5 Worst Doctor Who Episodes

We’ve taken a look at some of the best ones, now lets count down some of the worst.

Just like any favourite television shows, there are always some real stinkers. Whether it’s the writing that’s off or something else, every show seems to go through it (remember season four of Community?). Doctor Who is not immune to this phenomenon, as it has produced some truly awful episodes that didn’t work or were just very poorly written. Even though these are the worst I remember, I still sat through them all until the end. So without further ado, here are the five worst Doctor Who episodes.

Love and Monsters: Series 2, Episode 10

This is a common type of episode for television shows, designed to give the principle actors a break. The Doctor and his companion don’t get much screen time. Sometimes they’re good episodes and sometimes they’re not, and this time it’s definitely not. The main villain in this episode was actually designed by a child, the winner of a Blue Peter competition. The creature is called an Abzorbaloff, and guess what it does? That’s right, it absorbs people. The Doctor appears at the end of the episode and removes the girlfriend of one of the characters from the Abzorbaloff, however, still lacking a body, the Doctor puts her essence into the next most logical place… a paving tile.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship: Series 7, Episode 2

It’s an interesting premise to this episode, but that can’t keep it off of this list. Dinosaurs are saved from extinction on Earth by being loaded into a spaceship by reptilian aliens called Silurians. The Silurians want the dinosaurs to help populate their eventual new world, making it a reptilian metropolis. The Doctor finds the ship completely empty, as a galactic big game hunter has killed all the Silurians and released the dinosaurs. Knowing that the Silurians were massacred and having to sit through the drawn out death scenes leaves the watcher feeling sad and completely unfulfilled. Besides, we wanted to see what kind of ‘reptilian metropolis’ they could create!

42: Series 3, Episode 7

An unseen alien force is taking over crewmen on a space station one at a time and turning them into mindless murderers. When a crew member gets possessed, they put on a welder’s mask, walk slowly and select a monkey wrench as their weapon of choice. A very non-threatening enemy that you can escape by simply walking quickly, kind of like how all 80s horror movies should have gone, only they had the killer cropping up in random places for that ‘jump thrill’ whereas this one definitely did not. Another concept that perhaps wasn’t entirely thought out and possibly a little dark to go into too much detail with it being a family show. There’s a little action in this one, but it doesn’t make up for the tedious scenes.

The Lazarus Experiment: Series 3, Episode 6

This is a pretty boring episode that revolves around a man named Professor Lazarus who has built a machine that makes him younger. He proceeds to throw a dinner party and show the guests his machine, and in a strange twist we find out that Lazarus has to kill people now and absorb their energy or he will transform into a ridiculous, giant, scorpion-like creature, not unlike the Scorpion King. This is not an episode that will stand up to some of the greats, and it’s got a pretty straight forward “Frankenstein”-esque feel to it.

The Unicorn and the Wasp: Series 4, Episode 7

Usually I try to find something redeemable in bad television episodes. Sometimes there is an interesting concept or really cool line; but in this one I’m afraid I couldn’t find anything. The Doctor goes to a dinner party in 1926 England, which already sounds lame, and one of the guests at the party is Agatha Christie. Again, pretty lame. The Doctor has to solve a murder like an old Agatha Christie novel, as you’d expect, and it turns out that the murderer is a giant wasp. While the episode brought in almost 8 million viewers when it first aired, it was extremely boring and watching the Doctor run around after a poorly rendered giant wasp was embarrassing.

Do you watch Doctor Who? Tell us what episodes you didn’t like through the reboot of the series in the comments below! You can also see our picks for the 5 best Doctor Who episodes right here.