10 Terrible CGI Moments In Modern Doctor Who

2. The Lazarus Monster (The Lazarus Experiment)

Doctor Who The Lazarus Experiment
BBC

While a lot of Doctor Who monsters can be brought to life practically, there are other instances where CGI is the only option.

Take 2007's The Lazarus Experiment, in which the crew had to somehow get a gigantic scorpion monster - with a human face - up on the screen, and while everyone involved surely tried their best, they were fighting a losing battle against Doctor Who's tight schedule and limited financial resources, because the final effect is a disaster.

There are loads of problems with the end result - such as the fact that it never feels like it's lit in accordance with its surroundings - but the biggest issue is easily the face, which looks like it's been hurriedly plastered on top of the main monster model.

The eyes are also completely dead too, never selling the fact that this is a sentient, real creature. It looks like a PS1 cutscene, and that's being generous.

It's a shame too, because the story of the episode is really intriguing, with Lazarus' desire for a longer life challenged by the Doctor's own existence: he's lived for centuries, watching his friends die around him. He knows how hard immortality is.

But when that big dumb scorpion monster comes barging into the plot, it falls apart.

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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!