10 Doctor Who Storylines That Fans Pretend Never Happened

1. The Doctor Being Half Human On His Mother's Side

Here's the uncontested winner for the storyline that everyone ignores now, and it's the one where both the fans and the production team act like it never happened. During the 1996 US telemovie with the Pertwee logo, the Doctor infamously comments that he's "half human on his mother's side". Fandom was not ready for this seismic shift in their favourite character's origins, let alone the kiss with Grace, and reacted with typical frankness (they didn't like it). Compared with the origin story in Lungbarrow, the movie's revelation is fairly tame. It's understandable aim is to provide the Doctor with a reason for caring about Earth whereas the novel's retconning essentially says that the Doctor's been lying about who he is the entire time he's been on TV (which isn't all that much of a stretch, really). Fans didn't like the Doctor being half human because, once again, it detracted from his essential alien unknowableness. Besides, if he really did have a human mother, wouldn't he have mentioned it already at some point over the previous few decades? Some of the writers of the spin-off books took a shine to this storyline and snuck in references here and there, but it seems the producers of the revived programme don't like the idea any more than a lot of the fans. When Russell T Davies penned the only transmitted episode to actually include the Doctor's mother (the lady in white in The End of Time is supposed to be her, but it's left to each viewer's interpretation), there's no hint that she's anything other than 100% Time Lady. What did you think of this list? Are there any storylines that you've personally decided to ignore, and what are your reasons? Let us know in the comments section below! Don't miss 10 Things You Didn't Know About Doctor Who for more mind blowing timey-wimey facts.