The Doctor is a Time Lord: a 900 year old alien with 2 hearts, part of a gifted civilization who mastered time travel. The Doctor saves planets for a living—more of a hobby actually, and the Doctor's very, very good at it.
This tv show contains 108 potentially triggering events.
There are several episodes where one-off characters are shown to be in abusive relationships (which are all portrayed as horrific, and usually end with the abuser facing some kind of comeuppance).
Additionally, there are some scenes where the main characters are shown committing abusive acts towards other main characters they have a close relationship with (including slapping them, yelling at them, and insulting them in a mean-spirited manner). These are almost always played for laughs, and the responsible characters aren't called out for their bad behavior.
There is some dialogue that makes it clear they kidnapped a young girl as a trophy. Who they kept on display until she rotted away. They have an unknown amount of people they have done this to, as this is a common thing to occur.
The main villain turns out to *spoiler* be a janitor who was sick of humans being left behind by companies automation and set out to mass murder their customers and blame the company
In the episode "the idiots lantern" in series 2 there is a a teenage boy who is emotionally and (implied) physically abused by his father, at the end of the episode his father leaves but the boy decides not to cut contact
In the mummy on the orient express the doctor tells a man to stop "Drowning your sorrows in that glass" as the man is drinking a glass of what I assume is whiskey. There are also a few scenes with someone drinking alcohol but it is never abused onscreen.
S12 E6 Multiple dead birds are shown throughout episode including the dissection of one. Alien bacteria is feeding on the plastic inside the birds. The episode emphasizes the importance of conserving our planet
In "Daleks in Manhattan", there are human-pig hybrid creatures made through violent kidnapping and experimentation. There is a scene where one of such experimentation results is shown to be sad and alone in the sewers.
In one scene, the Doctor attempts to intimidate a rabbit whom he briefly suspects of being an alien in disguise. The Doctor makes no physical contact with the rabbit and he leaves it alone shortly after.
In the episode Survival, an Earth cat is savaged to death by an alien cat, although this scene is infamous in the fandom for extremely unconvincing special effects, so the blow MAY be softened. Proceed with caution.
A robotic dog that was the pet of Sarah Jane and the Doctor is killed in an explosion. In the original series, the same robot dog accidentally drives into the ocean and short circuits. It is not a particularly lifelike dog but it might upset some viewers.
Arachnophobes will want to avoid the TV stories Planet of the Spiders, "The Runaway Bride", and "Kill the Moon", as well as the novels "Festival of Death" and "The Crawling Terror" and the audio drama "Empire of the Racnoss".
The episode "A Christmas Carol" takes place on a planet where fish and sharks swim in the sky, sharks are seen on several occasions including a character being cornered by a shark in a room (the character is not harmed)
No but in the 10th Doctor episode "The Girl In The Fireplace" and then multiple times in the 11th Doctor's series, The Doctor ends up being kissed by or is in a romantic relationship with women he first met when they were children. It's an odd reoccurring theme in Moffatt's writing.
The politician is implied to be sexually harassing someone on the team but the only direct interaction we see with them is him introducing himself to her.
A main character's mouth is covered with a chloroform rag (Skip from 12:40 to 13:15) and one of the walking dead later covers her mouth (Skip from 17:45-18:00).
The politician is implied to be sexually harassing someone on the team but the only direct interaction we see with them is him introducing himself to her.
The Tenth Doctor has his hand cut off and the hand in a jar appears multiple times. The Twelfth Doctor injures both hands punching a wall in the episode Heaven Sent. It is shown MANY times in the episode.
Planet of Fire involves a character burning to death on-screen. Dark Water claims that humans are conscious postdeath and spend their final moments mentally begging not to be cremated; this turns out to be false.
Series 5 Episodes 8/9 (The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood) shows multiple characters being sucked underground by the earth, which leads you to believe they’ve been suffocated. It is later revealed that they weren’t actually suffocated in the earth, and they’ve been taken captive by an underground civilization. Nobody is actually buried alive, but at first it may seem like they have been.
**Spoiler warning for planet of the Ood** we watch a human become an Ood and its nasty. To skip, about 40 minutes in when The Doctor says "Oh they've been preparing you for a long time" to Halpen skip ahead by about one minute.
If regeneration counts as "death" the Doctor and Master have died A LOT. Even not counting regeneration, there are moments (and alternate time lines) when both of them are stated to be dead and there are some wild plots to resurrect them. Several companions have either died or come so close it basically counts.
Many aliens, both minor and major characters, die. The Doctor is an alien who looks human, as are other Time Lords and Ladies, and they die in some season finales, too.
While Trypophobia is commonly known to be the fear of holes, it can also be triggered by similar patterns and clusters of bumps. In "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" there is a character with teeth implanted in his face which may trigger this.
in "The Long Game" there's a scene where Adam, after receiving his upgrade, vomits from the shock of seeing his own brain. However the vomit itself is turned into an ice cube.
aliens in london/world war three/boom town feature the slitheen, who are aliens inside of human skin suits and often “have issues with the gas exchange” (leading to the iconic line “do you mind not farting while im saving the world?”)
In the final episode, the Doctor and Rose are taken to Torchwood, a facility which takes possession over alien technology and lifeforms, however while the Doctor is technically a prisoner he isn't really treated as such.
In the first part of the 2023 Christmas Special 'The Star Beast', the daughter of the companion gets dead named by bullies. Her mum offers to sternly talk to their parents so it doesn't happen again.
Whereas there isn't any slurs, there has been a few writers in the show that are transphobic, and some of their episodes do contain transphobic "jokes" (I say jokes because they are played for laughs). In case it's useful some of the writers who's transphobia it's most noticeable in the episodes are Gareth Roberts and Toby Whithouse
There are needles used when Rose and Mickey gets captured (it is not too detailed in my opinion but you might want to look away if this could trigger you)
In S3 E2, the Shakespeare Code, the Doctor, Martha and William Shakespeare go to an asylum to talk to a patient there and the people there are treated incredibly badly.
Episodes involving hospitals include The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, New Earth, Smith and Jones, The Eleventh Hour, and World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls. I think that's all of them, but I could be wrong. The Curse of the Black Spot and The Girl Who Waited both involve hospital-like locations, but they are not actually hospitals.
Yeah, but nothing too heavy or directly explored much until the episode Can You Hear Me (Yaz depression/history with potential unaliving of self is at least heavily implied in CYHM.)
not in a suicidal manner, but characters do intentionally harm themselves on several occasions, such as one character breaking her own wrist to escape a trap.
In the episode "The Next Doctor" (not sure which episode number that would be here), a major plot point is a character coping with a traumatic experience by dissociating to the point that they invent an entirely new personality capable of handling the situation.
Some villains have “multiple personalities”. Especially in s12e5 there’s a woman who is programmed to have a seperate fake personality as a cover for her secret identity which might be hard for programmed or RAMCOA systems to watch
Amy, Rory and The Doctor are under the influence of "dream lord", a being who traps people in false realities. The three of them spends the whole episode trying to figure out what place is real
The Master is haunted by the 'drums', a repetitive series of taps, which the audience hears in the season 3 finale, The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords
Not technically an eating disorder, but Season 4 Episode 1 features a weight loss drug, and several times throughout the episode characters point out how much thinner/better they feel taking the drug and loosing weight, which may be upsetting to some viewers dealing with eds.
Not explicitly but the doctor is sometimes accused of lacking empathy/emotion for not expressing it normally. Characters are teased/othered for being “weird”/“different”.
In "Water on Mars" [SPOILERS] the Tenth Doctor attempts to save a group of scientists on Mars but upon returning them to Earth, the leader immediately kills herself upon walking into her house.
There is a scene shot with the camera close to the water level, and a wave travels toward the camera, which is briefly underwater before the shot ends.
The waking dead people do some weird wailing while they’re walking around. It’s not too loud but they do scream and the spirits who are possessing them scream while they’re in gas form
aforementioned voyage of the damned episode: there's LOADS. there's two 'comically fat' characters and a lot of the stuff surrounding their characters concerns the fact that they're big. there's also a character actively fatshaming them constantly
An Alien character (Strax) who doesn't understand human gender cues often/constantly uses He and She for the wrong characters (Humans who are presumably cis). This is presented as funny.
if it does happen (e.g. s7ep11), it never comes across to be with malicious racial intent. it’s not a concerning trend of poc characters constantly dying in it first.
Martha Stewart gets racially profiled and harassed when going back in time with 10. In one instance 10 wipes his memory and Martha is forced to become a maid who 10 (under a false name with a fake personality) verbally abuses her. People are often specially discriminatory towards aliens. Indigenous groups (usually aliens) are often framed as genocidal and evil or are not given their land back. Fat characters are almost always villains unfortunately which is a stereotype and fatphobic, notable example include s1e4 where all of the villains are fat or bigger bodied
There is racism, ableism, fatphobia, specism, eugenics and harmful racist tropes where black women are forced to play maid roles or sidelined and refused to be paired with the doctor romantically
Ableist joke. In "Doomsday", there is scene where the Daleks and Cybermen are demanding the other identify themselves first. Mickey is watching this and says to Rose, "It's like Stephen Hawking meets the speaking clock." It seems intended to make the audience laugh.
Nardole is played by Matt Lucas who has done blackface before, he becomes a companion and is around through season 10. He has since apologised for doing blackface but that doesn’t undo the racism and harm of it. Matt Lucas also did caricatures of disabled people in said show, little Britain.
In season 10 the pope visits the doctor, there is talk of Catholicism and hell. There’s also a mention of people taking their lives because they “would rather go to hell” than read an ancient cursed text
Abaddon is a reoccurring villian that mentions his other names include satan and lucifer, the base they are on also being referee to as “hell” and abadon specifies he is the devil of all religions
There is a scene with Rose while she is hanging from the air that someone makes some uncomfortable comments about her, once she is no longer hanging it stops.
the 11th doctor is naked for a while in "the time of the doctor" in front of clara and her family. and then him and clara go to a church with hologram clothes on. i wasn't too bothered by it but some might be
There are relationships between humans and aliens and different species, like Jenny and Vastra or Rose and the Doctor. However all parties are intelligent species and can give full consent.
Davros is dying, and indeed very close to death, in the episodes "The Magician's Apprentice" and "The Witch's Familiar." It is never stated what exactly is killing him, but he is very weak and looks and sounds ill.
In the episode "The End of Time" a few unlucky homeless individuals are shown receiving food from a charity. They are murdered soon after by the Master.
By far most episodes have a happy ending, either on TV or any other medium, with the Doctor saving the day with minimal loss of life, before, after being thanked by the survivors, going off to another adventure.
However, there are some rare exceptions to this rule, including, but not limited to, The War Games (the Doctor is successfully captured and executed by the Time Lords, before regenerating), Doctor Who and the Silurians", The Sea Devils", "Warriors of the Deep" (in all 3 cases, the Doctor fails to make peace between humans and an intelligent reptile race called the Silurians, resulting in a huge death toll for both species) "Blood Heat" (novel, the Doctor is forced to destroy an entire alternate universe), "He Jests at Scars" (audio drama, the Valeyard and Mel get trapped in suspended animation for all eternity, forever concious but unable to move or even scream), "Lucie Miller"/"To the Death" (two-part audio drama, three of the Doctor's companions die, driving him almost to insanity), and "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" (two-parter, the Doctor is forcibly seperate from his companion Rose Tyler).
As I said, this is not a complete list, as there are probably more I've forgotten, not seen/read/listen to, or you may disagree on whether it counts as 'happy', but MOST stories not on this list SHOULD be safe.
Guns are scene/used multiple times throughout the series, but it should be noted The Doctor has a deep hatred of them, refuses to use them, and distances himself from those who do.
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