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The Doctor has many powerful abilities, but keying out green screen clearly isn't one of them.
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00:00Like most movies and TV shows, Doctor Who is no stranger to Production Goose,
00:04and the last 17 years of time travelling has been littered with them.
00:08On the plus side though, most mistakes blend into the background when you're watching an episode normally,
00:13so unless you're some sort of advanced Cyberman who can analyse footage frame by frame in real time,
00:18there's a good chance you haven't even noticed the vast majority of them.
00:21And so with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture here with 10 hilarious Doctor Who mistakes you definitely didn't notice.
00:3010. Big Ben's Gone Wibbly in Aliens of London
00:33In the early years of the 2005 revival, Doctor Who was knocking out 14 episodes per year,
00:40quite a feat considering how much work went into each one.
00:43With a single episode potentially taking two weeks to shoot, that's half a year of pure filming,
00:47not even factoring in the writing, special effects work, scoring and promotion.
00:51It was an absolutely hectic schedule, so it's no surprise that there were miscommunications from time to time.
00:56One such miscommunication led to this odd mistake in Series 1's Aliens of London,
01:01with a shot of Big Ben's clock face, which is then shattered by the wing of a spaceship,
01:06having been flipped so that the numbers are on the wrong side.
01:09In behind the scenes footage, Mike Tucker, who oversaw the model work for the episode,
01:13explains that his team was initially told that the left wing of the ship would smash through the clock,
01:18so that's how they filmed it.
01:19But during post-production, this was changed to the right wing, so the shot had to be flipped.
01:23On the plus side, this moment is so fast that it's not a blindingly obvious gaffe.
01:28Even Tucker himself admits he didn't notice it until one of his repeat viewings.
01:329. The Suspicious Truck in Human Nature
01:36One of the most famous movie mistakes of all time is the sight of a car cruising through the background
01:41in The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring,
01:43technology that obviously shouldn't exist in the comparatively primitive Middle Earth.
01:47A similar mistake occurred in Series 3 of Doctor Who, but instead of a car, it was a truck,
01:52and instead of Middle Earth, it was 1913 England.
01:55In the episode Human Nature, there's a scene where the Farringham school boys are outside at shooting practice,
02:00and Timothy Latimer is reprimanded for his half-hearted efforts.
02:04This scene opens with a shot of the boys' targets, and at the top of the frame,
02:07a suspiciously modern-looking white truck drives across the screen in the distant background,
02:12visible for a good few seconds before the shot cuts away.
02:15It's nothing that will take you out of the episode, because it's quite hard to spot on a normal viewing,
02:19but it's a clear anachronism, considering that heavy vehicles wouldn't have looked anything like this a century ago.
02:26Number 8. Moffat misquotes the Doctor in Listen
02:29Modern Who is full of nods to the classic years, in no small part because all three showrunners,
02:35Russell T. Davies, Stephen Moffat, and Chris Chibnall, watched the show as kids and grew up absolutely adoring it.
02:41One of the best of these nods occurs in the Series 8 Moffat episode Listen,
02:44where Clara comforts a terrified young Doctor by telling him,
02:48Fear makes companions of us all, which is a callback to a similar line uttered by the first Doctor.
02:53We say similar because Moffat actually got the line wrong,
02:56something he acknowledged himself during a 2020 watch-along of the episode, stating,
03:01In fact, I misquoted the line.
03:03Hartmull says,
03:04Of all of us, and Jenna says,
03:06Of us all.
03:06Knew it was wrong, but couldn't let go of the way I'd misremembered it for so long.
03:10Drunk with power, I was.
03:11As Moffat states, the line is actually Fear makes companions of all of us,
03:16which the first Doctor tells companion Barbara in An Unearthly Child,
03:19the very first Doctor serial broadcast in 1963.
03:23This is such a small detail, though, and it's easy to overlook.
03:26Moffat, you're forgiven.
03:27Number 7.
03:28Semi-invisible Ood in The Waters of Mars
03:31This one is absolutely bizarre.
03:34The Waters of Mars ends with the 10th Doctor saving the doomed crew members of Bowie Base 1,
03:38taking time into his own hands.
03:41Returning to Earth and realising he's gone too far,
03:43the Doctor has a bit of a meltdown,
03:45which is accompanied by a vision of his old pal, Ood Sigma.
03:48Sigma soon fades away,
03:49and the Doctor leaves, heading towards his date with the four knocks.
03:53The mistake can be seen when Sigma disappears.
03:55Obviously, in real life, he didn't actually fade away like a ghost.
03:58The actor simply exited stage right, and the camera carried on taping.
04:02And how do we know this?
04:02Because for a few brief frames,
04:04you can actually see the actor walking out of the shot.
04:07Keep your eyes on the left-hand side of the screen when Sigma disappears.
04:11The snow makes it difficult to spot, but he's definitely there,
04:14and it's pretty damn funny when you do manage to notice him.
04:17Number 6.
04:18Wrong TARDIS in The Time of Angels
04:20The reveal of the 11th Doctor's new TARDIS exterior was a big moment in the 11th hour,
04:26so it was hugely surprising when, just a few episodes later,
04:29that exterior had reverted back to its previous look.
04:32Early on in The Time of Angels, Eleven and Amy race to rescue River Song,
04:36who's got herself in a spot of trouble.
04:38River being River, she's jumped out of a spaceship,
04:41hoping the Doctor will catch her before she floats off into the void of space.
04:44Her faith is rewarded, of course, but hang on, what's up with the TARDIS?
04:48Why does it look different?
04:49Well, because it's the wrong one.
04:51A special-effect screw-up resulted in the 10th Doctor's TARDIS
04:54materialising in space here, instead of the 11th Doctor's.
04:57Whoops.
04:58Then-showrunner Moffat actually mentions this on the episode's commentary track,
05:02which also features Karen Gillan,
05:04where he claims that he doesn't know whose fault the mistake was.
05:07Clearly, Ten did not want to go.
05:10Number 5.
05:11Boomtown in A Christmas Carol
05:12Is it even a proper mistakes list without a crew member caught in the shot entry?
05:17Continuing with Series 5,
05:19because no matter how much the BBC's Blu-ray releases get it wrong,
05:22Christmas specials are part of the series they come after.
05:25A Christmas Carol is our unfortunate victim here.
05:28During the scene set in 1952 California,
05:31young Kaz Ran and Abigail have a ridiculously long snogging session
05:34while the 11th Doctor wanders off to get married to Marilyn Monroe.
05:37As you do.
05:38The Doctor enters the scene by clambering over a small wall,
05:41and right as he hoists himself up,
05:43you can make out the end of a boom mic accidentally slipping into frame above Matt Smith's head.
05:48You can almost see the boom and camera guys hurriedly try to match Smith's speedy movements,
05:52and though the camera guy gets away with it, the boom guy evidently wasn't so lucky.
05:57Number 4.
05:58Crazy credits in Legend of the Sea Devils
06:00Legend of the Sea Devils was a disappointing episode overall.
06:05The most exciting thing about it was that next time trailer.
06:07But considering the mediocre standards set by Chris Chibnall's first two specials of the year,
06:12there's a strong chance that the centenary special will also be a crushing disappointment.
06:16Hell, even Legend of the Sea Devils credits weren't up to snuff,
06:19as noticed by eagle-eyed fans who spotted that Malcolm Hulk,
06:22the man who created the Sea Devils back in the 1970s, had his name misspelt.
06:27Now, to be fair, there are so many names to type out here, so mistakes like this can happen.
06:31It's actually surprising they don't happen more often.
06:33But at the same time, it's not a good look,
06:35considering Hulk is such a vital part of Who history,
06:38having created the Silurians and the Time Lords, as well as the Sea Devils.
06:42A similar case of weird credits can be found in Series 6's A Good Man Goes to War,
06:47where Russell T. Davies is listed as the creator of the Ood.
06:50And, oh look, Malcolm Hulk is spelt correctly here.
06:52The weird thing about this is that the episode doesn't actually contain any Ood.
06:56After shuffling out of shot in the waters of Mars,
06:58Ood Sigma was meant to feature in this episode, but his scene was cut from the final edit.
07:04Number 3. Green Screen Gaff in Midnight
07:07One of the great things about Doctor Who is that it doesn't over-rely on CGI.
07:12Many of the show's monsters and environments are digital, sure,
07:15but many more of them are done practically.
07:17And it's tough to beat the immersion of a convincingly done alien mask,
07:21or a scene that's clearly shot on location, usually in a quarry.
07:24At the same time, though, a lot of the show's CGI is also very well done,
07:28especially in recent years.
07:30Even some older stuff, like those stunning shots of the sun in Series 3's 42,
07:34still holds up today.
07:36However, in Series 4's Midnight, the CGI couldn't even be bothered showing up,
07:40let alone presenting itself in a suitable manner.
07:42Right before the title sequence kicks in,
07:44the Tenth Doctor tries and fails to convince Donna to join him on his tour of the titular planet.
07:49As he hangs up the phone, the camera pushes in,
07:51and behind him, a huge chunk of green screen is visible for a good couple of seconds.
07:55Clearly, someone forgot to key it out.
07:57It's one of those how-did-I-miss-that mistakes you'll never be able to unsee.
08:01In fact, admittedly, even we only spotted it during a 2020 re-watch.
08:05But it adds a funny distraction to what was supposed to be an ominous end to this cold open.
08:11Number 2.
08:12Cable Chaos in Partners in Crime
08:14Partners in Crime is such a wonderful feel-good episode that its flaws are easy to overlook.
08:19Although this one's quite a biggie, so it may bug you on re-watches.
08:23Poor Donna Noble is thrown in at the deep end from the second she tracks down the Tenth Doctor,
08:27with Miss Foster and her gun-toting goons chasing the pair onto the roof of a building,
08:31forcing them to escape in a window-cleaning cradle.
08:34This plan goes well at first, until Miss Foster uses her sonic device to destroy one of the cradle's cables.
08:39Now, this is the left cable when looking at the building, or the right cable from Miss Foster's perspective.
08:44However, that's not the cable she cuts,
08:47as can be seen a few seconds earlier when she aims her sonic at the opposite side of the cradle.
08:52This is one of the biggest continuity errors in Modern Who,
08:54and you have to wonder if it could have been avoided by flipping certain shots, as was the case with Big Ben.
08:59Hilariously, writer and then-showrunner Russell T Davies points this mistake out on the episode's commentary track,
09:05resulting in director James Strong feeling rather embarrassed.
09:09Number 1. Pointless sacrifice in The Almost People
09:12The entire purpose of Series 6's The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People
09:17was for the Eleventh Doctor to prove that Flesh avatars weren't all that dissimilar to real people.
09:22He successfully accomplishes this task, and in the end, even Amy Pond can't tell the difference
09:26between the two versions of the Doctor she's been working with throughout the story.
09:30This culminates in the Flesh Doctor sacrificing himself so the others can escape,
09:34while the real Doctor uses the information he's gathered to begin his rescue of the recently kidnapped Amy.
09:39As it turns out, though, the Flesh Doctor needn't have sacrificed himself at all,
09:43because a baffling mistake left him with an easy escape route.
09:46In the bowels of the monastery, the real Doctor flies off in the TARDIS,
09:50leaving the Flesh Doctor to die while taking down the monstrous Jennifer.
09:54But hang on a second, when Fleshy Doc opens the door to meet his fate,
09:57we can clearly see that the TARDIS is still there behind him,
10:01even though we saw it dematerialise around 15 seconds before.
10:05And that concludes our list.
10:06If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know in the comments below,
10:09and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
10:13Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, at WhoCulture,
10:16and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
10:19I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words of Riversong herself,
10:22goodbye, sweeties.
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