10 Doctor Who Moments You Didn't See Coming

6. Clara Visits A Young Doctor

Doctor Who Clara Jenna Coleman Listen
BBC Studios

Doctor Who has basically showed us nothing of the title character's childhood on Gallifrey. Hell, Gallifrey-set stories are quite rare in general, usually being reserved for anniversary specials, and the occasional series finale or series premiere.

So, throughout the course of Series 8's fourth episode, Listen, it's fair to say that most viewers hadn't even considered the possibility that the story would take us to Gallifrey, let alone the idea that we'd get to see the Doctor as a kid.

But that's exactly what happened.

In a terrific scene towards the end of the episode, Clara plunges her hands into the TARDIS' telepathic circuits, bringing the ship to a landing. She then steps out into a barn, and though the place seems quite nondescript at first, it didn't take hardcore Whovians long to figure out this was the exact same building from the 50th anniversary special: we were on Gallifrey, and that kid crying in the bed was the Doctor.

For lack of a more elegant term, this was a real "OH SH*T" moment, one that was totally unexpected in a mid-series episode. But hey, Moffat's gonna Moffat!

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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!