Doctor Who: 8 Times The Doctor Has Killed

4. He Sent The Sycorax Leader Plummeting To His Death

Doctor Who The Christmas Invasion Sycorax leader death
BBC Studios

Guns, knives and fists are all very well and good, but killing someone with a satsuma takes some real mad skills.

And the Doctor has those skills, apparently. David Tennant’s first full episode in the role concluded with an epic sword battle on a spaceship high up in the sky, which resulted in him defeating his opponent with the mighty power... of a small piece of fruit. Seriously.

With Earth being threatened by the Sycorax, the Doctor - who was MIA for the majority of this episode, only showing up to deal with this threat towards the end - had to step in. After winning a sword fight and forcing the Sycorax leader to surrender, he asked the aliens to leave the Earth in peace, which seemingly wrapped everything up in a neat little bow.

But the Sycorax leader - who didn’t like being told what to do, evidently - tried to attack the Doctor from behind, which proved a fatal move: sensing this incoming attack, the Time Lord grabbed a satsuma, threw it at a switch that opened up the floor, and sent his would-be assailant plummeting to his death.

He then quips "no second chances" which seems like an odd mantra for a guy who gets another chance every single time he dies.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!