10 Biggest Doctor Who Conspiracy Theories

10. The BBC Deliberately Leaked Rose

Although 23 November is Doctor Who’s overall anniversary, 26 March is remembered by many as the birthday of the revival.

Except, the show technically returned three weeks earlier, when a copy of Rose turned up online.

This wasn’t just a rough cut, but the entire edited episode, minus the next time trailer and updated theme music. As leaks go, it was pretty huge.

Eventually, the culprit was unmasked as an employee of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Doctor Who’s Canadian distributor at the time). However, some people weren’t convinced, suggesting that the leak was an elaborate publicity stunt orchestrated by the BBC themselves.

This allegation was so prevalent that the BBC even came out and denied it, saying:

"We did absolutely not authorise any leak of Doctor Who. We would not have gone to all these lengths to track down the perpetrator if we had."

It’s not hard to see why the BBC might have been tempted to do something like this – to prove the Doctor Who revival was big business, to move the narrative away from “wobbly sets”, and to generally get people talking (which it undoubtedly did).

If the BBC really was responsible, we’ll probably never know. But you can't put it past them, they're a sneaky bunch!