10 Doctor Who Moments That Were Improvised

5. Are You My Mummy? (The Poison Sky)

Doctor Who New Earth Billie Piper Rose Tyler
BBC

Utter the phrase "are you my mummy?" in front of any Doctor Who fan, and the image of a creepy gas mask zombie kid will instantly flash before their eyes.

Then, once that moment of horror has passed, Whovians might also recall the scene in The Poison Sky where the Tenth Doctor - while wearing a gas mask in order to shield himself from a Sontaran gas attack - repeats that phrase for comedic effect.

One of the best things about watching Doctor Who is noticing all the little callbacks that are peppered throughout each episode, and this is one of the most memorable examples that NuWho has ever had. But how did it come about? Well, supposedly, David Tennant ad-libbed the line while caught up in the moment, resulting in a hilarious bit of fan-service that makes us chuckle every time we watch it.

We should note that there's some dispute as to whether Tennant actually improvised this or not, but it certainly feels like he did. Since we can't see his mouth, he could've said literally anything while wearing that gas mask, and his dialogue could've been cleaned up (or changed) in post-production.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.