10 Most Cringeworthy Doctor Who Moments From The '80s

4. "A Mega-Byte Modem!" - The Ultimate Foe (1986)

Who could have guessed in 1986 that modems able to transmit huge amounts of data, far in excess of a megabyte, were just around the corner? Not writers Pip and Jane Baker, bless 'em. One of the big reveals in The Ultimate Foe, the final chapter in the, um, thrilling Trial of a Time Lord season, is that the Valeyard is using a "mega-byte modem" in order to kill all of the Time Lords in the courtroom...or something. The details are a bit hazy, as the story drops off in quality pretty quickly around this part. It could just be that our brains start shutting down preemptively when we know this scene is approaching, just to spare ourselves the embarrassment. Now, there have been many theories floated about this: that "Mega-Byte" could be the retro name of a powerful alien tech company that produces devices capable of delivering far more than megabytes; that the TARDIS has translated some weird bit of Gallifreyan tech's name into something that Mel, computer "genius" that she is, can easily understand; and so on. Or it could just be that dear Pip and Jane thought it sounded good in the computer dictionary. In any case, it still seems mean that Doctor Who Magazine once snarkily asked the pair what a "mega-byte modem" was at the end of one of their interviews, resulting in poor Jane answering, "I think it has something to do with computers..." That being said, that had to have been a less uncomfortable moment for them than it is for us watching this scene.