Doctor Who: Every Doctor's WORST Episode
6. Fear Her (The Tenth Doctor)
Despite its penchant for daftness, Doctor Who can often go to some very dark places. Managing potential tonal clashes is such an important part of the show that they have designated Tone Meetings ahead of production. Despite this, some stories can still fall foul of them.
Take Fear Her for example, a story about loneliness and domestic violence set within the celebratory atmosphere of the 2012 Olympics. The first issue is that we've already done something very similar a few weeks earlier in The Idiot's Lantern. That story had some memorable iconography – evil televisions, the Wire, and the Doctor on top of Alexandra Palace. Fear Her has some drawings and a scribble monster.
The other issue is that the story of Chloe Webber is pretty dark, but every scene is shot in glorious daylight, reducing what little atmosphere the script is building up. The general feeling is that of a daytime soap or an episode of Tracy Beaker, completely flattening the edges of Matthew Graham's script.
The episode has more than once been voted as the second-worst ever behind The Twin Dilemma, which is a bit harsh, but is indicative of its overall quality.