Doctor Who/Awesome

• In a discussion as to who was the best companion in Doctor Who, there were a surprisingly large number of votes for Ace. When someone asked why, everyone gave the same reason: she once beat the crap out of a Dalek with a baseball bat. Because it called her "small". In fact, Sophie Aldred herself mentioned in a dvd-documentary that, after her marriage and her children, the greatest moment of her life was the fact that she beat the crap out of a Dalek using a baseball bat.
  • It's followed up with a nice Big Damn Heroes moment. You could see the entire encounter on YouTube, except that the BBC asked that it be pulled.
    • Not to mention an additional picture.
  • This also inspired the creation of The Ace Test for the evaluation of the worthiness of later Companions. Basically, any Companion is judged according to the question "Can you see this person clobbering a Dalek with a baseball bat?" If so, the Companion is acceptable and may stay; if not, exterminate her/him/it immediately.

Doctors

First Doctor

• The Doctor ends up saving the day in the first story, "An Unearthly Child", easily outwitting a murderous caveman:

Kal: Za killed the old woman with his knife! Here! Here is the knife he killed her with!
Doctor: This knife has no blood on it. I said, this knife had no blood on it!
Kal: It is a bad knife. It does not show the things it does.
Doctor: It is a finer knife than yours.
Kal: I, Kal, say that it is a bad knife.
Doctor: This knife can cut and stab. I have never seen a better knife.
Kal: Then I will show you one! (He pulls out his own knife, which is covered in blood)
Doctor: This knife shows what it has done. There is blood on it! (shows it to the tribe) Who killed the old woman?
Za: I did not kill her.
Doctor: (turning to face Kal) You killed the old woman!

• • They then proceed to drive him out with rocks, at the Doctor's prompt.
• He gets two iconic moments of awesome in the finale of "The Daleks", one when he learns of the Daleks' plan to irradiate the atmosphere so that only they can survive, his first true encounter with a relentless evil which essentially mirrors his own;

Doctor: This senseless, evil killing!

• • and another when the Daleks, powerless and dying, approach him and ask him to find a way to save them after all they've done, to which he replies:

Doctor: Even if I wanted to, I don't know how.

• In "Marco Polo", the Doctor cannot bow to Kublai Khan due to his back being sore from having walked across China. He later ends up winning a big part of the Mongol empire off him in a game of Backgammon.
• The First Doctor manages to convince virtually an entire audience that he is a brilliant harp player without playing a note in "The Romans". Also in that episode, beating a big guy so easily, he laughs during it.
• He also pulls a Granny Weatherwax in "The Savages," transferring part of his personality and conscience to one of the bad guys and successfully saving the day. It is then implied that he planned it all from the start.

Second Doctor

• He escapes a sound-locked cell by replicating the tone with a spoon and a glass of water in The Power of the Daleks.
• Convincing Blade and the other Chameleons to turn against the Director in The Faceless Ones.
• Creating Alpha, Beta and Omega, and starting the Dalek civil war in The Evil of the Daleks.
• "Tomb of the Cybermen" gives the Second Doctor the moment when he baits the monomaniacal and increasingly delusional Eric Klieg into revealing just how power-mad he is - and then caps it with the perfect put-down:

Doctor: ...Well now I know you're mad. I just wanted to make sure.

• Holding his own in a psychic duel against the Great Intelligence in The Abominable Snowmen.
• KO'ing an Ice Warrior with a stink bomb in "The Ice Warriors".
• In "The Enemy of the World", just before his duel with Salamander, he begins to cement his Beware the Nice Ones status:

Doctor: We'll put you outside, Salamander. No friends, no safety, nothing. You'll run, but they'll catch up with you.

• Gaining control of a Robot Yeti in The Web of Fear.
• Frying a Cyberman with a force field in The Wheel in Space.
• Blowing the villains up with their own missiles in The Dominators.
• The Doctor and the Master of the Land dueling fictional characters in The Mind Robber.
• Talking Tobias Vaughn into joining him in The Invasion.
• Instructing an attack on the villains under their very nose in The Krotons.
• Steering an Ice Warrior fleet into the sun, followed up with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the one in charge of the failed invasion of Earth in The Seeds of Death.

Slaar: You destroyed our entire fleet!
Doctor: You tried to destroy an entire world.

• Figuring out how to deactivate an ultra-destructive bomb's detonator in a matter of minutes in The Space Pirates.
• The Second Doctor's speech to the Time Lords in "The War Games", about how they simply can't just sit back in the face of all the evils of the cosmos that he's faced.
  • Also from "the War Games": The Doctor bluffing his way into the prison under the pretense of being a "prison inspector".

Third Doctor

• From Spearhead from Space:

Channing: You're too late.
The Doctor: On this planet, there is a saying that it is never too late.

• The Doctor Obfuscating Stupidity and parking Bessie in the middle of the road to get back Recovery 7 in "Ambassadors of Death".
• Bluffing his way out of an execution in The Daemons, "moving" several distant objects (when in truth it's Benton shooting them) and using Bessie's remote control function to take the town leader by surprise.
• Defeating Grun in a pit battle in The Curse of Peladon.
• In "The Sea Devils", the Third Doctor not only manages to best the Master in a sword fight - he disarms him, holds him at swordpoint, steals his lunch for no real reason other than to prove that he can, and then gives the Master his sword back because he's having too much fun to stop. Oh, and then beats him again. Granted, the Doctor still ends up captured, but the entire sequence is pretty awesome.
• In "The Three Doctors", Two and Three are able to use that recorder in a Xanatos Gambit to get them out of Omega's world.

Fourth Doctor

• The Fourth Doctor's "Do I have the right?" speech from "Genesis of the Daleks".
• His episode-long cat-and-mouse game with Goth in The Deadly Assassin is one slow-burn of Badass.
• In "The Brain of Morbius", when he faces Morbius and challenges him to a mind-bending contest. Ok, he nearly dies, but it's still awesome.
  • Let's face it, any time the Fourth Doctor performs the switch from charming, childish and humorous to pure hissing rage is going to herald (or make) a Moment of Awesome.

The Doctor: I doubt it, Morbius!

• In Horror of Fang Rock, the Doctor and co. are under attack by the ice-dwelling Rutan fleet, so what does he do? Simple. He uses a scope and some diamonds to turn a lighthouse into a giant laser beam. Of course!
• In "The Androids of Tara", the Doctor pwns Count Grendel, the best swordsman on the planet. Meanwhile, Romana and Princess Strella stop Grendel's goon with a needlework loom and a pitcher.
• How about this great bit from The Pirate Planet? After the Captain reveals the true nature of the Planet Zanak to the Doctor (the planet in question being a hollow world sized spaceship which swallows other planets whole and mines them for minerals. The Captain then keeps the crushed remains of the planets he's plundered in a trophy room.), the latter then gives this epic speech of utter outrage, and shows why Tom Baker is awesome:

The Doctor: Appreciate it? APPRECIATE IT?! What, you commit mass destruction and murder on a scale that's almost *inconceivable,* and you ask me to appreciate it? Just because you've happen to have made a brilliantly conceived *toy* out of the mummified remains of planets!
The Captain: DEVILSTORMS, DOCTOR! IT IS NOT A TOY!
The Doctor: THEN WHAT'S IT FOR?! What are you doing? What could possibly be worth all this?

• From the climax of "State of Decay"- he launches the Great Vampires' scout ship from the surface of the planet, then guides it to fall straight down, piercing the Great Vampire's heart, using it as a makeshift "stake", causing the Three That Rule to die alongside him.
• Then there's Four's final MOA, with his brutal fight with the Master on a satellite array, including stringing up his scarf to trip the Master.
• In "Pyramids of Mars", Four defeats an assasin with his scarf.

Fifth Doctor

• Five killing the Cyber Leader by jamming Adric's star into the Leader's breathing vent. Also a Tear Jerker.
• "The King's Demons": The Doctor is about to engage in a duel. He is warned that his opponent is the greatest swordsman in France. His response... "Unfortunately, WE are in England".
  • For extra badass points - said swordsman is actually the Master.
• "The Caves of Androzani" is basically a four-episode long MOA for the Fifth Doctor.
  • Who could forget the cliffhanger to episode three ("I'm not gonna let you stop me now!"). It takes several viewings to notice it, but the fact is he is not only saying it to Stoltz, but to himself- he is stopping himself regenerating (witness the effect on the screen).

Stotz: You better turn this ship around Doctor!
The Doctor: Why?
Stotz: Because I'll kill you if you don't!
The Doctor: Not a very convincing argument actually, Stotz, because I'm going to die soon anyway, unless of course--
Stotz: I'll give you to the count of three!
The Doctor: Unless of course I can find the antidote… I owe it to my young friend to try because I got her into this--
Stotz: One,
The Doctor: So you see--
Stotz: Two,
The Doctor: I'm not going to let you stop me now!

• • Point of fact, who can forget the scenes leading up to the regeneration in the final episode of The Caves of Androzani? Carrying Peri across a battlefield surrounded with explosions, nearly dying of asphyxiation in an earlier scene and generally engaging in derring-do - all so he can save the girl he accidentally got into this situation and all while dying from spectrox poisoning. And not only this, but in the final moments of the first scene mentioned, he knows he has no cure for himself - he still delivers Peri to safety and meets death with dignity. And people thought the Fifth Doctor wasn't badass.

Sixth Doctor

• Stealing a gun and fighting the Cybermen in Attack of the Cybermen might seem highly out-of-character for the Doctor, but it's still an awesome scene.
• He gets a delicious MOA in "Revelation of the Daleks" when he offers to shake the hand of the defeated Davros (said hand had just been shot off).
• The Sixth Doctor's moment comes at the end of "Trial of a Time Lord", when he denounces the Kangaroo Court that the Time Lords have set up for him to cover up their own atrocities:

In all my travels through time and space I have battled against evil. Against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here! The oldest civilization -- decadent, degenerate and rotten to the core! Power mad conspirators? Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen -- they're still in the nursery compared to us! Ten million years of absolute power. That's what it takes to be really corrupt.

Seventh Doctor

• In part four of "Remembrance of the Daleks", the Doctor rewires a Dalek machine he had thoroughly fried earlier that day.
  • All of Seven's intricate Chessmaster style schemes can qualify, but especially in the episode "Remembrance of the Daleks", where he briar patches Davros into blowing up the Dalek home system, with a Time Lord weapon he'd stashed away in his first life.
  • And then he manages to do away with the Last Dalek solely through talking to it.
• Seventh convincing the snipers in The Happiness Patrol to lay down their weapons.

Sniper 2: "Get back. Or he'll use the gun."
The Doctor: "Yes, I imagine he will. You like guns, don't you?"
Sniper 1: "This is a specialised weapon. It's designed for roof duty. Designed for long range. I've never used one up close before."
Sniper 2: "Let him go."
Sniper 1: "No."
The Doctor: "No. In fact... let him come a little closer."
Sniper 1: "Stay where you are."
The Doctor: "Why? Scared? Why should you be scared? You're the one with the gun."
Sniper 1: "That's right."
The Doctor: "And you like guns, don't you?"
Sniper 2: "He'll kill you."
The Doctor: "Of course he will. That's what guns are for. Pull a trigger. End a life. Simple, isn't it?'"
Sniper 1: Yes.
The Doctor: "Makes sense, doesn't it?"
Sniper 1: "Yes."
The Doctor: "A life, killing life."
Sniper 2: "Who are you?"
The Doctor: "Shut up. Why don't you do it then? Look me in the eye. Pull the trigger. End my life."
Sniper 1: "No."
The Doctor: "Why not?"
Sniper 1: "I can't."
The Doctor: "Why not?"
Sniper 1: "I don't know."
The Doctor: "You don't, do you. Throw away your gun."

• The Seventh Doctor gets one in "The Greatest Show In The Galaxy" when he calmly walks away from a circus tent—which proceeds to blow up very violently right behind him.
  • This wasn't just an MOA for the Doctor, but for Sylvester McCoy as well. The explosion was way bigger than expected, but he knew there could be no second take, and didn't even flinch.
• In the episode "Battlefield", knights Ancelyn and Mordred are engaged in a vicious swordfight... and the Doctor just walks calmly between them in the middle of their duel.
  • Lifting his hat to them as he strolls right between them.
• In "Ghost Light," after Light has outlined his plan to end all life and evolution so that his catalogue of life will remain valid, driving the godlike alien to suicide. So good it deserves to be quoted:

The Doctor: But you evolve too, Light.
Light: Nonsense.
The Doctor: Of course you do. You change, you adapt, all the time. Your attitude, your place, your mind... I mean, look at you now: you're no longer your original shape. And I don't think much of your catalogue- it's full of gaps.
Light: (suddenly alarmed) All organic life is recorded!
The Doctor: What about the gryphons, the basilisks? You missed the dragons, the bandersnatches... then there are the slithy toves and the crowned Saxe-Coburg.

(Strolling into the entrance hall, he casually clicks his fingers and Light immediately appears at the staircase)

Light: (frantically reviewing his data screen) Where are these items?

The Doctor: I can't think how you missed them. You have to complete the catalogue before you destroy all life here.

Light: Control?

The Doctor: She's no use to you, she's evolved as well.

Light: No! All slipping away...

The Doctor: All is change, all is movement. Tell me, Light, haven't you just changed your location?

Light: (Gritting his teeth) Not yet.

The Doctor: What's the matter, Light? Changed your mind?

Light: You are endlessly agitating, unceasingly mischievous, will you never STOP?!

The Doctor: I suppose I could. It would make a change.

Light: (desperate) Nimrod- I can rely on you! Assist me now...

Nimrod: I'm sorry, sir, but my allegiance is to this planet- my birthright.

Light: (Hysterical) Everything is changing! All in flux! Nothing remains the same!

The Doctor: Even remains change. It's this planet- it can't help itself.

Light: I... will not change... I'll wake up soon. No... change... dead... (trails off as he begins to evaporate)

The Doctor: (To the data screen) Subject for catalogue: file under "imagination, comma, lack of."

Eighth Doctor

• The Eighth Doctor only had ninety minutes on television, much of which received a lukewarm reaction from much of the audience. There are, however at least two moments which are largely agreed to have perfectly captured the spirit of the older series and managed to cement the Eighth Doctor's awesomeness:
  • Firstly, the scene where he escapes from the cops by stealing a gun using a jelly baby... and holding himself hostage, thus beautifully subverting the behaviour of nearly every action movie protagonist in existence. ("Now, will you stand aside before I shoot myself?")
  • The other, towards the end. The Master, having murdered Bruce, Chang Li and Grace, brought the Earth to the brink of destruction and very nearly stolen the Doctor's remaining lives. He leaps at the Doctor, but is blinded by the glare from one of the Eye of Harmony's mirrors, and flies into the black hole that powers the TARDIS. And as he hangs on for dear life—The Doctor reaches out and says, "Give me your hand."

Ninth Doctor

• Christopher Eccleston packed a lot of awesome into his single season as the Doctor. This speech from "Rose":

Do you know like we were saying, about the earth revolving? It's like when you're a kid, the first time they tell you that the world is turning and you just can't quite believe it 'cause everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it-the turn of the earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour. The entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour. And I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world. And, if we let go... That's who I am. Now forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home.

• "The Long Game": Revoking Adam's companion status after he nearly changed history.
• Pretty much every time that Steven Moffat writes a Doctor Who episode, a Moment of Awesome for the Doctor (or someone, at least) can't be far behind. But these gems from "The Doctor Dances" stand out:
  • The Doctor turns up for dinner. ("Thanks miss!")
  • "Go to your room!"
  • The Doctor identifies Jack's weapon:

The Doctor: Sonic blaster, 51st Century -- Weapon factories at Villengard?
Jack: Yeah. You've been to the factories?
The Doctor: Once.
Jack: They're gone now, destroyed. Main reactor went critical. Vaporised the lot.
The Doctor: Like I said. Once.

• • The banana bit.
  • The Doctor saves the day:

The Doctor: "Everybody lives, Rose. Just this once, Everybody Lives!"

• When the Doctor takes Bon Slitheen out to dinner while the TARDIS refuels. She slips poison into his drink while he's gone. When he comes back, the first thing he does upon sitting down is switch cups. Then she shoots a poisonous dart out of her finger - only for the Doctor to catch it in mid-air without even looking up. Then she leans in close, about to breath poison on him... and he squirts some mouthwash into her mouth.
• "Bad Wolf":

The Doctor: No! 'Cause this is what I'm going to do: I'm going to rescue her! I'm going to save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet, and then I'm going to save the Earth, and then, just to finish off, I'm going to wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky!
Dalek: But you have no weapons! No defenses! No plan!
The Doctor: Yeah! And doesn't that scare you to death? Rose?
Rose: Yes, Doctor?
The Doctor: I'm coming to get you.

• • What really sells this moment is the Daleks' reaction: the Doctor's speech really does scare them to death, as they immediately scramble their troops for an attack.
  • This is a cool moment thanks to Chris Eccleston's acting either way, but if you are British, it has an added layer of "hell yeah!" because it ties into the Big Brother bit at the beginning - host Davina McCall always uses the same line when announcing an eviction: "X, you have thirty seconds to leave the Big Brother house. I'm coming to get you!" Housemates have commented in the past that they love that because it gives an air of support from her, as the way she always says it (with a certain amount of joy) gives the impression that she means "don't worry, I'll be there with you". When the Doctor says this to Rose, to anyone who's watched more than a handful of BB episodes (which, considering the phenomenon it is here, is probably the majority of DW fans) it makes you grin that little bit wider. This furthermore is nicely contrasted with the episode's own use of McCall's line, which - given that the show as in the episode is part of an oppressive regime which forces people to participate against their will and kills them (although not in the way they expect) when they get voted out, is a lot more sinister.
    • Though of course, the earlier use isn't McCall's friendly "I'm coming to get you", but "we're going to get you" - quite a different implication!
    • Speaking of Eccleston's acting, the final third of "Bad Wolf" is certainly an MOA for him as a performer, starting from the moment of Rose's apparent death. No amount of screaming or tears could possibly convey the amount of despair and loss in his eyes in that shocked, silent moment.
      • And then his Oh Crap look when he realises that there are half a million Daleks on Earth's doorstep.
• "The Parting of the Ways" is basically one forty-five minute long MOA for the Ninth Doctor.
  • "Do you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek homeworld? The Oncoming Storm. You might have removed all your emotions, but I reckon right down deep in your DNA, there's one little spark left. And that's fear. Doesn't it just burn when you face me?"
  • "I think you're forgetting something: I'm the Doctor. And if there's one thing I can do, it's talk. I've got five billion languages and you haven't got one way of stopping me, so if anyone's gonna shut up, it's you!" Anything which causes Daleks to back off? Awesome.
  • "You were fantastic, absolutely fantastic...and you know what? So was I." Pretty much says it all.
    • Nice bookend to how he introduced himself to her. "Nice to meet you, Rose. [holds up explosive with a half-badass, half-nuts (read: 100%-Doctor) grin] Run for your life!"

Tenth Doctor

• "The Christmas Invasion"... the Doctor, his hand just chopped off in a way that would have made George Lucas proud: "As it happens, I'm within the first fifteen hours of my regeneration, allowing me to do this." (regrows hand) "And you wanna know the best bit? This new hand... it's a fightin' hand!"
  • "No second chances. I'm that sort of a man."
• In "New Earth", the Doctor puts himself in perspective for some Sisters.

Sister: And who are you to decide that?
The Doctor: I'm the Doctor! And if you don't like it, you want to take it to a higher authority, there isn't one, it stops with me!

• "The Girl in the Fireplace":
  • This line:

Reinette: "What do monsters have nightmares about?"
Doctor "Me!"

• • • The above line is right after... well, Television Without Pity said it best: "He totally beat up the literal monster under her literal bed. That's a keeper right there. I won't be crude, but that's services rendered, in my opinion."
    • Even better: he says it while beating up the Droid.
  • The Doctor leaving through the rotating fireplace and telling a stunned courtier:

I'm the Doctor- and I just snogged Madame de Pompadour!

• • The Doctor pretending to be three sheets to the wind so he can get close enough to a clockwork robot to destroy it.

Clockwork Droid: She is compatible.
The Doctor: Compatible? If you believe that... you probably believe this is a glass of wine.
*Pours said glass over the top of its head*

• • The Doctor rides a horse through a mirror, then there's the following exchange when he's introduced to Louis XV.

Reinette: This is my lover, the King of France.
Doctor: Yeah, well, I'm the Lord of Time.

• "The Idiot's Lantern":

Eddie Connolly: "I AM TALKING!"

The Doctor: "AND I'M NOT LISTENING!"

• • Also the bit before that, where Ten and Rose are just dancing verbal circles around the assholic Eddie.
  • Not to mention the incredibly awesome speech he gives after he finds out what The Wire did to Rose:

The Doctor: They did what?

Bishop: I'm sorry?

The Doctor: They left her where?

Bishop: Just... in the street.

The Doctor: The street. They left her in the street. They took her face, and just chucked her out and left her in the street. And as a result, that makes things... simple. Very very simple. Do you know why?

Bishop: No.

The Doctor: Because now, Detective Inspector Bishop, there is no power on this earth that can stop me!

• The Satan Pit. Rose and the Tenth Doctor kill Satan (or at least a being with a good claim to inspiring the legend). By dropping it down a black hole. 'Nuff said.
  • The speech the Doctor gives just before he does was pretty awesome too.

"So that's the trap, the great test, the final judgement, I dunno. But if I kill you, I kill her. But that implies, in this big grand scheme of gods and devils, that she's just a victim. Well, I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods. I've had the whole pantheon. But if I believe in one thing... just one thing... I believe in her!"

• The denouement of "Family of Blood." The Doctor didn't disguise himself as a human for months because he was afraid of the Family. He hid because he knew what he'd do to the Family.

He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing - the fury of the Time Lord - and then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden. He was being kind.
He wrapped my father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star. He tricked my mother into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy to be imprisoned there, forever. He still visits my sister, once a year, every year. I wonder if one day he might forgive her, but there she is. Can you see? He trapped her inside a mirror. Every mirror. If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you just for a second, that's her. That's always her. As for me, I was suspended in time and the Doctor put me to work standing over the fields of England, as their protector.

We wanted to live forever. So the Doctor made sure we did.

—Son of Mine, in Family of Blood

• • His ultimate MOA came near the end, when he reveals himself as the Doctor, and blows the Family's ship up.

Oh, I think the explanation might be that you've been fooled by a simple olfactory misdirection. It's a little bit like ventriloquism of the nose. It's an elemantary trick in certain parts of the galaxy. But it has got to be said. I don't like the look of that hydrokilominator. It seems to be indicating that you're got energy feedback all the way through the retro-stabilisers, feeding back into the primary heat converters. OOH! 'Cos if there's one thing you shouldn't have done. You shouldn't have let me press all those buttons. But, to be fair, I will give you one word of advice. RUN!

• "The Last of the Time Lords":

The Doctor: Tell me the human race is degenerate now. When they can do this. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Because you know what happens next.

• • All the while he is glowing and floating towards the Master, invincible and unstoppable.
  • Which turns into a combined Tear Jerker and Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.

The Doctor: I forgive you.

• Further, from "Voyage of the Damned":-

The Doctor: I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old, and I'm the man who's gonna save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?

• • The Doctor striding forwards, holding out his hands and being lifted up through the ship by a pair of angels.
  • The Doctor pulling the Titanic up in the nick of time and missing Buckingham Palace by literally inches.
    • Having the Queen, without a hint of anything but calm in her voice, wave and say "Thank you Doctor, thank you" as if this sort of thing happens every day.
  • It's incredibly minor, but after a couple who won tickets onboard the ship fall for a prank, the Doctor soaks the snobs who pranked them in their own champagne.
• It's not a "shiver down the spine moment" like "I'm coming to get you" or " Why would I give her my screwdriver?" but it's classic. In "The Fires of Pompeii" the Doctor holds off the attacking alien menace with... a water pistol. At first you think it's just a bluff and he treats it as such, but then you remember that these are lava monsters and actually, that kinda stings. How often do you get a character who can seriously hold off the bad guys with a water pistol?

Donna: You fought her off with a water pistol?! I bloody love you!

• In "The Sontaran Strategem", the Doctor defeating the enemy commander, no less, with applied squash.
• "The Poison Sky": Three words: Sky. On. Fire.
  • He also get another moment. The Tenth Doctor doesn't just not like guns, he has a psychotic fucking HATRED of them, and it only builds through out the two parter to the point that by the end when Luke points one at him, he just bitchslaps the gun out of his hand without breaking stride!
• "The Doctor's Daughter" after Jenny takes a bullet from General Cobb, the Doctor points a gun at Cobb's head... of course being the Technical Pacifist he is he doesn't shoot but what he tells Cobb and the rest of the colonist descendants is definitely a MOA worthy speech.

"I. Never. Would."

• "Forest of the Dead": The Doctor tries to get the Vashta Nerada to back down. The Vashta Nerada won't back down. The Doctor tells the Vashta Nerada to read all the files on him in The Library. The Vashta Nerada back down.

"Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I liked, that is not a safe place to stand! I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest Library in the universe. *pauses* Look me up."

• • • Sort of a Moment of His-Awesomeness-Precedes-Him, that one!
  • He then finds out that armies will all but flee in his wake, learns that he will build an improved sonic screwdriver in the future (with optional body pattern imprint capability), saves the life of River Song by plugging her pattern into the planet's computer (keeping her alive for all time), then learns to open the TARDIS doors with the snap of his fingers. Epic.

Doctor: Why? Why would I give her my screwdriver? Why would I do that? Thing is, future me had those years to think about it. All those years to think of a way to save her, and all he did was give her a screwdriver! Why would I do that?! (pops the lid and realizes what he can do as the Crowning Music of Awesome reaches a crescendo) Oh. Oh! OH! LOOK AT THAT!!! I'M VERY GOOD!!!

Donna: What have you done?

Doctor: Saved her. (starts running)

• • • This could also count as a MOA for the future Doctor (even before he appeared, as he uses the screwdriver that was later modified and given to River, so it was probably him doing the modifying (and devising the rescue-plan that goes with it).
• Despite the fact that Turn Left is basically a Tear Jerker incarnate mixed with some Nightmare Fuel for kicks, the entire extended cast gets at least one even if it's usually the death of them in the alternate timeline. The Doctor gets one in absence for being the one who inspired most of them.
• "The Next Doctor": Humongous Mecha trampling Victorian-era London. The Doctor counters this, by borrowing the Next Doctor's TARDIS... a hot air balloon. You have to admit, that takes balls.
• The Doctor gets his 16th gajillionth MOA in "Planet Of The Dead". Three words: BUS BITCH-SLAP.
  • Two more: flying bus.
• "The Waters of Mars":

The Doctor: It's taken me all these years to realize the laws of time are MINE. AND THEY WILL OBEY ME!

• • And he would have gotten away with it too, if not for his previous lecturing.
  • Also Nightmare Fuel.
  • Gadget! The Doctor turning him into a super-scooter is cool, but the Moment of Awesome comes when he un-boxes and remote-controls Gadget to fly the Tardis in to save them at LITERALLY the last second - complete with Crowning Music of Awesome in the background as it all unfolds.
• "The End of Time"
  • Quite possibly the best usage of one of Ten's Catch Phrases ever:

Tenth Doctor: There's an old Earth saying, captain. A phrase of great power and wisdom, and consolation to the soul in times of need.
Vinvocci: What's that then?
Tenth Doctor: Allons-y!

• • It just doesn't get more awesome than having Doctor Who and James Bond in the same scene.

Eleventh Doctor

• The 11th Doctor is born as the TARDIS burns around him, laughing joyfully while it's exploding, and a kick-ass guitar riff plays in the background.

And still not ginger! Something else, there's something... important. I'm...I'm...I'm...(explosion knocks him back) CRASHING!!! (laughs) (explosions) GERONIMO!!!

• • Bear in mind we've just had a massive Tear Jerker so that moment comes across as Mood Whiplash too.
• The second trailer for series 5: Eleven blows up a Weeping Angel. That is all.
• "The Eleventh Hour". Where the Doctor shows the planet Earth is protected as he finishes getting dressed.

The Eleventh Doctor:Oh, you're not the first lot to have come here. Oh, there have been so many.(slideshow of various monsters) And what you've got to ask is, what happened to them? (hologram of all the previous Doctors kicking the collective asses of every alien to mess with Earth, ever, comes up while utterly awesome music plays. It gets to the Tenth, and the Eleventh walks through, having just finished picking out his new clothes) Hello. I'm the Doctor. Basically... Run.

• • And the monster does. Epic on toast.
  • Oh, and watch close- as the Atraxi representative flies away, it keeps its eye on the Doctor the whole time. If those giant eyes had pants, they'd probably have been soiling them at that point. The Doctor is so badass that a clip show scares alien threats off.
    • A clip show and a call-back to "Rose", as that last part was the very first words spoken by Nine. Awesome..
  • And let's not forget that Eleven's introductory episode has him saving the world with no TARDIS, no Sonic Screwdriver, and only twenty minutes to work with.
    • And a post office, but it's closed.
    • With two minutes to spare. Really.
      • "Who da man?" indeed.
  • The above exchange is after the aliens in question have already left, and he calls them back to Earth to answer for the atrocity they were threatening.
• "Victory of the Daleks". The Doctor bluffs the Daleks for a long while by convincing them that a jammy dodger (a jam-filled biscuit sandwich) is the self-destruct switch for the TARDIS. Also doubles as a Funny Moments, especially when the Progenitor Daleks finally figure it out.

Dalek: TARDIS self destruct non existant!
Doctor: *Eats biscuit* Alright, it's a jammy dodger! BUT I WAS PROMISED TEA!

• • Spitfires with energy weapons. In space. That is all.
• "The Time of Angels":
  • The Angels use the voice of their latest victim (who still has some sentience) to taunt the Doctor. The Doctor responds.

Angel Bob: Sorry, sir. The Angels were very keen for you to know that.
The Doctor: Well then, the Angels have made their second mistake, because I'm not going to let that pass. I'm sorry you're dead, Bob, but I swear to whatever's left of you, they will be sorrier.

• • Wait, their "second" mistake?

The Doctor: Didn't anyone ever tell you there's one thing you never put in a trap if you're smart. If you value your continued existence. If you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there's one thing you never, ever put in a trap.
Angel Bob: What would that be, sir?
The Doctor: Me.

• In "Flesh and Stone", there were two in the same scene: "No, seriously, GET a GRIP!" and "I just don't think you understand the gravity of the situation!"
  • The latter being a nice reuse of the exact same pun as seen in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier in the opening scene.
• The Doctor kicking ass at football in "The Lodger", complete with theme music blaring.
• From "The Pandorica Opens": The Doctor gets on a microphone, surrounded by 15 Roman soldiers and "10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000?" alien space ships who all want what he's got. First, he tells them who he is, and then tells them to shut up. They do. He tells them that he's got the Pandorica. Then, he reminds them what he's done to him, and he tells them to let someone else try first. They leave. Romans gape.

The Doctor: Now the question of the hour is: Who's got the Pandorica? Answer: I do. Next question: Who's coming to take it from me? (No response) Come on, look at me! No plan, no backup, no weapons worth a damn, oh, and something else, I don't have. Anything. To. Lose! So! If you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly. Little. Guns. And you have any plans of taking the Pandorica 'tonight', just remember who's standing in your way. Remember every black day I ever stopped you, and then! And then! Do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first.

• • As one YouTube commentator put it:

So, in other words, he's basically saying..."COME AT ME BRO!"

• • This is Double Subverted later on. Subversion the first: the Pandorica is actually a prison for the Doctor, and by sticking around he's just ensured he'll get put in it. Subversion the second: it turns out he was right after all, since the Pandorica protects him from erasure and after he gets out via time travel abuse he proceeds to use it to save Amy, himself, and the universe, in that order. "Who takes the Pandorica takes the universe", indeed.
• Near the end of "The Big Bang," the Doctor is ready to sacrifice not only his life, but his very EXISTENCE, to "reboot" the universe. As he's flying the Pandorica on a suicide-run into the TARDIS explosion, he takes time to send one final message to River, Rory, and Amy. He smiles as he drops the computer...

River: It's from the Doctor.
Amy: What does it say?
River: ...Geronimo.

• "The Impossible Astronaut": "I'm going to need a SWAT team ready to mobilise, street maps covering all of Florida, a pot of coffee, twelve Jammy Dodgers and a fez!" The rest of the scene is not necessary. Awesome will, without a doubt, ensue.
• From "Day Of The Moon", how the Doctor defeats the Silence: He plays a clip of one of the Silence saying "you should kill us all on sight" during the broadcast of the moon landing, causing every human who ever watches footage of the moon landing (which would end up being billions of people, for billions of years) to kill the Silence as soon as they see one. Also counts as a CMOA for humanity.

The Doctor: You've given the order for your own execution. And the whole planet just heard you. You just raised an army against yourselves! And now, for a thousand generations, you're going to be ordering them to destroy you, every day. How fast can you run? Because today's the day the human race throws you off their planet, and they won't even know they're doing it. I think quite possibly the word you're looking for, right now, is 'Whoops'.

• • Pant-wettingly awesome moment.
• From "The Doctor's Wife", The Doctor, stranded on a junkyard planet in a bubble universe, BUILDS A TARDIS TO ESCAPE. Not quite in a cave, but definitely with a box of scraps.
  • But before that, when he finds the auto-saved last screams of terror of hundreds of Time Lords who died on the planet long ago making him realise there truly are no more Time Lords AGAIN!,

--"You gave me hope and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous. WHO KNOWS what it will do to me! Basically......run!"

• • They ran too.
  • This exchange is fantastic.

House: Fear me; I've killed hundreds of Time Lords.
The Doctor: Fear me, I've killed all of them.

• 'Three minutes forty seconds'. It actually took three minutes forty-two seconds, but who's counting?
  • The Doctor turns two armies against each other without lifting a finger, only for their leader to recover the situation, talking both armies into standing down and disarming themselves. Then the Doctor's army turn up and claim the entire base. Without. A. Single. Casualty.
• The prequel trailer to A Good Man Goes To War.

Dorium: But all this to imprison one child?

• headless monks look at him*
  

Dorium: Oh I know what you're up to, I hear everything in this place. I even hear rumours about whose child you've taken, are you mad?!

• monks turn away and move off*
  

Dorium: You know the stories about the Doctor? The things that man has done? God help us if you've made him angry!

• "I want them to call you Colonel Runaway. I want children to laugh at your door because they found the house of Colonel Runaway. And when people ask YOU... if it's a good idea to get to ME through the PEOPLE I LOVE... I want you to tell them your name."
  • The following exchange is enough to make you crap yourself too, if you know the Doctor:

The Doctor: "Oh look, I'm angry. That's new. I'm really not sure what's going to happen now."
Madame Kovarian: (steps in) "The anger of a good man is not a problem. Good men... have too many rules."
The Doctor: "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

• • • That's one World of Cardboard Speech I do *not* want to see realized.
• His duel of I Know You Know I Know with a psychotic River, including giving Nine a nod by making her pull out a banana.
• What does he do after finding his room with his greatest fear? He calmly puts a "Do Not Disturb" sign on it. Fear can't stop the Doctor.
• "Look into my eye." Who but the Doctor could go to his own death, a fixed point in time that can't possibly be overwritten, and survive?
  • It's easy to forget in the wake of every single other thing in the episode, but the first thing we see the Doctor doing is perhaps the most brutal dispatching of a Dalek in the show's history. And then he plops its eyestalk on a counter as a sign that he's not someone to be screwed with.
• The Doctor vs. the Silurian soilders in "Cold Blood".
• The opening to "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe." "People of Earth, you stand alone"--BOOOOM.

Companions and Allies

Abigail Pettigrew

• Using her singing voice to save Rory, Amy and everyone on board that ship with the help of a broken screwdriver.

Ace

• In "Remembrance of the Daleks", apart from her big moment, she also killed another Dalek by shooting it in the face with a rocket launcher.

The Doctor: You destroyed it!
Ace: I aimed for the eyepiece.

• Ace also had this moment in "Silver Nemesis".

The Doctor: Ace, I don't suppose you've totally ignored my instructions and secretly concocted any Nitro-9 have you?
Ace: What if I had?
The Doctor: Then of course you wouldn't do anything so insanely dangerous as carry it around with you?
Ace: Of course not. I'm a good girl, I do what I'm told.
The Doctor: Excellent. Blow up that vehicle.

• • Earlier in that story, she jams the Cybermen's signal with Crowning Music of Awesome.
• In Dragonfire it looks like she is about to mark herself with the coin that marks people as belonging to the Big Bad—and then she knocks it away and threatens him with Nitro-9.

Ace: Do you want to argue with a can of deodorant that registers nine on the Richter Scale?

Adelaide Brooke

• "The Waters of Mars": When Adelaide realizes the Doctor won't recognize that he's gone too far, she kills herself to fix the timeline in place. Watching the Doctor's sudden realization of what he just did is very satisfying, after his prior speech.
  • You'reMileageMayVary on that.

Adric

• Even Adric gets his MoAs, despised as he is. How about "Warriors' Gate," wherein, as Rorvik and his men are about to blow the Doc and Romana away, he calls to them from the doorway where he's suddenly appeared and covering them with the MZ Cannon and advises them to drop their weapons? Just awesome cool from the Alzarian nerd.

Adric: I don't know what these levers do, but it's pointing in your direction.

Amy Pond

• "The Beast Below". Amy one-ups the Doctor in Awesomeness By Analysis, subverts the Doctor's plan to Take a Third Option, manhandles the Queen of England, saves everyone, and restores the Doctor's faith in humanity, all in her first time off-planet and while wearing her nightie.
  • Her Arthur Dent-ish costume in this episode is an awesome moment in itself.
• Deactivating the Daleks bomb Edwin Bracewell with The Power of Love.
• "The Time of Angels": Amy figuring out how to deal with the Angel that was threatening her. Even the Doctor and River were impressed.

Doctor: River, hug Amy.
River: Why?
Doctor: Cause I'm busy.

• • Which actually takes on an entirely different dimension now that we know River is Amy's daughter.
• "The Big Bang"
  • "Something old, something new, something borrowed...something blue."

Amy: Raggedy Man, I remember you, and you are LATE for my wedding!

• • • To sum it up nicely: Amy flat-out orders reality to give her back her Doctor, and it does. Not with a begrudging "Why should I?" or even a permissive "Very well, here you go." The totality of existence is officially Amy Pond's bitch.
• Dressing as a pirate just for the hell of it, and swordfighting.
• Her Future Badass version fighting off a bunch of robots by Dual-Wielding a katana and quarterstaff.
• A really subtle one in Closing Time, but after she and the Doctor part ways, we can see that she picked herself up, re-acclimated to the world, and moved on with her life. Considering Ten's record with companions, that's a serious accomplishment, especially considering where she started out.
• In "The Wedding Of River Song", saving Rory when the Silence are about to kill him.
  • WITH AN ASSAULT RIFLE!
  • And moments later, when Madame Kovarian asks her to save her, she reminds her of how she took her daughter from her. And she reattaches the electrocuting eyepatch.

Amy: River Song didn't get it all from you, sweetie.

Ancient Egyptians

• In "The Daleks' Master Plan", Ancient Egyptians stop a Badass Dalek by blocking its way with rocks.

Astrid Peth

• "Voyage of the Damned": Kylie Minogue and a forklift truck.

Bannakaffalatta

• "Voyage of the Damned": Bannakaffalatta (the little red guy) taking down the Host with an EMP.

Bannakaffalatta: Bannakaffalatta PROUD! Bannakaffalatta CYBORG!

Barbara Wright

• Being the first person to have the "let's slap something on the Dalek's eye" idea in "The Daleks"
• Verbally bitchslapping the Doctor in "The Edge of Destruction"
• Smashing the Brains of Morphoton in "The Keys of Marinus"
• Holding an Aztec priest at knifepoint in "The Aztecs"
• Running down Daleks with a truck in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth"
  • Then there was the time in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" that she dredged up every bit of history she could call to mind to make the Daleks think the entire human race was in revolt, worldwide, and get them in a panic.
• Destroying the Animus in "The Web Planet"
• In "The Crusades", Ian spends three episodes trying to get to Barbara to rescue her, and by the time he finally meets up with her she's already rescued herself and is on her way home.
• Successfully fast-talking at least one villain into temporarily sparing their lives...
• Essentially, the first two seasons could have been renamed The Why Barbara is Awesome Show, and no one would have noticed. She strode through time in sensible shoes, wearing the Bouffant of Doom...

Ben and Polly

• Ben, Polly and Jamie blasting the Cybermen with various solvents made from nail polish remover in "The Moonbase".
• Ben breaking free of the Controller Macra's hypnosis and blowing him up in "The Macra Terror".

Bret Vyon

• Bret Vyon (a pre-Brigadier Nicholas Courtney) gets one for being the only man in the universe to ever tell the First Doctor to "shut up" and get away with it.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart

• In "The Daemons". Complete, unflappable, pure win when faced with an animated gargoyle: "Chap with the wings there, Five Rounds Rapid."
  • Lampshaded in the New Adventures novel No Future, in which the Brig indicates an alien standing next to Paul McCartney: "Chap with 'Wings', five rounds rapid!"
• When he greets the Master in "The Five Doctors"

"Nice to see you again." *punch*

• "Battlefield":

"Get off my world!"

• • How about:

The Destroyer: "Pitiful. Can this world do no better than you as their champion?"
Brigadier: "Probably. I just do the best I can." (Opens fire.)

• While it's a tough call, and the Doctor is not happy, the Brig taking out the Silurian base in "Doctor Who and the Silurians" to protect Earth was quite badass.

Canton Everett Delaware III

• In Day of the Moon, one of the Silence starts on a speech about how they have always been on Earth and have no need for weapons, while Amy can be heard screaming for help in the background, Delaware simply pulls out his gun and shoots it with the words "Welcome to America", before running to find Amy.
• With no shame and no hesitation, in 1969, Canton informs the President of the United States that he wants to marry a black man. The man has balls of titanium.
• And despite being from 1969, he's able to use Amy's cell phone to record one of the Silence essentially telling humanity to kill them all.
  • Really it's not all that complicated, you just press a few buttons but be damned if he didn't have nerves of steel in that scene anyway.
• Not forgetting the fact that with a little help from the Doctor he managed to successfully con the entire American government (with the possible exception of Nixon) while acting like he was leading the hunt to track down the Doctor's companions.

Castellan Spandrell

• From "The Deadly Assassin": Castellan Spandrell, the most sensible and wise of the time lords appearing in this story, is completely peaceful, collected and reasonable through the entirety of the serial... that is, until a guard who was under the Master's influence tried to kill the Doctor, at which point Spandrell shot him without skipping a beat.

Colonel Mace

• In The Poison Sky, Col. Mace leads UNIT in a truly awesome attack on the Sontarans. But even that pales in comparison to this beauty he gives the Doctor after nothing but constant abuse: Thank you Doctor, thank you for your lack of faith but this time I'm not listening! Considering the amount of criticism the Doctor has given UNIT or indeed any military force down through the years simply for doing their jobs that was hugely satisfying.

Col. Mace: The Sontarans might think of us as primitive, as does every passing species with an axe to grind. They make a mockery of our weapons, our soldiers, our ideals, but no more. From this point on it stops. From this point on, the people of Earth fight back. And we show them, we show the warriors of Sontar what the human race can do.

• • Colonel Mace before introducing two bullets to a Sontaran's head:

"You will face me, sir!"

Controller

• Seemingly the main villain in Day of the Daleks, as the Controller converses with the heroes and becomes more empathic with them, he finally decides to turn on the Daleks and helps the heroes go back in time to change history. When finally confronted for his betrayal, this immortal exchange takes place:

Gold Dalek: You are a traitor to the Daleks! You must be exterminated!
Controller: Who knows? I may have helped to exterminate you.

• • The similarly named character from Bad Wolf emulates this very scene.

Craig Owens

• In Closing Time he is able to resist being turned into a Cyberman, return emotions to the existing Cybermen, and blow up their base all because he heard his baby crying.
• Craig also used The Power of Love to short out a TARDIS knock-off that had already fried 18 people who had interfaced with it beforehand in his first appearance in The Lodger.
• It's worth noting that The Doctor remembered Craig fondly enough that he was the last person on his list of people to visit before he got down to the business of his impending death..

DJ

• The DJ in "Revelation of the Daleks", when he blasts Daleks with his music as an intense sonic beam.
  • As he himself put it:

DJ: This is a highly directional, ultrasonic beam of ROCK! AND! ROLL!

Dr Constantine

• A doctor in at least his sixties, being the last person left in Albion Hospital who has not succumbed to the Empty Child virus, staying there to look after his patients, fully knowing there is absolutely nothing he can do for them and risking almost certain zombification which happens shortly after he is introduced.

Dr Constantine: Before this war began I was a father and a grandfather. Now I'm neither, but I'm still a doctor.

Donna Noble

• "The Fires Of Pompeii," where Donna convinces the Doctor, after being forced into a horrible Sadistic Choice ( Pompeii or the world) to go back.

Donna: "Please. Not the whole town...just save someone."

• • Bonus points because she motivates him to save an entire family from Vesuvius.
  • Even better, in the same episode, when she realizes that the Doctor has to pull the lever and destroy Pompeii, what does she do? She doesn't just support him in his decision; even better, she pulls the lever WITH him. She shoulders the guilt of killing hundreds of people with him.
• In "The Sontaran Stratagem," Donna gets to come into her own thanks to her experience as a "supertemp" and wring a salute out of the ranking UNIT officer present.
• Donna Noble in "The Poison Sky" knocking out a Sontaran. "Back of the neck!"
• Donna finally going through with Rose's plan at the end of "Turn Left."
• Three Words: The Doctor-Donna.
  • ...although Doctor-Donna is one word, seeing as it's hyphenated.
  • Also, Scrappy my ass.

Duggan

• One from "City of Death": Duggan punching Scaroth in the face, which prevents the latter from stopping his past self from blowing up his ship and giving the spark of life to the amniotic fluid from which all life on Earth will spring. In other words, that one punch allowed life on Earth to happen at all. Immediately followed by the Doctor's hilarious:

The Doctor: "Duggan...that was probably the most important punch in history!"

Fewsham

• Fewsham's sacrificial redemption in "The Seeds of Death".

"Every word has been heard on Earth."

Guido

• "WE ARE VENETIANS!"

Gwen Cooper

• "The Stolen Earth":

Ianto: (after being handed a gun by Gwen) Those don't work against Daleks.
Gwen: Yeah? I'm going out fighting. Like Owen. Like Tosh. How about you?
Ianto: Yes ma'am.

Harriet Jones

• Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister, gets hers in "The Stolen Earth", when she's about to die.

Harriet Jones: Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister.
Dalek: Yes, we know who you are.
Harriet Jones: Oh, you know nothing of any human, and that will be your downfall.

• • Harriet Jones had one in her very first appearance, when the Slitheen were about to go for Rose, she leaps out from her cover yelling 'Take me first!' Obviously the Doctor appears to save them, but it's one of those tiny characterisation moments that really shows you how good she could be.
  • She gets another at the end of that episode, when she flat out orders the Doctor to stop the Slitheen, even though his plan puts them all at risk. Especially impressive is that it's the first time her Catch Phrase is treated as something more serious than a Running Gag.

Harriet: Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. Elected by the people, for the people. And on behalf of the people, I command you Doctor. Do it.

• • • It's subtle here, but it's an awesome moment crossed with a Heartwarming Moment with some Fridge Awesome in hindsight. Nine would not have gone against Jackie's wishes, as he personally did not want to be responsible for any harm that would come to her daughter, and Harriet realized he did not want the burden of Rose's blood on his hands, so she, in a Donna Noble "Fires Of Pompeii" moment, ordered him to commence his plan on behalf of the British people by virtue of her being the highest ranking legitimate governing authority present, thus pinning all the blame on herself if everything went wrong. Or, in short, she proved she was the perfect politician to be Prime Minister by being willing to take responsibility for her actions, regardless of their consequences.

Ian Chesterton

• Creating fire in "100,000 BC."
  • And from the same serial, stopping the First Doctor from killing the caveman with a rock.
• Passing himself off as a Dalek in "The Daleks."
• Hauling Ping-Cho home with all the assorted problems that escapade caused, in "Marco Polo".
• Defeating an Aztec warrior in "The Aztecs."
• For a Secondary School science teacher, Ian kicked preposterous amounts of arse. Just watch him beat the ever-loving crap out of the guards in "The Space Museum."
  • Though when you think about it, a male Secondary School teacher in his late 30's/early 40's in 1963 would almost certainly have performed some kind of active military service.

Captain Jack Harkness

• "The Doctor Dances". First, stopping a German bomb seconds before it plows into the rest of the cast, then saying his farewells while straddled atop it (popping back once to compliment Rose on her shirt). Later on his ship, on learning the bomb's detonation (and his death) is pretty much unavoidable, he nonchalantly orders himself a martini and reminisces in what appear to be his last moments. Then to top it all off, the camera pulls away from him, past the bomb...and through the TARDIS doors. WIN.
  • It also is a subtle Establishing Character Moment. Jack mentions earlier on he's worried that the part of his life he's missing may be clues he was a horrible person, and he seriously fears that may be the case, so when the Doctor got him to stop that bomb, it also counts as a CMOA for the Doctor in not only giving Jack a chance to make sure an act of unquestioned moral virtue is forever a part of his personal history, but it's a CMOA for Jack later on, as he found his own actions would kill him 100% that he decided not to curse the Doctor for what happened, but instead decided to allow himself to die with a good deed as his last living act, proving that whatever person he was during those missing two years of his life, he's ultimately a heroic person. And thanks to Rose, his Redemption Earns Life.
• "Bad Wolf": Captain Jack Harkness producing a concealed laser pistol while completely naked and destroying the makeover droids.
  • And then a little after when he figures out the Daleks' plan:

Jack: Doctor, Rose is still alive!

• Jack's death (for the first time, anyway) in "Parting of the Ways." After fighting down to his last bullet, he coolly stands and faces a troop of Daleks, holding out his arms ready for the attack:

Dalek: EXTERMINATE!
Jack: I kind of figured that.

• "Utopia":
  • Jack holding onto the edge of the TARDIS as it tries to shake him off. Right through to the end of the universe when the TARDIS is forced to land.

Jamie

• Jamie's last scene is easily one of his most Badass. After the Time Lords return him to the battlefield where he met the Doctor, he wakes up to a Redcoat shooting him. His response to this is to charge the Redcoat with sword - and the Redcoat turns around and runs for his life.

Jenny

• "The Doctor's Daughter":

Jenny: "Whatcha you going to do? Tell my dad?"

• • Jenny making it through the beams via epic gymnastic skills.

Jo Grant

• Jo owns the Master in "The Time Monster". He's completely failed to hypnotise the Atlantean king and is being led away by guards. His one consolation is that at least he's killed the Doctor. So when the Doctor and Jo show up, he's literally speechless. And Jo prompts him "How about 'Curses! Foiled again!'?"
• And again in "Frontier in Space", when she responds to the Master's attempted hypnotism first by shouting nursery rhymes at him and then by sheer force of will. And she's still so polite about it.
• She gets an earlier one in "Day of the Daleks," when she rescues the Doctor from an Ogron by knocking it out with a wine bottle.

Joan Redfern

• When the Doctor is all "come with me" she calls him on the way death and destruction follows in his wake. "If you hadn't come here, would anyone have died?" Instead of being oh so dazzled by his awesomeness, she spoke up for the people who get left behind (like Harriet Jones tried to before). It's fine that he was trying to be kind to the Family of Blood and all, but by saving them (rather than just giving them a quick death and being done with it) how many more people ended up dead?

John Smith

• "The Family of Blood": John Smith, the Doctor's alternate personality, is brave enough to sacrifice himself for the greater good of a cause he knows next to nothing about (although he probably realized it was the only way to stop the psychotic aliens).
  • John Smith raises a rifle, looks down the sights... Then realizes he can't do it. The Doctor is THAT opposed to using guns that he won't use them when he can't even remember who he is!

Kevin

• OK, first off, he is a ROBOT. TYRANNOSAURUS. COMPANION. And if that wasn't enough by itself, then he strapped on a pair of prosthetic arms and punched out Cthulhu. For reals. Goddamn do I love this show.

K9

• K9 Mark III's Heroic Sacrifice: "You bad dog!" "Affirmative."
  • Even more awesome because K9, as always, sounds so damn smug.
  • Beforehand, the tiny dog taking down all those Krillitanes almost single-handedly.
  • "We are in a car".

Leela

• In "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", Leela taking on Magnus Greel.
• "The Invisible Enemy":

Leela: I've worked out how to stop them.
4th Doctor: Oh.
Leela: Stab them in the neck!

• • And in "The Invasion Of Time", just after being told a Sontaran's weakness, throwing a knife the full length of a decent sized room straight into a 5mm "probic vent".

Liz Ten

• Liz X, Guns Akimbo, takes out the Smilers in "The Beast Below", with the immortal quip "I'm the bloody queen, mate. Basically? I rule." The Doctor is quite impressed, as he should be. One of the best Establishing Character Moments in the new series.

Lucy Saxon

• Lucy Saxon in "The End of Time". Yes, that moment: "TILL DEATH DO US PART, HARRY!"

Madge Arwell

• A woman from 1941 manages to get the better of three trained people from the future, all with weapons, using just fake tears and a pistol. She then pilots a Humongous Mecha through the forest in search of her children. The fact that she eventually crashes it does nothing to lessen the awesomeness.
  • Heck, her awesomeness doesn't end there. She braves an acid rain storm and emerges unscathed, is chosen to be the vessel for the trees, pilots the ship, saving the Doctor, her children, and an entire species! And then she resuces her husband. Essentially, the 2011 Christmas Special could've been renamed The Why Madge Is Awesome Show and no one would have noticed. She even manages to make its official title, The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe, a bit of a Non Indicative Title.

Marco Polo

• At the end of his eponymous serial, he finally wises up and swordfights Smug Snake Tegana.

Martha Jones

• In "The Family of Blood", when told black women will never be doctors, and she proceeds to list every bone in the human hand. Surely an MOA for Freema Agyeman simply for being able to do that, let alone Martha totally owning the stuffy matron.
• Martha's Moment of Awesome has to be when, after two episodes of effortless pwning absolutely everyone (including the Doctor and the immortal Captain Jack), the Master has her imprisoned, kneeling at his feet... and she laughs at him.
  • "A gun? A gun in four parts? You really believed that?"
  • And then, she reveals that she has just saved the entire world, even the bits the Master already killed (except the President, but he was a jackass), by telling people a story. Neil Gaiman must love that.
• From "The Doctor's Daughter", delivered after relocating the shoulder of a Hath soldier under gunpoint-

Martha: "Now then, I'm Doctor Martha Jones. Who the hell are you?"

• In "Journey's End", she not only blackmails Davros by holding the destruction of Earth (and all Davros' plans) in her hands, but while she's doing that, she tells the Doctor to shut up.
• No love for her epic sequence in 42? While the doctor desperately fights against takeover by the living sun, Martha sprints down what has to be the longest ship in history, which is also spiralling into the sun (with approximately a minute and a half left on the "time until death" counter) to the engine room and orders the last surviving crewmembers to dump all the fuel.

Riley: What?
Martha: Sun particles in the fuel, get rid of them!
…
Martha: Do it. NOW!!

• Off-screen, during the Year that Never Was, she did such deeds as going to Shipyard #1 in Russia, walking across radiation pits in Europe, being the only person to leave the burning islands of Japan alive, getting her hands on a disk telling exactly how to kill a Toclophane, and finding the parts for a fake gun. And her only defense? A low-level perception filter, that doesn't even really hide her.
  • In The Doctor's Daughter, she is completely unfazed by the radioactive surface of the planet, and convinces her Hath friend to accompany her across.

Mickey Smith

• Mickey Smith spends most of his time as second-fiddle, but he's had a couple of MoAs. Did you realize that he blew up Downing Street with a submarine missile from his flat? When the Master talks about Downing Street being rebuilt? That's because it took the British Government two seasons to get over Mickey.
  • Mickey's entire character development arc over series 1 and 2 was nothing but one long CMoA.

Minnie

• Minnie the Menace groping the Doctor in "The End of Time".

Nancy

• In "The Doctor Dances", verbally bitch-slapping the guy whose house she broke into. "Oh look, there's the sweat on your brow."
• "I. Am. Your. Mummy."

Nyssa

• Her attempt to save the Doctor from execution on Gallifrey. She stuns two guards and even holds the Lord President at gunpoint.

The Next Doctor (aka Jackson Lake)

• Suffering from mental trauma from finding out he's not the Doctor, that the Cybermen killed his wife (and did something else he can't remember), he straps on a bandoleer of fancy thumbdrives (called 'infostamps') and charges into battle, using them to destroy the Cybermen and rescue the Doctor. Sweet Jesus, for someone who wasn't the Doctor, Lake really is a massively awesome Badass Normal.
• Jackson Lake leading the crowd in cheering the 10th Doctor after he saves the day.

Peri Brown

• While her portrayal in later episodes prevented her from being endlessly adored by the fans, Peri looked very promising as a companion after verbally owning the Master of all people in this memorable exchange:

The Master: You will obey me. I am the Master!
Peri: So what? I'm Perpugilliam Brown, and I can shout as loud as you can!

Pex

• Pex finally proves his bravery with a Heroic Sacrifice in "Paradise Towers".

Phipps

• Surviving crewman Phipps roasting an Ice Warrior in "The Seeds of Death".

Princess Joanna

• In "The Crusade", when Princess Joanna learns of her brother King Richard I's plan to marry her off to Saphadin without her knowing beforehand, she basically bites his head off. Remember, this is a medieval king she's bawling out in front of the men. Sister or no, that took guts.

Queen Victoria

• Queen Victoria got one in "Tooth and Claw" when she pulled a pistol out of her handbag and shot the leader of the monks.

Monk: Oh, I don't think so, woman.
Queen Victoria: The correct form of address is "Your Majesty"! *BANG*

Reinette

• Reinette telling the entire Royal Court of Versailles to get a hold of themselves, while facing down unstoppable killer clockwork robots:

Reinette: "Would everyone just please calm down. Such a commotion, such distressing noise! Kindly remember that this is Versailles. This is the royal court, and we are French. I have made a decision. And my decision is no. I have seen your world, and I do not desire to set foot there again."
Clockwork Droid: "We do not require your feet."

River Song

• "The Time of Angels": River Song opened the hatch door and blew herself into space just in time to be saved by the Doctor. Yes.

River: As I said on the dance floor... you might want to find something to hang onto.

• River Song's opening adventure in "The Pandorica Opens". She hears the Doctor may be in trouble, so she busts out of her prison, steals a painting, procures a Vortex Manipulator, writes the first words on the first planet in existence as a message to the Doctor, and then bluffs her way into a Roman camp by making the soldiers think she was Cleopatra. A little Hallucinogenic Lipstick goes a long way!
• "Day of the Moon": Mowing down at least eight Silent creatures by firing her gun while whirling rapidly in a circle, then holstering it and quipping "I hope my old man didn't see that, he gets ever so cross..." (possible foreshadowing) When Rory asks her "Just what sort of doctor ARE you?" She replies, "Archaeology," ...and shoots a Silent that was creeping up on her without looking! And then finishes it all off with "love a tomb." Bad. Ass.
  • How do you shoot a Silent that's behind you? I don't know, but River Song is awesome enough to pull it off.
    • For those reading those spoilers but not getting what the big deal is: the moment you take your eyes off of one of the Silence, you completely forget about them. River wasn't just shooting something she couldn't see, she shot something she literally could not have even known was there.
• "The Big Bang": River faces down the Stone Dalek. She informs it that its shields are compromised, and that one blast from her gun will kill it stone dead. The Dalek replies that its records show that, as an associate of the Doctors, she will show mercy. Her reply? "I'm River Song. Check your records again." And with that one line, the Dalek literally begs for mercy. Three times.
• "RIVER MAKE HER BLUE AGAIN!!!" In "The Impossible Astronaut", the Doctor cloaks the TARDIS in the Oval Office, and orders River to decloak her when he's tackled by secret service agents, dumbfounding everyone, including President Nixon himself.
• "A Good Man Goes To War": Breaking into Stormcage to go back to her cell after having an adventure with the Doctor, letting the guards know it was her, and topping it off with a casual order of breakfast for the next morning.
• Everything she did in "Let's Kill Hitler" qualifies really. Melody Pond regenerates, poisons the Doctor, then jumps out of a window and insults the Nazis. They shoot her. It doesn't work. She then steals a motorbike and drops in on a fancy lunch and demands people relinquish their clothes. When the dying Doctor arrives and Melody performs a Heel Face Turn, she gives up her regenerations to save him. Quite good for her first day out.
• "The Wedding of River Song": River disintegrates reality to send out a beacon to all points of time and space simultaneously with the message, "The Doctor is dying. Please, please help." She is answered by a million million voices, saying, "Yes, of course we will!" She then proceeds to tell the Doctor in question that she did so just so she could tell him that "...you are loved by so much, and so many - and by no one more than me." To sum up: River Song disintegrates reality to tell the Doctor how much she loves him, saving his life in the process, and then proceeds to marry him. She seems to take a cue from her mother there: neither of them are willing to be parted from the men they love.

Romana

• Romana has her Moment of Awesome at the climax of "The Armageddon Factor", where she stops the Doctor from becoming a monstrous universal dictator by shouting at him.
  • Then there's the "despicable worm" scene and a good part of "The Horns of Nimon."
    • Her arrival on Skonnos is pretty damn impressive. Soldeed comes out to greet the latest shipment and the co-pilot immediately calls out Romana as the source of all the trouble. Then she butts in and tells her side of the story. Not only does Soldeed believe her, almost without question, but punishes the co-pilot right there for being a liar.
  • Or, for that matter, opening the puzzle box in "City of Death"?
• In "The Armageddon Factor" when she refused to break under the Shadow's Electric Torture.
• Hell, her first scene.

Rory Williams

• Rory is now Memetic Badass.
• "The Big Bang": Auton-Rory deploying his Arm Cannon on a Dalek.

Dalek: INTRUDER-IS-UNARMED.
Rory: Oh, you think?
(BANG)

• • His earlier exchange with The Doctor was also awesome.

Doctor: Why do you have to be so...human?
Rory: Because right now I'm not.

• • Rory got a LOT of awesome in this episode, including single-handedly DRAGGING the Pandorica out of a building that was just bombed by Germans, punching out the Doctor and getting COMPLIMENTED for it (since it proved his humanity), and, one more thing, protecting the Pandorica all alone for just under two THOUSAND YEARS. Forget Amy, Rory is the best companion of this series.
    • That last part can't be overstated enough. One thousand, eight hundred and ninety four years. Conscious, the whole time. Never sleeping. Never resting. Alone, stranded in time, and with no way of knowing whether he would even last until the modern day. Probably still wracked with guilt over shooting Amy in the first place, and tasked with keeping the Pandorica safe from ANYTHING, following it wherever it went, through dozens of civilisations and countries. No reassurances, no help, no instructions other than "protect Amy". No way of healing any damage if he gets hurt, and the only weapons he has when he starts are a sword and an Arm Cannon. And he SUCCEEDS. Not only that, but when he shows up as the museum guard, there isn't a scratch on him. Not to mention the fact that he's now twice as old as the Doctor himself. Yes, Rory is definitely Badass.
    • One more thing: The Doctor indicated that if he took the slow path alone for that long, he'd very likely go insane. But did he? Nope, Rory kept it together for nearly two thousand years out of sheer dedication due to his love for Amy. If there's a poster child for The Power of Love, it's that. The fact that Arthur Darvill is returning as part of the TARDIS team once more is just icing on the cake.
    • Before Rory Williams, The Power of Love was just heartwarming. Now, thanks to Rory, The Power of Love is heartwarming and awesome.
    • The cherry on top of that icing? Next season opening credits. Actors listed: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill. Rory Pond, you are offically a Companion, and good god have you earned that title.
    • Companions often call the Doctor out on dickery, pompousness, or some other questionable policy -heck, that's practically why the Companions are there, but Rory took this time honoured tradition a step further by telling the Doctor, loudly and bluntly, exactly why he was such a huge threat to the people he travels with -not becase he's dangerous and powerful, but because he made people a danger to themselves by making them want to impress him when other people have to live with the consequences.
    • No mention of his socking the Doctor in the face when he dismisses Amy as unimportant? "She is to me!". Sure, it was a ploy by the Doctor to ascertain his humanity, but look at it from Rory's POV. You are two thousand years from home, you've just discovered that you are actually a plastic being with fake memories, you were forced to kill your girlfiend, the entire universe suddenly ended, and the only guy who can possibly save it (who is also the most feared being in history) declares that doing so is more important than saving your loved one. So you punch him. Bad. Ass.
• Let's not forget his re-introduction in "The Pandorica Opens", when he stabs a Cyberman clean through the chest and pins it to a massive door. Damn.
• Crosses over with Fridge Brilliance in "The Doctor's Wife": Just when Amy is about to go into a Heroic BSOD after seeing what looks like Rory's corpse, thinking that he'd gone insane and hated her for leaving him alone for so long, the real one shows up and calmly reassures her that her head's just being messed with. How would he know? Because it's been messing with him the same way, but he's managed to shrug it off. After all, what's a little Mind Rape to a man who kept himself sane and loyal for nearly two thousand years.
  • Word of God from Neil Gaiman does indeed say that Rory was subjected to House's torments and that he was much better able to withstand them because of everything he's already been through.
• From the trailer for "A Good Man Goes to War": "WHERE. IS. MY. WIFE?" Rory goes badass... again!
  • Then he spends the entire episode back in his Centurion outfit and beating headless monks with electric swords in swordfights. Beforehand he had walked on a Cybership and refused to flinch when they all raised guns his way, then again refused to flinch when over half their fleet detonated RIGHT behind him.

"Oh, don't give me those blank looks." (remember this line is directed to the Cybermen...)
"Would you like me to repeat the question?"

• • Made even more awesome by the fact that before he shows up, the viewer just sees all hell breaking loose on a Cyber-ship, woven with shots of Amy telling Melody about the man who's coming to save them. The viewer is made to think it's The Doctor she's talking about. When she tells Melody "...your father" those watching have just enough time to blink and go "what the fu-" before Rory makes his appearance on the ship!
  • He's also officially too badass to look at explosions.
    • Come to think of it, he was also too badass to be impressed at the fact that the TARDIS was Bigger on the Inside in his first time inside it, so a wee explosion isn't going to mean much either, one supposes!
• And from the Series 6 autumn trailer: Rory punches Hitler. Let me repeat that. Rory. Punches. Hitler.
  • He also punches a Nazi guard by shouting "Heil!" and saluting, getting the guard to repeat it out of habit, then socking him so hard and fast the guard didn't stand a chance. Is anybody else noticing a connection? Mind you, this isn't any ordinary guard, but a shapeshifting robot.
  • He punches Hitler, puts him at gun point, tells him to shut up and then shoves him in a cupboard, all while sounding relatively unthreatening, which somehow makes it better. Rory Williams is the most badass thing in the history of badasses.
    • Keep in mind that this episode was shown shortly after the release of Captain America: The First Avenger, starring a man whose first appearance featured him punching Hitler on the cover. Rory has punched more Hitlers on-screen than Captain Freaking America.
    • Two moments combined for even more awesome: Rory Williams is the only person in all of creation to have decked both the Doctor and Hitler in the face. The ultimate good and the ultimate evil. One of them complimented him on it and he promptly told the other to shut up and shoved him in a closet. Just... wow.
• Killing a robot by smashing the Mona Lisa over its head.
  • Earlier, his What the Hell, Hero? to the Doctor over Amy going through hell due to his not doing the proper research.
  • "You're turning me into you!" Gotta love Rory. Never hesitates to call the Doctor on his manipulation.
• As of The God Complex, Rory Williams is officially Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth. Everyone else sees rooms containing their worst fears, and Rory just sees fire exits.
  • For those who don't catch why this makes him a badass, thanks to the way the antagonist works this means Rory not only doesn't have a Nightmare Fuel trigger like everyone else despite all he's seen, he also has ZERO need for "faith" in anything external... including not just God/religion but the Doctor himself, since Amy's reason for being there is that her faith in the Doctor was so strong it pulled them in. Hell, Rory doesn't even "need" Amy - if we take the phlebotinum at face value the way it's explained, that means he doesn't have "faith" in Amy, he just loves her. And he will goddamn love her, and stay with her even though the complex is letting him escape. Translation: Rory is so badass, he can deal with any potential terror you could inflict on him, including all of the nightmare fuel he's run across, such as the Weeping bloody Angels. Rory is so badass that he is completely unimpressed with the Doctor. Rory is so badass, that when he decides to stick with a woman, it's not out of needy terror of being alone or blind devotion, but because he genuinely loves her and has made a conscious decision to stay by her side. And yet, despite all that self-assurance he isn't an egotistical asshole. Fridge Brilliance basically turns this little fact into an Establishing Character Moment that is equal parts Crowning Moment Of Awesome and Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. There is a reason a lot of fans like his character.
• The Wedding Of River Song: He keeps his eye drive on so he can see the Silence coming so he is able to defend Amy, the Doctor and River despite the fact it can kill or at least cause the wearer crippling pain. When he's reminded it could activate at any time he says, fairly calmly, "It has activated Ma'am." And this happens in a universe where Amy is just Rory's boss, not his wife. Rory is the living embodiment of the Power of Love.
• In The Gunpowder Plot, Rory, stuck in orbit around Earth within the Houses of Parliament of 1605, armed with an EMP generator and a Dennis the Menace slingshot, takes out as many Rutans and Sontarans as he can. That's right, two species locked in war for millennia can't take down the Lone Centurion.
  • Rory's made more Badass with this glitch.

Rose Tyler

• "The Parting of the Ways"
  • When she becomes the Bad Wolf. "You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence. And I divide them."
  • Not to forget her speech to Jackie and Mickey back on Earth.

"But it was.... it was a better life. And I don't mean the travelling, the seeing aliens and spaceships and thing, that don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know, he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen, you make a stand, you say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I can't..."

• Rose's first appearance in "The Stolen Earth": following scenes with every other surviving major character of both the series itself and its two spinoffs, Rose teleports into the middle of the street with a huge gun. Then her Unflinching Walk a bit later on. The latter is even more impressive since let's face it, if before this episode you were to figure what characters on the show would be able to pull off the Unflinching Walk, Rose would probably be pretty low on the list.
  • • Once the Earth is taken by the Daleks she walks past a shop being looted by two goons. She points the gun at them and orders them to leave with the classic line "Do you like my gun?"
• "The Satan Pit". Three words: "Go to Hell." To the devil. While throwing him into a black hole.

Rosita

• "The Next Doctor": The scene after they first encounter Miss Hartigan. The two Doctors turn to run. Rosita decks her in the face. The Doctor's impressed, but can't admit it:

Can I just say... that was completely inappropriate!

Rossiter

• The Doctor points out a small but significant detail to the Master: "That guard is one inch too tall." *Rossiter cold-cocks the Master with his rifle*

Sally Sparrow

• Sally Sparrow had several in "Blink", such as this conversation:

Sally Sparrow: I love old places. They make me sad.
Kathy Nightingale: What's so great about sad?
Sally Sparrow: It's happy for deep people.

• She also chastises the Doctor and forces him to explain the situation to her. He is visibly taken aback.

Sally: How?! How is this possible? Tell me!
Doctor: People don't understand time, it's not what you think it is.
Sally: Then what is it?
Doctor: Complicated.
Sally: Tell me.
Doctor: Very complicated.
Sally: ...I'm clever, and I'm listening, and don't patronize me because people have died and I'm not happy. Tell me.

Sarah Jane Smith

• In "Robot", Sarah Jane delivers a killer ice burn to the Scientific Reform Society.

"I'm sure I can find room for you ... between the flying saucer people and the Flat Earthers."

• In "Journey's End", her speech to Davros is one of the best "surrender now to keep your ass intact, goodsir" speeches ever.
  • Another one just for the fact that Davros still remembers Sarah Jane after thousands of years from his point of view. Maybe that counts for RTD as well for remembering that Sarah Jane was in "Genesis of the Daleks" and managing to cram in that nod to it.

Steven Taylor

• At the end of the twelve-part serial The Daleks' Master Plan, the Doctor and Steven are left standing on a barren plain that was a jungle planet only moments before. As they stand there, overlooking all the damage caused by the Time Destructor, the Doctor starts to go into a philosophic ramble about it, but Steven angrily interrupts him by listing the names of the people who were killed. This promptly shuts the Doctor up, and they walk back to the TARDIS together in somber silence. Steven may not be the most well-remembered of companions, but he certainly deserves mention for that.

Susan

• In "An Unearthly Child", Susan leaps onto a caveman's back and starts pummeling it's head when her grandfather has been captured by the tribe. Badass.
• In "The Daleks", Susan finds her way back to the TARDIS alone, at night, in a storm, through a creepy petrified forest that she has been told is full of deadly mutants, in order to fetch anti-radiation medicine for the others who are dying of radiation poisoning and are being held captive by the eponymous pepperpots of doom.

TARDIS

• "That's my TARDIS burning up. That's what's been keeping the Earth warm." Even in death, the TARDIS still keeps the Earth safe for her Doctor as long as it can.
• The TARDIS burning away every part of The House inside herself.

The Doctor: Finish him off, girl. (cue House's screams as the TARDIS takes back what's rightfully hers)

• • Really, the entirety of "The Doctor's Wife" is just one great CMoA for our police box. Special props to when she first reveals to the Doctor who she is. She's just so smug, and the look on his face is priceless. Goes for when she explains to the Doctor that she might not be reliable, but she's always taken the Doctor where he's needed to go.
    • Taken in this context, one can give her some credit for almost every moment of awesome on this list, after all, she was the one that brought the Doctor and his companions to any given place and time specifically so that he or they could make a difference there.
• For a device often regarded as unreliable, the TARDIS pulls off one heck of a manoeuvre in "Day Of The Moon", in which picking up River Song requires her to materialise within a timeframe of a few seconds, in mid-air, several storeys up, and oriented on her side.
• Crashing down from the ceiling in "The Almost People."
• In "Boom Town" she literally rewrites an alien's biology so she can become a child again, and have a second lease on life. That's pretty cool.
• How about in 'The Parting of the Ways' where she takes it one step further, literally bonding her heart with Rose Tyler to make the Bad Wolf, and they work together to destroy every Dalek and restore Captain Jack Harkness to life?

The Teselecta

• Taking the bullet for the Doctor in "The Wedding of River Song".Well played.

Tom Milligan

• "Last of the Time Lords", Tom Milligan's attempt at a Heroic Sacrifice with his pistol, even though he knew that both the Toclafane and the Master were invulnerable to bullets, to try and save Martha, a woman that he's known less than a day...in a word, awesome.

UNIT

• The entire last 15 minutes of "The Poison Sky" for the whole of UNIT, after 40+ years of playing the Redshirt Army they finally get to kick some Sontaran arse.
  • Or the Valiant on the start of the attack run? Even the Doctor is impressed.
  • Plus one of the few times MOA and Nightmare Fuel go hand in hand is when Colonel Mace orders the Doctor to put on a gas mask and he immediately turns to Mace and says, as a throw away line, "Are you my mummy?" Don't remind us of that sort of stuff without warning, dammit!
• UNIT not playing the Redshirt Army to stingrays with metal shells in "Planet of the Dead".

Madame Vastra

• While it's not shown onscreen, this Silurian ally of the Doctor's hunted down, killed, and ate Jack the Ripper. BAD. FREAKIN'. ASS. She and her lover/maidservant Jenny are so popular there are demands for their own spinoff- they're practically the Jago and Litefoot of the new series!

Vislor Turlough

• In Enlightenment he rejects the Black Guardian's deal for the enlightenment diamond in exchange for the Doctor and then pushes the diamond off the table, into the Black Guardian, who then BURSTS INTO FLAMES. An epic moment for the otherwise shy and cowardly Turlough.
• His final episode, "Planet of Fire": Turlough, knowing that contacting his people for help evacuating Sarn would doom him to, at best, exile, at worse, execution, contacts them anyway. His exile was rescinded, but still.

Wilfred Mott

• In "Voyage of the Damned", Wilf coming out of his stall to shake his fist at the sky. This is the man who, when the entirety of London ran in fear of the invasions of years past, stayed in his stall to mock any aliens who might try it this year.
  • Did we mention this is his first appearance ever? When the Doctor takes a passenger from the starship Titanic (not that one) to Earth and finds London deserted at Christmas, there's a lone old man running a newsstand who tells him that everyone else cleared out because nasty things happen to London every Christmas. But he wasn't letting any invaders scare him away, no! And he only gets more awesome from there.
• In "Journey's End", Wilf takes on a Dalek. With a paintball gun. Then the Dalek vaporises the paint from its eyestalk with the line "MY VISION IS NOT IMPAIRED.".
• In "The End of Time", further cementing his Badass Grandpa status by piloting an anti-missile turret and saving the entire ship.

William Shakespeare

• In "The Shakespeare Code", the Bard completely OWNS the Carrionites, with words.

Zoe Heriot

• Zoe beating the crap out of a comic-book superhero in "The Mind Robber".
• Zoë makes the International Electromatics computer work itself to "death" in "The Invasion".
  • Later in that same serial, she reprograms a handful of missiles to shoot down the Cybermen's entire invasion fleet.

Zoë: Here. Feed this into your computer.
Branwell: You'd better be right.
Zoë: I am.

Villains and Monsters

Mr Crane

• "The Age of Steel"—it almost seems wasted on someone so evil, but when he rips out his EarBuds ("Oh, no you don't!") as Lumic tries to seize control, makes his way into his boss' central chamber, and mortally injures Lumic before the Cybermen restrain and "delete" him... you've got to admit that that was impressive.

Cybermen

• It is a bit modulated by the silly voices, but Cyberman Krang's response to Polly when she challenges him about not caring that people are going to die in "The Tenth Planet":

Krang: Care? No, why should I care?
Polly: Because they're people and they're going to die!
Krang: I do not understand you. There are people dying all over your world and you do not care about them.

• The end of "Rise of the Cybermen". The fact that as soon as The Doctor realized what was going on, he was scared. Real scared. His frantic screaming of "We surrender!" over and over again helps.
• In "The Next Doctor":

Miss Hartigan: But you promised me! You said I would never be converted!
Cyberleader: That was designated: A lie.

• • But the highlight of the episode (and we do mean high) has to be the Cyber King. Oh, dear sweet silicon heaven, the Cyber King. Steampunk Giant Robot attacking London, anyone?
• "The Pandorica Opens" gives some great material to a lone Cyberman, practically getting the same amount of MOA on behalf of his species as the title character from "Dalek" in just one scene. Broken into pieces, the human inside having long rotted to uselessness, and it manages to get quite far in trying to take down the Doctor and Amy while being damn scary in the meantime.
  • And then Rory gets one by killing it with a Centurion sword in a Back from the Dead reveal.
• In the stage show Doctor Who Live, there was one very awesome moment where the Cybermen and the Daleks have a rematch. Only unlike last time, it's the Cybermen that got the upper-hand
  • And keep in mind in the context, these Daleks are supposedly alot more powerful than the ones in Doomsday and managed to outwit the Doctor TWICE in a row]].

Watch the whole battle here

Cybermen + Daleks = Awesome

• "Doomsday" may have had more than a few Dalek Moments of Awesome, but the Cybermen also get to verbally own the Daleks in this exchange of insults (around 2:13):

Cyberman: Our species are similar, though your design is inelegant.
Dalek Thay: Daleks have no concept of elegance!
Cyberman: This is obvious.

• • The Daleks get vengeance (at 2:53 in the above video):

Cyber Leader: Daleks, be warned. You have declared war upon the Cybermen.
Dalek Sec: This is not war. This is pest control!

Cyber Leader: We have five million Cybermen. How many are you?

Dalek Sec: Four.

Cyber Leader: You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?

Dalek Sec: We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek! You are superior in only one respect.

Cyber Leader: What is that?

Dalek Sec: You are better at dying.

• • • Just a minute later, Rose points out to the Daleks why the Doctor owns them both.

Rose: Five million cybermen? Easy. One Doctor? Now you're scared.

• • The ending of the episode before, "Army Of Ghosts", also counts. Right when the Cybermen had emerged, and creating a cliffhanger ending of how the Doctor would defeat them, the Sphere opens and out come the Daleks.

Daleks

• The series itself became awesome when the Daleks made their first appearance.
  • For the record, that was the second story.
• Alpha, Beta and Omega in "Evil of the Daleks" are esentially Daleks that have had their feelings of love, kindness and righteousness restored with a bang by the Doctor. After a pep talk from the Doctor and on return to Skaro, they proceed to create an idealistic conflict that quickly evolves into a civil war that ends up destroying their entire species (At least temporarily).

Black Dalek: Discontinue work.
Dalek voice: Why?
Black Dalek: ...who spoke? WHO QUESTIONED A DALEK COMMAND!????

• • and,

Doctor: Come on! This way! Come on!
Beta: I will obey!
Omega: (playfully) But not without question!
Doctor: That's right! Question!

• In "Remembrance of the Daleks", the Daleks themselves get at least three Moments of Awesome Here, here and at the start of this video
  • The Imperial Daleks from Remembrance of the Daleks deserve a mention here, for sheer awesome firepower. After their landing party starts being beaten back by renegade Dalek forces, the Emperor orders the Special Weapons Dalek into action - and onto the screen trundles an extraordinary machine: Basically a Dalek chassis topped by an independently-swivelling turret. No eye-stalk, no plunger arm, just a massive cannon version of the Dalek gun, and the whole thing scarred and grime-stained as though it had been through dozens of battlefields. It rolls up to take aim on a pair of opposing Daleks, and fires - once. The resulting massive explosion wipes out the renegade Daleks completely. The Special Weapons Dalek fires its weapon exactly twice more in the episode - once to totally demolish the gates of the renegade Daleks' compound, and once to annihilate the remaining renegades. Each time, it's awesome.
    • It's worth noting that the BBC special effects team went seriously overboard with the explosions for these effects. The first one got them into trouble after police and fire brigade were summoned, because they hadn't told the authorities they were going to be using pyrotechnics on that scale. The second shot, of the gates exploding to reveal the Imperial Daleks behind them, had to be cut short during editing to end before too much of the smoke had cleared, because the force of the explosion had blown several hemispheres off the Daleks' skirts.
• The lone Dalek in the episode "Dalek" had a few Moments of Awesome on behalf of its entire species, but one in particular stands out from the rest. One word: "Elevate!" The episode was specifically written to subvert all the Dalek cliché weaknesses, and kill people doing it. A Dalek had already ascended stairs in "Remembrance of the Daleks", a Seventh Doctor story, although it wasn't as awesome (though it was one of the series's best cliffhangers).
  • It had another moment earlier on...

Red Shirt Soldier: What are you going to do, sucker me to death?
(The Dalek immediately crushes his skull with its plunger.)

• • Also in Dalek (as well as an absolute Tear Jerker) is its final death. The idea of a Dalek experiencing such emotions as this one did after forty years of canon establishing them as vindictive bastards is... quite something. As was its final use of its own world famous Catch Phrase against itself (after asking Rose to order it to destroy itself, because it can't do anything without an order).

Rose: ...Do it.
Dalek: Are you frightened, Rose Tyler?
Rose: Yes.
Dalek: So am I. Exterminate.

• • It also managed to do something other Daleks rarely do: stun the Doctor into silence with words. Namely ... 'You would make a good Dalek.' Done as the Doctor is foaming at the mouth and screaming at it to DROP DEAD. And that isn't exaggeration at the scene. (Incidentally, nice job, Chris—seriously.)
  • Continuing the love with the moment it meets Henry Van Statten. It advances on him, demanding to know why it was tortured:

Van Statten: I'm sorry, I'M SORRY! I just wanted to hear you talk!
Dalek: * stops its advance* Then hear me talk now. EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINAAAAAAATE!

• • No mention of its actual escape? Breaks its chains, murders a man with its plunger, downloads the entirety of the internet and drains power from the entire west coast of the US to repair itself. And THEN screams:

The Daleks survive in MEEEEEEE! * Shoots stuff*

• A collective Moment for the Daleks in "The Parting of the Ways": when an enormous horde of Daleks pours out of their ships and heads straight for the Game Station. This is later topped and combined with Kick the Dog in "The Stolen Earth" with their brutally efficient invasion of Earth, including the destruction of the Valiant. It says a lot when you can make the two most experienced alien fighters on Earth break down in tears just by announcing your arrival.
  • Another of the Daleks' best MOA: when they can't break into the observation deck to kill Lynda, so instead they rise up through space to the observation window, and, although we can't hear it, their lights clearly flash to the scream of "EXTERMINATE!". They then blow the window open.
    • Hell, they probably could have gotten in given time, but decided to stealthily do it the fast way just to screw with her before they killed her.
• Dalek Fred, the Dalek from the last few minutes of "The Stolen Earth" shoots the Doctor mid-Meadow Run.
  • Horrifying? Hey, he made the Doctor Donna. Can't get much better than that.
• "Journey's End" has one belongs to none other than Dalek Caan:

"I saw the Daleks, what we have done throughout time and space. I saw the truth of us, creator, and I decreed: No! More!."

• The accurately-named "Victory of the Daleks". They manage to manipulate the Doctor, of all people, into restoring his greatest enemy, and then manage to pull off a Sadistic Choice on the guy who is known for Taking a Third Option.

Davros

• You wouldn't think that a man in a wheelchair with one working arm could have a Moment of Awesome. Then Davros comes along with his legendary "To hold in my hand..." speech from "Genesis of the Daleks".

The Doctor: Davros, if you had created a virus in your laboratory, something contagious and infectious that killed on contact, a virus that would destroy all other forms of life; would you allow its use?
Davros: It is an interesting conjecture.
The Doctor: Would you do it?
Davros: The only living thing... The microscopic organism... reigning supreme... A fascinating idea.
The Doctor: But would you do it?
Davros: Yes; yes. To hold in my hand, a capsule that contained such power. To know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes! I would do it! That power would set me up above the gods! And through the Daleks I shall have that power!

• A decade later, after having two mediocre-at-best appearances, Davros reminds us why he is feared throughout the universe in "Revelation of the Daleks" when he takes a page from the book of fellow Magnificent Bastard Palpatine and shoots lightning out of his hand.
  • Plus it's the artificial hand that replaced the one that'd gotten shot off in the previous story! "Well, I've lost my only good hand, do I mope around about it? FUCK THAT I'LL BUILD A NEW ONE THAT SHOOTS LIGHTNING."
• His magnificent Hannibal Lecture to the Doctor, literally hurting him as he has never been hurt, destroying the foundation of his entire life and morality and all with a single speech:

Davros: The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun, but this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons... behold your Children of Time, transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor, you made this.
The Doctor: I'm trying to help.
Davros: Already I have seen them sacrificed today, for their beloved Doctor. The Earth woman who fell opening the Sub Wave Network.
The Doctor: Who was that?
Rose Tyler: Harriet Jones. She gave her life to get you here.

[flashback of Harriet Jones]

Davros: How many more? Just think, how many have died in your name?

[more flashbacks of the people who have died helping The Doctor]

Davros: The Doctor, the man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself.

• And, earlier in that episode, Davros is reintroduced to the world in "The Stolen Earth" by showing what he is willing to do to ensure his victory: creating a new army of Daleks using his own flesh.
• Davros' ultimate MOA must come in "Journey's End" when he unveils what the Reality Bomb will do in typically Hitleresque fashion, increasing in volume with each word.

Davros: Across the entire universe. Never stopping, never faltering, never fading. People, planets and stars will become dust. And the dust will become atoms. And the atoms will become.... nothing. And the wavelength will continue, through the rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade! Into every dimension! Every parallel! Every single corner of creation! THIS is my ultimate victory, Doctor! THE DESTRUCTION! OF REALITY! ITSELF!

• • The best thing was that this was exactly what he and the Doctor had talked about 30 years ago in Genesis of the Daleks. That Davros finally had within his grasp the universal removal of all non-Dalek life, and that this all-consuming Critical Existence Failure was stopped only by a series of fortunate events? Davros has always been a creepy, psychotic and excellent villain. This was the first time Davros had him honest to goodness scared. And it was awesome.
  • The episode even includes a wonderful little nod to that earlier scene. In the scene from Genesis, Davros is holding up his hand with finger and thumb just parted, as though holding the imaginary vial of virus - and even before he actually exclaims "Yes! I would do it!", he brings the digits together as though crushing the vial. In the more recent episode, he unconsciously makes the same gesture, this time when he orders the detonation of the Reality Bomb.
    • And the laugh. Dear god, the laugh had the potential to be cheesy but given all his character and backstory it was genuinely frightening to see the madman that close to achieving all his goals. Also awesome for Julian Bleach for pulling it off so effectively...
• One of the audio dramas has this awesome speech (the images were added but the audio is genuine). Davros may be an Omnicidal Maniac of the highest order, but you've got to admire his Determinator qualities.

The Family of Blood

• Baines/Son Of Mine with his grand Hannibal Lecture against the headmaster.

What do you know of history sir? What do you know of next year? 1914 sir! Because the Family has traveled far and wide looking for Mr. Smith and, oh, the things we have seen. War is coming. In foreign fields, war of the whole, wide world, with all your boys falling down in the mud. Do you think they will thank the man who taught them it was glorious?

• • And the headmaster gets his own in turn; true, it's a remarkably bloodthirsty little statement for one of the allies, but you've got the give the man credit for not flinching in the face of someone as creepy as Baines:

You forget boy, I was in South Africa; I used my dead mates for sand bags, I fought with my gun when the bullets ran out, and I would go back tomorrow for King and Country!

• • And Baines/Son Of Mine quite literally shoots this rebuttal down by shooting Phillips dead and sending the headmaster scurrying for cover.
    • Hell, Son of Mine in general is a CMoA for the actor.
• Lucy Cartwright/Daughter of Mine casually entering the barricaded schoolyard, disintegating the headmaster, and daring the boy soldiers to shoot her.

Luke Rattigan

• "The Poison Sky": Who could forget Rattigan's final "Sontar-HA!"?
  • Especially since it took something that had been see by some as Narm up until that point and actually made it work.

Madame Kavorian

• Fooling the Doctor twice with the exact same trick, and calling him up to taunt him about it. We have a new Magnificent Bastard on our hands.

The Master

• "Frontier in Space", and the wonderful observation that "rocket fire at long range - somehow it lacks that personal touch."
• In "Logopolis", he held the entire universe for ransom.
• In the 1996 telemovie, the Master gets to display his cruelty, fear, and awesome all at the same time.

The Doctor: You want dominion over the living, yet all you do is kill!
The Master: Life is wasted on the living!

• "Utopia":
  • The exchange after the Master opened his Chameleon Arch and remembered who he was.

Chantho: Chan, Professor Yana, tho?

Professor Yana: THAT IS NOT MY NAME! "The Professor" Was an act. A Disguise so great that I had forgotten who I was.

Chantho: Chan, Wh-Who are you, tho?

Professor Yana: I. Am. The MASTER! [electrocutes Chantho]

• • • Much of this was made possible by some excellent acting on the part of Derek Jacobi. Particularly when, after having his memory restored, Yana's vocal cadence shifted slightly; some of Jacobi's line readings ("Not to worry, my dear. As one door closes, another must surely open") sounded just a bit like Anthony Ainley.
  • The entire last 12 minutes.
    • More specifically, there's this conversation:

The Master: Why don't we stop and have a nice little chat while I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me, I don't think!

The Doctor: I'm asking you really, properly, just stop! Just think!

The Master: Use my name.

The Doctor: Master... I'm sorry.

The Master: Tough!

• • • He then proceeds to leave the Doctor stranded. At the end of the universe. With a horde of cannibals about to break in. Awesome.
    • All capped off with some awesome parting words:

The Master: End of the universe! HAVE FUN!!! Bye bye! *leaves in the TARDIS*

• • • A line made all the more awesome by John Simm's perfectly manic delivery.
• "The Sound of Drums"
  • "What's the mask for?" "The gas." "What gas?" "This gas!"
    • What about the Lecture he gives them beforehand?

The Master: Before we start, I just want to say...Thank you. Thank you, one and all... You bunch of weak, sniveling traitors.
Political Member: Yes, Very funny sir, but I thi-
The Master: NO! No you see, THAT wasn't funny. See, I'm not making myself clear. Funny is like this (Grins), Not Funny is like this (Frowns). Right now, I'm not like (Grins), I'm Like (Frowns) Because You. Are. Traitors. YES YOU ARE! When you saw the votes swinging my way you abandoned you parties and you jumped on the "Saxon Bandwagon". And now, THIS is your reward. (Puts On Gas mask)

• • "You're insane!" *grin* *thumbs up*
  • There's also his moment at the end of "The Sound of Drums", where he effortlessly overcomes the Doctor's plan to defeat him, kills the US President, and guns down Captain Jack, with the quip:

The Master: And the best part is, he's not dead for long- I get to kill him again!!

• • Followed almost immediately by summoning six billion robotic beach balls Of Doom to decimate (bonus points for the correct usage of "decimate") the Earth, blowing a good-bye kiss to the Doctor, all the while dancing to "Voodoo Child". EPIC. EVIL. WIN.
  • He then ends the episode, with himself in control, the Doctor aged to senility, Martha stranded, Jack collapsed on the floor and 10% of the population dead, with the following speech.

The Master: And so it came to pass that the human race fell, and the Earth was no more. And I looked down upon my new dominion, as Master of all, and thought it... good.

• "Last of the Time Lords"
  • Busting out more funky dance moves to the tune of "I Can't Decide", while he capers about the Valiant's command deck, snogs his wife, pours coffee on Martha's mum, and rings a bell to call out the Doctor, whom he has living in a tent and eating from a dog bowl. And starts spinning him around in a wheelchair.

Oooh I can't decide / Whether you should live or die... / You'll probably go to heaven / please don't hang your head and cry...

• • The lyrics take on a whole new meaning when you consider that the song is being broadcast to everyone on the Earth.
    • That was kind of a Non Sequitur Scene of Awesome, but awesome nonetheless.
    • It seems that when the Master has his iPod on, awesomeness is never far behind.
  • The end of "Last of the Time Lords" where the Master dies in the Doctor's arms, refusing to regenerate, and just laughing at the Doctor's pain at being the only Time Lord in existence once more. Even though the Doctor foiled his plans, he has the last laugh. As he puts it himself - "I win!"
• "The End of Time". Two words: Master Race. If anything could top what the Master pulled off in "The Sound of Drums", it's that.
  • It's also an MOA for John Simm. If you just read the script you would think 'Wow!', but if you see him? Awesome!
  • And in part 2? The Master gets revenge on Rassilon (it's sort of timey wimey. Yay, time war! Rewriting canon since 2005!) for putting the drums in his head. "ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!"
    • "You did this to me! All of my life! YOU MADE ME!!! "
  • "Get out of the way". No, not when the Doctor says it, but when the Master says it.
• His less than enthusiastic response to the Time Lords offering amnesty as a bargaining chip in The Five Doctors.

What makes you think I want your forgiveness?

Mercy Hartigan

• The scene at the funeral where the Cybermen are killing everyone, and Miss Hartigan is just standing there and watching serenely. It also helps that it's amazingly shot, and the Cybermen looming out at their victims through the falling snow.
• Miss Hartigan gets one back on the Cybermen when it turns her mind is too strong to be cyberised and she promptly takes over the entire Cyberman operation with her willpower.

The Narrator from The End of Time

• "The End of Time", Part One. That. Last. Scene.

"For victory! FOR GALLIFREY! FOR THE END! OF TIME! ITSELF!"

• In Part Two, even Rassilon himself gets a moment: the Master taunts him, calling him ancient and decrepit, gloating that he will turn every last one of the Time Lords into a genetic copy of himself. Response? Rassilon undoes the Master's handiwork on the entire human race. With a flick of the wrist. Awesome.

Noah

• Noah fighting the Wirrn influence long enough to blow them all up, saving the whole of mankind.

The Raston Warrior Robot

• The robot picking off the Cybermen in The Five Doctors one by one.

Scaroth/Scarlioni

Countess Scarlioni: I don't think he [the Doctor] is as stupid as he seems.

Scarlioni: My dear, nobody could be as stupid as he seems.

Sutekh

• Sutekh containing a gun blast to destroy one of his rockets with his mind!

Yvonne Hartmann

• Yvonne Hartman's MOA in "Doomsday": Even after being "upgraded" to Cyberman, she still defends Queen and Country.

Yvonne: You will not pass.
Cyberman: What is the meaning of this?
Yvonne: You will not pass.

Behind the Scenes

David Tennant

• The full list recounted to Martha in "Human Nature"; that video of debatable canon, never seen in full in the episode, works because it is entirely consistent with what the Doctor would say.

Tenth Doctor: And five. Very important, five. Don't let me eat pears. I hate pears. John Smith is a character I made up, but I won't know that. I'll think I am him, and he might do something stupid like eat a pear. In three months, I don't want to wake up from being human and taste that.

• • What makes it really awesome is that the whole thing is not only ad-libbed, but done with a completely straight face. Bow before the awesome might of Tennant's acting skills.
• MARRYING. GEORGIA. MOFFETT. Who is also the daughter of Peter Davison. Tennant's now marrying the daughter of the man who inspired him to go into acting in the first place. And thanks to Steven Moffat, he got to perform with his idol in the role that he wanted to play one day... The Doctor. Ascended Fanboy, thy name is Tennant.
  • Also a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming that there's such love and devotion between two people.
• Pranking Freema Agyeman on Virgin Radio and managing to keep up the masquerade for a minute.
• Tennant did a tribute video with the cast and crew at the end of his run for a party. Warning: MAJOR EARWORM
• To Top it off, behold the Ballad of Russell and Julie about Doctor Who's revival, as sung by David Tennant, Catherine Tate and John Barrowman. Epic Awesomeness.

Jon Pertwee

• Midway through his career as the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee put the Doctor Who theme to words in the form of "Who is the Doctor?", spoken more or less in-character. Among other things, the results stand as a powerful challenge to the dominance of the VillainSong.

As fingers move to end mankind, metallic teeth begin to grind
With sword of truth, I turn to fight the satanic powers of the night!

Lis Sladen

• Sladen's reaction to Sontaran general Styre in "The Sontaran Experiment" was enough to have the director leaping up and down with joy - actually running up the West Country equivalent of a mountain to congratulate her on the scene. And these moments are only added onto with the second season premiere of The Sarah Jane Adventures when Sarah Jane sees a Sontaran space pod, and knows exactly how screwed they are.
• In "The Stolen Earth", she achieved levels of fear with a tiny little tremble and a pale face that would take screams on a King Kong level from lesser actresses.
• Elisabeth Sladen deserves one for saying, upon seeing a man wearing a gas-mask, "Are you my mummy?" in the commentaries for Genesis of the Daleks.
• A posthumous moment of awesome for the late actress: the fact that almost nobody had any clue she was ill until she had already passed. It's a testament to her sheer professionalism and love for what she did, because she never saw it as being about her, it was about making great television that entertained fans. Lis, we love and miss you, and the world's a little darker now you're gone.
• Lis's magnificent career renaissance. She became so beloved by fans that her departure was headline news, a first for any Companion. And then, thirty years after she was last seen on Doctor Who, she made a one-off appearance on the show that made her famous, and was so popular she earned her own spin-off. A spinoff aimed at children who largely had no idea who she was, which went on to earn critical raves and a high audience for its channel. Name another actor or actress who has made that kind of comeback on television, ever. And she did it all without a fuss. But then, that was Lis Sladen for you. Oh, Lis... we will never, ever forget you.

Matthew Waterhouse

• One of the darker chapters in the show's production history was Tom Baker becoming incredibly difficult to work with in his final season. Recollections abound of him snoring in read-throughs at parts of the script he didn't like, verbally abusing the writers, having numerous shouting matches with co-star and brief-wife-to-be Lalla Ward, and caught in the middle of it all was new companion and Promoted Fanboy Matthew Waterhouse, watching the image of his childhood hero shattering violently before his eyes. During one of Tom's "acting up and being rude" periods on the last day of filming for "Full Circle," Matthew (in full Adric get-up) finally put his foot down and told him to "fuck off." And got away with it. And kept Tom quiet (aside form his lines, of course) for the whole rest of the studio day. The 2010 Doctor Who Magazine interview described it as a "coming-of-age moment."
  • Though given that this account came from Waterhouse himself and the reactions to his interview from his costars in the next issue (which was basically them gently laughing at him) it's disputable whether this even ever happened.

The Mill

• At the end of "Bad Wolf" we see thousands and thousands and thousands of Daleks all chanting EX-TER-MIN-ATE. For the first time, the show was able to transcend budgetary considerations and deliver not just a tabletop full of dapol toys, not just cardboard cutouts propped up in the background, not just three Daleks driving around in a circle trying desperately to look like many, but a proper, honest-to-god army to be feared.

Queen Elizabeth II

• While it's kind of a meta example, consider that Michael Grade was the only BBC controller never to be knighted. Consider that the Queen is a fan of Doctor Who.

Sylvester McCoy

• The Seventh Doctor's Unflinching Walk in "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" was pretty awesome for Sylvester McCoy too: the explosion was somewhat bigger than the special effects crew were expecting, and it doesn't faze him at all.
  • He has said he was fully expecting to have scorch marks on his back afterward, but he knew there could be no second take so he simply went on with the shot.
• In the filming of "Battlefield", Sylvester McCoy arguably saved Sophie Aldred's life when he noticed a watertank was about to crack and pour water onto a floor covered in electrical cables.
  • And amazingly it was all caught on camera and was considered so awesome that it gets its own brief documentary on the DVD for Battlefield.
• Sylvester playing the spoons to an upbeat version of the Doctor Who theme. He really gets into it.
• His cold reading of the Eleventh Doctor's speech from "The Pandorica Opens".

The show itself

• Really, with a show that has run for thirty seasons over forty-five years and counting, contains two MoA goldmines in the Doctor and the Master, as well as many other characters with more than a few moments themselves (Daleks, Davros, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart) Doctor Who itself is a Moment of Awesome for the BBC.
  • In 2005, accepted wisdom in the British television industry held that the family TV genre was dead. The audience simply wasn't there; families didn't watch TV together anymore. Something like the revived Doctor Who wasn't going to last long.
    Doctor Who promptly proceeded to demolish all those assumptions. It regularly got ratings higher than those of most other dramas, its average audience staying stable in defiance of the general TV decline. It was repeatedly acclaimed by public, critics, and TV professionals alike. It quickly established itself as a centrepiece of the BBC's Saturday night schedule, heralding the revival of the family TV genre, and becoming a justification for the BBC's continued existence. Doctor Who became a crowning achievement for the BBC, and for British television in general.
  • Also, Charlie Brooker likes it.
• The Davies/Gardner production team have several MoAs themselves, including:
  • Bringing the show back to be one of the BBC's big hitters.
  • Restoring the use of the Cliff Hanger as an art form.
  • Using the BBC's rival network ITV to break the news of David Tennant's departure. Seriously, mega-cojones.
    • Even better, they had no idea it'd even work. They had a backup plan but they bet their chips that Tennant would win the award and be able to drop the bomb during his acceptance speech.
• "The Stolen Earth" bagged not only the show's highest ever Appreciation Index (AI) figure of 91/100, it got one of the highest of all time for any mainstream (i.e. not an American import shown on Sky 1 or something similar) show and reduced ITV 1 to its lowest audience share in history. To quote Donna Noble - back of the neck!
  • "The Stolen Earth" only got beaten to the top spot by 60,000 viewers. By a international football final. Any other show would've been decimated. (not in the "decimate the population" sense, but you know what we mean.)
  • At the time, ITV was run by Michael Grade, who is best remembered for cancelling the original Doctor Who (if only indirectly; he'd left by the time it actually happened) while Controller of the BBC.
  • The fourth season finale, "Journey's End", managed to top this, becoming the most watched UK TV program of the week - the first time a Doctor Who episode has managed this - and getting another AI of 91/100. For any program to get both of these together is virtually unheard of.
    • That scene near the ending as the entire team brings Earth back home and everybody is cheering and clapping, fireworks are being set off, and the music. It's one of the most amazing scenes in the series.
• Back in the 1980s, Sylvester McCoy's era was scheduled against UK soap Coronation Street, and got clobbered, getting some of the lowest ratings in Who's history. Fast forward twenty years: "The End of Time" Part Two was scheduled against Coronation Street, and won (10.4 million to Corrie's 8.6 million on overnights). For those of us who lived through that time, it felt like justice had been done.
• Steven Moffat turning the series title into a nearly 50-year old Arc Word.

Expanded Universe

And all of that? Scratching the surface. In effect, what we're talking about is a TV series that if there isn't some sort of MoA in a story, the story is considered poor. And then there's the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, which gives us just as many.

• Big Finish Doctor Who
• Doctor Who Magazine
• Eighth Doctor Adventures
• Virgin New Adventures

Past Doctor Adventures

• The first Doctor looks and acts like he's 60+ years old (he's actually about 400). So when he's challenged to a kung fu duel in The Eleventh Tiger you expect him to come up with something brilliant and avoid the fight. He doesn't. Instead he physics the arrogant thug into submission. He uses his momentum from an attack to flip him onto his back. To prove he's not a one hit wonder, he does it again. THEN when the thug pulls out his "breaks clay jars, and heads are softer then clay jars" kick, the Doctor stands in classic "bring it on" pose and catches the light with his sapphire ring, temporarily blinding the thug. The kick still connects. With the pole the Doctor was standing in front of. All the Doctor did was tilt his head. He then sets about tending the thug's wounds. Ian and Barbara are stunned into silence. If they weren't paragons of '60s virtue they'd have both said "ohh hell yes". As it is, they eventually respond by reciting the lyrics to Kung Fu Fighting.

IDW comics

• "The Forgotten": the ten Doctors facing off against the Big Bad. Here you go.

The Adventure Games

• City of the Daleks: The Doctor walks through a room full of Daleks who've just been blinded and are spraying gunfire nonstop to save Amy from being erased from time.
• In The Gunpowder Plot, Rory, stuck in orbit around Earth within the Houses of Parliament of 1605, armed with an EMP generator and a Dennis the Menace slingshot, takes out as many Rutans and Sontarans as he can. That's right, two species locked in war for millennia can't take down the Chuck Norris of the Whoniverse.
  • Rory's made more Badass with this glitch.