- 9 hours ago
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,
04:34Eleven 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,
04:46but 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 materialising in space here,
04:56instead 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.
06:04The 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,
06:29so 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 considering 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 or a scene that's
07:21clearly 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, the Tenth Doctor tries and fails to convince
07:46Donna 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 rewatch,
08:05but it adds a funny distraction to what was supposed to be an ominous end to this cold open.
08:10Number 2. Cable 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 rewatches.
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, as 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.
09:00Hilariously, 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.
09:08Number 1. Pointless sacrifice in The Almost People
09:12The entire purpose of Series 6's The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People was 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 between 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, because 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, leaving the Flesh Doctor to die while taking down the monstrous Jennifer.
09:53But hang on a second, when Fleshy Dog opens the door to meet his fate, we 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. If 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, goodbye, sweeties.
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