10 Insane Doctor Who Episodes That Almost Happened

3. Tiny Doctor Battles Super-Intelligent Ants

Doctor Who David Tennant Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe
BBC

If anyone ever says that Doctor Who isn't totally insane, just refer them to this unmade Second Doctor adventure from the late 1960s: The Ants.

Based on an idea by Roger Dixon, The Ants would've featured the Doctor and his companions being shrunk down to a tenth of an inch in height, and just to screw them over even further, an atomic bomb test has made the nearby ant population super-intelligent, and the insects are now plotting to take over the Earth.

While the shrinking idea and the villainous ants idea were both done in the Hartnell era (in the serials Planet of Giants and The Web Planet, respectively), The Ants would've combined the two concepts, and also done things a lot differently.

For example, the "ants" in The Web Planet are actually aliens called Zarbi, and they're really not that smart. On the other hand, the titular creatures from The Ants would've been the real thing, only supremely intelligent. And rather than making them huge like the Zarbi, the Doctor would've been shrunk down to their size instead.

So, to sum up: clever, evil, normal-sized ants attempt to dominate the Earth, while also fighting against a teeny-tiny Doctor. Best episode ever.

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

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.