10 Doctor Who Moments You Didn't See Coming

8. Rose's "Death"

Doctor Who Bad Wolf Rose
BBC

It's rare for Doctor Who companions to actually die. In the entire history of the show, only a handful of them have bitten the bullet for good, and most get to leave the TARDIS with their lives intact - a little traumatised, sure, but alive and kicking nonetheless.

So when Rose was unwittingly entered into a deadly game of The Weakest Link in Series 1's Bad Wolf, there was little doubt that the Ninth Doctor would find her and save her. There's no way she's gonna die - there's still one episode of the series left!

As such, it came as a big emotional wallop when - right as she was about to be reunited with the Doctor - the Anne-Droid game show host lasered Rose in the back, turning her into a small pile of dust on the floor.

The resigned look of disbelief on the Doctor's face really did sell the pure shock of this moment, and while it was ultimately revealed that Rose had been transported - not disintegrated - the show made us believe, for a time, that she was truly gone.

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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!