Doctor Who: 10 Times The Doctor Went Too Far

This was bound to be on here somewhere. The Waters of Mars is perhaps the most famous example in the show’s history of the Doctor going too far.

The Doctor stumbles across the doomed Bowie Base One, the mysterious destruction of which is a fixed point in time. Captain Adelaide Brooke, the leader of this operation, must die to inspire her family to travel the stars. But off the back of the loss of Donna, Ten is alone, and watching this crew he respects being picked off one-by-one is too much for him. The Doctor finally snaps, and the Time Lord Victorious is born.

This new man laughs in the face of fixed points in time, and of the rules he’s set for himself. He’s essentially a god of time, and this is the moment he realises that he doesn’t have anyone to answer to anymore – his god complex finally triumphs.

This is the Doctor in his darkest hour. This is a man who made a promise to never be cruel, and to never be cowardly. And yet here he is, with his own arrogance forcing Adelaide to take her own life in order to preserve the timeline.

This was such a quintessential moment in the show’s history that it’s become the template for any ‘Doctor goes too far’ moment since. And it’s not hard to see why.