20 Cancelled Doctor Who Episodes You Need To Know About

20. Death To The Doctor

Having worked on three Tenth Doctor stories and multiple instalments of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Gareth Roberts was one of the first writers Steven Moffat approached when he took over as showrunner in 2010.

Roberts would end up writing Series 5’s eleventh episode, The Lodger – a loose adaptation of a 2006 Doctor Who Magazine comic strip, which saw the Tenth Doctor briefly move in with Mickey. And carnage ensued, as you would imagine.

But at one stage he was set to contribute an entirely different episode.

Titled Death to the Doctor, this would've been set on a Vegas-style planet obsessed with law enforcement, with the Doctor arrested for a minor offence and forced to fight a massive Cyclops (hence the title). Another key element was a disgraced Sontaran called Skorm.

It’s a story that was just too costly too produce (unsurprisingly, The Lodger was much more wallet-friendly), though its impact would be felt elsewhere.

Most notably, Skorm would inspire the character of Strax, debuting in the following year’s A Good Man Goes to War. In the interim, the title would be used, in modified form, for Matt Smith’s Sarah Jane Adventures story, Death of the Doctor.

See, it all worked out in the end!