10 Times Doctor Who Made Obvious Mistakes

There's an admirable degree of showmanship in John Nathan-Turner's decision to respond to the BBC's declining opinion of Doctor Who by putting the Doctor on trial. However, there's also a fundamental flaw in that plan, which is that it required viewers to sign on for a 14-week serial that had a fairly nonsensical plot due to the numerous behind-the-scenes issues that plagued the writing process.

BBC1 Controller Michael Grade definitely set JNT up to fail by claiming that the show was cheap, but refusing to increase its budget. Still, ever the excellent producer, JNT managed to do some incredible things to make the show look a little bit better: the flyby of the Gallifreyan space station is a fantastic opening sequence but it rapidly falls back into the cheap nastiness that Grade had previously singled out.

Colin Baker has softened slightly, but then a grotesquely miserable story like Mindwarp appears, which shows the Doctor being appalling to Peri. Yes, we know that the footage has been manipulated by the Valeyard, but the issue remains that those who had been turned off Doctor Who by the grisliness of the Doctor throttling Peri in The Twin Dilemma (more on that later) wouldn't be keen to carry on watching when they see him chain her to a rock.