On the surface the Doctor has everything going for them. They’re brave. Kind. Selfless. Insanely intelligent. Seemingly immortal.

But they’re not perfect.

Though it’s the last thing they’d admit, there are plenty of things about the Doctor that are, to put it mildly, slightly questionable.

That’s not to say they’re as bad as the Daleks – just that a bit of self-reflection wouldn’t go amiss.

The closest we’ve come to this in the show itself is in The Giggle, when the Fourteenth Doctor commits to fixing his problems so his successor isn’t burdened by them.

But this is a process that plays out offscreen. And, arguably, it’s only partly successful!

And if the Doctor did one day do proper therapy? These are, without a doubt, some of the first things that would come up…

Despite what they’d have you believe, the Doctor doesn’t always make things better. Sometimes it would probably have been good if they hadn't shown up at all!

One of the earliest examples is the First Doctor’s trip to the Ark, where the result of his arrival is the unwitting infection of the crew with the common cold, allowing the Monoids to kill many humans and take over the ship.

The Tenth Doctor would later bring war to a boys’ school in Human Nature/The Family of Blood, the Fourteenth Doctor would accidentally awaken a whole pantheon of gods by invoking superstition with salt, and the Ninth Doctor, in perhaps the ultimate example of mucking things up, would see his trip to Satellite 5 result in a series of lethal game shows puppeteered by Dalek overlords.

The idea of the Doctor’s reputation coming back to bite him was a big thing in the Eleventh Doctor’s era, when a whole alliance of enemies came together to trap him in the Pandorica, and the Silence considered him enough of a threat to carry out several murder attempts.

On the Doctor's part these negative outcomes are rarely intentional, but their carelessness has nevertheless had consequences.

Contributor

Richard Lloyd

Contributor

Doctor Who fan/YouTuber and writer of GO FIGURE, the unofficial guide to Character Options' 5.5" Doctor Who action figures!

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