10 Hilarious Doctor Who Mistakes You Definitely Didn't Notice

8. Moffat Misquotes The Doctor (Listen)

Doctor Who David Tennant Midnight green screen mistake
BBC Studios

Modern Who is full of nods to the classic years, in no small part because all three showrunners - Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, and Chris Chibnall - watched the show as kids, and grew up absolutely adoring it.

One of the best of these nods occurs in the Series 8 Moffat episode Listen, where Clara comforts a terrified young Doctor by telling him "fear makes companions of us all", which is a callback to a similar line uttered by the First Doctor.

We say "similar" because Moffat actually got the line wrong, something he acknowledged himself during a 2020 watchalong of the episode:

"In fact, I misquoted the line. Hartnell says 'of all of us' and Jenna says 'of us all.' Knew it was wrong, but couldn't let go of the way I'd misremembered it for so long... drunk with power, I was."

As Moffat states, the line is actually "fear makes companions of all of us", which the First Doctor tells companion Barbara in An Unearthly Child - the very first Doctor serial, broadcast in 1963.

This is such a small detail though, and it's easy to overlook. Moffat, you are forgiven.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.