Doctor Who: 10 Times The Doctor Faced Consequences For Their Actions

Doctor Who is a pre-watershed family show, and as such, each episode tends to resolve itself with the Doctor emerging victorious and the antagonist of the week's plan failing miserably (well, 99% of the time anyway…) - unfortunately, that's just the nature of Saturday night family TV.

However, just because good almost always prevails in Doctor Who, this does not mean that these victories come without consequences. Indeed, throughout their long lifetime, The Doctor has made many mistakes that have often resulted in people losing their lives, losing those dear to them, or changing peoples lives for the worst. Wherever The Doctor goes, they leave a trail of carnage behind.

In this list, we’ll be exploring some of The Doctor’s biggest screw-ups and the price that they were forced to pay, whilst providing some sage advice to our titular Time Lord on how to avoid getting into these situations again.

Ah, Kill The Moon - AKA the one where the moon is a giant egg...

This episode is one of the most notorious and panned episodes of the revival, chiefly because it plays it real fast and loose with science (even by Doctor Who standards), and the ending is just ludicrous. But today, I’m going to stand in defense of it, or at least the last five minutes of it…

At the episode’s climax, Twelve, Clara, Courtney and generic female commander #6 are faced with a terrible decision: having discovered that the moon is about to hatch into a giant bird. Kill the innocent creature inside, preserving life on Earth, or allow it to hatch, endangering the lives of everyone on the planet below. It’s a big old decision, and definitely one where the Doctor should really be around to lend a hand to those less experienced at saving the world... So naturally, he swans off back to his TARDIS, telling them to make their own decisions.

After staging a planet wide-vote, it is decided that the creature should be killed, but Clara overrides this decision, somewhat recklessly, choosing to save the creature at the last minute. Fortunately for her, the newborn alien bird in the moon lays another moon sized egg the moment it is born - what an incredibly convinient stroke of luck for the otherwise doomed inhabitants of planet Earth! Close one.

Clara is beyond fuming with The Doctor, and rightfully so. The two clash hard after returning to the TARDIS, in one of the most emotionally raw scenes the show has ever seen. We have never had a full-blown argument between the Doctor and their companion like this, before or since. After scolding The Doctor for abandoning her, being patronising, scaring the hell out of her, and very nearly dooming the planet, Clara leaves the TARDIS, intending to end her adventures with the Doctor there and then.

I mean, sure, she comes back after witnessing some good old-fashioned alien murder action in Mummy In The Orient Express, but pretending to leave the show is what Clara does best. Regardless, her calling out The Doctor here scares him enough to start becoming a better person, jump-starting his development into the warmer, kinder Twelve we see late in his era.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Don’t turn your back on humanity to prove a point, and don’t get on Clara’s bad side.