10 Doctor Who Episodes That Were Banned Or Censored

When The Sarah Jane Adventures was added to the iPlayer in late 2022, it was missing The Curse of Clyde Langer Parts 1 & 2. But why?

The story was a high point for the series, and even won the Best Children's TV Script award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain. In his Letter from the Showrunner column in Doctor Who Magazine #588, Russell T Davies revealed that, initially, even he didn't know the reason for its absence.

It soon transpired that The Curse of Clyde Langer had been marked “Do Not Use” due to a historic complaint against the episodes.

If you remember, the story involves Clyde being cursed by the alien Hetocumtek, who was masquerading as a Native American god. In the original episode, Clyde touches a totem pole, said to have originated from the Mojave Desert, which transfers the curse that leaves him ostracized by his friends and family.

Except, the Mojave didn’t make totem poles like those depicted in the episode.

To fix this glaring cultural inaccuracy, RTD enlisted The Curse of Clyde Langer’s original editor Ceres Doyle, now working as a post-production producer on Doctor Who, to remove the offending material.

Doyle did all this work in her spare time, free of charge, and the story was soon returned to iPlayer!