Doctor Who: 10 Times The Doctor Was Out Of Their Depth
2. Onslaught By The Sandmen
The Le Verrier space station has been overrun by mutant creatures known as Sandmen created by malfunctioning sleep pods, and it's up to the Doctor and Clara to save the day by defeating the monsters and uncovering the truth. Unfortunately, however, they don't manage to do that. Not in the slightest. In fact, this is a rare instance in which the Doctor is so out of his depth that he actually completely fails. He doesn't save anyone, he doesn't thwart the monsters, all he can do is climb into his TARDIS and fly away, leaving the increasingly dire situation to play itself out.
What's more, the Doctor never discovers the true intention of the episode's villain, Gagan Rasmussen, who intends to transmit the Sandman infection through the footage you're watching in a rather meta way. It's unusual for the Doctor not to win, let alone for him to not even know the true extent of the threat he was dealing with. This might make for a rather unsatisfying resolution, but it's certainly an interesting way of demonstrating that the Doctor does have his limits and that he's not all-powerful. It's a shame that the planned sequel to this episode never materialised, because it could have allowed the Doctor to redeem himself from his rather embarrassing failure here.