Harsher In Hindsight / Doctor Who

• Barbara's attempted interference in "The Aztecs" is made more dangerous by "Father's Day"; Tlotoxl was Right for the Wrong Reasons about there being cataclysmic consequences to heeding her.
• The Doctor's "One day, I shall come back" speech from "The Dalek Invasion of Earth". Unless you count the Doctor Who Expanded Universe and their brief reunion in the Death Zone on Gallifrey in "The Five Doctors", he doesn't come back.
• The trope was averted only through sheer Executive Meddling with The Beatles cameo in "The Chase". The original idea for the insert was to have a segment specially filmed for the show of John, Paul, George and Ringo in "old man" makeup, during a 21st Century reunion tour. Brian Epstein refused to let The Beatles be shown like that, leading to archival footage from Top of the Pops being used instead. It dodged this trope because of that, as John Lennon was murdered in 1980, and George Harrison died of cancer in 2001, making any such Real Life reunion of all four Beatles in the 21st Century completely impossible.
• The serial "The Tenth Planet", first shown in 1966, has a spacecraft lost with all hands in 1986. In Real Life, 1986 was the year the space shuttle Challenger exploded on take-off, killing all seven astronauts on board.
• In "The Web of Fear", the Great Intelligence seems to view "revenge" as petty and beneath it, and is only interested in the Doctor again because of his usefulness. Come "The Name of the Doctor", revenge seems to be its primary motivation.
• The conclusion of "The War Games" where the Doctor is forced to "change his appearance" before going into exile is now seen as being forced to use one of his 12 regenerations. Ergo, the modern viewer would see this as the Doctor being executed after a fashion by shortening his lifespan.
• From "Inferno":
  • The Doctor's worst fear (introduced in this story and reiterated in "The Mind of Evil") is that of a burning planet. Guess what he had no choice but to do to Gallifrey in the Time War.
  • What nearly happens to Sir Keith in this story is eerily prescient of what happened to Karen Silkwood a few years later.
• "The Mind of Evil":
  • It's shown that the Doctor's worst fear is worlds burning down. See Doctor, there's this certain time war that you'll stop...
  • It is revealed that the Master's worst fear is being inferior to the Doctor, a theme that remains recurrent for the rest of the series. Five decades later, when the Master finds out in "The Timeless Children" that his powers and abilities only exist thanks to the Doctor, he considers this a definitive proof of being inferior to the Doctor and is furious to the point of destroying Gallifrey.
• For the Doctor, at least: the description of the end of the alternate 21st Century given by the Controller in "Day of the Daleks" matches nearly perfectly with the fate of Gallifrey in the 2005 series.
• At the end of "The Time Monster", when the Third Doctor states that eternal torment was something he'd never subject anything to. About that... also at the end of "Doomsday" while he had no choice in the matter, he didn't feel any remorse for sending millions of Daleks and Cybermen into the void. Even worse, many of the Cybermen were innocent humans converted.
• The Fourth Doctor's parting "Until we meet again, Sarah" was always going to be heartbreaking after the death of Elisabeth Sladen. But it's magnified by the fact that she spent more than a decade trying to convince Tom Baker to do a series of Big Finish audios with her. He finally caved and signed a contract a week before she died. So, in essence, Four and Sarah Jane never did meet again.
• All four versions of "Shada" (the unfinished Fourth Doctor TV story, the Eighth Doctor animated webcast, the novelisation, and the original story with animated scenes and the original cast voice acting to complete the story) end with the Doctor musing on how Salyavin turned out to be much less evil than official Time Lord history claimed and speculating on how he himself might be remembered by future Time Lords as a monstrous criminal. This became much more serious after the apparent destruction of Gallifrey, especially since until "The Day of the Doctor" most fans assumed that the Eighth Doctor had been responsible for it. (And the Eighth Doctor had also been responsible for destroying Gallifrey in the prose Eighth Doctor Adventures.)
• The scene in "Black Orchid" where Adric wants to help the Doctor and Lord Cranleigh to rescue Nyssa, only to be held back and told that "two are enough". Difficult to watch when you consider that one of the reasons Adric was killed off was because the show's writers were finding it difficult to juggle three companions.
• The Seventh Doctor, distraught over the apparent death of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in "Battlefield", tells him "You should have died in bed!" Fast forward to "The Wedding of River Song"...
• "A Fix With Sontarans" has the Sixth Doctor and Tegan react in a Faux Horrific way when Jimmy Savile shows up and gives the special guest, 8-year old Gareth Jenkins, a meson gun to defend himself from Savile with after he kisses Tegan's hand. In 2012, Savile (one year after his death) was revealed to be one of the most horrific child molesters ever, and suddenly Tegan and Six's Faux Horrific reactions are a lot worse to see now. After the revelations of Savile's true nature became known, Sixth Doctor actor Colin Baker later wrote about the unsettling experience of working with Savile on the sketch.
  • A DVD extra recorded in 2006 on "The Sontaran Experiment" briefly covers that sketch — after a clip of the Oh, Crap! from the Doctor and Tegan, Colin Baker notes, "Jimmy Savile is much more frightening than the Sontarans. Much more."
• The first revival episode, "Rose" starts off with the titular character's workplace in London exploding and being on the news the next day. The episode aired on March 26, 2005, less than four months before The 7th July London bombings
• The line "You would make a good Dalek." becomes a lot more meaningful and tragic by the time of learning about the fate of the Eighth Doctor. Cass' treatment of the doctor with comparing the Time Lords are no different than the Daleks eventually brings this Doctor through Despair Event Horizon.
• The Happiness in Slavery thing the Ood from "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" have going is cringe-inducing enough. Then a couple seasons later we find out it's because they've been lobotomized.
  • This also makes "The Curse of Peladon" harsher, because the time frame established in "Planet of the Ood" means Hepesh had a point.
• Davros using human corpses to make food out of in "Revelation of the Daleks" was pretty grim to start with. But the Big Finish I, Davros audio dramas make it clear that the same was standard practice in Kaled society while he was growing up, due to the effects of the Hopeless War.
• The little girl is released from the Daleks' mind control in "Remembrance of the Daleks"! But a later short story shows that she was driven irreversibly mad by the experience.
• Characters making fun of the Ninth Doctor's funny looks becomes a bit cringeworthy considering Christopher Eccleston's later revelation of his very real struggles with anorexia and body dysmorphia, which he struggled with while making the show. It also makes the Ninth Doctor's constant crestfallen and pained look appear all the more real.
• In "Smith and Jones", the Tenth Doctor absorbs high levels of radiation. When companion Martha Jones asks if that's likely to kill him, he light-heartedly replies "Nah, it's only Roentgen radiation. We used to play with Roentgen bricks in the nursery". Ironic and sad seeing that he ended up regenerating (dying) by absorbing radiation a few series later.
• From "Blink":
  • The final scene, which implied that every statue could be a Weeping Angel, was already horrific enough. "The Time of Angels" turned that concept into reality. Have sweet dreams.
  • Sally gave the Doctor a photo of an angel. Image of an Angel, anyone?
• In "Last of the Time Lords", it causes Ten great grief that after the Master's death, he is truly the last Time Lord in existence. "The Day of the Doctor", which revealed the Time Lords weren't destroyed after all, still had Gallifrey in a pocket dimension, with it later being placed at the end of the universe and "The Timeless Children" would then later reveal that the Doctor isn't a Time Lord at all, meaning that unbeknownst to Ten, after the Master's death, the Time Lords were in fact for all intents and purposes extinct.
• "Partners in Crime" has Donna chewed out by her mother for not having a job, snapping "this isn't the 1980s! The only one around not employed is you!" This aired in early 2008...just months before the UK was hit hard by the global economic meltdown that led to widespread unemployment.
• In "The Sontaran Stratagem" the Sontarans use ATMOS, a device that supposedly drops carbon emissions to zero but in actuality makes the car fumes more toxic and dangerous. This mirrors the 2015 Volkswagen carbon emissions test scandal where Volkswagen cars were claimed to be more environmentally friendly but were in fact expelling dangerous levels of carbon dioxide.
  • This one's a twofer because the Sontarans can remotely hack the cars against the driver's will. A concern that's become more and more widespread with the advent of self-driving cars.
• The episode "Forest of the Dead" ends with River Song making a Heroic Sacrifice. At the time, it's pretty sad, but we don't really feel much connection to her since she'd only just been introduced. But as the show continues, we find out more about her and her relationship with the Doctor, and that first episode becomes simply heartbreaking to watch... especially once you realize the Doctor himself should have mourned her death far more than he did, it was just unlucky chance that he didn't know her when she died.
• In "Journey's End", the Tenth Doctor channeling his regeneration energy into his hand and a half-human Doctor growing from it is treated as something really happy as Rose can have her own Doctor. In "The Time of the Doctor" we find out that meant the Tenth Doctor's actual regeneration was his last.
• "There's something you better understand about me, 'cause it's important and one day your life may depend on it. I am definitely a madman with a box." One day her life does depend on accepting that the Doctor is just a mad man with a box.
• In "The Time of Angels", River says she had TARDIS-flying lessons "from the very best" and that it's a shame the Doctor was busy that day. In "Let's Kill Hitler", it turns out that the Doctor was busy dying because River poisoned him.
• At the end of "Flesh and Stone", River says "You, me, handcuffs... must it always end this way?" Then you remember that's exactly how she died.
• "Amy's Choice":
  • In the "Upper Leadworth" dream, Rory is hit by the Eknodines' green mist. He ends up disintegrating into dust in front of Amy, saying some final parting words. 8 years later, Avengers: Infinity War has Amy's actor, Karen Gillan, witness a begging Peter Parker turn into dust in front of his mentor, Tony Stark.
  • The scene of Rory sadly playing with the dream!cot is made even more heartbreaking by what happens in Series 6.
  • The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors' post-regeneration complaints about not being ginger. In this episode, the Monster of the Week is an Evil Redhead (played by Toby Jones) who turns out to be a twisted manifestation of the Doctor's self-loathing. Be Careful What You Wish For, Doc...
• In "The Pandorica Opens", the Eleventh Doctor makes a big, grandiose speech to all the alien spaceships, telling them that if they want the Pandorica, they have to get through him, and reminding them of all the times he beat them. It turns out that the aliens weren't after the Pandorica at all, and it was instead a trap set by them to imprison The Doctor. Bet that speech doesn't seem so grand now.
• "The Night of the Doctor" turns a lot of the Eighth Doctor's adventures into this. In "Max Warp" he and Lucie are on a crashing spaceship that turns out to be a computer simulation. In Vengeance of Morbius it looks like the Eighth Doctor dies on Karn from a fall. He ends up dying in a spaceship crash on Karn. Max Warp doubles as in "To the Death" Lucie dies from crashing a spaceship into Dalek mines.
• The hopeful ending of the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", particularly the Eleventh Doctor's closing monologue about returning to Gallifrey "the long way 'round", is much more bittersweet if not outright bitter two seasons later. First, the Eleventh Doctor doesn't get to be the one to pull off the feat; his very next story sees him spend a millennium on Trenzalore instead and he finally regenerates. Then, the three-part finale of Series 9 sees the Twelfth Doctor pull it off...but not in the way Eleven would have hoped. It's because the Time Lords betray him, arranging for his capture and torture — and inadvertently paving the way for the death of Clara Oswald, the woman who inspired the Doctors to save Gallifrey. Twelve goes mad with grief and rage and fights his way back to his homeworld over four-and-a-half billion years. On Gallifrey, he is a wanted yet admired man who overthrows the powers that be, only to become a renegade once more as a result of his mad quest to save Clara from the grave. Ouch.
• The little girl in "Day of the Moon" being forgotten about only to find herself sick and dying in New York could be bad enough, until you realise this is a young River Song and the baby Amy was pregnant with. It also leads into the attempted murder of the Doctor.
• In "The Parting of the Ways", Jack tells the Doctor that he was better off as a coward, before he met him. Given all that happens to him in Doctor Who and Torchwood, maybe he has a point...
• "Day of the Moon", in which Amy Pond shoots the little girl in the astronaut suit to save the future Doctor's life becomes almost painful to watch when you realize that said little girl was actually Melody/River Song, the baby daughter stolen from her later in the season.
• It is obviously unimaginably horrible to have your child stolen from you. This is made even worse when we find out in "Asylum of the Daleks" that Rory ALWAYS wanted children and Amy is infertile as a result of what happened on Demon's Run. Made even more heartbreaking when you realize that Amy had a very noticeable BSOD in "A Good Man Goes to War" but Rory never outwardly reacted, opting to stay strong for his wife even though he must have been completely crushed.
• One of the reveals in Series 8's "Time Heist", and the Doctor and Clara's discussion about it, is a LOT more poignant after the three-part Series 9 finale. As the enslaved Teller killed to protect its imprisoned mate, so too does the Doctor resort to desperate, in his case almost universe-destroying measures (including shooting the General and forcing a regeneration) to save Clara Oswald from the grave. And he too experiences brutal treatment at the whims of a villain on the way to temporarily abandoning his principles.
• In the climax of "Flatline", Clara, acting as the Doctor for a day, deftly talks Rigsy out of making a pointless and unnecessary self-sacrifice because she won't lose anymore people on her watch, all while making sassy remarks about her headband. This is Played for Laughs. In Rigsy's second appearance, Clara tries to emulate the Doctor again and take on his ticking clock of doom in the hopes of buying them both a little more time to wiggle out of it. She fails and to everyone's dismay is killed by the monster of the week, with the real kicker being that Rigsy already had a way out and her sacrifice was unnecessary.
  • The above is taken even further in "Heaven Sent" and "Hell Bent", when Clara's death and 4.5 billion years spent alone in the confession dial experiencing Cold-Blooded Torture causes him to snap and try to bring back Clara while risking the existence of the entire universe. He has to not only have a Heel Realization but lose his memories of Clara to regain his best self, thanks to how badly damaged he is by that point... which was partially the fault of his own people, which arguably spoils the triumphs of the post-Series 7 specials. He saved Gallifrey for THIS.
• Series 12 is a slap in the face to the Thirteenth Doctor after spending so much time to save Gallifrey, only for the Master to resurface, raze the planet into flaming ruins, and then turn some unlucky denizens into Cyber-Masters that regenerate without end and are invincible warriors due to such, so the Doctor is forced to resort to an option that cleanses the planet of all organic life. Perhaps some Gallifreyans and Time Lords escaped. Hopefully.
• After witnessing the Doctor's judgment upon the Racnoss, Donna tells him that he "needs someone to stop him". Much later, we see him breaking under the strain of hearing the explorers on Mars dying... and he's all alone. And not even Captain Brooke can get through to him. Only her suicide can.
• When Colin Baker was cast as the Doctor, he talked about his long term plans for the role, how his character would grow over the many years he'd be playing the part and how he hoped to break Tom Baker's seven-year record. These become sad when you know how his tenure ended.
• When Russell T Davies left as showrunner, the cast wrote and performed a song about his tenure called "The Ballad of Russell and Julie", which was loosely based around the issues they faced keeping the show on the air. Notably, the song contains the line "I can't block out— Please lock out— Images of Johnny B. getting his cock out!" Years later, Barrowman would admit to repeatedly exposing himself without consent to his coworkers on the set of Doctor Who and Torchwood.
• This video of Noel Clarke joking about John Barrowman exposing himself (something he was infamous for) became cringeworthy when Clarke was accused of sexual harassment in 2021.
• Any time the sexually liberal Captain Jack flirts with people becomes awkward in light of John Barrowman's sexual harassment allegations. The Doctor telling him to knock it off suddenly makes more sense.
• The revelation in "The Timeless Child" that the Doctor is actually a mysterious non-Time Lord child experimented on to make regeneration possible makes many, many moments from previous episodes harsher in hindsight. For the show in general, this makes the Doctor's various incarnations' fear and dislike of hospitals a subconscious dread from what happened to them as a child. It also makes the Seventh Doctor's death on the operating table and subsequent regeneration into the amnesiac Eight even more terrifying. The Doctor's angst at being the last of their kind in the first seasons of the revived series is also this given that they have always been the last (or at least the only known one) of their real kind.

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