10 Terrible Doctor Who Ideas That Nearly Happened

When the Terry Nation Estate quibbled over the use of the Daleks in the 2005 series of Doctor Who, Russell T Davies and Robert Shearman had to come up with new antagonists for the Time War, just in case.

Contrary to popular belief, Shearman didn't just Tipp-Ex over DALEK and write CYBERMAN, RTD created another monster for use in the episode, which briefly had the jokey working title of "Absence of the Daleks".

The monsters were essentially an early version of the Toclafane from Doctor Who series 3. A race of evolved future humans inside spheres would have been revealed to be the terrifying enemy that laid waste to the Time Lords, Nestenes, and Gelth.

Thankfully, the Nation Estate acquiesced and we got the Daleks, as it should have been from the start. It's hard to imagine the Toclafane having anywhere near the iconic power of a Dalek.

Also, as The Last of the Time Lords proved, the Toclafane are a horrible enough idea, but they don't really work on their own. They needed a character like the Master to use them as their own private army.