10 Ways Doctor Who Was Almost Completely Different

Another Doctor Who staple is the whole "monster of the week" idea. Each story brings with it a new alien threat, and not a single series goes by without a new beastie being introduced. It's inevitable that a character who traverses space and time will encounter a wide variety of extra-terrestrial races, but one of the show's original creators wanted the universe to look a lot different from the one we see in the show today.

Producer Sydney Newman was one of the primary minds behind the creation of Doctor Who back in the early 1960s, and he had a particular idea in mind for how the show should use space travel. He wanted Doctor Who to be an educational programme, and so, he wanted it to be based on factual knowledge, in order to teach young viewers about real things in an entertaining fashion.

Crucially, he didn't want any "bug-eyed monsters" to appear on the show at all. He initially rejected the idea of the Daleks, leading to producer Verity Lambert having to fight to get them included. Newman was proven wrong when the Daleks were hugely successful, and Doctor Who opened up to include more alien creatures.

If you're familiar with Doctor Who in the slightest, you'll know that the term "bug-eyed monsters" covers pretty much the entire roster of creatures present on the show, so if Newman had got his way, the likes of the Slitheen, the Sontarans, the Silurians and the Daleks would never have been introduced, and Doctor Who would be an alien-free show. Imagine that.