I’m still mentally scarred by the darkest scene in Doctor Who history

The Doctor Who franchise is full of moments that have left a bruise on the British public’s shared psyche.  

I’m thinking of scenes like Doctor Constantine vomiting up a gas mask, Amy sacrificing herself to the Weeping Angels, or a lone Dalek slaughtering an entire army of anonymous mooks. 

Yet there’s one scene that I consider the darkest in Doctor Who’s very long and storied history – and no, I’m not talking about James Corden’s guest appearances.  

I’m talking about a scene in the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, specifically a horrifying moment in the third season, The Children of Earth. 

Now I’ve already written at length about how Children of Earth is one of the most shocking and, dare I say, harrowing stories ever set in the expanded Doctor Who universe.  

Yet, if you’re not a dedicated reader of my Whoniverse ramblings, then I’ll quickly explain the plot of the 2009 miniseries.  

Basically, a group of aliens known as the 456 travel to Earth and demand 10% of all the kids on the planet, otherwise they’ll wipe out humanity. 

Why? Well, the 456 use the chemicals found in the blood of children to get high. It’s a really disturbing revelation in a story that’s already incredibly creepy was so different from any Torchwood story before it.

Prior to this, I’d always thought of Torchwood as Doctor Who’s try-hard younger brother who was so desperate to be edgy it almost veered into parody. 

Children of Earth, however, was more akin to a Lovecraftian horror story where the villains were less pantomime baddies and more unknowable eldritch things beyond our comprehension. 

Still, there’s one scene in this already horrifying story that takes things to an entirely new level.  

It happens in the final episode of the season, Day 5 – which was broadcast 16 years ago today – and involves the character John Frobisher (played brilliantly by Peter Capaldi, who obviously went on to play a much bigger role in the Doctor Who franchise). 

Throughout Children of Earth, Frobisher was the archetypical beleaguered bureaucrat, a dedicated civil servant who was completely out of his depth when he was thrust into the role of ad-hoc ambassador to the terrifying aliens. 

It’s out of a grim sense of duty – and a genuine belief that he’s helping humanity – that he helps decide which children will be given to the aliens and comes up with the cover story to explain their disappearance.  

In the final episode, however, the Prime Minister reveals a secret to Frobisher, telling him that to make the story believable, the Government must be seen to be ‘victims’ as well and that Frobisher’s daughters Lilly and Holly are to be given to the 456. 

As Frobisher protests, knowing that would doom his daughters to an eternity as a living bong, the Prime Minister tells him that nothing he can say or do will save the girls from their fate.  

At this point I presumed I knew where the story was going. Things looked hopeless but this was a Doctor Who story. Surely our heroes could technobabble their way out of the problem or maybe the Doctor would land his Tardis and save the day?

Sadly Children of Earth isn’t that kind of story.

So, Frobisher heads home and in a scene that’s left a psychic scar in my brain ever since I saw it, we see Frobisher walking upstairs with a pistol hidden behind his back, while his daughters play in a bedroom with his wife. 

In silence, we watch Frobisher enter the room and close the door. Three gunshots then scream out. There’s a pause before a final fourth shot, and Frobisher’s story comes to an end.  

Frobisher’s murder suicide is without a doubt the darkest thing we’ve ever seen in any Doctor Who story. A horrendous act, committed out of love for children, and a genuine desire to save them from a fate worse than death.   

It’s unthinkable, while also somehow understandable, which just adds to the terror.  

Yet, the real sting in this tale is that Frobisher’s horrendous act was ultimately pointless. Torchwood manages to save the day in the end and banish the 456 back to whatever hellscape planet they came from.  

John killed his family for nothing. 

Although he could never have known it, the Torchwood team figured out a way to stop the 456, although this required Jack Harkness to sacrifice his grandson to do so. 

I remember at the time being shell-shocked by what I’d just seen; the deaths of not one but three children in a Doctor Who spin-off were just unthinkable. 

After all, while death is the Doctor’s constant companion (as Sutekh once told us), kids tend to be safe from the reaper’s scythe. Not in Children of Earth, though. 

In Children of Earth, kids were fair game, and not just for shock value. 

Their deaths mattered and were to underline the fact that even in a fantastical world of Doctor Who, there are dangers that even the Doctor and his companions can’t save everyone from. 

So, you can forget Cybermen invasions, the Judoon platoon upon the moon, or whatever those water zombies on Mars were up to – this is the darkest moment in Doctor Who history, and I’ll argue with anyone who says otherwise. 

After I’ve come out from behind the sofa. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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