8 Deleted Scenes That Explain Confusing Doctor Who Moments

Deleted scenes are a natural part of the TV-making process, and Doctor Who is no stranger to them. It's a show that has to cram countless big ideas into an extremely tight runtime, and so, at a certain point, that superfluous joke or that extra bit of dialogue just has to be removed in order to keep the plot moving at a brisk pace.

And while the majority of Doctor Who deleted scenes are unnecessary bits of fluff that aren't really important, some are a lot more substantial, and if they had been left in, they would've even made certain story beats a little bit clearer.

We're not saying that these episodes are total narrative trainwrecks, but they do each have a deleted scene (some that were shot, others that were cut at the scripting stage) that would've shed more light on a potentially confusing issue, whether it's an odd decision that a character made, or even a problem with continuity.

So, to quote the Cybermen, maybe hitting "DELETE" on these scenes wasn't the best option, because they all contain information we would've liked to learn in the actual episode.

The Mystery

While this particular deleted scene is taken from Series 2 finale Doomsday, it touches on something that is relevant to Doctor Who as a whole.

You know how the villains will often send out live video transmissions? Maybe they want to communicate with the Doctor to explain their evil plan, or perhaps they want to address the people of Earth to inform them that they're about to be conquered.

Whatever the case, this happens a lot in the show, and while some of these threats are beamed from the control room of a spaceship - where there's presumably some sort of camera equipment - this isn't always the case. Just look at the Cybermen in Doomsday, who manage to send a transmission to the people of Earth from inside the Torchwood Tower, which is a human-operated facility.

So... how are the villains always prepared to film these kinds of transmissions?

The Deleted Scene

The Cybermen send out their message right at the start of Doomsday, and in the final cut of the episode, we don't see how they're recording it.

However, in a short deleted scene, we can see a special Cyberman that has a camera attached to its wrist, which enables the metal monsters to send out their threatening video messages from anywhere they please.

So... yeah. Some Doctor Who villains do carry cameras. The next time you see the Daleks, the Sontarans, the Judoon, the Cybermen, or any other bad guy beaming out a crisp HD livestream from some random Earth building - and you're wondering how they're doing it - just bear this in mind.