Doctor Who: 10 Scariest Episodes That Sent Us All Behind The Sofa

3. The Daleks

The story that formed a legend, the very first Dalek story was a controversial one in many ways. Family TV had never been this scary, and this really wasn't the vision of Doctor Who. It was a landmark for so many reasons, and a petrifying new turn for the show. In only his second ever serial, William Hartnell came face to face with the space-Nazi pepper pots themselves, a group of mutated beasts, scarred from a nuclear war, who hid themselves in metal casing. Their screams were deafening. Their ideology so very similar to that that tried to invade Britain just twenty years' prior. But it was the very first Dalek scene that would go down in history; the camera focussed on a helpless girl, screaming, as a plunger edged closer and closer towards her. A legend was born. 'The Daleks' became the bar. Every monster since has had to compete with Terry Nation's most famous creation, in terms of ingenuity, brilliant design and of course, the fear factor.