10 Darkest Endings In Doctor Who
Not every adventure in time and space with the Doctor can end happily ever after...
Doctor Who is a show built on optimism, inviting its audience to join the Doctor and their companions on fantastic trips through the wonders of space and time every week. But despite this driving philosophy, not every adventure comes with a happy ending.
In fact, some of them can be downright disturbing, and leave the viewer thinking twice about stepping into the TARDIS again. Whether it’s the Doctor condemning the villain of the week to a fate worse than death, or only the main characters being left standing after a bloody battle against a relentless opposing force, long-time fans will know that the show is not afraid to stray into more morally grey territory when the story justifies it.
Just as the more light-hearted episodes have their place in the series, so do these more violent and harrowing tales. Read on to see some of the murkiest places that the series has gone during its fifty-seven years on the air, and judge for yourself whether the Doctor’s actions, and those of certain other characters, were justified.
Spoilers follow.
10. The Caves of Androzani (1984)
Former script editor Robert Holmes, who returned to Doctor Who to pen the Fifth Doctor’s swansong after a six-year absence from the show, said that he thought many of the recent stories had been too easy for the Doctor, and that he wanted to put him through hell. There can be no doubt that he succeeded.
From early on in the story, the Doctor and his companion Peri find themselves infected with a deadly illness known as spectrox toxaemia. They have only hours to live and must race against time to find the cure, the milk of the cave-dwelling queen bat. The Doctor eventually manages to procure two vials of the milk and carries Peri back to the TARDIS while they’re both on the brink of death. He drops one of the vials, leaving only enough of the cure for Peri, and is forced to regenerate. The faces of former companions swirl around him as he lies on the TARDIS floor, pleading with him not to die.
It’s the most desperate, unhinged, and downright strange regeneration sequence that the Doctor has ever had and likely ever will.