10 Doctor Who Moments You Didn't See Coming

9. The Doctor Is Still Blind

Doctor Who Oxygen Peter Capaldi Twelfth Doctor
BBC Studios

Most Doctor Who stories are self-contained, and one thing that's almost guaranteed is that the plot will be neatly wrapped up by the time the credits roll.

So when the Doctor goes blind after saving Bill in the middle of Series 10's Oxygen, you're never really thinking this will be a long-term problem for him to deal with. And why would you? Of course the Doctor's going to fix this. That's just what he does.

But then... psych!

At the very end of the episode, the Doctor tells Nardole that he can't look at anything, ever again. The screen then slams to black, and he utters the phrase "I'm still blind", with Peter Capaldi's chilling delivery sending a real shiver down our spines.

It might be the biggest nerf the Doctor has ever received, and though the next few episodes are divisive, few people will forget how well-executed this initial twist was.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!