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

8. Glimpses Of "Real World" TV (Various)

This refers more to a series of moments than any one specific scene. To be fair, though, it's not a cringeworthy disaster every single time a story cuts to American reporter Trinity Wells (pictured above) to tell us what's going on in the "real world" of the Doctor Who universe. The original series rarely used this trope (the best and most famous example is the reportage from Devil's End by BBC3, several years before they actually existed, in The Dæmons). The new series used it a lot between 2005 and 2009, especially in Russell T Davies scripts. Sometimes, it's extremely effective, such as the reports in World War Three and Turn Left.

But then the series decided to branch out into showing us "talking head" interviews, public service announcements, snippets of other in-universe shows and even commercials... and these weren't always quite so effective.

The absolute worst offenders come from Army of Ghosts (go figure) as most of them only serve to undercut the tension severely. Viewers don't necessarily doubt that an Earth visited by ghosts over the course of several months would be featured in TV storylines but the Ectoshine commercial and the clip featuring EastEnders' Peggy Mitchell are enough to give you the shivers - and not because of the ghosts.

Even David Warwick's cameo as a police commissioner advising everyone to stay calm, just before getting killed on camera by a Cyberman, is played tongue-in-cheek, though it's probably not meant to be. The talking heads and media star appearances aren't much better. Richard Dawkins' appearance can at least be considered a subtle wink to fans who remember who he's married to (it's Lalla Ward, if you didn't know), but that appearance by Paul O'Grady in The Stolen Earth? Just why, exactly?!