Doctor Who Series 10: 10 Biggest WTF Moments
10. The Death Of Spider
From the Dalek controller in Remembrance of the Daleks to
the young River Song as the impossible astronaut, some of the biggest shocks
and twists in Doctor Who have involved children. But has there ever been
anything quite as brutal as the death of poor Spider? He didn’t just drown in
the Thames, the poor kid was eaten alive by a sea monster. And the Doctor could
do nothing to save him despite Bill’s protests. In case we’d forgotten the
unpleasantness of it all, his floating red hat later serves as a chilling
reminder. Sometimes… most of the time... not everybody lives.
It was an unusually dark scene for a show that loves to give us happy endings for those we are meant to feel sympathy towards, and as empathetic characters go the poor orphan boy definitely fits the bill. Things quickly return to type when in the next episode a group of students are miraculously brought back to life after being half eaten by a particularly vicious breed of woodworm.
The point of course was to show Bill that travelling with the Doctor is no bed of roses. But by using a child to make the point, the writer Sarah Dollard really forces us out of our comfort zones to share some of the feelings of the Doctor’s new companion.