Doctor Who: Not the Gentle Pacifist He’s Made Out To Be

While I enjoyed last Saturday night’s Doctor Who episode, I can’t help but feel I was a little shocked to see the T.A.R.D.I.S. traveller let the pirate die. After all, isn’t everyone’s favourite timelord supposed to be a pacifist who refuses to kill or let anyone die? And while I have heard a number of people label Matt Smith a “darker doctor”, does that forgive him for leaving a helpless person to die, despite his crimes against the Silurian race and a poor Triceratops? (I still have a tear in my eye following that scene).

After a couple of hours searching on Google, it quickly be apparent to me that the Doctor is not the gentle giant he is always being made out to be. He’s actually killed in cold blood a number of times, and left score of enemies to die after foiling their evil plans. Not to mention he kind of killed his entire race by destroying Gallifrey….

But don’t take it from me, here’s the list and accompanying videos of all those I could find that the Timelord has killed. Fans of Doctor Who, prepare to be shocked:

In this first clip, the Third Doctor kills an Orgon in Day of the Daleks:

Next up, the Fifth Doctor kills a Cyberman by melding him into the wall in Earthshock:

In Resurrection of the Daleks, which features so much death there is a even YouTube video with accompanying body count dedicated to the episode, the Fifth Doctor blows up two Daleks:

The Sixth Doctor then kills at several Cybermen in Attack of the Cybermen:

Revelation of the Daleks sees him kill a guard (video 1) and blow up the Dalek left guarding him and Peri at the end of the episode (video 2):

In Vengeance on Varos, he throws a guard into an acid bath. However, this is controversial- some say the guard fell of his own accord. Make your own mind up:

This next clip is truly horrendous, with the Doctor killing the character of Shockeye in The Two Doctors by covering his head with a butterfly net and pressing the cyanide-soaked cotton wool to his face:

The Two Doctors Part7 by tardismedia

The Seventh Doctor blows up the first Dalek they encounter in Remembrance of the Daleks, plus another encountered on the Dalek shuttle:

In Attack of the Racnoss, the Tenth Doctor tells the Empress he will take her and her kind to a planet where they will not harm anyone, but she stupidly refuses. He then destroys one of the walls of the room, flooding it and the pit with water from the River Thames. Though the Doctor freed Donna, he stays to watch the Empress suffer,

In another scene the Tenth Doctor kills the Sycorax leader in The Christmas Invasion:

The Doctor then wiped out Pompeii and everyone in it by switching off an energy converter in The Fires of Pompeii:

In The Satan Pit he killed the devil (well ok, a black hole did), but later in the episode the Doctor says he did not have time to go back and save the Ood:

The Eleventh and current Doctor said he let ‘Nephew The Ood’ from The Doctors Wife die, refering to the casualty as “another Ood I failed to save”:

And that’s a wrap. Thanks go out to the Doctor Who fans on the Trek BBS forum for helping me sort this list. If anything is missed, please feel free to add to the list in the comment section below: