Nightmare Fuel / Doctor Who Series 2

You will become identical.
You will become like us.

• "The Christmas Invasion":
  • The newly regenerated Tenth Doctor, utterly destroying Harriet Jones' life and career with just six words, without any regret. It gets worse with later seasons, when it allows the Master to take over Britain, not to mention what happens in Torchwood. And Harriet herself is clearly unnerved, and asks him to stop, and he still does it. No second chances indeed.
    • As mentioned above, this action is what put the Master into power, as it was said in "The Sound of Drums" that "Harold Saxon" came to prominence "just after the downfall of Harriet Jones". As if the countless atrocities committed during the "year that never was" weren't bad enough, it's negation and the subsequent death of the Master allowed the government seen in Torchwood: Children of Earth to come to power and almost send millions of children to be used as alien narcotics.
    • The true Nightmare Fuel and Tear Jerker of the entire debacle occurs in "Journey's End", when the Davros tells the Doctor of "The Earth woman who fell opening the Subwave Network." The Doctor questions who it is, and when Rose tells him Harriet Jones, the look of sheer guilt and horror is crushing.
  • While the Sycorax leader may have had it coming, the Doctor disposing of him was still rather unnerving, especially after the Doctor has been cheerfully talking about finding a satsuma in his bathrobe.
    Tenth Doctor: No second chances. I'm that sort of a man.
• "New Earth":
  • An order of medic nuns who incinerate any research subject that become conscious.
  • Said research subjects are constantly injected with every disease known to man so the nuns can produce vaccines. Their entire lives are spent locked in storage containers, fed through tubes, never interact with anyone, alone and in constant pain. When the subjects are released, they spread their afflictions by touch.
• "Tooth and Claw": The probably first truthfully frightful werewolf depicted in a TV series.
  • The Werewolf before it transforms is pretty creepy too, with its pale skin, entirely black eyes, and Creepy Monotone voice.
• "School Reunion":
  • The aliens who take over a school to use the children's minds as a supercomputer, and eat the rejects. The opening of this episode may just be the creepiest three minutes of Doctor Who ever.
    Finch: No parents? No one to miss you? I see why the nurse sent you. You poor child. Poor... thin child. Come inside. It's nearly time for lunch.
  • The fact that line was uttered by Giles and Nathan Wallace makes it especially creepy.
• "The Girl in the Fireplace":
  • The eighteenth-century French girl who grows up and dies with the prospect of meeting the Doctor only a few times while only a handful of minutes pass for the Doctor himself (or the "clockwork robots" stalking her, especially when disguised, and the way they repair their space ship structural/electronic/critical damage with human organs).
  • The real chilling bit about said clockwork robots is how entirely believable the scenario is. Not from the sci-fi perspective, but consider it this way: they were repair drones, and the ship was in need of repair. It's their one purpose, their only reason to exist. And, as one said, "We did not have the parts." And he just repeats that, over and over, until the Doctor gets it, "...No one told them the crew was off limits." With an AI that single-minded, it seems horrifyingly probable for the prime directive to supersede things like "human life". This could even be a Zeroth Law Rebellion: The ship is badly damaged, and too far from any sort of rescue for external help to reach it in time. In such a scenario, the AI wouldn't even be clearly wrong to use the crew as replacement parts, since they will die if the ship isn't repaired. Their very practical approach to organ harvesting doesn't help.
    "I will not set foot there again."
    "We do not require your feet."
  • During the initial run of the season, there was a prologue clip which showed the immediate aftermath of the ship being damaged; one of the injured crew members is initially pleased to see the robots and begs them to help her...then she realises what they're going to do, and screams in terror...
  • This scene takes a few seconds to sink in, but when it does, you'll shit bricks:
    The Doctor: [looks at a broken clock, while ominous ticking plays in the background] Okay, that's scary.
    Reinette: You're scared of a broken clock?
    The Doctor: Just a bit scared, yeah. Just a tiny bit. 'Cause you see, if this clock's broken, and it's the only one in the room, then what's that?
  • The scene where the Doctor looks under Reinette's bed is already a pretty touchy subject for anyone who's had night terrors, but when the camera slowly pans up to show that all-out shit-inducing nightmare mask, hidden in the shadows just so, you find yourself cowering under the covers.
  • The sheer horrifying creepiness of the clockwork 'bots themselves. Eyeless 18th-century pseudo-Mardi Gras mask? Check. Monotonous voice? Check. Slow and jerky but inexorable movements accompanied by sounds to alert their arrival and your sure demise? Check. Retractable saws and other scary implements? Check. Total single-mindedness focusing on harvesting your organs? Check.
  • And then there's the Lockdown minisode "Pompadour". Remember how the robots were scanning her brain? Well, it worked. Why can't I see you, Doctor? Why is it so quiet? Why can't I feel my breath? Where am I?
• "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel":
  • The Alternate Universe Cybermen's origins with the "upgrade or be deleted" scene. So much screaming and death and terror and the Doctor knows that this could spread across the galaxy.
  • The fact that the Doctor is terrified, actually terrified of the Cybermen, to the extent that he surrenders without a fight. At first, anyway. And the way he shows how terrified he is isn't matched again for the rest of the Tenth Doctor's run. He's that terrified of them.
  • The scene where the Doctor has to kill a Cyberman who he discovers was a bride at her wedding,
  • The way the Doctor defeats the Cybermen. Allowing them to feel once again, to realize what they have truly become! You know out there one of them is AU Jackie Tyler!
  • You're walking around, minding your own business, and suddenly your mind shuts down and you mindlessly walk into an incinerator. The one shot of that was... horrific.
  • The screams and agonised howls as we get a shot of the Cyber Conversion machinery from the victim's POV. It's all whirring saw blades and vicious knives cutting away everything human. Now think about that: The machines are stripping the flesh and bone of the victim, removing the brain and putting it inside a metal suit, and the victim is conscious and feels every second of it. No wonder they go insane when their emotions are restored. Somehow the creepiest part of the scene is still Mr. Crane bobbing away to the "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" as he calmly oversees the conversion process.
  • Staying with the conversion factory, those pre-recorded messages playing throughout. "Chamber 6 now open for human upgrading. All reject stock will be incinerated." Brrr... And it raises the question of who the hell recorded those?
  • Before the Cybermen, there's the scene where everyone in that one street stops completely still as Cybus Industries downloads the daily news package. Absolutely everyone. They even laugh at the same time. It's just unsettlingly creepy.
• "The Idiot's Lantern":
  • The faceless zombies and the killer TV saying "Goodnight children everywhere" while absorbing a panicking Rose's soul... in an episode written by Mark Gatiss.
  • The Government hoarding them away. The Doctor says it's like Soviet Russia.
  • Killer-TV-Lady sucking her fingers, screaming/begging "Feed me!" is terrifying.
    "I'm the Wire. And I will gobble you up, pretty boy."
  • The Deliberate Values Dissonance of the 1950s setting is used to portray an abusive family, with an aggressive, domineering, alpha-male father who rules over his wife and son with an iron fist.
    Eddie Connolly: Oh, he loves his Gran, this one. Proper little mummy's boy all round.
    Aunt Betty: Oh, you know what they say about them. Eddie, you want to beat that out of him.
    Eddie Connolly: [Glaring at Tommy] That's exactly what I'm going to do.''
• "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit":
  • The Ood of the far future (and the scene where a black hole eats a system with a "billion years old civilization" in it), along with Satan himself (whatever it was) together with the man he possessed.
  • The entire situation the crew of Sanctuary Base 6 are in. Trapped in a claustrophobic series of corridors on a dead world that shouldn't exist, solar systems being ripped apart above their heads, earthquakes that have caused parts of their base to collapse, and the black hole staring down at them like an unblinking eye. And then there's what's beneath them...
  • After Scooti is blown out into space and they find her floating overhead the space station and towards the black hole, it looks like her corpse is waving to the others to come join her, or waving goodbye.
  • The possessed Toby is what's really scary, which is very understandable. The body was trapped at the center of a planet which is circling a black hole. Its body can't even touch someone standing right in front of it. Its mind is not trapped. Its mind can take over the Ood and the station's speakers and people. Its mind is scarier than its body.
  • And the above is not to say the body isn't scary in itself. Giant, horned, fire-breathing, and red — if you encountered this thing in real life, you would certainly believe that it was the Big Red Devil. Even the Doctor was stupefied upon meeting it, and while he refuses to give up his atheism, he confesses that its stated role in religion is something he must accept as plausible.
  • The "don't turn around" scene. Imagine thinking that something horrible is right behind you, it's getting closer, it's almost touching you and yet you can't turn around or else you'll die.
  • The moment when Toby looks down and realizes that the demonic hieroglyphics are all over his body...
    • In his last possession, while on the escape rocket, Beast-possessed Toby breathes fire.
  • When the Doctor asks where the Beast is from, it claims to predate time, light, space, and matter. The Doctor points out that there's no way life could have existed that far back. The Beast asks, "Is that your religion?" Holy shit. The Doctor also asks which devil it claims to be, considering how many different religions there are in the universe. The Beast's response? All of them.
• "Love & Monsters":
  • The group of all the Doctor's fans, who form a fanclub — most end up absorbed by another alien to die gruesomely (although one survives... as a mere face in a street tile...). It's hammered in that they're people, with friends and family, especially when you see them having fun together in LINDA. Moreover, the first ones absorbed retain their awareness, and are mentally linked to their absorber... Which means they knew exactly what he intended for the rest of the group, and had to watch helplessly as he consumed their friends one by one.
  • Take that a step further. The lone survivor now exists as a human face in a one-inch thick street tile, and her boyfriend tells the viewer that they still have a sex life. One part nightmare, one part squick. Can we get a brain bleach chaser with that?
• "Fear Her":
  • The episode of the girl who traps other children into her own drawings, especially the scene where a drawn kid screams at the screen... with no voice.
  • That red drawing in the closet of her abusive dad was terrifying, especially later when all of Chloe's drawings come to life and you see both her and her mother cowering in fear from the booming, menacing voice...
    Chloe's Dad: "CHLOE! I'M COMING TO HURT YOU, CHLOE!"
• "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday":
  • Finally, in the finale, we see Daleks and Cybermen waging all-out war on humanity and each other, Cybermen disguising themselves as dead loved ones to gain humanity's "trust", Daleks using their plungers to reduce a man's head to a dried-out husk (and of course, seeing nothing wrong with it), Cybermen managing to implant mind-control devices attached to your brain (and yes, we do see one ripped out), Daleks shooting anything that moves above Canary Wharf, Rose almost being sucked into Hell along with every Dalek and Cyberman on the planet and, finally, Cybermen converting humans in the basement and, by the end, only doing half the job.
    "I did my duty! For queen and country! I did my duty. I did my duty. I did my duty. Oh God, I did my duty!"
  • Even worse is where the "ghosts" are revealed to be friendly ... and seeing how ghosts are everywhere - these ghosts turned out to be Cybermen. What makes it worse is during the "ghost shift" that reveals the Cybermen, you can hear their walking sound. Imagine walking and seeing some "ghost" and it turns out to be a death robot ... worldwide.
  • The Cyber-Leader's New Era Speech, where it tries to reassure humanity that having their brains ripped out and placed in a metal suit is a good thing. Especially when it shows a horrified family watching the speech on TV, then pans to show a Cyberman right next to them.
    Cyber-Leader: This broadcast is for humankind. Cybermen now occupy every landmass on this planet. But you need not fear. Cybermen will remove fear. Cybermen will remove sex, and class, and color, and creed. You will become identical. You will become like us.
  • We see the Cybermen appearing across the world, in places like France and India, on live TV attacking people, and breaking into people's homes. And somehow, despite it being a "victory", it's nowhere near as terrifying as only four Daleks emerging from the Void Ship.
  • The last line of "Army of Ghosts". Everyone on planet Earth is screwed, regardless of whether they are Cybermen or human.
    Dalek Sec: "Location: Earth. Life-forms detected! (Rest of the Cult Of Skaro joins in) EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
    • What really sells it is Rose's reaction - up until this point she had been upbeat, even when faced with the prospect of battling a Cyber-Leader. When the Daleks appear though?
      Mickey: (Confused) "Wait, that's not Cybermen?!"
      Rose: (In horror) "Oh my god!"
    • And then the Doctor realizes what the Cult meant by "Time Lord science", as they take the Genesis Ark into London's skies... and open it to reveal it's a dimensional prison housing countless Daleks.