10 MORE Important Doctor Who Details That Are Almost Never Mentioned

Nothing divides the classic and revival eras of Doctor Who more than the Time War. Ever since 2005 it’s hung heavy over the series – sometimes so important it defines entire series arcs, and sometimes just sitting there in the back of the Doctor’s mind, influencing their actions.

We knew that the Doctor had stopped the war offscreen by destroying both the Time Lords and the Daleks, before The Day of the Doctor but a neat little bow tie on the matter by giving the Doctor the chance to save their people instead. But for all the talk of how the Doctor ended the Time War, there’s surprisingly little mention that they were also responsible for starting it.

In Genesis of the Daleks, the Fourth Doctor is pulled out of his timestream by the Time Lords, who give him a mission: destroy the Daleks before they are created. Eventually, the Doctor decides that he doesn’t have the right to erase an entire species, and leaves the Daleks trapped in their city on Skaro instead.

Rather unsurprisingly, the Daleks immediately develop a massive grudge against the Time Lords. Before the Fourth Doctor's mission they hadn’t seemed to care all that much about Gallifrey, but considering that the Doctor almost wiped them out, you can't really blame them for deciding that the Time Lords are their sworn enemies.

Several stories and one destroyed Skaro later, and this mutual animosity has escalated into a full-on Time War. With Russell T Davies suggesting that Genesis of the Daleks was the "first shot" fired in this war, that means it was the Doctor who was responsible for kicking it all off in the first place!

No wonder the Time Lords developed a strict non-interference policy.