10 Most Confusing Scenes In Doctor Who History
Even a galaxy-sized brain like the Doctor's would struggle to understand some of these.
Doctor Who can be confusing for new viewers. It doesn't fit into one particular genre, and the types of stories it tells can vary from week to week.
This is a show that, over the past 60 years, has featured characters as disparate as Rosa Parks, The Kandyman, Adolf Hitler, and talking space babies. The tonal shifts in Doctor Who are enough to give you whiplash, let alone an acute sense of confusion.
And the confusion doesn't end when you become comfortable with what Doctor Who is, as we're about to prove.
Sometimes a confusing Doctor Who scene is the fault of a writer who doesn't quite nail down how to tell their story. Other times, it's the fault of Doctor Who's greatest enemy: A Lack Of Time And Money, which forces directors and editors to cut corners to deliver an episode on time, at the expense of plot coherence.
That's not to say these scenes are impossible to explain – it's that they didn't come across as clearly as they could've, and left us scratching our heads as a result.
10. The Paradox Machine
Let's not get started on how the Tenth Doctor is de-aged by good vibes – the most confusing thing about Last of the Time Lords is the Paradox Machine.
Specifically, it's why exactly the Doctor waits so long to let Captain Jack pump several rounds into it with an assault rifle.
When they first discover the Paradox Machine, the Doctor is keen to point out that he can't stop it until he knows what it's for, and that if he touches the wrong bit, it could blow up the solar system.
This implies the machine must be carefully de-programmed, like cutting the correct wire in a live bomb – but then Captain Jack comes along in the very next episode and wildly rains down metal hell upon the machine like he's playing Call of Duty.
Even more confusing is that the Doctor knows the Paradox Machine will kick in at 8:02, two minutes after first contact with the Toclafane. So why not just hang out in the TARDIS for a bit and destroy it then?
You could've saved yourself all that time spent as a house elf, and saved Martha's family from a terrible ordeal. Come on Doctor, you're smarter than this.