10 Doctor Who Controversies Fans Can't Agree On

10. Should The Doctor Be A Killer?

For a hero that makes a big deal of being against killing and is very pro-redemption, the Doctor is one bloodthirsty madman sometimes.

We’re not talking about the justifiable act to end the Time War here, we’re talking about the slightly more callous acts of murder. Sending the Sycorax leader falling to his death, gleefully blasting Solomon with heat-seeking missiles, suffocating space cooks – these are just a few instances where 'The Man Who Never Would' absolutely did.

RTD recently weighed in on this debate in a chat with Entertainment Weekly, saying:

"I thought that right now in 2024, we need a hero with more heart. I’m not a fan of the ones that slice and dice. Doctor Who is the opposite of heroes who pick up a gun and shoot, or a lightsaber and kill. It’s a marvelously pacifist show."

A nice sentiment, but rich words coming from the man who had the new Doctor literally impale the Goblin King with a church steeple in his first episode, just like all pacifists do.

'Sometimes there’s no other way’ can be a compelling story beat – forcing our protagonist into a position where they grapple with the fact that they simply have no option but to take a life. Deep Breath, and Twelve’s apparent murder of the Half-Face man, is a good example of this. Ten drowning the Racnoss is another good one, if you can handle listening to the Empress screaming again.

But for every instance of this working well, there’s another episode where murdering the villain is written in as a lazy get-out-of-jail-free card, and the Doctor skips off into the sunset without a care in the world.

OUR VERDICT: It’s interesting when the Doctor is forced to kill, but these moments should be treated with gravitas – there’s a huge inconsistency in whether it is or isn’t a big deal.