10 Darkest Alternate Timelines In Doctor Who
If one thing is certain in Doctor Who, it's that parallel Earths WILL be destroyed.
The time-travelling, universe-hopping hijinks at the heart of Doctor Who put the show in a unique position, one where it's able to show us all manner of alternate realities, parallel worlds, and divergent timelines.
We've seen universes that are not too different from our own, normal reality - think Pete's World in Series 2, which was a slightly more unusual version of planet Earth - but there are many alternate timelines where the circumstances are far from rosy.
Over the course of the show, we've seen some incredibly dark, doom-and-gloom realities that are nothing short of nightmares for the people involved. In some of them, the Doctor is dead and buried, leaving the universe without its most significant protector. In others, planet Earth is a barren wasteland, completely devoid of life.
And perhaps worst of all... there's a truly horrendous timeline where Donna Noble is forced to move to Leeds. Poor woman.
While these darker realities are usually always reset or reversed at the end of their respective stories, they're fascinating to visit for that brief amount of time, if only to satisfy the morbid curiosity that, somewhere, exists within us all.
10. The Year That Never Was (Last Of The Time Lords)
Due to the Doctor's close association with humanity, planet Earth is basically a constant battleground in the Doctor Who universe, and at the end of Series 3, this resulted in the Master seizing control, ruling the planet with an iron fist and creating a timeline that came to be known as The Year That Never Was.
This nightmarish 12-month period - which began when the Master hijacked the Doctor's TARDIS, travelled to the 21st century, and became Prime Minister of Britain, as you do - involved one tenth of humanity being straight-up killed by the Toclafane, murderous metallic balls that possessed an arsenal of deadly weapons.
The rest of humanity was enslaved, the Doctor was captured by the Master (and, embarrassingly, was locked in a bird cage), and normal life came screeching to a halt. People lived in constant fear, with some starving, some hiding, and some running.
The one glimmer of hope came in the form of Martha Jones, and in the end, her determination and strong will allowed her to help the Doctor rise to full strength, and in turn, he was able to bring the Master's dictatorship to an end. Time was reversed, and The Year That Never Was... well, it never was!