10 Doctor Who Episodes That Had The Balls To GO THERE

3. The Crimson Horror

Exposition is the real arch-enemy of Doctor Who, but writer Mark Gatiss and director Saul Metzstein turn what would otherwise be a clunky, exposition-heavy middle segment into a truly unique sequence. Rather than having the Doctor explain how he ended up blind, petrified, and paraded as a circus freak in Victorian Yorkshire, the episode pauses for a silent-movie, hand-cranked mutoscope flashback sequence. It is stylised, delightfully macabre.

The Crimson Horror leans heavily into penny-dreadful camp, complete with Diana Rigg feeding a giant red parasite attached to her chest, showing a story that understands exactly how bizarre it is and gleefully leans all the way into it.