Doctor Who: 10 Times The Doctor Was Out Of Their Depth

5. Trapped In A Shrinking TARDIS

Doctor Who Midnight
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When two-dimensional monsters invade present-day Earth in the episode Flatline, they begin to leech the external dimensions of the TARDIS, causing the exterior shell to shrink while the interior remains normal size. This is a brilliantly unusual scenario, as it sees the Doctor trapped inside the miniature time machine while Clara carries it around in her bag, leading to a number of utterly hilarious visual gags and some of the most inventive imagery in Doctor Who history.

But this scenario also smartly forces the Doctor out of his depth, as he's cut off from the action, made to merely observe (and make snarky comments) as Clara takes on his role. Things ramp up a gear when the TARDIS is forced into Siege Mode, sealing the entrance and causing the life support systems to shut down. With the Doctor powerless and running out of time, Clara must use her quick thinking and impressive capabilities to rally a dysfunctional group of characters to follow her lead, outwit the two-dimensional terrors, and restore the TARDIS to its normal size. The Doctor was completely out of his depth here, and had Clara not been there to take on his role so capably, we might have never seen him or the TARDIS again.

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Patch is a pop culture enthusiast and purveyor of puns. He writes about media in a vague attempt to justify the alarming amount of time he spends consuming it. Nobody's convinced... but nobody's told him that yet. He spends his spare time working on Portal 2: Desolation, an ambitious fan-made sequel to Valve's beloved puzzle games.