10 Most British Doctor Who Moments

10. Quaint British Villages

With their natural character and old-fashioned charm, British villages have offered escapism to television audiences for decades, most commonly in the cosy crime genre.

They’ve also appeared extensively in Doctor Who (though usually as the backdrop to an alien invasion rather than plain old murder).

Most famously, The Dæmons involved strange goings-on in the picture-postcard village of Devil’s End, featuring scenes of Morris dancing on the green, the Doctor and Jo staying in the local pub, and the Master posing as the local vicar.

A slightly-too-convincing model shot of the church blowing up at the end prompted a complaint from one viewer, so outrageous was the suggestion that the BBC had actually blown up a historic English church!

Elsewhere in the classic series, the idyllic nature of the village visited by the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane in The Android Invasion disguised the fact that it was, in fact, an alien simulation.

The most iconic new series village would have to be Leadworth, as introduced in The Eleventh Hour. It’s another one that plays up to all the stereotypes, boasting a perfect village green, a duck pond, an ice cream van, red phone and pillar boxes, and even a quirky old resident played by Annette Crosbie.

Other notable examples include the former mining village Cwmtaff from The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, plus the coastal villages of Glyngatwg and Colson seen in 73 Yards and Lucky Day.