10 Most Bizarre Doctor Who Moments

7. Leela And The Giant Rat (The Talons Of Weng-Chiang)

Doctor Who
BBC

On the subject of dodgy classic effects, this example from the 1977 serial The Talons Of Weng-Chiang is right up there on the WTF scale.

At several points throughout this famous Fourth Doctor adventure, our heroes bump into a giant rat, which has been created by the warlord Magnus Greel, and used as a guard dog, roaming the sewers. At one point, a rat chases after Leela and tries to drag her away, forcing the Doctor to kill it with a well-aimed gunshot.

A lot of people are frightened of rats so this was a good idea on paper, but in practice, it looks about as convincing as you'd expect for a serial that aired over 40 years ago. It looks like one of those small fluffy toys you'd get for your cat to chew on, which has then been scaled up like the tank was. It looks hilarious.

The giant rat has been called one of the worst-realised monsters in the show's history, a title it's definitely worthy of. It was even replaced by a CGI version in the 2020 blu-ray release of Season 14, which was a significant improvement.

As for the original rat, some of those shots have clearly been darkened in an attempt to hide how laughable it looks, but you know what they say... you can't polish a turd.

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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.