Doctor Who: 10 Worst Things That Have Happened To The Doctor At Christmas
7. Watching The Master Take Over The Earth
The End Of Time: Part One was broadcast on Christmas Day 2009, and on reflection, it's pretty strange viewing for such a happy day of the year, because it isn't a stretch to say that this episode is all doom-and-gloom from start to end.
It opens with the Master coming back to life (not good), then shows him killing a bunch of innocent people (even more not good). The Doctor then gets all teary-eyed about his imminent death before being attacked by the Master, who proceeds to enact a plan that puts the entire human race at risk.
Doesn't exactly scream "Merry Christmas!" does it?
Anyway, because the human race holds a special place in the Doctor's hearts, the Master's plan must've been absolutely horrifying for him to witness. At the end of the episode, we learn that the Master has used an Immortality Gate to splice his genetic template onto every single human on planet Earth, effectively giving him billions of clones with which to cause untold amounts of mayhem and misery.
As you'd expect, the Doctor looks pretty damn stressed about this whole situation, and while the so-called "Master Race" was undone in the very next episode, this is one Christmas incident that the Doctor will probably want to forget.