Narm/Doctor Who

Victory... should be NARMFUL!!!

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Classic Who

• A classic Doctor Who example -- the Fifth Doctor's regeneration at the end of "The Caves of Androzani" can be summed up by three words: Nicola Bryant's cleavage. Hey, even Peter Davison later admitted it.
• Everything about Daleks for some newer fans. They're such vicious monsters that it loops around from the other direction as cute. And despite being vicious monsters, people still make jokes about how they are unable to climb stairs.

"Release meeee...OR I'LL DESTROY THE COSMOS!"

• "Excellent". Delivered by a Cyberman in a camp voice.
• Pretty much every line that comes out of Joseph Furst's mouth in The Underwater Menace. His closing line of episode 3, however ("NOZING IN ZE VORLD CAN SHTOP ME NOW!") takes the cake.
• The Marshal in "The Armageddon Factor"

"I shall crush it like a rotten egg." "Taste the moment of victory. Any second now, beautiful mushrooms will blossom and burst!"

• And then there's one of the franchise's most infamous lines from The Five Doctors:

"No, not the mind probe!"

• • Shockingly, it was originally going to be high-pitched and camp.
  • The Eighth Doctor novel Seeing I turns this line into the funniest, most epic continuity reference of all time.

"A fearsome piece of psi technology and they're using it for sending memos! Look, it's got thirteen settings and they've never even got it off setting one."

• The infamously blurred delivery of "Your will is weak, Doctor!" from "The King's Demons." Hell, that whole serial was full of Narm.
• Oscar Botcherby's death in "The Two Doctors" is two courses of Narm with a side helping of ham, all the while having about one ketchup packet's worth of blood on his shirt.
• The Eighth Doctor realizing what the Master has in mind for him in the TV movie.

The Doctor: The Master wants to take all my remaining lives... SO THAT HE WILL LIVE AND I WILL DIE! NOOOOOO!!

• • The Master frequently declared that he 'wanted the Doctor's body' or something along those lines. The bondage-gear thing he put the Doctor in doesn't help. He just had that lying around, did he?
  • The Seventh Doctor's death on the operating table. A fairly well-done, intense scene (set to Puccini, no less!) falls apart when the Doctor gives one last ridiculous squawk agonized cry. Yes, that's what we'll call it...
  • The regeneration scene. CGI-aided gurning! And the bit where the Master possesses Eric Roberts and then drools all over himself. But, seriously, that movie is fun.

"WHO! AM! I?!?"

• • Though that last at least also gives us a nice Shirtless Scene, which might have been the point.
  • In the serial The Deadly Assassin, the Master is depicted as a decaying husk, as he is on his thirteenth and final life. This being the 1970's BBC, that meant the actor had to wear a cumbersome rubber mask, which sometimes muffled his lines. During the climatic scene where the Fourth Doctor and the Master face off, he utters this jewel:

You know better than that Doctor! Even in extremis, I WEAH TEH TASH TEHTOGOO!"

• The Greatest Show in the Galaxy has creepy robo-clowns, werewolves, and kickass explosions for a finale. Unfortunately, it also has a Totally Radical rapping Ringmaster. (Though his relentless cheerfulness may be Nightmare Fuel to some.)
• The Mark of the Rani has landmines that turn people into trees! (The Rani; green before it was in!) And it leads to this gem of a line:

The Doctor: The tree won't hurt you!

• • This is barely scratching the surface. Seriously, this episode is kind of awesome in a cracked-out way.
• The Fifth Doctor story Earthshock has a scene in which the Doctor tries to appeal to the humanity of the Cybermen, and the last example he used was found ridiculous by the writers and the actors.

"When was the last time you had the experience of smelling a flower, watching a sunset, eating a well-prepared meal?"

• The Second Doctor serial "The Invasion" features a Cyberman wandering through the sewers, screaming in fear. For those familiar with the Cyberman, it's very disturbing -- but at the same time the screams are more like hoots, so you have a Cyberman flapping its arms in the air going "Ooo hoo hoo hoo! Ooo hoo hoo hoo hoo!"
• And a true Doctor Who classic, from the episode "Robot":

The robot: Ooooh! I have killed the one who created me! (faints)

• Milo Clancey and his cheesy american accent from the otherwise great story "The Space Pirates".
• The Chase. Camp at its finest. One of the earlier scenes involves a hillbilly meeting the Doctor and a Dalek- and surviving!
• The slo-mo stutter in one of The War Games's final cliffhangers.

Doctor: Ccccoommmee onnnn!!!! Zoe: Wwhaatt iiss ittt?? Doctor:Ttttiimmmmeee Llllloooordddss!!!

• My DREEEAMS of con-QUEST from The Horns of Nimon
• "Warriors of the Deep". Anything involving the Myrka, the most failing Doctor Who monster that ever failed. And then this one chick tries to judo chop it...
• Oh so many things from 'Attack of the Cybermen'. Things which really stand out are the escaping prisoners (one of which is perpetually angry) and the Cyberleader of course. The fact he is twice as fat as any other Cyberman makes it nearly impossible to take anything he says seriously. A special mention to the Cyberman who seems to have a German accent too
• The manifestation of The Virus in "The Invisible Enemy" is not just unimpressive-looking, it's hilarious-looking. A big iridescent shrimp, shaped basically like a chess knight but with four limbs sticking horizontally out of its front that kick like a baby's, and whiskers that tremble emotionally as it brags about its impending domination of the universe. You just want to give it a hug. The serial also features Seeker White Blood Cells that are just large, fuzzy, obviously hollow white balls that attack the microscopic Leela by bouncing off her, to which she naturally reacts like she's in mortal peril.
• A lot of the lines spoken by or spoken about the DJ (played by comedian Alexei Sayle) in Revelation Of The Daleks end up being pretty narmy.

New Who

• Every time Anthony Stewart Head starts screeching like a bat to summon the rest of the Krillitanes in the episode "School Reunion", especially considering his subtle and sinister performance up to then. On the other hand, can YOU think of any actor who could do that WITHOUT looking silly?
• In "The Sontaran Stratagem" two-parter:

Sontar-HA! Sontar-HA! Sontar-HA! Sontar-HA!

• • Too bad, too. It started out creepy; then the insufferable Teen Genius joined in, and then it just looked stupid. In the end, it was a Crowning Moment of Awesome for a character who had been a insufferable bag of douche up until then; before then, it was just plain silly. Even the Doctor changed the channel.
  • "The planet is going nuclear!" The way this line was delivered makes it Narm. Unfortunately, it was used in every TV ad for the episode.
    • The same actor's intonation of "Earth!" during a particularly dramatic moment only makes him sound like he's channeling Father Jack:

"...the ruins of his precious... ARSE!"

• • Likewise, Martha gets the last line before the opening credits, and delivers it... well, like she knows it's the last line before the opening credits.
• In the episode Planet of the Ood, Donna passionately proclaims about the Ood, "They're born with their brains in their hands!" It was supposed to be touching, but the sheer oddity of this line made it equal parts giggler and headscratcher.
  • Don't you mean oodity?
• In Silence In The Library, when Ms. Evangelista is ghosting. It was creepy and sad until she started saying, "Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream..."
  • The moment when Ms. Evangelista's body is first discovered: River Song tries to contact her on the communicator, and her voice instantly echoes back from the device on the skeleton right in front of them. The Doctor nods grimly at the skeleton and even points his flashlight right at it--and yet River continues trying to page Ms. Evangelista!
    • And then she slowly picks up the communicator and stares at it with a dumbfounded expression, while cheesy Harry Potter-esque music plays. "It's her! That's Miss Evangelista!" Gee...ya think?
• This bit in "Voyage of the Damned".
  • The Big Bad in that episode turns out to be a cybernetic head in a plexiglass box who talks with the voice of Dr. Evil.

Max Capricorn: [I will] retire to the beaches of Pentaxico Two where the ladies, so I'm told, are fond of...MET-TAL!

• • Also the scene where Astrid is turned to dust and disappears through a window: meant to be poignant, but rather subverted by the statement: "She's just atoms now, Doctor." (Like she was what before -- strange quarks?)
• David Tennant can overact with the best of 'em, sometimes to great effect, other times to eye-rolling giggles. "NOW GET THEM OUT OF THERE!" springs to mind, as does the straight-faced "I'm sorry, they've been reduced to dust." And the overly-excited gurning of "Oh! The Lost Moon of Poosh!"

"You're in their HOOOOMES, you've got their CHILDREN. Of course they're going to fight!"

• • "Her face is completely gone!" ...No shit, Sherlock.
• "The Satan Pit" was creepy for most of the episode; but when the Beast was going through everyone's secrets and fears, the moment was ruined when it got to Toby's and proclaimed........

"The Virgin!"

• • While it was partially redeemed by the pants-shittingly terrifying 50-storey tall demon from hell, the climax of The Satan Pit is pretty much 10 minutes of nonstop hamming from David Tennant while the Beast growls at him periodically. And Tennant makes the weirdest faces when he monologues.
• Love & Monsters was lighthearted enough until The Reveal of the Absorbaloff, which would have been scary if not for two things - first, he kept making these weird faces when he wasn't talking, and when he chased Elton out of the meeting room, trying to absorb him. Seeing an overweight monster with a northern accent chase a grown man while giggling absolutely killed the tension.
  • The fact that viewers have literally dubbed the Absorbaloff "Fat Bastard" only adds to the narm.
• The Tenth Doctor as Tinkerbell Jesus in the Season Three finale. The previous scenes with Ten as a Gallifreyan house elf didn't help.
• Any scene in which the Doctor gets compared to God. This person once wore celery on his shirt, and he is irreverent toward almost everything.
• Part one of the last Tenth Doctor Christmas special could be seen as this when the Master destroys the human race by overwriting himself onto every person. His laughing along with his duplicates doesn't help.
  • Particularly the line, "There is only...the MASTER RACE!" John Simm is a good actor, but there was no way he could deliver that line with dignity.
    • This is made even more narmful by the fact that the "Master Race" consists entirely of pale-skinned, blonde-haired men. Yeah.
  • Also in that episode: Upon being asked by a burger-cart lady what he wants on his burger, the Master snarls, "EVERYTHING. I am SO. HUNGRY."
  • And DINNER TIIIIME also happens on GARBAGE DAY, along with flying up into the air and dive-bombing homeless men.
  • The Master flying into the air, period.
• "It is said that in the final days of planet Earth, everyone had bad dreams." Made worse because this was used in all the trailers for "End of Time."
• From Gridlock:

"MAAAAARTHAAAAAAAA!"

• • The Doctor's final description of Gallifrey at the end of the episode is unfortunately soppy, due to a three-way combination of the writing ("that ol' planet!"), David Tennant's delivery slowly but surely marching over the Large Ham line, and his being shot in close-up as he looks wistfully up beyond the camera like he's about to break into "When You Wish Upon a Star" (and in fact, the New New Yorkers reprise their hymn-singing in the soundtrack right on cue).
• In the final Tenth Doctor story, the Master is revived by a secret cult. But there is absolutely no indication that these people were aware that he was an evil Time Lord; he is technically being resurrected by a cult devoted to a dead Prime Minister. This is hilarious when you think about it.
  • To understand the absurdity of the situation, it's like if members of the Labour Party were meeting in the dungeons of Transport House to bring Harold Wilson back to life.
    • ...If Harold Wilson had been telepathically manipulating a large percentage of the population for over a year before being elected.
• The Cat Nun Nurses of "New Earth". Their response to a threat of "I'm armed!"?

Chief Cat Nurse: Who needs arms when we have... CLAWS!

• • She holds up her hand... and one-centimeter claws extend from her fingers. Real intimidating, Sister.
  • And those were computer-generated. According to the DVD Commentary, they'd originally made a prop arm that would do that, but it looked "rubbish" -- Phil Collinson even says he wouldn't want anyone to see the footage of it.
• Maybe it's just me but I can't take the plot of "Fear Her" seriously at all since it reminds me way too much of, of all things, Chalk Zone.
• Shakespeare being possessed in "The Shakespeare Code". The witches have scary potential and they use scary puppets, but they control Shakespeare by blowing an acid-green gas (how did he not see it?) into his room, which he inhales up one nostril. The possessed man then begins writing, staring straight ahead with his mouth clamped shut. It looks like he's trying very hard not to laugh.
• As referenced in the page quote, the Slitheen: In their true form: big green things with giant baby heads with their mouth movements badly synced to their speech.
  • While in their human forms, they constantly fart. And giggle about it. After that, it's impossible to take their boasts about how "dangerous" they are seriously.
• In World War Three, Harriet Jones:

"Noooooooo!!! Take MEEEE! Take MEEEE FIIIIRSSST!"

• The first episode of New Who, in which we're supposed to believe that Rose doesn't notice her boyfriend has turned into a life-size Ken doll.
• In "The Idiot's Lantern," The Wire is particularly narmy.
• The death of the Hath that helps Martha in "The Doctor's Daughter" counts because the Hath are humanoid fish people whose sole form of communication seems to be a bubbling noise. When the one that befriends Martha sinks to his death in quicksand, it makes it hard to muster much sympathy.

Martha: Nooooo! Hath: <bubble bubble bubble>

• The climactic ending from 'The Impossible Astronaut'

Doctor: What are you doing! Amy: SAVING YOUUR LIIIIIFFFEE!

• The Doctor and Rose's Meadow Run was this, especially as it seemed to go on forever.
  • The Narm was only amplified when the Doctor was shot by a Dalek.
• From Victory of the Daleks, the reveal of the new Dalek paradigm is sold as extremely dramatic and scary, featuring intimidating new tank-like designs for the monsters, but is somewhat ruined by the bright, happy colours the new Daleks have been painted in. Bright orange and yellow Daleks do not exactly inspire fear.
• The Tritovore from Planet of the Dead -- "Humanoid fly creatures, they trade with other civilizations for their excrement." Turned out to resemble the central character from the original (1950s) version of The Fly.
• "Where is my Thieeeeeef? THIEEEEEEEEF!"
• The Girl Who Waited has many tragic moments. Unfortunately, the gratuitous slow-motion near the end gets a bit... distracting.

Rory: WAAAUGH! [smashes a Mona Lisa over a robot's head]

• In "Smith and Jones" we see these fearsome creatures marching in... that look like giant rhinos in leather. And it gets better: When the Judoon first speaks, it sounds like a first grader rhyming things with "oh".
• The scene where the Doctor sees Rory and Amy again in Closing Time is all kinds of sweet and heartbreaking. But when you get it into your head that petrichor is essentially wet dirt, that bit causes inappropriate giggles.
• Jimmy's conversation with his son in The Almost People is part Glurge and part Nightmare Fuel because the child actor's habit of pulling his shirt up while asking "Where's my daddy?" makes the recording look like it was lifted straight from child pornography.
• That undignified wail that escapes Restac's throat when she discovers Alaya's corpse in "Cold Blood".