10 Most Paused Doctor Who Moments

Modern Doctor Who is often so fast-paced that it pays to take a break every now and again. By pausing the action, you can have a breather, and pick up on things that might have whizzed past you otherwise. Doctor Who fans also absolutely love to scrutinise scenes to within an inch of their lives, teasing out hidden details and discovering elaborate patterns.

How else would we know that Mike Yates and Sara Kingdom had teamed up if we hadn't paused The Day of the Doctor and clocked the photo of the two of them on the wall inside the Black Archive?

And how many of us hit pause on Rogue's gallery of past Doctors to verify that, yes, that was definitely Richard E Grant?

And wait, is that a Hoix alongside the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Sontarans in The Pandorica Opens?!

In an online landscape populated by trailer breakdowns and easter egg hunts, we're pausing episodes of Doctor Who more often than ever. But which moments from the past 61 years have had us doing it the most? And what secrets and startling revelations are contained within?

In a neat callback to his first series, appearances by the Bad Wolf herself were seeded throughout Russell T Davies' fourth series in charge of Doctor Who.

There were the obvious ones – appearing to Donna in Partners in Crime, and then having a starring role in Turn Left – but much more pause-worthy were the less obvious ones.

In The Poison Sky, Donna is trapped inside the TARDIS and receives guidance from the Tenth Doctor on how to reopen the Sontarans' teleport link. A little bit before this, a muted image of Rose flashes up oh-so briefly on the TARDIS monitor, shouting for the Doctor.

Interestingly, this blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo was a late addition to the episode. It was originally filmed for Midnight, but was reused for The Poison Sky when RTD realised how successful Billie Piper's top-secret cameo had been at the end of Partners in Crime.

And of course, Rose can be glimpsed in Midnight on a shuttle monitor for a split-second while the power is down following an attack by the entity. However, because he and the rest of his fellow passengers are too busy stressing about their situation, the Tenth Doctor doesn't see her.

If only he had a pause button himself! Honestly, that seems like something the sonic screwdriver would be able to do at this point, doesn't it?

These cameos sent fans into a frenzy back in the day, and were discussed and analyzed to death in the build-up to Series 4's huge blockbuster finale.