BBC StudiosWhen Doctor Who was rebooted in 2005, one of the biggest changes was in the production value. Gone were the days of tinfoil aliens and countless alien planets that looked like Welsh quarries; now, Doctor Who aliens could be impressive and CGI. However, no show is without its budgetary and scheduling issues, so Doctor Who started the age-old tradition of episodes that were glaringly made in an attempt to save money, like “Vincent and the Doctor,” which handily had its monster be invisible for the majority of scenes, or “Midnight,” set entirely on a plane with no visible monster at all. Surprisingly, a lot of these go down in history as some of the show’s best. But in 2006, one of these episodes gained a reputation among the fandom for being one of the most bland, formulaic, and visibly cheap episodes of the series entirely. 20 years later, does that label still stand? It depends on how you look at it. Young Chloe Webber makes the scary things in her life disappear by drawing them. | BBC Studios“Fear Her” aired in 2006, but was set in 2012, on the opening day of the then-upcoming London Olympics. The Doctor (David Tennant) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) investigate a string of missing children near a council estate, where they discover Chloe Webber (Abisola Agbaje), a troubled young girl with the ability to make people disappear by drawing them. The Doctor quickly identifies the threat as an Isolus, an alien who feeds off of strong emotion. He sets out to find the creature’s pod that could take it home, but Chloe Webber angrily draws The Doctor and the Tardis, leaving Rose to solve the mystery on her own. It all leads to a classic “love saves the day” ending as Rose and Chloe’s mom sing to calm her down. All in all, it’s a perfect passable “Doctor-light” episode of the series, but where things get a little weirder is the Olympics tie: Chloe decides to draw the crowd at the Olympics Opening Ceremonies, rendering the entire stadium completely empty, and once Rose manages to undo this, The Doctor ends up lighting the Olympic Torch and the emotions sparked by the monumental event fuel the alien’s journey home. Fun fact: as a 14 year old in 2012, I genuinely believed David Tennant would light the Olympic torch in costume as the Doctor. | BBC StudiosThat’s not a fatal flaw, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back for a lot of fans. The saccharine moral, hamfisted social commentary about child abuse, and obvious cost-cutting made this one of the least-liked episodes in Doctor Who, even across the entire 60-odd-year history. But really, this episode was just a victim of bad timing. In this era of Doctor Who, the awe and joy of rip-roaring NuWho had still just set in. But not every episode of Doctor Who needs a big, expensive alien fight. Sometimes, it can just be the story of a child who, like the audience at home, is dealing with something scary. In fact, there’s proof that the simple story isn’t the only flaw with this episode: Season 6’s “Night Terrors” has a very similar story, but not as bad a reputation.Writer Matthew Graham knows the episode is polarizing, but he’s said before that if any adults didn’t like it, it’s because it wasn’t for them. But the target demographic isn’t really the issue. Instead, it’s how this episode became a greatest hits album of Doctor Who’s worst habits, including a shoehorning of a big British history event, a PSA-esque story that gets a little heavy-handed, and bottle-episode tropes. It’s dying by a thousand cuts, but it’s still dying. “Fear Hear” streams on AMC+ along with all of the 2005-2022 era of Doctor Who.