Popverse's top stories

• More people tuned into the Stranger Things season 5 release date announcement than the Stranger Things season 4 debut on Netflix
• MEMBERS ONLY: What do Aggretsuko and Chainsaw Man have in common? They're both about how much capitalism sucks [Popverse Jump]
• I have a hunch why Mike Flanagan worked so much Back to the Future into The Life of Chuck

Ever since its 1963 debut, Doctor Who has earned a place in fans’ hearts as being a kids’ show that could be legitimately scary at times — so much so that the idea that audiences hid behind the sofa while watching has become a common shorthand for the experience amongst the series’ fanbase. When the series was revived in 2005 after being off-air for more than a decade, the question of just how far the show could go was one even its writers would find themselves asking.

I would worry that I was going too dark and Russell [T. Davies, showrunner] would say, 'No, I want to see how dark we can go as well' so he was always pushing me,” remember Robert Shearman, who wrote the 2005 episode ‘Dalek’ said during an appearance at the British Film Institute Southbank recently. "The scene where Chris meets the Dalek for the first time, I was holding off for ages and it was Russell who was always saying, 'Just make it vicious' and so I was allowed to go as dark as I possibly could."

But how dark was that, exactly, considering the famed nervousness of executives at the BBC, the publicly-funded network which owns and airs the show in the UK?

“We weren't sure in the first couple of drafts if we could even kill people on-screen anymore […] for a family audience-type show that we hadn't had on TV for about 15 years,” Shearman remembered. "It was that bizarre thing – I thought for a while we might have simply to stun people.”

Given that the Daleks’ catchphrase is simply the word ‘Exterminate’ being screamed in their distinctive robotic voices, the idea that they’d have to downgrade that to ‘Stun, and that’s the best we can do!’ was an understandably upsetting one. Thankfully, calmer heads prevailed.

“We got the go-ahead and Russell sent me an email saying, ‘It’s alright, we can kill to our hearts’ content!’” That wasn’t entirely the case, however; Shearman remembers one scene got turned back by Davies himself, before any BBC executives had a chance to see it.

“I wrote the scene where Simmons (played by Nigel Whitmey) gets suckered – but it was much, much worse... it went over his head and his skin had burnt off and Russell wrote back to me saying, 'Please don't try and get the entire show cancelled before we start'."

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out Popverse's guides to:

• Upcoming movies
• Upcoming TV shows
• Upcoming comics
• Upcoming games
• Upcoming fiction books
• Upcoming comic conventions