(Photo: BBC America) 
Revulsion, as the proverb does not say, is in the ick of the beholder. But Doctor Who does like to test this to the absolute limit at times, trying to out-gross other science fiction franchises with a bracing blast of empirically disgusting biological horror.
Sometimes there will be an alien menace that looks so gruesome their very appearance is enough to turn the stomach. Sometimes the Doctor and his friends find themselves in truly repugnant situations, or watch nauseating events play out in front of them. It’s downright unpleasant at times.
Here’s a collection of stomach-turning repugnance that you’d be well advised to watch between meals, if at all.
1. Mr. Sweet (“The Crimson Horror”)

There have been plenty of unsettling or icky aliens in Doctor Who, but there is something especially unnerving about the tiny parasite Mr. Sweet in “The Crimson Horror.” He’s Mrs Gillyflower’s pet, looking like a baby lobster – although he’s already red, as if he’d been pre-boiled – that she keeps secreted about her person. He’s also a sentient leech from dinosaur times, offering “nectar” to his host and the two of them form a deeply unpleasant symbiotic relationship that threatens humanity. And he got squished with a stick. Mrs Gillyflower would have been better off with a cat.
2. Dalek Sewers (“The Witch’s Familiar”)

The grossest body horror exists way more effectively in the mind than on screen. So when Missy and Clara explore the Dalek sewers on Skaro in “The Witch’s Familiar,” it’s not the dripping slime or the dank atmosphere that’s gross, it’s the fact that this is a pipeline of sentient mutated and diseased flesh, all gooped in together for eternity, because, as Missy points out, Daleks have been genetically engineered not to die. That’s the kind of thought that’ll keep you off meatloaf for weeks.
3. Halpern’s Head (“Planet of the Ood”)

This is a moment that deserves to live on in a thousand nightmares forever. Halpern, the absolute rotter that has been exploiting the obliging Ood as slave labour, finds that he has been contaminated by them, and transforms into Ood-kind by – and this bit deserves a public health warning – peeling off his own scalp and sicking up his internal plumbing, and his brain, in a kind of facial prolapse. That’ll learn him!
4. Kane’s Face (“Dragonfire”)

Some of Doctor Who’s grosser moments are only icky because of the concept behind them, but some are to do with the development of certain special effects. The movie Raiders of the Lost Ark contains an incredibly disturbing scene in which the faces of two characters are effectively melted off by the entity contained within the Ark of the Covenant. “Dragonfire” – an episode of a popular family science fiction TV show, airing on British TV at children’s teatime – has essentially the same effect, when a man called Kane exposes himself to light rays and his face drips off him like candlewax. Suffice to say, the kids were NOT alright.
5. Amy’s Baby (“A Good Man Goes to War”)

Speaking of drippy things… in “A Good Man Goes to War,” Amy and Rory’s baby comes to a sticky end, just as all of the Doctor’s friends come running to try and rescue mother and child. The special effect of a ganger returning to its milky liquid state isn’t necessarily the worst thing, but somehow this beautiful baby turning into white goop next to Amy is both horrifying (the baby’s gone!) and all kinds of gross at the same time. They don’t make nappies for ganger babies, and now we know why.
6. Tzim-Sha (“The Woman Who Fell To Earth”)

You want body horror? How about a warrior who travels around the universe killing people, then reaches into their mouths, yanks out a tooth, and sticks it onto his face? We don’t know if all or any of his intended victims even clean their teeth. Some of the older ones may have dentures. It’s all much of a muchness to this revolting (and somewhat grumpy) Stenzan. All he wants is a trophy to wear on his face, like a prison tattoo, only grosser.
7. Hexachromite Gas (“Warriors of the Deep”)

The Doctor has been forced into many horrific decisions in their lifetimes, but it’s not often they have to resort to using genocide to prevent genocide. In “Warriors of the Deep,” the Fifth Doctor finds himself having to unleash the horrors of hexachromite gas to stop the Silurians and Sea Devils from firing missiles that will eradicate humanity. The gas has no effect on humanoids, but turns reptilians and reptiles – including sea turtles, crocodiles and any other cold-blooded beastie unfortunate enough to pass nearby – into green slime. It’s an act that is revolting on so many levels.
8. Star Whale Sick (“The Beast Below”)

Pinocchio was never this slimy. In “The Beast Below,” the Doctor and Amy Pond find themselves in the mouth of a cosmic beast, which happens to exist underneath a starship version of the United Kingdom. They are immediately covered in the city’s food waste, and their only escape route is to make their host be sick – or risk going down the hatch and becoming star poop.
9. Wet Lips (“The Waters of Mars”)

It may seem a relatively minor point, but anyone with even the mildest propensity for chapped lips will have seen the poor souls affected by “The Waters of Mars” and winced with their entire face. Those huge cracks around the mouth - one of the most sensitive areas of the body – look incredibly sore, and they’re accompanied by almost constant dribbling. You could argue that there’s a kind of purity to the water running down their chins, that it’s not saliva, but that’s just nit picking. It’s drool running from an open sore.
10. Dalek-Humans (“Revelation of the Daleks”)

The fact that this story takes place on a funeral planet called Necros should be clue enough as to its diabolical contents. The Sixth Doctor encounters Davros, who is happily turning dead humans into food for a new Dalek army. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s been experimenting with disembodied heads, creating disgusting human/Dalek mutations way beyond that suited octopus-cyclops in “Daleks in Manhattan” and making everyone call him ‘The Great Healer’ into the bargain.
11 . The Zygons (“The Zygon Inversion”)

Zygons are absolute proof of the theory of evolution. Their natural visage is so unappealing – looking like someone blended an octopus and used the bits to make humanoids – that they must have developed mirrors and then evolved their shape-shifting capabilities out of sheer ick. And sometimes when they reveal themselves, losing their human form, a bit of sick comes out of their mouths. No, I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eyegon either.
Do you like your Doctor Who episodes with a side of ew?