Narm / Doctor Who

Victory... should be NARMFUL!!!

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Classic Who

• A classic example — the Fifth Doctor's regeneration at the end of "The Caves of Androzani" can be summed up by three words: Nicola Bryant's cleavage.◊ Hey, even Peter Davison later admitted it. While we are on the topic, let's throw in all of Peri's costumes seeming to be designed to show of as much cleavage as possible.
  • Chellak's womanly scream when he sees Sharaz Jek's real face.
• Everything about Daleks for some newer fans. They're such vicious monsters that it loops around from the other direction as cute. And despite being vicious monsters, people still make jokes about how they are unable to climb stairs. Even the writers themselves can't resist making said jokes, as with this "gem" from "Destiny of the Daleks":
  Doctor: If you're supposed to be the superior race of the universe, why don't you try climbing after us? Bye, bye.
• "Excellent". Delivered by the Cyber-leader in a hammy voice, even better it's his catchphrase throughout the 1980's.
  • Speaking of the Cybermen, in their first appearance one of them surmises that Ben does not take them seriously as a threat. Given how the Cybermen talk in this story, Ben's hardly the only one...
    • Their voice is terrifying enough, but slightly ruined by the added "uh" at the end of every sentence.
• The Cybermen in "The Wheel in Space" are difficult to take seriously because everytime they speak they bob their body back & forth to distingush which one is speaking.
  • Also the cliffhanger in part 3 the Cybermen's voice is completely incomprehensible due to a technical malfunction.
• Pretty much every line that comes out of Joseph Furst's mouth in "The Underwater Menace". His closing line of episode 3, however ("NOZING IN ZE VORLD CAN SHTOP ME NOW!") takes the cake.
  • The whole episode in fan circles is known for its utter camp. In fact, it's even often referred to "Plan 9 from Doctor Who".
• The Marshal in "The Armageddon Factor"
  "I shall crush it like a rotten egg."
  "Taste the moment of victory. Any second now, beautiful mushrooms will blossom and burst!"
• The infamously blurred delivery of "Your will is weak, Doctor!" from "The King's Demons".
• Oscar Botcherby's death in "The Two Doctors" is two courses of Narm with a side helping of ham, all the while having about one ketchup packet's worth of blood on his shirt.
• The Eighth Doctor realizing what the Master has in mind for him in The TV Movie.
  The Doctor: The Master wants to take all my remaining lives... SO THAT HE WILL LIVE AND I WILL DIE! NOOOOOO!!
  • The Master frequently declared that he 'wanted the Doctor's body' or something along those lines. The bondage-gear thing he put the Doctor in doesn't help. He just had that lying around, did he?
  • The Seventh Doctor's death on the operating table. A fairly well-done, intense scene (set to Puccini, no less!) falls apart when the Doctor gives one last ridiculous squawk agonized cry. Yes, that's what we'll call it...
  • The regeneration scene. CGI-aided gurning! And the bit where the Master possesses Eric Roberts and then drools all over himself. But, seriously, that movie is fun.
    "WHO! AM! I?!?"
  • Though that last at least also gives us a nice Shirtless Scene, which might have been the point.
  • And then we have Eric Roberts as the Master. The campy, campy Master.
    The Master: [Swanning in wearing a Time Lord robe and striking a pose] I always dreeeeeess for the occasion.
    Paul McGann: [On the DVD commentary] Oh look. Are those stairs going to light up as he steps on them?
• In the serial "The Deadly Assassin", the Master is depicted as a decaying husk, as he is on his thirteenth and final life. This being the 1970's BBC, that meant the actor had to wear a cumbersome rubber mask, which sometimes muffled his lines. During the climatic scene where the Fourth Doctor and the Master face off, he utters this jewel:
  ''You know better than that Doctor! Even in extremis, I WEAH TEH TASH TEHTOGOO!"
• "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" has creepy robo-clowns, werewolves, and kickass explosions for a finale. Unfortunately, it also has a Totally Radical rapping Ringmaster. (Though his relentless cheerfulness may be Nightmare Fuel to some.)
• "The Mark of the Rani" has land mines that turn people into trees! (The Rani; green before it was in!) And it leads to this gem of a line:
  The Doctor: The tree won't hurt you!
  • This is barely scratching the surface. Seriously, this episode is kind of awesome in a cracked-out way.
    • Topped off with volcanic-level Narm when the Rani knees the Master in the groin.
• The Fifth Doctor story "Earthshock" has a scene in which the Doctor tries to appeal to the humanity of the Cybermen, and the last example he used was found ridiculous by the writers and the actors.
  "When was the last time you had the experience of smelling a flower, watching a sunset, eating a well-prepared meal?"
• The Second Doctor serial "The Invasion" features a Cyberman wandering through the sewers, screaming in fear. For those familiar with the Cybermen, it's very disturbing — but at the same time the screams are more like hoots, so you have a Cyberman flapping its arms in the air going "Ooo hoo hoo hoo! Ooo hoo hoo hoo hoo!"
• And a true Doctor Who classic, from the episode "Robot":
  The robot: Ooooh! I have killed the one who created me! (faints)
• Milo Clancey and his cheesy American accent from "The Space Pirates".
• "The Chase". Camp at its finest. One of the earlier scenes involves a hillbilly meeting the Doctor and a Dalek - and surviving!
• The slo-mo stutter in one of "The War Games"' final cliffhangers.
  Doctor: Ccccoommmee onnnn!!!!
  Zoe: Wwhaatt iiss ittt??
  Doctor:Ttttiimmmmeee Llllloooordddss!!!
• "The Horns of Nimon":
  • "My DREEEAMS of con-QUEST!"
  • While the above is certainly the most narmful, pretty much the whole story is narm after narm after narm. And that's before the trousers-splitting scene. It truly is So Bad, It's Good on sheer pantomime alone. Graham Crowden really steals the show; "LORD NIIIIIMON! It is I! Soldeeeeeeed!" "The Nimon be praised!" "IIIIIIII SAAAAAAAAAAW TWOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" The best part? Years earlier, the actor who delivered that glorious dose of camp turned down the opportunity to play The Fourth Doctor. Now imagine him in the role.
• "Warriors of the Deep". Anything involving the Myrka, the most failing Doctor Who monster that ever failed. And then this one chick tries to kick it...
• From "Attack of the Cybermen" Things which really stand out are the escaping prisoners (one of which is perpetually angry) and the noticeably overweight Cybercontroller, of course. The fact he is twice as fat as any other Cyberman makes it nearly impossible to take anything he says seriously. A special mention to the Cyberman who seems to have a German accent too.
  • Not to be outdone are the Cryons who, despite some prosthetic design (although the less said about their costumes the better), talk in strange fae voices and flutter their absurdly long-nailed hands around like they're attempting to communicate through interpretive dance.
• "The Invisible Enemy":
  • The manifestation of The Virus is not just unimpressive-looking, it's hilarious-looking. A big iridescent shrimp, shaped basically like a chess knight but with four limbs sticking horizontally out of its front that kick like a baby's, and whiskers that tremble emotionally as it brags about its impending domination of the universe. You just want to give it a hug. Hell, even the Doctor can't take it seriously.
    Doctor: What? That pathetic crustacean, your leader?
  • The serial also features Seeker White Blood Cells that are just large, fuzzy, obviously hollow white balls that attack the microscopic Leela by bouncing off her, to which she naturally reacts like she's in mortal peril.
• Pretty much everything in "Revelation of the Daleks", especially a lot of the lines spoken by or spoken about the DJ (played by comedian Alexei Sayle).
• "The Web Planet". Oh lord, "The Web Planet".
  • Mostly in regards to the insect Halloween-costume getups and ridiculous mannerisms of the bee-like Menoptera and grub-like Optera, as well as the enemy Zarbi, who look like giant ants with a single pair of human legs and two pairs of useless ant legs, and make siren noises at each other. Also, one of the Menoptera constantly calls Ian "Heron" for no apparent reason.
  • Those of us who have played Assassin's Creed get an additional helping of narm because the villain is named the Animus.
• "Remembrance of the Daleks":
  • Even though The Reveal that the Renegade Dalek Battle Computer is the little girl is genuinely shocking, Ratcliffe's face is still impossible not to laugh at.
  • The "time controller" she uses? A plasma ball.
• The - Mu-tants:
  • Ev-er-y - line - spo-ken - by - Cot-ton - e-spe-ci-a-lly - the - cliff-hang-er - at - the - end - of - ep-is-ode - five - it's - like - they - cast - a - tree.
  • The opening shot of episode 1 is of a raggedy old man stumbling toward the camera. You half expect him to say, "It's..."
• The title characters in "The Twin Dilemma". Not only are they both horrible Dull Surprise actors who were obviously only hired for being identical twins, but they have a bad case of Elmuh Fudd Syndwome. "I am Womulus." "I am Wemus."
• The entire episode Pyramids Of Mars is regarded as one of the best serials in the series' history - except for Sutekh's Big "NO!", which sounds like a high-pitched squeak.
  "Release meeee... OR I'LL DESTROY THE COSMOS!"
• The 1985 charity single "Doctor in Distress", made to help save the show from cancellation.
  • The lyrics are really awkward and sound like a list of facts about the show set to music. The video is hilariously '80s, and the BBC personalities singing in the video do a poor job and look embarrassed to be participating.
  • A YouTube user's comment showed that he hilariously mistook one line sung by Anthony Ainley (The Master) as "I had K-9 neutered!"
• "Terror of the Vervoids": Bonnie Langford's screaming as Mel is already in a narmy league of its own, but she was specifically told by John Nathan-Turner to hold a scream in an "F" note so that it segued with the ending credits, which punched through a new layer of the narmosphere.
• Sylvester McCoy overclocks the ham in "Survival", making a serious line sound very, very, very melodramatic as he battles on the Cheetah World:
  "IF WE FIGHT LIKE ANIMALS, WE'LL DIIIIIIEE LIKE ANIMALS!"
  • Then, he repeats the line and completely overdraws his deposit at the Ham Bank after being teleported back to Earth:
    (arms are outstretched above him; starts gesturing with his eyes shut, and shaking wildly)
    "IF WE FIGHT LIKE ANIMALS, WE DIIIIIIIIIIIEE LIKE ANIMALS!"
• Richard Briers' performance as the zombified Chief Caretaker in episode 4 of "Paradise Towers". Essentially, Briers is playing a zombie Adolf Hitler possessed by the disembodied mind of an insane architect. He's one of the hammiest villains in Classic Who, to the point where it just becomes hilarious.
  • Added to this is that, when the Chief Caretaker is possessed, his Hitler moustache inexplicably turns into a Stalin moustache.
• "Genesis of the Daleks" is a classic, but...:
  • As pointed out by Elisabeth Sladen in the DVD Commentary, all Kaled orders are written on extremely cheap and crumpled bits of paper ("It's like Mum's shopping list!"), making it hilarious whenever any of the Kaleds are looking at one.
  • The fight scene with the large fibreglass clams that 'attack' Harry when he literally puts his leg into one despite it being huge and bright orange and the Doctor warning him not to do that seconds ago. Then the Doctor tries to kill the clam by bashing it with a rock, resulting in some hilariously anguished Styrofoam Rocks overacting courtesy of Tom Baker's Hamminess that fails to accomplish anything. And then the Doctor manages to pry the clam open by breaking off a stalactite and shoving it in its mouth... and immediately after he has to bend a pair of comparatively flimsy iron bars and struggles. And all of this happens in a moody and violent story about fascism featuring the scariest Doctor Who monster.
  • The Doctor grabs Davros's wrist and starts aggressively gurning in struggle with it despite the fact that Davros is clearly not doing anything to resist him and has no ability to overpower him anyway due to being severely disabled. Then Davros, who has been a ruthlessly manipulative Magnificent Bastard up until this point, casually and accidentally mentions to his enemy, who is physically restraining him and trying to torture him, which switch on his wheelchair is a life support switch, which, turned off, would kill him in minutes.
  • Again pointed out in the DVD commentary: In the scene where Nyder interrupts the Doctor torturing Davros by coshing him over the head, the cosh prop is obviously rubbery and looks exactly like a black jelly dildo. (Lis: "It's rather limp, isn't it?" Tom: "... It still is.") Made extra hilarious by Davros's threats to 'teach [the Doctor] the true meaning of pain'.
  • The fact that the Kaled dome self-destruct button is a cartoonishly large and bright Big Red Button on Davros's desk, which stands out a mile in the otherwise black and chrome set.
  • The shot at the end where the Doctor and his companions activate the Time Ring, which involves them all Holding Hands and spinning around like a Falling-in-Love Montage. Then rolling around and writhing on a shitty CSO backdrop.
• Tom Baker's exceptionally abysmal getting-shot acting in the Episode 2 cliffhanger of "Revenge of the Cybermen". He dives forward onto his forearms, gets tangled in his scarf while writhing around dramatically with his mouth open, and surreptitiously-but-obviously arranges his hair so it'll look good for the closeup at the end of the shot. Not one of his best moments as a performer.
  • Also from this story is the Cyber-leader, who despite being an emotionless cyborg gets rather emotional and angry in this story.
• "Terminus" gives us a dog-headed alien with red lights for eyes. Yes, it's the Narm Garm!
• "The Ark in Space" is a generally well-regarded serial for good reason; it's a terrifying concept rendered quite well overall. (Tellingly, both of the revival series showrunners, Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, have named it as their favourite serial from the classic series). But the effect is spoiled a bit when the "infection" the characters suffer from is very obviously made of bubble wrap.
• "Time and the Rani":
  • The Sixth Doctor's regeneration into the Seventh during the Cold Open is framed as a dramatic twist meant to catch audiences off-guard, given that the Doctor's regenerations usually occur at the end of their respective stories. However, the execution of it is widely derided as inappropriately goofy due to a combination of its suddenness, the lack of explanation about what caused the Doctor to regenerate (leading to widespread jokes that he fell off his exercise bike and/or banged his head on the TARDIS console), and the very obvious Fake Shemping that Sylvester McCoy had to do on account of Colin Baker refusing to appear for the story after he was fired by the BBC^note  which itself is why the regeneration opens the serial; the Sixth Doctor was originally going to regenerate at the end of it. The scene has been so widely mocked over the years that that the Big Finish audio play "The Last Adventure" eventually took up the task of writing a more dignified exit for Baker.
  • The Lakertyans' Day-Glo coloration and feathery hairdos make it easy to assume that their planet is a sister to the one the furry aliens from Earth Girls Are Easy (a straight-up comedy) hail from, not helped at all by the facts that both serial and movie were shot around the same time (1987). For that matter, the Rani and Mel's hairdos and outfits wouldn't look out of place in that movie.
• "Doctor Who and the Silurians" accompanies the Silurians with a Leitmotif using a crumhorn - a rare medieval instrument. The composer's idea was that it would sound primitive and ancient. The viewers tend to find it sounds almost exactly like a kazoo.
• "Death to the Daleks" is set on a planet where a mysterious city drains all electric power. The story's composer decided to reflect this in his incidental music by only using acoustic instruments. Sounds like a good idea, but the resulting wind-instrument fanfare that accompanies the first appearance of the Daleks turns it into a moment of completely unintended comedy.
• "Resurrection of the Daleks" brings us Dalek troopers. Dalek troopers in Dalek-shaped helmets◊.
  • And guns that make an "Ow" sound effect.
• "Delta and the Bannermen" includes Keff McCulloch's synthpop rockabilly arrangement of the Doctor Who theme song as incidental music, a villain who lounges in a deckchair eating raw meat and a modern (i.e. 1987) teenager who falls in love with an alien and eats alien baby food to change into an alien so he can leave Earth with her.

New Who

• "Rose", in which we're supposed to believe that Rose doesn't notice Mickey has turned into a life-size Ken doll, despite the fact he suddenly can't drive and his skin is obviously waxy.
  • The bin eating Mickey... and then burping.
  • Russell T Davies tries to explain this in the DVD Commentary with people not normally thinking things like "Has he been replaced by a plastic clone?" Which rather ignores how she's been fighting plastic monsters for a while now.
• As referenced in the page quote, the Slitheen. In their true form: big green things with giant baby heads with their mouth movements badly synced to their speech.
  • While in their human forms, the Slitheen constantly pass gas (and giggle about it). After several extended scenes of grown adults laughing over their own flatulence, it's impossible to take their boasts about how "dangerous" they are seriously.
  • Not helping the Slitheen's case is the fact that they move really fast, leaping and sprinting like lions... when they're CGI. When it switches back to rubber suits they become a lot less graceful. The CGI ones are also shown smashing a heavy oak door off its hinges, yet the rubber one takes forever to carve its way through Mickey's cheap MDF front door.
• In "World War Three", Harriet Jones:
  "Noooooooo!!! Take MEEEE! Take MEEEE FIIIIRSSST!"
  • And adding to this, we have more ridiculousness from the Slitheen, including the spectacular line which inspired the page quote, and which might be the finest example of It Makes Sense in Context ever to appear on the series:
    "Victory...SHOULD BE NAKED!!!"
• David Tennant can overact with the best of 'em. Sometimes it works to great effect; other times it...doesn't. "NOW GET THEM OUT OF THERE!" springs to mind, as does the straight-faced "I'm sorry, they've been reduced to dust." And the overly-excited gurning of "Oh! The Lost Moon of Poosh!"
  "You're in their HOOOOMES, you've got their CHILDREN. Of course they're going to fight!"
  "Come on you BEAUTAYYYYY-AY-AY-AY..."
  • "Her face is completely gone!" ... No shit, Sherlock.
• The Cat-People^* or Felinetta Nun Nurses of "New Earth". Their response to a threat of "I'm armed"?
  Chief Cat Nurse: Who needs arms when we have... CLAWS!
  • She holds up her hand...and one-centimetre claws extend from her fingers. Real intimidating, Sister.
  • And those were computer-generated. According to the DVD Commentary, they'd originally made a prop arm that would do that, but it looked "rubbish" — Phil Collinson even says he wouldn't want anyone to see the footage of it.
  • In addition, there's a very unconvincing, sped-up shot of a cat nun plunging down an elevator shaft, screaming all the way down. It is amazingly narmful.
• Every time Anthony Stewart Head starts screeching like a bat to summon the rest of the Krillitanes in the episode "School Reunion", especially considering his subtle and sinister performance up to then. On the other hand, can YOU think of any actor who could do that WITHOUT looking silly?
  • On the other hand, who can take a man best known for playing a cross-dresser and a character who would be trying to kill the Krillitanes seriously as a Villain of the Week?
    • Especially when said villain's "Master Plan" relies on computers. One of his actor's well-known roles was a Mad Scientist who lived in a Dark Ages-style castle, and the other was a generally nice, slightly introverted librarian with no computer skills who called all computers "that dread machine".
• In "The Idiot's Lantern", The Wire starts off as a subtle menace, with an understated performance by Maureen Lipman as a smug manipulator. This all falls apart when she starts gurning and mewling "I'M HUNGRYYYYY! FEEEED MEEEE!!!" like a petulant toddler.
  • Eddie Connolly is narmy as well. Possibly even more so since his subplot deals with the serious subject of Domestic Abuse, making his childlike ranting even more awkward.
• "The Satan Pit" was creepy for most of the episode; but when the Beast was going through everyone's secrets and fears, the moment was ruined when it got to Toby's and proclaimed...
  "The virgin!"
  • After the Beast finishes revealing everyone's secrets, they challenge the Doctor to explain how it could have known those things. The Doctor gives a very weak answer that doesn't satisfy them, as if he can't explain it himself. This despite existing in a universe where many aliens (including himself!) can read minds. It comes across as the writers trying too hard to shoe-horn in a 'science doesn't have all the answers' tract.
  • While it was partially redeemed by the pants-shittingly terrifying 50-storey tall demon from hell, the climax is pretty much 10 minutes of nonstop hamming from David Tennant while the Beast growls at him periodically. Compounding this is the fact that, as this episode clearly showcases, Tennant makes the weirdest faces when he monologues.
  • Two words: "We're... turning." Made even Narmier by the fact the actors appear to lean to one side BEFORE the rocket tilts. That, and the actor's weirdly flat, lifeless delivery of the line.
  • Toby is possessed in the escape rocket, and begins speaking in the Beast's voice... it's all pretty creepy until he actually starts belching flames.
• "Love & Monsters" was lighthearted enough until The Reveal of the Abzorbaloff, which would have been scary if not for two things — first, he keeps making these weird faces when he isn't talking, and when he chases Elton out of the meeting room, trying to absorb him. Seeing an overweight monster with a northern accent chase a grown man while giggling absolutely killed the tension.
  • The Abzorbaloff was supposed to be an oozing monstrosity the size of a small building. Instead, due to budget constraints, we got something that looks, acts and sounds like an alien Fat Bastard. Even the boy who designed the creature was disappointed when he saw the end result.
• A news reporter in "Army of Ghosts" when the "ghosts" are revealed to be Cybermen (from a parallel universe):
  "They're not ghosts, they're metal mEEEN! AUUGH!"
• The Racnoss Empress from "The Runaway Bride": "MYYYYY CHIIIIIIILDREEEEEEEEENNNNN!"
  • Her puns also get really ridiculous.
• In "Smith and Jones" we see these fearsome creatures marching in... that look like giant rhinos in leather. And it gets better: When the Judoon first speaks, it sounds like a first grader rhyming things with "oh".
  • Becomes Accidental Innuendo in "The Stolen Earth" when the Doctor says "Ma' ho" in the presence of Donna. And the Doctor said he didn't want to mate with her...
  • The old (alien) granny sucking blood... with a bendy straw.
  • Martha passes out from hypoxia, the Doctor wakes up, saves the day at the last minute and then, as the music reaches fever pitch... lifts her in a bridal carry and proceeds to stagger dramatically and very slowly through the entire length of the hospital. Why? To get help? Nope. He wanted to look out of the window.
• Shakespeare being possessed in "The Shakespeare Code". The witches have scary potential and they use scary puppets, but they control Shakespeare by blowing a acid-green gas (how did he not see it?) into his room, which he inhales up one nostril. The possessed man then begins writing, staring straight ahead with his mouth clamped shut. It looks like he's trying very hard not to laugh.
• From "Gridlock":
  "MAAAAARTHAAAAAAAA!"
  • The Doctor's final description of Gallifrey at the end of the episode is unfortunately soppy, due to a three-way combination of the writing ("that ol' planet!"), David Tennant's delivery slowly but surely marching over the Large Ham line, and his being shot in close-up as he looks wistfully up beyond the camera like he's about to break into "When You Wish Upon a Star" (and in fact, the New New Yorkers reprise their hymn-singing in the soundtrack right on cue).
  • Another musical glitch: in the climactic scene where the Doctor gets the motorway open, the stirring orchestral arrangement is especially evocative. The problem is that what it evokes are the lyrics "Only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate..."
• The actor playing Baines in "Human Nature" isn't easy to take seriously due to his strange, exaggerated delivery of certain lines and the ridiculous, Jim Carrey-esque facial expressions he makes.
  • That, and his scream. Harry Lloyd also played Viserys in Game of Thrones, and the levels of Narm for either character are off the charts.
• Jack Harkness clinging on to the TARDIS in "Utopia". How far the TARDIS was going, he probably should've dropped off before they arrived and gotten dropped somewhere else. Heroic Willpower only goes so far when going through something that can reduce you to crispy barbecue. Not to mention having someone desperately (and hammily) cling to the side of a moving vehicle looks silly when the vehicle in question is a car, much less a ship that moves through time and space.
• The Tenth Doctor as Tinkerbell Jesus in "Last of the Time Lords". The previous scenes with Ten as a Gallifreyan house elf didn't help.
  • The scene where the Doctor is aged into said house elf is pure narm. The music sounds almost comical and the Doctor's sped-up actions lead him to perform a weird fist-pumping gesture that looks completely ridiculous. Bizarrely, an almost identical scene in the previous episode (where the Doctor is aged into an old man) manages to be absolutely horrifying, so what went wrong?
• The Big Bad in "Voyage of the Damned" turns out to be a cybernetic head in a plexiglass box◊ who talks with the voice of Dr. Evil.
  Max Capricorn: [I will] retire to the beaches of Pentaxico Two, where the ladies, so I'm told, are fond of... MET-TAL!
  • Also the scene where Astrid is turned to dust and disappears through a window: meant to be poignant, but rather subverted by the statement: "She's just atoms now, Doctor." (Like she was what before — strange quarks?)
  • Then there's Astrid's death scene: she kills the villain by shoving him off a cliff with a hysterically slow-moving forklift, and then can't be bothered to try leaping out or just hitting the brakes.
  • She couldn't hit the brakes, the Heavenly Host cut the brakeline.
• In "Partners in Crime" Miss Foster's narmful claims that she's beloved and necessary because she's the nanny. Thankfully, she was dropped to her death soon thereafter.
• In the episode "Planet of the Ood", Donna passionately proclaims about the Ood, "They're born with their brains in their hands!" It was supposed to be touching, but the sheer oddity of this line made it equal parts giggler and headscratcher.
• In "The Sontaran Stratagem" two-parter:
  Sontar-HA! Sontar-HA! Sontar-HA! Sontar-HA!
  • Too bad, too. It started out creepy; then the insufferable Teen Genius joined in, and then it just looked stupid. In the end, it was a Moment of Awesome for a character who had been a insufferable bag of douche up until then; before then, it was just plain silly. Even the Doctor changed the channel.
  • Luke Rattigan's utterly pathetic and babyish reactions when his academia don't immediately commit to his selfish and thoughtless plans to ship off the Earth. It reveals him to be nothing more than an insecure, quivering brat who is lashing out for being bulled in the past as a gifted child.
    Rattigan: And I chose you to survive. With Planetfall we can start again. We can build and breed, we can prosper, we can do anything.
    Woman: We're going to breed?
    Rattigan: I've designed a mating program. I've planned the whole thing.
    Woman: Well then, shoot me.
    Rattigan: Stay where you are. Stay where you are, I said. Stay where you are.
    (Luke is obviously full of crap, making empty threats, and the whole group of academia knows it just by looking at him. The woman leaves, and other students follow her.)
    Rattigan: Stay where you are. That's an order!
    Man: Castor Thirty Six? You're just sick.
    (Rattigan is left alone.)
  • And then comes the most pretentious, hopeless, and childish ranting of all, sounding like the biggest wussy you've ever met:
    Rattigan: I guess that just proves it. I'm cleverer then you. (breaking down, disillusioned) I'm cleverer then EVERYONE, DO YOU HEAR ME!? (In an absolutely pitiful, very shrill, almost emasculating shriek from a real puss) I'M CLEVER!!!
  • The same actor's intonation of "Earth!" during a particularly dramatic moment only makes him sound like he's channelling Father Jack:
    "... the ruins of his precious... ARSE!"
  • His "I'm clever than you!" (not an error—he seems to be asserting that he is more clev) that seems to be his catch phrase sounds very awkward as well.
  • "The planet is going nuclear!" In context, it's just an amused reaction to Earth's predictable response. Out of context, (i.e., the way it was used in every TV spot for the episode), it sounds like a really badly delivered dramatic threat.
  • Likewise, Martha gets the last line before the opening credits, and delivers it... well, like she knows it's the last line before the opening credits.
• The death of the Hath that helps Martha in "The Doctor's Daughter" counts because the Hath are humanoid fish people whose sole form of communication seems to be a bubbling noise. When the one that befriends Martha sinks to his death in quicksand, it makes it hard to muster much sympathy.
  Martha: Nooooo!
  -Hath: <bubble bubble bubble>
• The reveal of the murderer in "The Unicorn and the Wasp" ends up being this. Seeing Reverend Golightly, who is actually a giant alien wasp,suddenly realizing and succumbing to his alien nature and murdering two people should be horrifying. Instead we get the character yelling in a buzzing equivalent of Sssssnaketalk before just making buzzing sounds while standing in a red light. His rant to the Doctor in the following scene becomes very cartoonish.
  Damn it, you humanzzzzz, worshipping your tribal sky godzzzzzz. I am so much more. That night, the universe exploded in my mind. I wanted to take what wazzzzzz mine. And you, Agatha Christie, with your railway station bookstall romancezzzzz, what'zzzz to stop me killing you?
  • Making the scene even stupider is that wasps make the buzzing sound with their wings, not their mouths, so why would it affect the way he talks?
  • Religious figures have been made the villains so many times during the Davies run that it's utterly unsurprising when the episode's Big Bad turns out to be the priest. (Who, naturally, gives in completely the second his true nature takes over and begins melodramatically mocking the beliefs of humans and their "tribal sky gods".)
• In "Silence in the Library", when Ms. Evangelista is ghosting. It was creepy and sad...until she started saying, "Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream..."
  • The moment when Ms. Evangelista's body is first discovered: River Song tries to contact her on the communicator, and her voice instantly echoes back from the device on the skeleton right in front of them. The Doctor nods grimly at the skeleton and even points his flashlight right at it — and yet River continues trying to page Ms. Evangelista!
    • And then she slowly picks up the communicator and stares at it with a dumbfounded expression, while cheesy Harry Potter-esque music plays. "It's her! That's Miss Evangelista!" Gee, ya think?
• "Turn Left", the moment when a TV reporter says that millions of Americans were turned into fat. Something is just hilarious about this statement. The description ("The fat is walking") just makes it funnier.
• The Doctor and Rose's Meadow Run in "The Stolen Earth" was this, especially as it seemed to go on forever.
  • The Narm was only amplified when the Doctor was shot by a Dalek.
  • Captain Jack's, "Here we go! Good luck, Doctor!" when he was about to regenerate from being grazed by the Dalek sounded so cheesy. And Donna being completely out of the loop, "WILL SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON?", coupled with a tearful Rose worried that her boyfriend-ish Doctor was about to change faces into someone new again just did not mesh with the huge tensions that scene called for.
  • The whole episode was narmy. The scene with Earth being flown back is just bizarre. Also the fact the Earth was shaking so much means that the Earth will be in ruins by the time they get back.
    • A majority of the performances are really over the top in many scenes, especially when the writers are trying to play up how big of a deal the Daleks or the Austerhaggen key are.
    • It's actually spelled "Osterhagen," which really just adds to the Narm, because "Osterhagen" is an anagram of "Earth's gone."
    • The Liberian UNIT officer activating Station 4 states, "I don't want my name on this. Given what we're about to do." Considering that what they're "about to do" is destroy the planet and everyone on it (including everyone in the group), why does it matter whether anyone knows his name?
  • The Meta Crisis Doctor is just Narm as well. An Ass Pull about how suddenly another Doctor can grow from a hand using regeneration energy. And is conveniently human so he can stay with Rose. The scene on the beach was a wave of narm.
• The Tritovore from "Planet of the Dead" — "Humanoid fly creatures, they trade with other civilizations for their excrement." Turned out to resemble the central character from the original version of The Fly (1958).
  • In perhaps the most ironic twist and a case of Special Effects Failure, one lone fly — as in a real fly — decides to zip into the shot during one of the scenes when the Tenth Doctor and Christina are out in the desert of San Helios alone, and land on the Doctor's tie, skitter around, then buzz off. It's too small that it was left unnoticed in post-production, but it completely ruins the illusion that they are on a devoured world with all the life reduced to sand — including teeny tiny flies. That's all it took to blow the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. One fly. All by itself. In a desert. In Dubai.
  • In general, this has to be one of the most narmful episodes of the RTD era. Between the copious amounts of unconvincing CGI (especially for the flying bus at the end), the super goofy costumes for the fly people, and the incredibly wooden dialogue Russell T. Davies wrote for Carmen, there is a lot of unintentional comedy to be found in this episode. The highlight has to be a short scene of the Doctor and Christina dashing back to the double-decker bus, randomly intercut with Carmen dramatically whimpering "RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN!" over and over again.
• The Tenth Doctor's "IT'S NOT FAIR!" rant in "The End of Time".
  • Worse, David Tennant gets so worked up that he knocks stuff off a desk, and visibly drools a stringy, sticky, dripping horker of saliva.
  • What makes this rant especially narmful is that he's bitching about how when he dies, all he does is just regenerate. Really, Doctor? You have regenerated eleven times and it only just bothers you now?! Especially when death is often a minor inconvenience for you. In light of "The Time of the Doctor", this is doubly narmful.
  • It gets even WORSE when you consider that no other Time Lord has done this either. This includes the incarnation of River Song in her preteens (at the oldest) from "The Impossible Astronaut"/"Day of the Moon" who is implied to be doing this for the first time.
  • "I don't wanna go!"
    • Redeemed when the Tenth Doctor said it in a passing conversation during "The Day of the Doctor". He was simply saying something he always says in plain, congenial conversation, and not a big narmy last line. It portrays him as more of a sympathetic and tragic figure.
    • THAT is highly subjective. To a lot of people, it seems like a clumsy attempt to rescue an infamously controversial line from the realms of narm. If it didn't work, it just makes it narmier. Especially as he doesn't "always" say it. As of 'The Day of the Doctor' he's said it all of TWO times.
    • And the take that was kept was toned down compared to other deliveries Tennant tried.
  • At the end of Part 1, Rassilon is spitting as he gives his speech to the Time Lords. One can't help but feel sorry for the Time Lords in the front row.
  • Part one of "The End of Time" could be seen as this when the Master destroys the human race by overwriting himself onto every person. His laughing along with his duplicates doesn't help.
    • Particularly the line, "There is only... the MASTER RACE!" John Simm is a good actor, but there was no way he could deliver that line with dignity.
    • This is made even more narmful by the fact that "the Master Race" consists entirely of pale-skinned, blonde-haired men. Yeah.
  • Also in that episode: Upon being asked by a burger-cart lady what he wants on his burger, the Master snarls, "EVERYTHING. I am SO. HUNGRY."
    • When he eats the burger, he does so in a hilarious way.
  • "I am HILARIOUS. I am the FUNNIEST THING in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD." He may be right...
  • And "DINNER TIIIIME" also happens on GARBAGE DAY, along with flying up into the air and dive-bombing homeless men. Through pretty bad special effects, no less.
    • In other words, the hammy, echoing delivery of "DINNER TIME" and the fact it happens where garbage is being taken is a reminder of this similarly hammy performance.
  • The Master flying into the air.
  • The Master as he attacks Rassilon with lightning. As his skeleton begins superheating, you see his x-ray bones and eyeballs... with the eyeballs staring in opposite directions in full on derp-face.
  • The Nintendo Power Glove of Rassilon.
• "It is said that in the final days of planet Earth, everyone had bad dreams." Made worse because this was used in all the trailers for "The End of Time."
  • In the final Tenth Doctor story, the Master is revived by a secret cult. But there is absolutely no indication that these people were aware that he was an evil Time Lord; he is technically being resurrected by a cult devoted to a dead Prime Minister. This is hilarious when you think about it.
    • To understand the absurdity of the situation, it's like if members of the Labour Party were meeting in the dungeons of Transport House to bring Harold Wilson back to life.
  • The Doctor is so afraid of the Time Lords returning in "The End of Time" that he grabs Wilf's old pistol. This is portrayed as a Godzilla Threshold for the Doctor and milked for all the drama it's worth (what with the Woman repeatedly urging for him to 'take up arms') but... he's up against the Time Lords. This is the dramatic equivalent of grabbing a feather duster because the Nazis are coming. It's just ridiculous.
  • Matt Smith spitting as foam debris and other junk rains down on him from the ceiling in his first scene and makes it hard for him to breathe without getting choked. Some people actually complained it was a bad behavior impression for the children.
• From "Victory of the Daleks", the reveal of the new Dalek paradigm is sold as extremely dramatic and scary, featuring intimidating new tank-like designs for the monsters, but is somewhat ruined by the bright, happy colours the new Daleks have been painted in. Bright orange and yellow Daleks do not exactly inspire fear. Perhaps not surprisingly, later appearances have them be mostly background characters, in favor of the more traditional Daleks.
  • Go, Go, Dalek Rangers!
  • It doesn't help that the New Paradigm Daleks are obviously made of plastic. At least the RTD-era Daleks can pass muster as metal as long as you don't look too closely.
  • The so-called "reason" for the change in design: Karen Gillan (Amy) is taller than Billie Piper (Rose), and therefore the "old" Daleks "don't look as intimidating." Right, because being a genocidal maniac capable of killing anything with one shot isn't scary if you're a bit short...
  • The Doctor going off the rails and attacking the Dalek is upsetting at first - until he starts to monologue. It's partly the As You Know information dump on his history with the Daleks, partly the shove he delivers as his closing statement, and partly the sheer hamminess of this line:
    "I am the DOCTAH! AND YOU ARE THE DAAAAAAAAAAALEKS!" (shove)
    • Annoyingly, that's exactly what the Daleks wanted him to say, so we get to hear it repeated several more times.
• That undignified wail that escapes Restac's throat when she discovers Alaya's corpse in "Cold Blood".
  • SFX's reviewer described Rory's death in that episode (the second time it had happened in that season) as "so South Park I guffawed."
• The climactic ending from "The Impossible Astronaut", whose Slow Motion made the characters sound a bit thick.
  Doctor: What are you doing!
  Amy: SAVING YOUUR LIIIIIFFFEE!
  Doctor: NO!!
  (Amy shoots the Astronaut without realising a little girl is in the suit - cue reaction)
  Amy: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!
• "The Girl Who Waited" has many tragic moments. Unfortunately, the gratuitous slow-motion near the end gets a bit... distracting.
  Rory: WAAAUGH! [smashes a Mona Lisa over a robot's head]
• "The Angels Take Manhattan":
  • Not only does the Statue of Liberty not attack them, even though neither one is looking at it, it completely disappears mid-scene! It's hard to feel any emotion other then bewilderment at such a distracting plot hole.
    • This is the Statue of Liberty. When is there not someone in the city looking at it? And does no-one else notice when it goes walkabout?
    • Since there is a picture of the Statue of Liberty in the building and any image of a Weeping Angel becomes an angel itself, it appears the intention is that it is this image that menaces the heroes. The fact that this is not explained and the implication that it is the actual statue does still make it a plot hole (or require major adherence to the MST3K Mantra).
  • The Weeping Angels are apparently in New York because it is the "City That Never Sleeps" and this gives them a sustainable food source. Wouldn't a city where there is always someone awake and capable of seeing them be detrimental for the Angels?
  • The entire plot can basically be summed up as "Time can't be rewritten this week" (did the Doctor forget about all the Tricked Out Time stunts he's pulled, especially this incarnation). The idea that reading a "fictional" story can fix time as firmly as witnessing the event seems contrived. And heaven only knows how the Melody Malone book reads to anyone in-series who isn't our heroes...
• Clara's dying words in "The Snowmen" are "Run, you clever boy - and remember." The line is meant as a Call-Back to a previous episode, but since it makes no sense in the context of the scene, it comes across as awkward and forced.
• The Doctor RIDING A MOTORCYCLE UP A BUILDING in "The Bells of Saint John". It's as ridiculous, and awesome, as it sounds, so potentially Narm Charm.
• "The Rings of Akhaten":
  • The actors playing Clara's parents (Ellie and Dave) are really like two pieces of cardboard.
  • That whole opening is ridiculous. It starts with the leaf (which is a birch leaf, and not a maple leaf like the one later found in Clara's book) falling in her father's face, to which he reacts with an over-the-top gasp and the camera does a weird fish-eye/zoom effect. There's also absurdly loud slapping sound to try to convince the viewer that the leaf hit his face hard enough to disorient him and make him wander into traffic. It doesn't work, and it just looks like he has an extremely weak forehead. Then Clara's mother rescues him (and blandly inquires "Oh my stars. Are you all right?"), and finally the father has an awkwardly-phrased and quite poorly-acted speech on the doorstep regarding said leaf:
    Ellie: You kept it?
    Dave: Of course I kept it!
    Ellie: Why?
    Dave: Because this exact leaf had to grow in that exact way, in that exact place, so that precise wind could tear it from that precise branch and make it fly into this exact face at that exact moment...
  • There's also the fact that Michael Dixon, who plays Clara's father, is only three years older than Jenna Coleman. Seeing them standing beside each other at Clara's mother's grave is utterly ridiculous - apparently the makeup department thought that Dixon would look believable if they simply put some faux gray colour in his hair. He doesn't◊. Resolved by casting James Buller as the present day Dave Oswald, a properly gray-follicled man with a beard and receding hairline◊, who plays the character's current, middle-aged portrayal, rather than a Dawson Casting. The producers got away with it because Dave had only appeared in flashbacks and an age-up for 2013 would make sense. Mocked by Rebloggy.
    Clara's dad regenerated sometime since 2005.
• "Cold War":
  • Skaldak the Ice Warrior creeping up behind Stepashin is less like an intense, scary moment, but more like Skaldak is about to do more than kill the guy. His dialogue and hand movements do not help.
  • There's also the part where the Ice Warriors arrive and take Skaldak back to their ship, leaving everyone unsure if the alien will spare them of blow them up. The tense nature of the scene is kind of ruined when Clara starts singing "Hungry Like the Wolf", which Grisenko had been listening to earlier.
• One we can blame on the costuming department: Vastra's entrance in "The Crimson Horror" has her wearing a veil, until she lifts it up accompanied by a Scare Chord. Except, her face is perfectly visible behind the veil, not that it stops another scene a bit later from also playing out like the veil is completely opaque.
  • Mrs. Gillyflower's "Die!... ''Die!'... Die!" is kinda funny. Lady, pointing a gun at 5 separate people, one being a lizard, who are practically surrounding you, with the inability of hitting the broad side of a barn door whilst standing next to it and shouting "die" doesn't make you threatening.
  • The thing that the "Crimson Horror" does to its victims makes them look horrifying, but on the Doctor, his movements make him look like that he has had a really strong sunburn. And the scene where Edmund runs into the room starts off as terrifying... then is utterly ruined by him falling onto the floor in a really awkward position. Oh yes, and his screaming face when he dies is kind of hilarious.
• The Doctor as "Mr. Clever" in "Nightmare in Silver" is supposed to be menacing, but Matt Smith's performance, and the writing of the character, just make him seem... aggressively camp.
  • The chubby soldier who shouts down the Cyberman with his whole "I've heard of the Cybermen since I was in my crib" speech. It's his first line in the episode, and he doesn't become a significant part of the episode after that. Then again, it seems he's only doing it to distract the Cyberman while Clara prepares to shoot it with the BFG.
  • The acting of the kids can provide some of the cringe in this episode. Their are accents all over the place and half the time, their dialogue seems more fitting for adults in their late sixties.
• In "The Name of the Doctor", Clara is finally saved from the Doctor's timestream when he sends the leaf for her to catch. She then awkwardly staggers over to him and starts weeping in his arms. Note that the Doctor is only, like, ten feet away for this whole scene, but Clara apparently needs a magical leaf to find him, and those few steps are made to look like a Herculean effort. It was probably meant to be touching, but it came off as Kingdom Hearts-level cheesy.
  • Not to mention "Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor", punctuated with EXTREMELY DRAMATIC BASS DRUM HITS every few words. Subtle.
  • The message itself also reads rather hypocritical since before that text drop, The Doctor was ranting about how the mysterious figure Hurt was playing was unworthy of being called The Doctor.
  • The dramatic effect is utterly wrecked once Matt Smith twitches in one eye as Clara turns to see the silhouette.
• "The Night of the Doctor" gives us the return of Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, but his dramatic Final Speech hits a snag when he puts an Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: "Cass, I apoloGIZE."
• "The Day of the Doctor":
  • There's that matter of every Doctor showing up to save Gallifrey, but their scenes are lifted from archive footage that is really easy to identify, plus some of them don't even match up. Example: The Seventh Doctor switching between his season 24 appearance and the TV movie outfit, looking older by almost ten years. Unless two different Seventh Doctors from separate points in the timeline coordinated with each other, we're calling bogus!
  • The War Doctor's regeneration into the Ninth Doctor getting cut off and we see part of Christopher Eccleston's face with John Hurt's beard. That's the closest we got to a full transition without somebody going in and editing the footage to complete the change.
• Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty is an event that every fan would like to forget. While it featured many actors that had played companions, most of them were never spoken to. Those that were spoken to included Caitlin Blackwood (Young Amy) and Andrew Hayden Smith (a minor character in the two Cybermen stories of Series 2) both of whom can not be considered companions without stretching that definition considerably. The hosts meanwhile were heavily criticised for their treatment of the actors; they had a very childish manner of presenting, pushed some actors out of the way to reach the people they talked to and some actors were only referred to by their character name. Finally, there is the infamous linkup with One Direction that failed so spectacularly that Moffat predicted that it would become a Never Live It Down moment.
• The "Silence will Fall" Wham Line in "The Time of the Doctor". When the whole Papal Mainframe chants it seems really forced.
  • There is a friggin' Dalek tank in the background of a shot on Trenzalore. This could have been cool, except that tanks are extremely notorious when it comes to mobility and breakdowns in reality, and they would be enormously difficult, not to mention expensive, to operate. What we get is basically an antique tank with a silly egg whisk and giant plunger edifice added to the end of its tank barrel, spray-painted black. And that big donkey construct just sits around as a background prop piece sticking out like a sore thumb, no CGI to animate it or anything. It's Rule of Cool, but squandered Rule Of Cool.
  • The way Eleven regenerates into Twelve: After the impressive sequences of Nine - Ten, Yana - Master and Ten - Eleven, we get a very sudden jump cut to a new Doctor with no special effects whatsoever, looking like Twelve literally sneezed himself into existence. It's so bad that it spawned a meme - "Don't sneeze too hard or you might turn into Peter Capaldi."
• "The Caretaker" climaxes with Clara's boyfriend, Danny Pink, saving the world with a well-timed distraction of an alien robot. He does this by front-flipping over the robot in a move that obviously, blatantly, uses a hidden springboard. That on its own would be silly enough, but the decision to switch to slow motion gives the audience plenty of time to really appreciate how goofy it looks.
• “Flatline” features a tense conversation scene which is suddenly interrupted by a giant hand grabbing one of the community service workers from behind and pulling him into the celling at an absurdly high speed while he screams in a rather goofy and cartoonish way. The mixture of weird CGI, the fact that up to this point there hadn’t been giant hands in the episode and the cartoonish scream made the moment all but impossible to take seriously.
• "In The Forest of the Night", at the end when the bushes outside Maebh's house dissolve into fairy dust to reveal Maebh's lost sister, whom she had sent a message to during the broadcast to the world. Having the final image of the episode be a person we've never seen before kind of cuts down on the emotion. Nor is there any reason for why she suddenly returned or why she disappeared in the first place.
• "Death in Heaven", where Cyberman!Danny flies off to destroy the cloud with the other Cybermen who are under his control. It comes after a dramatic scene but the way he flies up just makes it all look rather... goofy.
  • The Doctor explaining that he doesn't like hugs because it's "an excuse to hide your face" is meant to be serious, as Twelve is more serious, but it just comes off as ridiculous after years of watching other regenerations hug everyone in sight with no problem.
• In "The Zygon Inversion", Bonnie is characterized as having an icy and reserved personality, so whenever she loses her composure and throws what are essentially temper tantrums because she didn't get her way, it's always hilariously jarring - like when she realizes Osgood tricked her and she smashes a laptop into oblivion, or when she realizes Kate escaped her death trap and she tosses a phone across a room.
• "Heaven Sent" is a very well-made study into inner workings of the Doctor. Damaged and dying beyond his ability to regenerate, he mentally retreats to his TARDIS where, collapsing onto the floor even in his imagination, he appears to face death by turning into Michael Caine.
• Bill's incredibly jarring case of the Idiot Ball in "Smile", where the Doctor has been talking the whole episode about how there's a bunch of colonists coming to the planet, and then they find a bunch of human-sized pods, and she somehow can't connect the dots and asks him over and over what's in them. And this is after the previous episode made such a big deal of how Genre Savvy she is about science fiction.
• When the Ice Warriors shoot people in "Empress of Mars", they become compacted into the size and shape of rather large beachballs or duffel bags. That in itself is somewhat amusing, but the way they bounce after being shot is hilarious, even though it probably was never intended to be funny.
• "Twice Upon A Time":
  • The awe-inspiring reveal of the female Thirteenth Doctor is compromised a bit by the TARDIS being crudely photoshopped into the forest setting.
  • Thirteen's first line "Oh, brilliant!" got several complaints of being incomprehensible in Jodie Whittaker's thick Yorkshire accent.
  • Unlike Amy's cameo at Eleven's regeneration, Clara's return here is very obviously just Jenna Coleman against a bluescreen due to her busy schedule with Victoria. One review described it as her seeming to be on another planet.
• Jack Robertson from "Arachnids in the UK" is already a one-note but straightforward take on Donald Trump and the like, except for one scene where he goes on a ridiculously over-the-top rant about how much he loves guns that you just wonder how they resisted giving him a southern U.S. accent and cowboy hat.
• "The Tsuranga Conundrum":
  • The Pting is constantly spoken about as an incredibly dangerous creature, one was once responsible for the destruction of an entire fleet of warships. It's also the size of a human baby, has big, cute eyes and has a funny sounding name.
  • When Astos tells the Doctor to take a comm-dot, it is very easy to mishear as "take a condom".
• It's completely impossible to take any scene seriously in which the Doctor talks about finding her "fam" as the music gets very emotional and weighty.
• The Battle Of Ranskoor Av Kolos has the following exchange. While it's clearly meant to show the Doctor's moral ambiguity, it's just such a Lame Comeback for the normally clever and witty Doctor that it comes off as just embarrassing.
  Thirteen: Every action has consequences!
  Tim Shaw: And these are yours, Doctor.
  Thirteen: I didn't mean it like that!
• "Orphan 55" ends with an absurdly on-the-nose And Knowing Is Half the Battle speech from the Doctor on a Green Aesop that was already perfectly clear by the episode itself, with Jodie Whittaker appearing to be struggling against the urge to actually look straight at the camera the whole time. No matter how relevant the message is, it's impossible to take seriously thanks to how artificial it is.
  • One of the side characters, Vilma, finds her partner of forty-six years, Benni, has been kidnapped by the Dregs, so she spends most of the episode tagging along with the Doctor to rescue him, constantly yelling out "BENNI, BENNI, WHERE ARE YOU?!" in a very hammy and artificial way, and always at the worst possible time, making her scenes unintentionally hilarious. The comedy comes to a head when Vilma decides to pull a Heroic Sacrifice and she runs at the Dregs, screaming out "WHICH ONE OF YOU HURT MY BENNI??!!!" before they eat her and the scene cuts away to Yaz gawping in shock. Vilma quickly achieved meme status in the fandom.
• "The Timeless Children":
  • The CyberMasters, Cyberman-Time Lord hybrids. An invincible cyborg army that can just regenerate if you shoot them? Legit scary. When they all have the infamous Time Lord ceremonial headgear bolted onto their Cyberman helmets? Hilarious◊.
  • When the Doctor decides to use the vast amount of memories she has from all of her lives to break out of the Matrix, we're given a slow-mo shot of the Doctor yelling (with the show's theme song playing over it) that is very comical◊.
  • This script excerpts reveals that Chibnall puts a ridiculous number of beats after all the Doctor's sentences (he claimed it came from listening to loud music while writing). Expanded Universe writer Lance Parkin put it best on Twitter:
    Twenty episodes in, having worked with her before on other shows, Chibnall doesn't trust his lead actor to "get" his scripts. Which is terrifying.
• The very end shot of "Revolution of the Daleks" has Ryan falling off his bike literally just before the "into the credits noise" hits. The timing is almost enough to make it seem on purpose.
• "The Star Beast": Go on, try listening to Rose and Donna say the phrase: "That's something a male-presenting Time Lord will never understand; just let it go", and try not to laugh at how absurd it sounds. What is meant to be an empowering moment for Rose and Donna comes off as unintentionally hilarious due to the clumsy dialogue. And that's not mentioning the Ass Pull this scene created.
• In the climax of "The Giggle", while trying to get the Toymaker to join the side of good, the Doctor tells him that together they could be "celestial". This is, of course, a reference to the original serial...but doesn't really make sense as a word choice in-universe, making it so jarringly a reference to the original serial that the Doctor might as well take out a box-set and wink.

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