Doctor Who: 10 Most Infuriating Cliffhangers Of The Classic Series

6. Power Of Kroll (Episode 2)

In what is one of the least-loved Tom Baker stories (and absolutely the weakest section of the Key to Time season), the Doctor and Romana arrive on a swampy planet where the natives serve a large squidlike creature known as Kroll, which unbeknownst to the green-skinned inhabitants known as "Swampies", is just a regular squid that swallowed a segment of the Key to Time which caused it to grow to a monstrous size. Here's the cliffhanger. Inside the planet's methane refinery at the climax of Episode 2, an unfortunate extra is attacked by Kroll as one of his tentacles bursts through the wall and grabs him. Besides being a poor cliffhanger in that viewers don't really have any investment in this random character being attacked, the execution leaves much to be desired. They don't even show the whole monster here, either, just a rather limp tentacle that bangs meekly through the wall (where you can clearly see the section it breaks through was pre-cut out) and drags him through, and not without some considerable difficulty. As a tedious halfway point through a mediocre story, this is more infuriating through its boredom than anything else.