10 Moments That Almost Killed Doctor Who

The Doctor is used to battling monsters and aliens week in, week out, but in 2020 they faced a new kind of enemy – a global pandemic.

With Doctor Who already contending with a frustratingly infrequent release schedule in the latter half of the 2010s, the last thing it needed was a huge-scale shutdown of production, but that’s exactly what it got when COVID-19 hit and made it impossible to film anything for a period of time.

Showrunner Chris Chiball has since revealed that the BBC had serious questions about whether or not the show could continue, saying "The BBC was just like, 'Where’s the money coming from? How are we going to do this? Is it too difficult?'"

As a result, there was a brief period of time where Doctor Who simply wasn't happening, and nobody involved knew what the future of the show would be.

Even after COVID hurdles were overcome with strict filming regulations and a shortened series of only six episodes, Doctor Who's problems weren't over. Jodie Whittaker had been offered other work which would clash with the filming of Flux, but like the true hero she is, she turned various job offers down so she could fully commit to Doctor Who.

And thank god that's the case too. Just imagine if the last thing we ever saw of Doctor Who was Ryan falling off his bike...