Doctor Who: 10 Most Cringeworthy Moments Of The Revived Series So Far

2. Farting Aliens (Aliens Of London)

Back in 1999, long before becoming the new series' second showrunner, Steven Moffat wrote a Red Nose Day sketch called The Curse of Fatal Death in which the Doctor and the Master communicated via the controlled breaking of wind, the language of the aliens on planet Tersurus. Hilarious stuff. Shame that Russell T Davies then decided to make farting aliens canonical.

If anything, the Slitheen and their seemingly gastric emissions should be looked at as they actually are - a symptom of a show trying to strike the balance between comedy and terror, between being an ostensible children's show (as its predecessor was often called) and being a show that would largely appeal to adults, too. And what appeals to both kids and adults more than flatulence? Um... wrong answer, surely?

The fart jokes are many and varied through this two parter but the worst of them come in the first part in which a trio of our hostile aliens decide to show off their gastric prowess before revealing their true nature - for no apparent reason apart from the need to fart. A lot. It's incredibly hard to sit through, though fans should consider ourselves lucky that they haven't developed Smell-O-Vision yet. Imagine...

By the time the Slitheen make an appearance again, in Boom Town, there's no actual farting anymore. No, because by then, viewers got the completely illogical splatterdump scene. (Seriously - what is going on there? The Slitheen "fart" because of a "gas exchange" between the skin suit and their compressed forms and it just happens to smell and sound like... you know. But if that's the case, what the hell happens to Margaret in that bathroom stall?) The only other time this "ability" of theirs is treated as a plot point is in the real children's series The Sarah Jane Adventures (and its own Red Nose Day sketch), thus proving this really was a juvenile idea to begin with. Next?