10 Times Doctor Who Wanted You To Hate It
Remember that time a certain American president went up against the Daleks… and won?
Over the years, many a Doctor Who fan has rolled their eyes at a dodgy special effect or undercooked plot line. But the show doesn’t usually set out to wind up its audience.
Except when it does.
Sometimes it’s necessary to stir up negative emotions to make a story work – for instance, those shocking moments where characters do a 360 and prove to be less angelic than they first appear (including, in one case, the Doctor himself).
Likewise, killer twists rely on the viewer hating the writer for doing something so shocking… or hating themselves for not seeing the twist coming sooner.
There are also times when writers put something deliberately provocative into a script, just to get a reaction. Or when their hate of something from the real world ends up seeping its way in, to make it clear that the Doctor opposes it too.
The Twelfth Doctor once said that “hate is always foolish and love is always wise”. But some stuff in Doctor Who exists solely to make you shout at the TV...
10. Rickston Survives (Voyage Of The Damned)
As Doctor Who's take on a classic disaster movie there are a lot of characters who bite the dust in Voyage of the Damned, and most of them are quite likeable.
But true to form it’s not just the good guys that make it out the other side, with loyal crew member "Allons-y" Alonso Frame and lovable tour guide Mr Copper joined by arrogant businessman Rickston Slade.
Slade is exactly the type of guy you wouldn't want to find yourself stuck on a crashed spaceship with. Or stuck anywhere with, really. He spends all his time on the Titanic looking out for himself, refusing to give a helping hand when needed, making lots of rude comments and just generally being a dick.
To twist the knife even further he actually profits from the ordeal too, having sold his shares in Max Capricorn Cruiseliners shortly before the Titanic crashed.
He’s one of those characters that exists to remind us that life isn’t fair, and was designed with the sole purpose of being hateable. As Mr Copper puts it, "if you could decide who lives and who dies, that would make you a monster."
Quite right, but we all still wanted to see Rickston sliced up by one of those golden frisbees, didn't we?