History SpecialEffectFailure / DoctorWho

* "Carnival of Monsters" has a moment in Part 4 when an Inter Minorian's bald cap completely slips loose. This was considered so bad by an editor that for some transmissions, ''the whole ending got cut out of rebroadcasts''.

** The archive footage of the Doctors in the scene where they all save Gallifrey would be passable, if not for the fact you can see Seven's is taken from both the original series and his one telemovie outing... with ''very'' noticably different wardrobes between the two (one taken during the John Nathan-Turner question mark craze years, the other from the movie where he dressed more cultured and somberly).

** The FakeShemp Doctors in the final shot of "Day of the Doctor" quite obviously have faces cut and pasted on, some at unfortunate angles. The Eighth Doctor's head is too big (Worse, Creator/PaulMcGann was asked to return as the Eighth Doctor a ''week'' after filming wrapped. He could have been used in this scene instead of a body double.), and the Fourth Doctor's head is a photo of his [[UncannyValley terrifying]] waxwork. Two does some creepy finger twiddling, while Six looks like he has the neck of a Rock'Em Sock'Em robot. And some of the body doubles don't look very good either. Keep in mind that this episode was being filmed ''for cinema release'', and some harder, more animated hed-pastede-on-yay effects were achieved flawlessly to revive Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker's Doctors for one of the ''trailers'' for this episode. But worst of all, Matt Smith's head ''flinches'' a split second before the fade to black.

** The FakeShemp Doctors in the final shot of "Day of the Doctor" quite obviously have faces cut and pasted on, some at unfortunate angles. The Eighth Doctor's head is too big, and the Fourth Doctor's head is a photo of his [[UncannyValley terrifying]] waxwork. And some of the body doubles don't look very good either. Keep in mind that this episode was being filmed ''for cinema release'', and some harder, more animated hed-pastede-on-yay effects were achieved flawlessly to revive Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker's Doctors for one of the ''trailers'' for this episode.

* The Zarbi in "The Web Planet" would look rubbish even if they didn't have two obviously human legs in trousers and shoes sticking out of the bottom and even if they didn't constantly make incredibly synthetic beeping noises. The Larvae Guns are fringed with rags. The Animus and the Menoptera are better looking, but the Menoptera's wings, that look striking when stationary, rustle in a plasticy way when they move them, and the Animus is obviously just a bunch of hoses glued to a hula-hoop like structure and hung off the ceiling with wire. The tube-like structures the Animus uses to communicate with the Doctor are supposed to look like webs, but instead are just a clear plastic drum with some web stuff glued on it - {{Lampshaded}} when the Doctor calls it a 'silly hairdryer thing'. Attempts were made to obscure the lousy special effects by [[GaussianGirl greasing the camera within an inch of its life]], and it doesn't work. On the plus side, the WireFu flight of the Menoptera is extremely convincing thanks to some clever camera angle trickery and the graceful motions of the actors.

'''Justified, deliberate, lampshaded and played-with examples''':

** For "Destiny of the Daleks", the costumes were unsuited to the BBCQuarry set, and so cheap, lightweight fibreglass shells without bumpers were made for the actors to 'walk' across in. This had the benefit of allowing the series to use more than three convincing-looking Dalek props on screen for the first time ever, but the effect is ruined by the wobbly walking gait. The actual Dalek props had been kept in storage for years and treated very poorly - they all have dented gunsticks, one Dalek has a split hemisphere on its side (revealing it to just be thin plastic) and some have noticeable bits of gaffer tape holding them together. On top of this, Davros was recast with TheOtherDarrin and the mask from "Genesis of the Daleks" (a very good effect in that story) obviously doesn't fit him, bulging horribly when he moves his face to talk and visibly coming off in some shots. [[CreatorsFavorite Dalek enthusiast]] Creator/NicholasBriggs cited it as his personal low point for the Daleks.

** When the robot grows to giant size, the [[ChromaKey CSO]] is absolutely horrible. No attempt whatsoever has been made to make the miniature look like it's actually standing in the footage, with the robot obviously reflecting bits of the greenscreen and being lit wrong for the backgrounds. Even the characters it menaces have been [=CSOed=] onto the backgrounds in some shots.

* "Pyramids of Mars"'s effects are excellent for the time except for that one shot of the glorious godlike alien Sutekh getting up from his throne and revealing [[{{Blooper}} the disembodied hand of a production assistant holding the seat down]].

* Creator/TomBaker once said of the "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]", "The BBC is very good at [[CostumeDrama period drama]] but not very good at giant rats." The rat is 'played' by two different effects - some acceptable-looking {{Slurpasaur}} MiniatureEffects of a real rat, and a [[PeopleInRubberSuits rat costume]] so that Leela could fight the rat. The intention was to use mostly footage of the real rat, with the rat suit being shown only in brief glimpses in a very dark environment in a scene with lots of movement, and since "Talons" was the series finale and already [[{{Costumer}} the season's]] [[{{Spectacle}} expensive story]] the costume was simplified to save time and money. It would probably have worked really well had this actually happened - instead, most of what we see of the rat is the rat suit, and we even get an extreme closeup of its mangy puppet face at one point. The effects department was absolutely livid when they found out.

* Creator/TomBaker once said of the "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]", "The BBC is very good at [[CostumeDrama period drama]] but not very good at giant rats."

* Creator/TomBaker once said of the "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]", "The BBC is very good at [[CostumeDrama period drama]] but not very good at giant rats."

* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd "Journey's End"]] [[spoiler:the TARDIS tows the earth]] across the ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' loading screen.

* The BigFinishDoctorWho audio drama "The Rocket Men" is a ridiculously ambitious story involving massive floating platforms, an outrageously beautiful gas giant with an ecosystem of flying animals including billions of glittering beetles that look like diamonds, giant flying manta rays, men with {{jetpacks}}, a glass-bottomed spaceship, giant floating jellyfish, Ian flying out of an airlock to save Barbara and a fistfight in mid-air that would have been ''absolutely impossible'' to achieve with the technology of Season 2 (very difficult to even do with modern CGI). The interview with the writer, John Dorney, revealed it was deliberately written to invoke this trope - early season ''Doctor Who'' did not particularly care about scaling down its ambitions to match its budgets, hence the disastrous early effects in stories like the PlanetaryRomance "The Web Planet" (which he cited as his primary inspiration). The story itself gives no indication you should give it anything other than the effects budget of the mind, but it is quite fun for the listener to imagine bad MatteShot planets, awful WireFu and flying manta rays made out of craft foam and binbags.

* Even from the early days, the show played with its reputation for cheap monsters - the [[ScoobyDooHoax plot twist]] in the Hartnell story "The Rescue" is dependent on the audience assuming the monsters will look exactly like cheap costumes. The costume itself is quite effective, though.

* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E1 Robot]]":

'''Doctor:''' I very much doubt it, brigadier.

* And, of course, that one time when [=UNIT=] used a toy tank and an Action Man doll in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E1Robot Robot]]".
--->'''Brigadier:''' I've brought along something that will deal with it.
---> '''Doctor:''' I very much doubt it, brigadier.
* "Robot"'s [[ChromaKey CSO]] is absolutely horrible too. No effect whatsoever has been made to make the miniature look like it's actually standing in the footage, with the robot obviously reflecting bits of the greenscreen and being lit wrong for the backgrounds. Even the characters it menaces have been CSOed onto the backgrounds in some shots.

* Quite YMMV but the Werewolf from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E2ToothAndClaw "Tooth and Claw"]] is quite obviously CGI.

[[caption-width-right:350:The BBC, doing what it does worst. [[note]]Effects pictured are, clockwise from top: Chopping the fame in half to edit in the Kroll in "The Power of Kroll", cardboard cutout Daleks in "Power of the Daleks", a beast from "The Androids of Tara", a monster made from black packing tape in "Fear Her", ants with shoes in "The Web Planet", and plastic dinosaur MiniatureEffects in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs".[[/note]]]]

* Even the new series sometimes has {{Special Effect Failure}}s. The Slitheen and [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS1E7TheLongGame the Jagrafess]] are two good (that is, bad) examples. They also fit in with the cheesy-alien-costume look from the classic show, so it might have been a deliberate stylistic choice.
* A scene in "The End of the World" where the Doctor pulls a robot arm of the Adherents does look quite fake.
* Quite YMMV but the Werewolf from "Tooth and Claw" is quite obviously CGI.
* The Absorbaloff from "Love and Monsters" looks rather stupid when finally seen.
* The MonsterOfTheWeek in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E6TheLazarusExperiment The Lazarus Experiment]]" would have been much more frightening was the CGI quality not in line with ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''.
* In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E13JourneysEnd Journey's End]]" [[spoiler:the TARDIS tows the earth]] across the ''DawnOfWar'' loading screen.
* One of the aliens in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E15PlanetOfTheDead Planet of the Dead]]" is killed by a monster that apparently drops straight onto it and they give no sign of the thing even biting him. It's like there was a tube inside the monster that the alien just slides into, as if he were swallowed whole.
* In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]", you can see the point at which the Vinvocci's rubber cap joins their heads very clearly. It's particularly noticeable with the female actress, who has a tendency of furrowing her brow while the top of her forehead remains suspiciously immobile. They were actually called "Prostheticons" in early drafts of the script, anticipating this.
* "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E06TheVampiresOfVenice The Vampires of Venice]]". Most of the effects are great, such as the aliens. But for some reason, something as simple as a backdrop as the Doctor climbs a tower looks incredibly fake. Huh?
* In "The Crimson Horror", although only noticeable if you're looking for it, just before Strax's "clean my grenades" line you can see his face mask is starting to peel off.
* In "The Day of the Doctor", which normally had VisualEffectsOfAwesome due to its big budget compared to a normal episode, there's a shot where the War Doctor blasts open a Dalek case and the Dalek mutant comes flying out, as unconvincing as a rubber chicken.

** The title sequence for Season 7B had a very blocky CGI TARDIS that looked absolutely unconvincing if it took up more than 20% of the screen, and significantly less convincing than the TARDIS model used in-engine in the licensed video games. The shot of the TARDIS's doors opening at the end shows off the pixellated texture on the door sign and was done with an obvious image-stretch and expand, as well.

* The Fifth Doctor's trademark lapel celery is obviously made of cloth. Peter Davison apparently really disliked it for this reason, and much preferred the plastic celery he got to wear as an old Doctor in "Time Clash" many years later.

[[quoteright:177:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/everyone_tried_their_best_6403.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:177:The BBC, doing what it does worst. [[note]]Effects pictured are from top down: Chopping the fame in half to edit in the Kroll in "The Power of Kroll", plastic dinosaur MiniatureEffects in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" and ants with shoes in "The Web Planet".[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:177:The BBC, doing what it does worst. [[note]]Effects pictured are from top down: Chopping the fame in half to edit in the Kroll in "The Power of Kroll", unassailable terrible MiniatureEffects in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" and ants with shoes in "The Web Planet".[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:177:The BBC, doing what it does worst. [[note]]Effects pictured are from top down: Chopping the fame in half to edit in the Kroll in "The Power of Kroll", unassailable terrible MiniatureEffects in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" and ants with shoes in "The Web Planet".]]