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* [[Alas, Poor Scrappy]]: Adric.
* [[Alas, Poor Villain]]: Quite a few of these.
** In particular the Master. In "The End of Time", {{spoiler|it was revealed the drumming in his head (that had tormented him his entire life and led to him being [[Ax Crazy|totally unhinged]]) was in fact put there by Rassilon for his own purposes
** Even a freaking DALEK gets one in the episode "Dalek", giving one last, rather morose-sounding "Exterminate!" before blowing itself up out of self-loathing.
** The Minotaur in "The God Complex".
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** The classic series has its share of this as well. For example, the Seventh Doctor is generally considered to be [[The Chessmaster]], but there's some evidence that suggests that he ''actually'' doesn't really know what he's doing at all but just happens to be very good at [[Xanatos Speed Chess]], making everyone to ''think'' he's pulling all the strings for his own reasons.
** The Bad Wolf. Is it Rose using the power of the time vortex to save the Doctor, or the time vortex controlling the mind of Rose to stop the Daleks?
*** Or given the events of
{{quote|'''Bad Wolf:''' I want you safe. My Doctor.}}
** The Beast
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z57Wktiu5Qc This] [[YouTube]] video of a Doctor Who Confidential offers one for Madame Kovarian: a woman "of a certain age" who never had any children of her own. It seems to be suggesting that not only will
** The First Doctor. Is his impatience and grumpiness and general abrasiveness because he is old and had a life hard lived, or because he is a young man trying to seem much more important than he is?
** The series on a whole- is it about an ancient alien travelling time and space in a dimensionally trancendient box, or is it about the people who he travels with and how he changes them? Arguments could be made for both sides.
* [[And the Fandom Rejoiced]]: Bizarre example—the announcement of [[Matt Smith]] provoked cries of "That one's too young!" (to use the Doctor's own words) and "He's wrong for the role!" Then him eccentrically ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zog-6SrGxE0 wiggling his fingers]'' in a interview managed to win over the majority of those who initially objected to his casting (such as the many who were hoping for Patterson Joseph).
** About Matt Smith again, those that weren't sold by the interview (or didn't see it) were won over by the first videos of his actual acting—specifically, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slP6Rrou2ns this preview]. Pretty much everyone who was still on the fence was instantly converted.
** The new series as a whole received a shot of enthusiasm in the arm when it was announced that 'proper' actor [[Christopher Eccleston]] had been cast as the Doctor after a long period of worrying tabloid stories about various light-entertainment stars being
** The Russell T Davies era securing the rights to use the Daleks after their participation had been questioned by the estate of their late creator assuaged many fans' fears.
** For some, the announcement of [[Steven Moffat]] as showrunner following Russell T Davies' departure.
** Also, [[Neil Gaiman]] writing for
* [[Angst Dissonance]]: Due to the diverse nature of the show's ever-changing mixture of characters and actors, some fans react differently to angst-related scenarios than others. The somewhat angst-ridden relationships between the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler (particularly after she is trapped in the alternate earth) and the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald are not supported by some fans.
* [[Angst? What Angst?]]:
** The Doctor tends to ignore the fact that ''he just died'' to [[Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny|near-pathological levels]] when he regenerates.
** Eleven in general in comparison to both Nine and Ten. {{spoiler|It's shown in series 6 he still has guilt for what he did to Rose, Martha and Donna as well as the loss of the Time Lords, however
* [[Anvilicious]]: Yeah, painting the TARDIS ''pink'' in ''The Happiness Patrol'' was probably a ''bit'' on-the-nose...
** Looking back, the 1988-1989 series in general can be a bit too unsubtle about how 'right-on' politically they are. In 2010, the producers admitted that they'd been directly opposed to [[Margaret Thatcher]] and had been working to do their bit to help bring her down—which led to a certain amount of derision, partly because the viewing audience at this time wasn't exactly a massively influential voting block (comprised primarily of kids and hardcore fans), but mostly because thanks to this trope, this was hardly a secret.
** To a lesser extent, if you started a drinking game about how many times Rory being a nurse got brought up, you'd be drunk very quickly.
* [[Arc Fatigue]]: With the finale of the sixth series, Moffat has run into this for River and the Silents/Silence, if critical reviews are any indication.
* [[Archive Panic]]: Oh boy where do we begin? At the start of 2017, the TV series alone stands at a whopping '''832''' episodes split into 264 serials across 35 seasons. Watch (or listen to) one serial a week and you'll finish the classic series in a little over three years. Watch/listen to one serial a ''day'', and you'll finish the entire show in just under a year. There's a reason the show reset the season and episode counters to 1 when it started up again in 2005.
* [[Ass Pull]]: It seems the Doctor has a knack for saving the day through some [[Applied Phlebotinum|trick of space, time, the TARDIS, or his sonic screwdriver]] about which we've never heard before, and may not ever hear of again, though sometimes, a trick might get resurrected later, just to add a bit of continuity.
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** Pick a Doctor, any Doctor. There will be people who love him and people who think he ruined the show [[Ruined FOREVER|FOREVER]]. Yes, even THAT Doctor.
** River Song. It only got worse during series six, to say nothing of the finale, which appears to have set the [[Internet Backdraft|internet aflame]].
** Amy Pond. There are actually people who have stopped watching the show altogether because of her, as they feel she's turned it into "Amy Pond and Her Boys". Her [[
** Jenny (AKA the Doctor's Daughter). Good lord, ''Jenny''. She's either completely hated, or she absolutely has to return for another episode.
* [[Black Hole Sue]]: Clara, to a painful degree. Intros for episodes with her even refer to her as "The girl who saves the Doctor." And she does save him, and the day... over and over and over again, essentially turning the Doctor into ''her'' Companion.
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* [[Ear Worm]]: The theme tune.
** The Master's drumbeat.
* [[Ending Fatigue]]: The 15-minute farewell scenes in
* [[Ensemble Darkhorse]]:
** From Classic Who, both the Daleks and ''Sir'' Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Both originally intended as one-off characters in the
** Within just one episode, the Weeping Angels were heavily regarded as the show's most terrifying villains. Even more so than the Daleks, just from the sheer [[Paranoia Fuel|paranoia factor]]. Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone only ''increased'' their popularity (except among certain fans who screamed [[Ruined FOREVER]] at some of the changes).
*** Yet another creation from Blink is also widely beloved: Sally Sparrow.
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*** And his bow tie. [[Memetic Mutation|Both are cool.]]
** Despite Sharaz Jek only appearing in ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S21/E06 The Caves of Androzani|The Caves of Androzani]]'' {{spoiler|and dying in the final episode}}, he's arguably one of the most popular side characters in the show's history.
** Wilfred Mott. He attacked a Dalek with a ''paint gun''. He was so popular that he was brought back as The Doctor's companion for
** Captain Jack Harkness was popular enough to get his own show after just five episodes.
** Although thus far they've only shown up for one episode, and didn't get very much screen time within it, Madame Vastra, the Lesbian Victorian Silurian Detective and her partner-slash-servant are incredibly popular, with the fandom begging for a spin-off.
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** Yet ''another'' recent example is Craig Owens, The Doctor's roommate in The Lodger, who gained a lot of popularity based on the excellent chemistry between James Corden and Matt Smith. [[And the Fandom Rejoiced]] when it was announced that the Doctor would go back and visit him.
* [[Epileptic Trees]]: Series 5 has, thus far, generated reams of fan theories, ranging from very clever, probably right ones, to the fact that the barely legible text of the library card in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E06 The Vampires of Venice|The Vampires of Venice]]" has a slightly wrong post code on it.
** Series
* [[Escapist Character]]: The Doctor and his companions.
* [[Ethnic Scrappy]]: The council worker in "Fear Her".
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** The Eleventh Doctor has a meme now. Memes are cool.
** As of series 5, the Angels have started becoming this.
* [[Genius Bonus]]: The word "TARDIS" is a play on the Latin word "tardus", meaning "slow".
** A more obscure example, overlapping with [[Historical In-Joke]] is the "Bad Wolf" arc: the first time Rose is referred to as the "bad wolf" is in 1869, a time during which she was mistaken for a prostitute because of her makeup. At the time, "she-wolf" was slang for "prostitute".
* [[Growing the Beard]]: Being that the series has a few decades of history, it's a bit inevitable that there have been a lot of times when the show's quality gets lower a few times and then back up later. The most notable are the Second Doctor compared to the first, the Sixth Doctor's second season (
** Some fans would argue that the new series in general was a beard growth compared to the eighties and nineties, and others see it as the point where the show was [[Ruined FOREVER]].
** The Second Doctor was a noticeable improvement on the First, making stories more action-orientated, and spreading his influence to every other Doctor after that.
*** And The First Doctor's second serial, ''The Daleks'', is seen as where the show really took off. As opposed to the rather dull first serial involving Cave Men.
* [[Harsher in Hindsight]]:
** The little girl in "Day of the Moon" being forgotten about only to {{spoiler|find herself sick and dying in New York}} could be bad enough, until you realise {{spoiler|this is a young River Song ''and'' the baby Amy was pregnant with. It also leads into the attempted murder of the Doctor
** At the end of ''The Time Monster'', when the Doctor states that eternal torment was something he'd never subject anything to. [[Doctor Who/Recap/S29/E09 The Family of Blood|About]] [[Doctor Who/Recap/S29/E10 Blink|that...]]
** The scene of Rory sadly playing with the dream!cot in [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E07 Amy's Choice|Amy's Choice]] is made even more heartbreaking by what happens in series 6.
** In early episodes, it's shown that the Doctor's worst fear is worlds burning down. See Doctor, there's this certain time war that you'll stop...
* [[Hell Is That Noise]]: The attack prayer of the Headless Monks.
* [[Hilarious in Hindsight]]: In "World War Three", Jackie banters about [[Doctor Who/Recap/S28/E02 Tooth and Claw|how the Doctor and Rose should be knighted]] and wonders [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E01 The Eleventh Hour|whether or not the Doctor even eats normal food]].
** In [[Doctor Who/Recap/S32/E02 Day of the Moon|Day of the Moon]], [[Richard Nixon]] asks the Doctor if he'll be remembered in the future. The Doctor, wishing to remain coy on the details, simply replies that "they'll never forget about [Nixon]" and "say hello to David Frost for me". [[Doctor Who/Recap/S32/E04 The Doctor's Wife|Two episodes later]], the Doctor has an encounter with a being voiced by [[Michael Sheen]], who played David Frost in [[Frost/Nixon]].
** In a [[Black Comedy]] sense, Rory tells Alaya in [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E09 Cold Blood|Cold Blood]] that he trusts the Doctor with his life. That proved not to be a great idea.
* [[Holy Shit Quotient]]: The series does outdo itself constantly in this area due to thrills and scares, but very few can compare to
** Specifically, when the viewer gets out ahead of the plot on that one and realizes what's coming just soon enough to scream 'HOLY SHIT' about twenty times before the event actually happens.
* [[Ho Yay]]: [[Doctor Who/Ho Yay|Has its own page]].
* [[Hype Backlash]]: Fandom example. Rose was a fine character on her own, but when Martha was frequently compared to her by both the show [[Die for Our Ship|and the fanbase]], even some of the people who ''liked'' her have come to see her as [[The Scrappy]].
* [[I Am Not Shazam]]: The main character's name is "The Doctor", not "Doctor Who".
* [[Internet Backdraft]]: The reveal that the person cast as the companion for
* [[Iron Woobie]]:
** Since the revival, the Doctor.
** Amy.
** In
*** Then in Series
* [[Jerkass Woobie]]:
** Thanks to copious amounts of [[Moral Dissonance]] right from the [[Doctor Who/Recap/2005 CS the Christmas Invasion|get-go]], the Tenth Doctor.
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** Amy as well, thanks to her [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]] moments.
* [[Like You Would Really Do It]]: Every time The Master is killed off. Ditto for the Daleks.
** Series 6 is hinting very strongly that the Doctor is going to die For Realsies This Time
* [[Magnificent Bastard]]: So ''very'' many. The Master pretty much takes home the gold, though. Davros gets the silver.
* [[Mary Sue]]: There are arguments for any number of companions, not to mention the Doctor. Take a look at [[Common Mary Sue Traits|the list of traits]] and you'll find that the Doctor has quite a few. Proof that [[Tropes Are Not Bad]].
** And then there's Clara, proof that sometimes they're ''absolutely terrible''.
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* [[Memetic Sex God]]: "There are no straight men, just men who haven't met Captain Jack Harkness" is a common line to describe the character, notable for the relatively few number of straight male fans who deny the statement. There's also a popular image macro with a nude screenshot from "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S27/E12 Bad Wolf|Bad Wolf]]" captioned, "You're straight? So is spaghetti, before it gets hot."
** Even justified in-universe. His cologne's actually a genetic modification that includes pheromones.
* [[
* [[Moe]]:
** Jo Grant provides an ''excellent'' [http://cdn.okcimg.com/php/load_okc_image.php/images/0x0/0x0/0/11318826022475577877.jpeg___1_500_1_500_cb94de6a_.png live action example.]
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** In ''The Curse of Fenric'', Millington locks two men up in a cellar, leaving them to their Haemovorey death.
** In "Dalek", Van Statten is just arrogant and ignorant... until he decides to keep the Doctor as a specimen, for ''torturing''. And later he dismisses his soldiers as "dispensible" when the Dalek massacres them. After that, there's no excuse.
** In
* [[Most Wonderful Sound]]: The characteristic TARDIS dematerialisation sound
* [[Narm Charm]]: Often, the series manages to be cheesy while still being on the edge of your seat tense. Any non-humanoid Auton in particular.
** In The Master's first-ever appearance, he tried to take over the world with plastic daffodils.
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** Not to mention the fans who bash David Tennant and/or Matt Smith solely because of the now-infamous line "I don't want to go."
** The Sixth Doctor trying to strangle Peri, which they themselves don't get over until ''The Mysterious Planet''.
* [[Nightmare Retardant]]: The cheaper costumes of the classic era. Sometimes pops up every now and then in the new series.
* [[Paranoia Fuel]]:
**
** How about: "Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead! They are fast. Faster than you could believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink! Good Luck."
** Steven Moffat seems to be determined to give the entire planet a phobia of ''everything''. So far he's covered ticking, statues, shadows and now {{spoiler|cracks on the wall and... whatever the Smilers are}}.
*** And now
*** Makes people scared to death of their Gran's angel collection, too.
** Speaking of Moff, he also came up with the Silence, monsters that you instantly ''forget exist'' whenever you're not looking at them. Also, they look like [[The Slender Man Mythos|Slender Man]].
** The Autons. Basically ''anything made of plastic'' could come to life.
** Gangers. Human clones with the same memories. So how are you going to tell the original and the copy apart? Well, you can't, unless the Ganger is incomplete and has that smooth, transparent face. Just hope you won't be seeing it in the mirror. And then there's the twist of "The Almost People": {{spoiler|who's to say that '''you''' aren't unknowingly piloting a ganger right now, separated from all your friends and family who don't even know you're missing
* [[Periphery Demographic]]: The classic series was popular with the gay community. As there was almost no suggestion of any sexuality at all, viewers could add their own interpretations on the various relationships between characters.
* [[Real Women Don't Wear Dresses]]: Amy can get this rather bad. "The Girl Who Waited", for example, was treated as sexist because the older Amy wouldn't save herself until young!Amy used Rory to convince her.
** River Song also gets accusations of this because she's obsessed with the Doctor. On the one hand, it's a [[Justified Trope]] due to her {{spoiler|being brainwashed to kill him her entire life
* [[Rescued
** Mickey Smith, from "The Age of Steel". Solidified at the end of "Army of Ghosts".
* [[Robo Ship]]: Doctor and TARDIS. [[Ship Tease|Hinted at]] at various occasions, especially during the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh Doctor's tenure.
* [[Running the Asylum]]: It's the longest running Science Fiction show in existence, heavily influencing just about everyone in England who ever did anything related to Science Fiction. Its a fair bet that there's a few long-time fans on the payroll, such as David Tennant.
* [[Scapegoat Creator]]: The series has no one creator to lay blame on, but aside from original producer Verity Lambert, legendary writer Robert Holmes and arguably Tom Baker's second producer, Philip Hinchcliffe, just about everyone who's ever worked on the show has been designated [[Scapegoat Creator]] by some segments of fandom. John Nathan-Turner (Producer, 1980-9) and [[Russell T. Davies]] (Executive Producer and Head Writer 2005-2010) are both frequent and popular targets of this.
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** More permanently, [[Teen Genius|Adric]] and [[Screaming Woman|Mel]].
** Eric Roberts' Master.
** Francine Jones, Martha's mother. She's rude to just about everyone right from the get-go, and ends up {{spoiler|selling out the Doctor to Harold Saxon, a.k.a. the Master
** Sylvia Noble, Donna's mum. Her [[Small Name, Big Ego|arrogance]], [[Smug Snake|smugness]], constant belittling of her daughter, and inability to say the words "Thank You" left a bad taste in the mouth of many a fan.
** The Slitheen have the unfortunate distinction of being the only Doctor Who race to be almost universally despised. Shoddy costume design, out-of-place toilet humor and the fact that the characters themselves were generally seen to be more irritating than menacing turned out to not be a very good recipe for an alien race, especially one that was the first recurring alien race of the new series.
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** Ben/Polly. Running an orphanage according to the above SJA episode.
* [[Shipping Wars]]: In addition to the above, people pretty much ship Anyone/Anyone on the show. Canon or not, they can get ''very'' defensive over their ship(s).
* [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped]]: Sure, ''Vincent and the Doctor'' was basically a [[Very Special Episode]] about depression - even the monster that provides the plot can be read as a metaphor for Van Gogh's mental illness - but it was handled so maturely that it falls squarely into this category. {{spoiler|Even knowing that his paintings will be incredibly famous and loved in the future, Vincent still kills himself, because it's not a matter of cheering him up: he's got a ''disease'' that nobody in his time understands
* [[Space Jews]]: Gibbis in
* [[Special Effects Failure]]: [[The BBC]] was somewhat notorious for giving the set and costume designers of ''Doctor Who'' a shoestring budget; that is, a bundle of shoe strings that they were expected to make fifteen monsters out of. Interestingly enough, however, this has always been viewed as part of the series' charm, and the fanbase reacted negatively when the TV movie upped the effects budget.
** The low budget also effected the [[Chroma Key]] work throughout the seventies and eighties. It pops up every now and then in the new series but very infrequently.
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** The Doctor gets himself and Amy ejected from a giant mouth by making the animal vomit. They go out screaming, with their mouths open.
** The [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Headless]] Monks. All that remains of their heads is ''a tied-off stump''.
* [[Theme Pairing]]: There's a portion of the fandom that ships Adric/Nyssa because they look cute together as [[Conveniently an Orphan|Orphaned]] [[Human Alien]] [[Teen Genius]]es traveling through time and space together.
* [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]]: Fan reaction to almost any regeneration and companion addition, sometimes initial, sometimes permanent.
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* [[Ugly Cute]]:
** The Adipose (cutest [[Body Horror]] ever!)
** [[Eldritch Abomination|Prisoner Zero]] can be this when it's not trying to scare people.
** The Ood. In fricking ''spades''.
** Ganger-Jennifer. Her degeneration makes her look like Voldemort's younger sister.
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* [[Values Dissonance]]: Even accepting the recons and the wonky production values, many people trying to get into the Hartnell/Troughton era nowadays find it hard due to the rather questionable portrayals of race and gender.
* [[Viewers are Morons]]: Unfortunately seems to be an assumption that the series is making more often the longer it goes on. The first episode of the Capaldi run has a wonderfully done set of scenes where it's unclear whether the villain of the episode jumped to his death or the newly-regenerated Doctor pushed him. Since the Twelfth Doctor said that either the villain was lying about their inability to commit suicide, or the Doctor was lying about not being a murderer, this was an establishing character moment for Twelve, and its ambiguity was important. Apparently too important to leave to mushy-headed viewers to catch, so at the end of the episode they added a scene with a character ''loudly asking'' the villain in the afterlife "Did you jump or did he push you? '''It was a bit difficult to see!'''"
* [[Villain Decay]]: The Classic Series' Cybermen went from "no known weaknesses" to "gold dust interferes with their respiratory systems" to "[[Weaksauce Weakness|holy crap, anything gold kills them dead]]". ''The Five Doctors'' and ''Attack of the Cybermen'' didn't
** The Slitheen were fairly menacing in "Aliens of London", "World War Three" and "Boom Town". By the third series of ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'', they were quickly caught by their "cousins".
** Arguably, the Sontarans and Ice Warriors. In the case of the Ice Warriors, them becoming less evil in general was actually part of the story, while in the new series the war-loving Sontarans have [[Took a Level
* [[Visual Effects of Awesome]]: Seriously, for all the mocking the classic series receives for its [[Special Effects Failure]]s, they did manage to achieve some pretty awesome effects on pretty much no money at times. Examples that immediately come to mind include the epic opening shot of the space station in ''Trial of a Time Lord'' and the flying ships in ''Enlightenment''.
* [[Wangst]]: Tegan was always whining and complaining about something.
** The Tenth Doctor may qualify.
* [[What an Idiot!]]:
* [[What Do You Mean It's for Kids?]]: Some fans seem completely offended at the thought this is a family show in a family show time slot. Also a number of classic and revival stories have been rated 12 by the BBFC.
** A lot of stories from the '80s, thanks to writers and producers making the show [[Bloodier and Gorier]]. ''Attack of the Cyberman'' has a 15+ rating in Australia, but it was still shown at 6 o'clock at night.
* [[What Do You Mean It's Not Political?]]: Pretty much every time they've shown up, there's some sort of political tie-in that can be debated with the Silurians. The old-series seemed to have a more Soviet/Communist slant to the reptilians, while the modern re-imagining almost mirrors conflicts between native peoples of a land and those who would come to settle on it.
* [[The Woobie]]: [[The Woobie/Live-Action TV/Doctor Who|Pretty much everyone]] (even many of the villains) and ''especially'' the Doctor.
* [[What the Hell, Casting Agency?]]: Eric Roberts as the Master.
** Nicholas Parsons' casting as Reverend Wainwright in ''The Curse of Fenric'' might appear to be an example of this at first glance, given that he was best known for being a quiz show host at the time of the story's airing. In reality Parsons was actually a pretty experienced actor, although he hadn't done any TV acting work for over a decade when the story was made.
** Beryl Reid as Captain Briggs in Earthshock. This was due to producer John Nathan Turner's love for light entertainment.
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