5. Zaroff's Moment Of Triumph - The Underwater Menace (1967)
We included the Fish People from The Underwater Menace on our previous, more general list of cringes from Doctor Who, and this sparked a bit of controversy. Seems that many of you think that the Fish People are awesome and won't hear a word said against them. Who knew? (We do, now, obviously.) But we can all agree that Joseph Furst's performance as Professor Zaroff leaves something to be desired, yes? Unless, of course, you like full-on scenery chewing of the sort we won't see again until 1979... For the longest time, all we had of this performance apart from the audio recordings was episode three, and at the end of that episode we get one of the most famously over-the-top lines ever delivered in Doctor Who: "Nothing in the world can stop me now!" This line seems harmless enough in print, but add in Furst's Austrian accent and the director's apparent exhortation to do end-of-the-episode acting, and this is what we get:It seems that whoever uploaded this to YouTube was so horrified by the performance that they cut off the last word. Just as well, really. What's worse is that we now have the second episode of this story again, and while nothing else in Furst's performance reaches this height, there's no way it can ever be called "subtle." Of all the over-the-top villains that '60s Who has to offer, Zaroff stands above all the rest, with only Eric Klieg coming at all close. But Tomb of the Cybermen has its own problems, as we'll soon see...