Did you spot the backward clock in Doctor Who?

There’s nothing more fun than watching and rewatching your favourite TV shows – but the problem is, the more you watch them, the more likely you are to see tiny mistakes and continuity errors that have slipped in during the making of the show.

And Doctor Who, the BBC’s long-running science fiction show, is no exception to this rule – as this episode from 2005 illustrates.

Did you spot it the first time? Well, if not, here’s a little piece of Doctor Who trivia for you to take on your way…

In the fourth episode of the first series of the rebooted era of Doctor Who, Aliens of London, broadcast on the 16th April 2005, the Ninth Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston is having a chat with his companion Rose Tyler when a huge alien spaceship goes thundering overhead across the London skyline.

The ship hurtles up the River Thames towards St Stephen’s Tower which is the clocktower that houses the famous Big Ben.

And just before the ship makes an impact with the famous tower which is situated on the edge of the Houses of Parliament in central London, we catch a glimpse of the clock face on the famous landmark.

But there’s something not right about it…

Yes, if you look closely it looks like something went wrong in the CGI, as the clock face on the tower has the numbers going the wrong way – it’s set up anti-clockwise… which is the opposite of how it should be.

Blink and you’ll miss it because just a few seconds later the spaceship crashes into the tower and then into the River Thames in central London.

Did you spot this first time around, or has it taken you nearly two decades like us to see it!?

Doctor Who returns in November 2023 with three special episodes which will star David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor and will be followed by a festive episode of the show with Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson as his companion Ruby Sunday.

Doctor Who season 14 will play out in 2024 and will be the first full season as part of a new deal between the BBC and Disney to make Disney+ the streaming home of Doctor Who outside the UK.