History ThrowItIn / DoctorWho

* [[Recap/DoctorWho2023CSTheChurchOnRubyRoad "The Church on Ruby Road"]]: Creator/Ncuti Gatwa and Creator/Millie Gibson improvised their banter during the scene where Ruby has to explain who the Doctor is.

** The fact that the Doctor happened to have an encounter with Donna, then coincidentally ran into her grandfather during the following Christmas, then happened to run into Donna again after they, by total happenstance, decided to investigate the same suspicious company. Davies has said that someone brought up how coincidental it was, and wondered if there was some reason for it. At the time, which was before he had finished finalising [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]] he had nothing planned. He realised that it looked like he did though, and began tying it into the series' overarching narrative. For this reason, they also took the hints that [[spoiler:Donna's fate seems cosmically interwoven with the Doctor's thing]] UpToEleven in that episode.

* [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani "The Caves of Androzani"]] features several scenes of the villain Morgus turning to the camera and making {{Aside Comment}}s. This was because the actor misunderstood the stage directions, but the director decided to keep it in because it felt Shakespearean and tied into the plot's resemblance to early-modern revenge tragedies.

* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E5TheSeedsOfDeath "The Seeds of Death"]], Zoe pulls open a door and the Doctor comes bursting in on a wave of "toxic fungus" (represented by soap foam). He makes as if to dash off and then promptly slips on the soapy floor and falls over onto his face. This was not supposed to happen and, while Troughton doesn't break character in the least, Wendy Padbury, who plays Zoe, can be seen {{Corpsing}} her face off for the rest of the shot.

* Leela kissing Adam Colby on the cheek in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E3ImageOfTheFendahl "Image of the Fendahl"]] was ad-libbed by Louise Jameson. The surprised look on his face is genuine.

** William Russell was able to ad-lib so well off of Hartnell's frequent hashings of his character's name that it was eventually [[MaliciousMisnaming written in the scripts that the Doctor would mispronounce it]].

* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]], while filming the gas mask scene, David Tennant forgot his line. He spontaneously came up with the line "Are you my mummy?", because the mask reminded him of the gas masks from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild "The Empty Child"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]]. Colonel Mace immediately responds with "If you could ''concentrate'', Doctor…" which has a meta feel of its own.

* In the scene with the Auton fake policemen in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E1TerrorOfTheAutons "Terror of the Autons"]], a stunt performer was accidentally hit by a car (it was supposed to stop a few inches away from him, with the impact implied by an off-screen sound effect) and knocked all the way to the bottom of a quarry. Since the stunt artist wasn't seriously injured, the spectacular fall was left in the finished show.

* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]], while filming the gas mask scene David Tennant forgot his line. He spontaneously came up with the line "Are you my mummy?", because the mask reminded him of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild "The Empty Child"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]]. The soldier he was speaking to immediately responds with "If you could ''concentrate'', Doctor…" which has a meta feel of its own.

* Matt Smith shaved his head for a role in the film ''Lost River'', and it did not grow back in time to reform his Doctor's signature coif for his final episode [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor "The Time of the Doctor"]]. He shaved his head again for a bald cap and donned a wig. A [[RealLifeWritesThePlot script re-write]] incorporated the wig into the story, leading to several of the episode's funniest moments.

* Soldeed in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E5TheHornsOfNimon "The Horns of Nimon"]] begins laughing hysterically during his death scene, while yelling "you are all doomed! All doomed!" The line was scripted. The laughter was (nearly literal) {{Corpsing}}. The actor had thought it was a camera rehearsal, but the take got used. It works because his general performance, in the words of TARDIS Eruditorum blogger El Sandifer, "[[EvilIsHammy has a sufficient amount of ham involved that it borders on the anti-Semitic]]".

* The ShowerScene in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace "Spearhead from Space"]] happened because the house Creator/TheBBC had rented to shoot in had a truly amazing old-fashioned shower in it that everyone decided was too good not to use. A scene was altered so it could happen while the Doctor was in the shower, providing the show's first proper Doctor CostumeTestMontage (a tradition ever since).

* Creator/WilliamHartnell's habit of flubbing his lines was left in due to the limited budget. If you watch carefully, many early episodes will be peppered with minor flubs, usually a slight but noticeable delay or stutter. On a few occasions, you might even hear Hartnell correct himself on camera, restating a word he'd misspoken.

* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]], while filming the gas mask scene David Tennant forgot his line. He spontaneously came up with the line "Are you my mummy?", because the mask reminded him of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild "The Empty Child"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]]. The soldier he was speaking to immediately responds with "If you could ''concentrate'', Doctor … " which has a meta feel of its own.

* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]], while filming the gas mask scene David Tennant forgot his line. He spontaneously came up with the line "Are you my mummy?", because the mask reminded him of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild "The Empty Child"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]].

** This is also referenced in the ''Literature/DoctorWhoMissingAdventures'' First Doctor book ''The Plotters'', where the Doctor often misspeaks — but the garblings are used for LeaningOnTheFourthWall. (For instance, when he has his suspicions of alien activity quashed in what had previously been a pure historical story, he admits "For one moment there, I thought this episode — I mean to say this episode of my life — was going in a different direction.") The book caused some InternetBackdraft upon being released because of this, as some fans found the inclusion of "Billy-fluffs" to be disrespectful.

* Creator/WilliamHartnell's habit of flubbing his lines was left in due to limited budget. If you watch carefully, many early episodes will be peppered with minor flubs, usually a slight but noticeable delay or stutter. On a few occasions you might even hear Hartnell correct himself on camera, restating a word he'd misspoken.

* Almost every time the Fourth Doctor steps on his scarf or gets it stuck in something, it was a genuine mistake caused by how [[ImpracticallyFancyOutfit insanely impractical]] the outfit was to wear, but it was all left in because Creator/TomBaker was extremely good at not breaking character and it fits the Fourth Doctor's {{Cloudcuckoolander}} personality to be constantly locked in struggle with his own clothes.

* Creator/RussellTDavies, the first showrunner for the revised series, has openly stated that he tends to write overarching stories (particularly ones that span multiple seasons) as he goes, rather then having it meticulously planned out in advance. This often resulted in him running with things that people have pointed out to him:

* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead "Planet of the Dead"]], the bus prop got heavily damaged during shipping to Dubai, so Russell T. Davies added an exchange in which the Doctor explains the bus got damaged by passing through the NegativeSpaceWedgie. (It doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it too hard, since the premise is that the bus's immunity to wormhole damage shields the living people inside... but considering the [[TroubledProduction circumstances]], it's reasonable.)

** Similarly, when writing [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E3PlanetOfTheOod "Planet of the Ood"]], Davies put in the Ood calling the Doctor and Donna "the Doctor-Donna" just because he [[RuleOfCool thought it sounded cool.]] [[spoiler:Cue the final episode in which Donna becomes half-Donna half-Doctor due to a Time Lord-human metacrisis. Davies didn't realize that he had unintentionally created some major foreshadowing until someone pointed it out to him, thinking he had done it intentionally. He then rewrote the finale episode, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd "Journey's End"]], to include a moment of the Doctor remembering that the Ood had called them Doctor-Donna.]]
* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]], while filming the gas mask scene David Tennant forgot his line. He spontaneously came up with the line "Are you my mummy?", because the mask reminded him of "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances".

* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky]], while filming the gas mask scene David Tennant forgot his line. He spontaneously came up with the line "Are you my mummy?", because the mask reminded him of "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances".

* Creator/WilliamHartnell's habit of flubbing his lines was left in due to limited budget. (If you watch carefully, many early episodes will be peppered with minor flubs, usually a slight but noticeable delay or stutter. On a few occasions you might even hear Hartnell correct himself on camera, restating a word he'd misspoken.)

* The crew designing Thirteen's TARDIS asked Jodie Whittaker her favorite biscuit, without telling her why. They then put a dispenser with her answer, custard creams, into the control panel, with her only finding out when one dropped out while filming her first time in the TARDIS with her genuine reaction captured on camera.

** William Russell was able to ad-lib so well off of Hartnell's frequent hashings of the character's name that it was eventually [[MaliciousMisnaming written in the scripts that the Doctor would mispronounce it]].

* Soldeed in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E5TheHornsOfNimon "The Horns of Nimon"]] begins laughing hysterically during his death scene, while yelling "you are all doomed! All doomed!" The line was scripted. The laughter was (nearly literal) {{Corpsing}}. The actor had thought it was a camera rehearsal, but the take got used. It works because his general performance, in the words of TARDIS Eruditorum blogger Philip Sandifer, "[[EvilIsHammy has a sufficient amount of ham involved that it borders on the anti-Semitic]]".

* Russell T. Davies, the first showrunner for the revised series, has opening stated that he tends to write overarching stories (particularly ones that span multiple seasons) as he goes, rather then having it meticulously planned out in advance. This often resulted in him running with things that people have pointed out to him:

* In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead "Planet of the Dead"]], the bus prop got heavily damaged during shipping to Dubai, so Creator/RussellTDavies added an exchange in which the Doctor explains the bus got damaged by passing through the NegativeSpaceWedgie. (It doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it too hard, since the premise is that the bus's immunity to wormhole damage shields the living people inside... but considering the [[TroubledProduction circumstances]], it's reasonable.)