10 Most Horrific Moments In Doctor Who

5. The Vashta Narada - Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead (2008)

We thought long and hard about this one. Steven Moffat, no matter what you may think of his skills as a showrunner, has created more of the most memorably scary monsters of new Who than just about any other writer. While we may not be including the Weeping Angels on this list out of sheer bloody mindedness, we can't ignore their impact on the programme, nor that of the clockwork service robots on the Madame de Pompadour, the empty child... And then we remembered that famous line: "Hey, who turned out the lights?" It's hard to say what's creepiest about this one: the idea of the motes that we see in sunlight are creatures that strip the flesh from human bone within seconds; the notion that something that resembles the soul can be captured by a technological device to repeat our last words over and over again; or the concept of donating one's face on the occasion of one's death to be used as an information kiosk in a library. (And no, the introduction of River Song does not belong on that list. Don't be a hater.) We honestly can't imagine that there was a single kid who watched this two-parter and was able to get a decent night's sleep for weeks or even months afterward. As it is, we have trouble keeping our composure when we gaze at a beam of mote-infested sunlight, or when we flip through a book and realize there might be Vashta Narada spores in every single page... Yeah. Statues that come to life when you're not looking? Just keep looking at 'em. You can't fight motes in the sunlight.