10 Most Paused Doctor Who Moments Ever

4. The War Doctor's Introduction (The Name Of The Doctor)

Doctor Who The Name Of The Doctor John Hurt the War Doctor
BBC Studios

2013 was a massive year for Doctor Who. With the show turning 50 years old, fans were expecting the final few episodes of the year to pull out all the stops, delivering an epic storyline worthy of such a momentous occasion.

But nobody expected this.

When that mysterious figure turned around at the end of Series 7 finale The Name Of The Doctor, and the text "introducing John Hurt as the Doctor" faded onto the screen, you could almost hear Whovian heads exploding up and down the country.

The reveal of a secret Doctor raised a ton of questions about Doctor Who history, the history we thought we knew ("How does this affect the numbering of the Doctors?" "Where does John Hurt fit within the timeline?" "Why has he been hidden all this time?"), and hell, plenty of viewers were left wondering if Hurt's Doctor came after Matt Smith's, due to the fact that Smith's replacement hadn't been announced at the time.

It was an exciting, slightly confusing time, and countless fans paused on this image mainly just to let the onscreen text sink in.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!