13 Darkest Doctor Who Endings Ever

The Fifth Doctor had a relatively easy run. It was an era where the show got a little too comfortable, and the perils faced by the Doctor were somewhat lacking (apart from his biggest enemy – a swimming pool).

Enter legendary Doctor Who writer Robert Holmes, who, returning from a long hiatus, rather agreed with this sentiment and decided to put Five through hell during his regeneration story. The result? One of the best-regarded stories in the history of the show.

The Fifth Doctor and his companion, Peri, are infected with a deadly disease, with mere hours to spare themselves from a grisly death. Five spends the entire episode being shot at, chased, and generally bullied by everyone he meets, all in search of a cure, which he eventually succeeds in procuring, only to accidentally drop some of it and be left with enough for a single person.

Nobly administering the remaining cure to Peri, he lays down and begins one of the more traumatic regenerations the Doctor has endured – paralysed, hallucinating, and slowly burning up from the inside. He tries to fight back, but sees a vision of the Master, who basically tells him to curl up and die already, which he promptly does.

It's unsettling in a way that regenerations rarely are, capping off the Fifth Doctor's cheerful tenure in dramatic fashion indeed.