10 Doctor Who Endings Nobody Saw Coming

Australian Cinephile

The Power of the Doctor isn't the only Doctor Who episode that leaves your jaw on the floor...

Transcript

00:00Since it first hit the air in 1963,

00:02Doctor Who has pulled out some of the greatest episode endings in British TV history.

00:07The size and scope of a show about the entirety of time and space

00:11means that literally anything can happen to the Doctor and their companions,

00:15which has led to some truly memorable cliffhangers over the years.

00:18Drastic decisions, mind-blowing plot twists,

00:21events totally changing out of left field,

00:23it's all happened in Doctor Who.

00:25So we've rounded up 10 endings that left viewers wondering

00:28what the hell they just witnessed.

00:29Usually in a good way, but not always.

00:32I'm Jess from WhatCulture and here are 10 Doctor Who endings nobody saw coming.

00:36Number 10. The Time of Angels

00:38The Weeping Angels was still new and exciting when this episode rolled around.

00:42Before their creator, Stephen Moffat diluted their effectiveness,

00:45the Angels were a force to be reckoned with

00:47and had the 11th Doctor and his friends cornered underground with seemingly nowhere to run.

00:52After some back and forth with the strangely charismatic Angel Bob,

00:56the Doctor announces that his enemies have made a huge mistake by placing him in a trap.

01:01He then grabs a pistol and shoots the ground.

01:03Matt Smith had been repeatedly told that the Doctor hated all weapons,

01:15especially guns, always opting for the peaceful solution to any conflict.

01:19To see Matt Smith's incarnation of the character wield one so freely

01:22and so early in his lifespan was more than a little jarring.

01:26While he didn't fire it at a living creature,

01:28the juxtaposition of the universe's peacekeeper holding a firearm

01:32was enough to leave fans going, and all together now, what?

01:36Number 9. The Dominators

01:37Part 5

01:38This second Doctor serial pitted the Time Lord against the titular race,

01:42known for their use of nuclear radiation to power their technology.

01:45The Dominators planned to destroy the peaceful planet of Dulcus

01:48and use its remains as fuel,

01:50something that the Doctor inevitably doesn't take kindly to.

01:53In fact, he takes so unkindly to it that he decides to obliterate them all with a nuclear weapon.

01:59In the serial's final episode,

02:01the evil aliens attempt to blow up Dulcus using small atomic bombs called seeds.

02:06However, the Doctor manages to stop the seeds from entering the planet's core

02:09and smuggles one back aboard the Dominators ship.

02:12The episode ends with the TARDIS flying away from a huge nuclear explosion

02:16that presumably killed every single Dominator on board.

02:19This level of rampant destruction is not something that modern fans would associate

02:23with the Doctor.

02:24Even at the time, this would have been considered a little over the top,

02:27especially with the real-world threat of nuclear devices looming large.

02:31Number 8. Last of the Time Lords

02:33Last of the Time Lords served not only as the climax to New Who Series 3,

02:38but also as the last regular appearance of companion Martha Jones.

02:41She bids the Doctor goodbye at the end of this episode,

02:45leaving Number 10 alone once again.

02:47Poor fella.

02:47However, he has no time to mope around because the bow of a ship called Titanic

02:52crashes through the walls of the TARDIS.

02:54The Doctor's expression of bewilderment says it all.

02:57He even says ought right after this happens.

02:59The collision of worlds was to set up the Christmas special Voyage of the Damned,

03:03which saw the Doctor team up with Kylie Minogue to escape a doomed space liner also named Titanic.

03:09You'd think they would have learned from the first time.

03:11It's safe to say that nobody had crashes into the Titanic on their Doctor Who bingo card that year,

03:16but this bizarre ending helped cut through the sadness of losing Martha

03:20and created much intrigue for the upcoming holiday episode.

03:23Number 7. The Doctor's Daughter

03:25Sticking with Ten now and that time he met his daughter,

03:28who would go on to become his wife, who's actually the daughter of himself.

03:32Yeah, look, this episode gets weird when you get meta with it.

03:34The Doctor's Daughter takes place on a planet where human beings use cloning

03:38to provide soldiers for their war against the Hearth.

03:40When the Doctor is cloned upon arrival, we get Jenny, his daughter,

03:44who's played by Georgia Moffat, fifth Doctor Peter Davison's real-life daughter

03:49and David Tennant's real-life wife.

03:51Again, meta.

03:52After growing attached to Jenny across the episode,

03:54the Doctor is devastated when she takes a bullet for him and dies from her injuries.

03:59However, after he leaves the planet,

04:01Jenny is brought back to life via the mystical power of the Source.

04:05Fans assumed that Jenny was a one-off character,

04:07nothing more than a plot device to teach the Doctor some lessons about parenthood.

04:10Seeing her get revived and then jet off into space on her own adventures was pretty surprising,

04:15and left viewers hoping for further interactions with Jenny in the future.

04:18It's just a shame we haven't seen her on TV since this episode aired in 2008.

04:23Number 6. Vengeance on Varos. Part 1.

04:26Although Colin Baker was far from the only guilty party in Doctor Who's first major decline,

04:31his detractors got some catharsis in Vengeance on Varos' first episode.

04:35While searching for a valuable mineral to repair the TARDIS with,

04:38the Doctor and his companion, Perry, are held captive by the governor of the planet, Varos.

04:43The Doctor manages to escape, but ends up stranded in a desert and begins to die of thirst.

04:49At least, that's what we're led to believe.

04:51On Varos, public torture and executions are viewed as a form of entertainment.

04:55Think Big Brother, but wait.

04:57When the governor orders the transmission be cut, the credits on the actual episode begin to roll.

05:12A clever ending that would have fit perfectly into the metaphocused world of today,

05:15this episode must have blown everyone's minds when it first premiered in the 80s.

05:20Number 5. The Almost People.

05:22The actual plotline of Series 6's The Rebel Flash slash The Almost People is so inconsequential

05:28that we're not even going to bother recapping it.

05:30All you need to know is that after defeating a group of rogue human duplicates working in an acid factory,

05:36the Doctor reveals that Amy Pond is actually a duplicate of herself.

05:39The episode then cuts to the real Amy, who's trapped in a pristine white room.

05:44Oh, and she's also pregnant.

05:45She's confronted by a lady with an eye patch, who tells her that she's about to give birth.

05:50The episode then goes off the air, with Amy screaming through the pains of labor.

05:54At the same time, across the country, millions of people watching Doctor Who

05:58all came down with a serious case of plot whiplash.

06:01This ending threw a huge curveball at the audience,

06:03who were expecting just the conclusion to the two-part storyline.

06:07Instead, the episode completely bulldozed through that plot

06:10and set in motion a chain of events that would affect the entire rest of the series.

06:13Number 4. The Name of the Doctor

06:162013's The Name of the Doctor begins with the Doctor and Clara

06:20hunting down a being called the Great Intelligence,

06:23which has captured their friends Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax.

06:27The Intelligence, played by Richard E. Grant,

06:29wants to go back in time and undo all of the good work the Doctor has done,

06:33and so Clara and the Doctor enter his time stream to protect it from the Intelligence.

06:38In doing so, they come across a shadowy figure lurking in the depths of the Doctor's memories.

06:42This figure is the Doctor, but he's also not.

06:45He's a man who did awful things during the Time War in order to save the universe.

06:49He is the War Doctor.

06:51Stood there was the unmissable figure of John Hurt,

06:54portraying the Doctor's greatest secret.

06:56His story was fleshed out in the 50th anniversary special,

06:59The Day of the Doctor, but at this point,

07:01viewers were as baffled by Hurt's arrival as they were captivated.

07:05Even hardcore Whovians didn't know there was a secret Doctor between 8 and 9,

07:09and that's because Moffat had only just made him up.

07:11Still, this was one of the biggest bombshells in the show's history.

07:14Number 3. The Daleks

07:16There's no greater or more recognisable Doctor Who villain

07:20than those lovable, plunger-wielding tin cans, the Daleks.

07:23Straight from the planet Skaro, the Daleks stand for everything the Doctor opposes.

07:28War, subjugation, apathy, and hatred.

07:31Their iconic design has become a symbol of the show all over the world,

07:34and their catchphrase of exterminate is now part of TV lexicon.

07:38The Daleks' first appearance came at a first Doctor serial from 1963 and 64,

07:43called, well, The Daleks.

07:45The first episode of the serial ends with companion Barbara being accosted by a Dalek

07:49in what has been described as one of the series' best-ever cliffhangers.

07:53The Daleks were a revolution, and there is tangible evidence that their appearance

07:57led to a spike of interest in the show.

07:59They have remained a fixture of Doctor Who for over half a century,

08:02and all of their incredible storylines and moments can be traced back to this shocking ending.

08:07Number 2. The Caves of Androzani

08:10Part 4

08:11At the end of the 1984 serial, The Caves of Androzani,

08:15the fifth Doctor succumbs to an illness caused by a toxin.

08:18After hallucinating the faces of his past companions,

08:21the Doctor regenerates into a new form,

08:23swapping out the visage of Peter Davison for that of Colin Baker.

08:27It wasn't just the character's appearance that had changed.

08:30Something was different about this new Doctor,

08:32and something felt a little off.

08:34His first line in the role,

08:36you were expecting someone else,

08:37was delivered with a biting sarcasm

08:40that felt very out of place with the bubbly eccentric Doctors of old.

08:44This harsher portrayal of the character lasted less than three years,

08:47but the initial introduction of this more serious version of the Doctor

08:50is something that fans are still grappling with to this day.

08:53Number 1. The Stolen Earth

08:55Between this, his actual regeneration,

08:58and his appearance as the 14th Doctor,

09:00David Tennant really loves shooting bright lights out of his hands and face, doesn't he?

09:04Back when he was the 10th Doctor,

09:05Tennant's error on the show looked like it was coming to a premature end

09:09when he got himself shot by a Dalek in the Stolen Earth.

09:12Moments after seeing Rose for the first time since she departed the TARDIS,

09:16the Doctor suffered this seemingly fatal wound

09:18and had to be ushered back to his blue box by Rose, Donna, and Captain Jack.

09:22As his companions fret around him,

09:24the Doctor's hands begin to glow that familiar orange-yellow hue.

09:28He then gets to his feet and unleashes a salvo of energy,

09:31beginning the process of changing his face.

09:34There had been no news of Tennant leaving the show when this episode aired,

09:37so fans were left completely aghast when they saw their hero regenerate.

09:41Were they really going to replace him without warning?

09:43And if not, how would they get around the fact that he'd already begun regenerating?

09:47The answer would come in the next episode of the show,

09:50but that week was a very long one for Doctor Who fans.

09:53That's the end of our list, but let me know down in that comment section

09:56which Doctor Who endings you did not see coming,

09:59and which ones are your favourites.

10:00As always, I've been Jess from WhatCulture.

10:03Thank you so much for hanging out with me.

10:04If you like, you can come say hi to me on my Twitter account,

10:07where I'm at JessMcDonald,

10:09but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more great lists.

10:12Thank you so much for joining us.

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