10 Most Depressingly Realistic Lessons From Doctor Who

9. Sometimes, Winning Just Means Losing Least

One of the more overlooked scenes in the history of NuWho comes toward the end of The Parting of the Ways. Christopher Eccleston, having spent the last several scenes frantically assembling a convenient MacGuffin, stands face to face with the Dalek Emperor and... decides not to use it. People for whom Drama meant big explosions and shiny guns immediately took to the web criticizing this as terrible scripting, a complete waste of time in the episode, Russell T. Davies is the antichrist, etc., etc., etc. What they were really showing was that they'd entirely missed the point of the scene. What was really happening was this: the Doctor was put in a position where he had the clear and direct choice to either be killed by the Daleks and doom humanity to unspeakable slavery, or defeat the Daleks by committing an absolute atrocity. And he chose to not become a monster. After killing his own people and spending a season careening toward becoming the very monster that he had fought against, he chose instead to die, better a coward than a monster, any day. And THAT is a victory.