10 Unintentionally Funny Doctor Who Moments
Doctor Who often goes for laughs. But what about the times when it got them by accident?
Doctor Who is a show that can be something completely different from week to week. One episode can be a lower stakes earthbound story and the next can be an epic battle for the fate of the universe. A horror inspired adventure can be followed up by something much lighter and more comedic.
This is all fine as long as the people behind the scenes know exactly when they want the audience to laugh, cry, or jump out of their seats. But sometimes they end up with quite the opposite reaction to the one they wanted.
Yes, Doctor Who often doesn't take itself too seriously. But the moments when it does can provide some of the best dramatic scenes on television. Unfortunately, it does have a history of sometimes undermining itself in this department.
Maybe the special effects in the pivotal scene weren't very good, or perhaps the concept for that week was just a little too ridiculous to not be inherently funny. Let's take a look at some of the times in Doctor Who when you weren't supposed to laugh, but definitely did anyway.
10. Mr Diagoras Is Absorbed - Daleks In Manhattan
The Series 3 two-part story Daleks In Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks has a divisive reputation among Who fans, to say the least. Its premise is quite goofy even by Doctor Who standards. The premise is that the Cult of Skaro, an elite Dalek science group, are hiding in the Empire State Building in 1930 and trying to manipulate the ongoing construction to create their own Frankenstein-esque human army.
Dalek Sec, the leader of the Cult of Skaro, decides that the Dalek race has to evolve to survive. To that end, he absorbs Mr. Diagoras, a faithful human servant of the Daleks, into his own body in order to create a Human-Dalek hybrid.
This scene is clearly meant to evoke a shocking body horror feeling but the effects are too cheap to take seriously. It just looks like Diagoras is getting slime poured over him or being absorbed by some angry jelly with tentacles. The slightly more adult connotations that one can take from the scene also don't help with the giggles.