don't know, so getting little nuggets like this every so often would go a
09:27long way towards making the planet more interesting. Also, Lost Lord sounds like a punk band, and that
09:33is exactly the sort of energy Doctor Who needs.
09:362. Brigadier Consequences in Battlefield
09:40Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, the Brigadier to his mates, was one of the most stable parts of
09:46Doctor Who's original run. Though he appeared in the Sarah Jane Adventures in 2008, his last proper
09:52appearance in Doctor Who was in the final season serial Battlefield, and this was very nearly his
09:58final appearance full stop. The original plan for this serial, as approved by Nicholas Courtney
10:03himself, would have seen the Brigadier sacrifice himself during a battle with the Destroyer of Worlds.
10:08He would have called in an airstrike against the creature, getting himself killed in the process.
10:13This would have changed so much about the show. Not only would we not have got the Brig's
10:17appearances in the Sarah Jane Adventures, or potentially in the Big Finish audio dramas,
10:22but we would have had to accept that one of the most beloved characters in the entire series
10:26died a brutal death. Thankfully, the Brigadier's life was spared when the creators couldn't go through
10:31with it. Quite right, too. Number 1. What's in the Pit in The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit?
10:38Matt Jones's first and only Doctor Who credit is a highly underrated one, and first introduces us to
10:44recurring aliens, the Ood. Oh, and we also discover that the actual devil is real. But the Ood, though!
10:50They're adorable! The action revolves around a planet orbiting a black hole and the dangers that lie
10:56beneath its surface. Trapped under the planet is a horrifying beast called The Beast. Jeez, guys,
11:02try a bit harder next time, eh? No, no, no, no. You don't get to name things. I'm the Doctor. I do the
11:07naming. The Pit wasn't always going to be Satan's humble abode, however. In fact, at one point,
11:12the creative team had absolutely no idea what was going to be down there. Many ideas were pitched as
11:17to who or what would be dwelling in the cave. Intriguingly, Davros, the creator of the Daleks,
11:23was considered for a time, as was the Doctor's mortal enemy, the Master. As we now know,
11:29both of these iconic villains would appear in New Who over the next few years. So just imagine how
11:34different Doctor Who would have been if one of these iconic enemies was just stuck in a hole
11:39somewhere. Considering how integral the Master would become to RTD's first run, including him here
11:45would have changed the course of the Tenth Doctor's tenure. It's a fascinating alternate timeline,
11:49that's for sure.
11:50And that concludes our list. If you think we missed anything, then do let us know in the
11:54comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that
11:58notification bell so you never miss a Who Culture video ever again. I've been Ellie with Who
12:02Culture, and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.
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