12 Abandoned Doctor Who Subplots
You can't just sonic some of these away.
The premise of Doctor Who is gloriously limitless in its imagination, letting us immerse ourselves in unadulterated escapism (depending on the BBC budget of course). As the Eleventh Doctor enticingly put it to Amy Pond:
"So, all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will. Where do you want to start?"
There have been so many underlying plots within the hundreds of episodes - a Who-ception - that it becomes a source of fervent intrigue and fan theories.
Some get altered to fit a particular narrative arc. Some get used later on - the Zygon subplot from The Day of the Doctor eventually shapeshifting into a brilliant two-parter from series 9. Others are left as a sort of Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs for other showrunners to perhaps pick up on, as Russell T Davies did with the mystery surrounding Peter Capaldi's incredible lookalikes throughout the Whoniverse.
Although some of the intriguing subplots on this list have been delved into in other media, they really should be further explored on the small screen (or silver screen!) given their blockbuster potential.
12. Who Is The Mysterious Minister Of War?
So, pre-Harold Saxon. Pre-the Minister of War. Pre-the moon exploding and a big bat coming out.
The Minister of War?
Yeah.
No, never mind. I expect I'll find out soon enough.
Alas, after the events of Before the Flood, we never did.
The modern series has all been about the foreshadowing. We've had Bad Wolf, Harold Saxon (Yana), Cracks in Time, the Hybrid, and the Timeless Child. The quizzically-concerned look on the Doctor's face when O'Donnell mentions "pre-the Minister of War" is akin to his reaction on hearing/seeing Bad Wolf during series one, and hers from The Ghost Monument, where the blanket audition rejects for an IKEA advert first mention the Timeless Child.
It could be one of those ambiguous subplots that is handily left for another writer/showrunner to use at some point down the time vortex. No doubt there are some (millions) of you who would rather have the Minister of War revealed as the Foundling instead.