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The Power of the Doctor isn't the only Doctor Who episode that leaves your jaw on the floor...
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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 gravity globe that had been illuminating the cave.
01:05It's not the greatest cliffhanger in the world, so why does this episode appear on the list?
01:09Well, because the Doctor used a gun.
01:11Fans had been repeatedly told that the Doctor hated all weapons, especially guns,
01:16always opting for the peaceful solution to any conflict.
01:19To see Matt Smith's incarnation of the character wield one so freely,
01:23and 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,
01:34and all together now, what?
01:36Number 9. The Dominators. Part 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 plan 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
01:55that 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,
02:10and smuggles one back aboard the Dominator's 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 with 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 climaxed in New Who Series 3,
02:38but also as the last regular appearance of companion Martha Jones.
02:42She bids the Doctor goodbye at the end of this episode,
02:45leaving Number 10 alone once again.
02:47Poor fella.
02:48However, he has no time to mope around
02:49because 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
03:13crashes 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,
03:46fifth 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.
03:58However, after he leaves the planet,
04:00Jenny 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.
04:11Seeing 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.
04:25Although 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 way worse.
04:57Actually, not that much worse.
04:59The Doctor is only hallucinating the desert due to the effects of a structure called the Punishment Dome,
05:04with his struggles being broadcast across the planet.
05:07When the governor orders the transmission be cut,
05:09the 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.
05:19Number 5. The Almost People
05:22The actual plotline of Series 6's The Rebel Flash slash The Almost People
05:27is so inconsequential that 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 hunting down a being called the
06:22Great Intelligence, which has captured their friends Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax.
06:27The Intelligence, played by Richard E. Grant, wants to go back in time and undo all of the good
06:32work the Doctor has done, and so Clara and the Doctor enter his time stream to protect it from
06:37the Intelligence. In doing so, they come across a shadowy figure lurking in the depths of the Doctor's
06:41memories. This figure is the Doctor, but he's also not. He's a man who did awful things during
06:47the Time War in order to save the universe. He is the War Doctor. Stood there was the unmissable
06:52figure of John Hurt, portraying the Doctor's greatest secret. His story was fleshed out in
06:57the 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, but at this point, viewers were as baffled
07:02by Hurt's arrival as they were captivated. Even hardcore Whovians didn't know there was a secret
07:07Doctor between 8 and 9, and that's because Moffat had only just made him up. Still, this
07:12was one of the biggest bombshells in the show's history.
07:15Number 3. The Daleks
07:16There's no greater or more recognisable Doctor Who villain than those lovable, plunger-wielding
07:22tin cans, the Daleks. Straight from the planet Scarrow, the Daleks stand for everything the
07:27Doctor opposes. War, subjugation, apathy, and hatred. Their iconic design has become a symbol of the
07:33show all over the world, and 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, called, well,
07:44The Daleks. The 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 led to a spike of
07:58interest in the show. They 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. At the end of the 1984 serial, The Caves of Androzani, the fifth Doctor succumbs to an
08:16illness caused by a toxin. After hallucinating the faces of his past companions, the Doctor regenerates
08:22into a new form, swapping out the visage of Peter Davison for that of Colin Baker. It wasn't just
08:28the character's appearance that had changed. Something was different about this new Doctor,
08:32and something felt a little off. His first line in the role,
08:36You Were Expecting Someone Else, was delivered with a biting sarcasm that felt very out of place
08:41with the bubbly, eccentric Doctors of old. This harsher portrayal of the character lasted less than
08:46three years, but the initial introduction of this more serious version of the Doctor is something that
08:51fans are still grappling with to this day. Number 1. The Stolen Earth
08:55Between this, his actual regeneration, and 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, Tennant's error on the show looked like it was coming to a
09:08premature end, when he got himself shot by a Dalek in the Stolen Earth. Moments after seeing Rose for
09:13the first time since she departed the TARDIS, the Doctor suffered this seemingly fatal wound,
09:18and had to be ushered back to his blue box by Rose, Donna, and Captain Jack. As his companions
09:23fret around him, the Doctor's hands begin to glow that familiar orange-yellow hue. He then gets to
09:29his feet and unleashes a salvo of energy, beginning the process of changing his face.
09:34There had been no news of Tennant leaving the show when this episode aired, so fans were left
09:38completely aghast when they saw their hero regenerate. Were they really going to replace
09:42him without warning? And if not, how would they get around the fact that he'd already begun
09:46regenerating? The answer would come in the next episode of the show, but that week was a very
09:51long one for Doctor Who fans. That's the end of our list, but let me know down in that comment
09:55section which Doctor Who endings you did not see coming, and which ones are your favourites.
10:00As always, I've been Jess from WhatCulture. Thank you so much for hanging out with me.
10:04If you like, you can come say hi to me on my Twitter account where I'm at JessMcDonnell,
10:09but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more great lists.
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