10 Doctor Who Moments You Didn't See Coming

4. Wilf Knocks Four Times

Doctor Who He Knocks Four Times Wilf
BBC

Before we learnt its true meaning, the four knocks had been teased for quite some time. The first official mention of this prophecy was in 2009's Planet Of The Dead, but there's also reason to believe it was foreshadowed in 2008's Midnight.

Basically, we had to wait a long time for the truth to be revealed, and when that moment finally arrived, few could have predicted the heartbreaking circumstances.

The four knocks referred to the man who would kill the Tenth Doctor, and with David Tennant's regeneration just round the corner, we all knew that answers had to be coming soon. Throughout Ten's last two episodes, the smart money was on John Simm's Master - the main villain of the piece - being the one to perform those knocks. Or maybe it would be the powerful Rassilon. Or hell, maybe it would even be douchebag millionaire Joshua Naismith. As you can see, there were a fair few villainous candidates.

In the end though, it wasn't a villain at all. It was lovable old Wilf, Ten's loyal companion, tapping four times on the glass of a radiation booth. He had no idea what he'd just done, but us viewers knew he'd signed Ten's death warrant.

It was a stunning scene, and instantly ranked as one of the most emotional twists in the history of the show.

In this post: 
Doctor Who
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

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!