Doctor Who: 10 Bizarre Powers You Forgot The Doctor Has

6. Stopping Both Hearts In Order To Play Dead

Doctor Who Destiny Of The Daleks Romana
BBC

It's widely known that the Doctor has two hearts, and as seen in episodes like The Shakespeare Code and The Power Of Three, he really starts to struggle when one of them stops working.

But there's an underrated and overlooked trick that all Time Lords - ones that have been properly trained, at least - can pull off with their hearts, and that is to stop them beating, which comes in handy when a Time Lord wants to feign death.

We actually see Romana employ this tactic in the Fourth Doctor serial Destiny Of The Daleks, where she stops both of her hearts in order to appear dead, allowing her to escape from the Daleks. Then, when she meets up with the Doctor, she states "they taught me at school how to stop my hearts", implying that the Doctor - who also studied on Gallifrey - has this ability too.

This one actually sounds quite horrible, so it's no wonder we don't see Time Lords utilise it on a regular basis. Whether it's an intentional choice or not, imagine the feeling of your heart (or hearts) just stopping?

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!