Every single Doctor Who story ranked...

[mominatrix]

uh-huh.

too long to list 'em all, here are the ones they like best... they term them the 'classics', the top 50

(hey! we're talking about 50 years of stories here, the top 50 is pretty remarkable)

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Every Single Doctor Who Story, Ranked from Best to Worst







This weekend, Doctor Who turns 50, and we celebrate a rich history of time travel and wild adventures. But which of the nearly 250 Doctor Who stories is the best, and which is the worst? Here's our stab at ranking every single Doctor Who story, in order of quality.







Note: this is based on seeing every Who story that's extant at least once, and in most cases multiple times. We welcome disagreements, or even attempts to come up with entire competing rankings. This is a conversation starter, rather than the last word.







For stories that aren't in the archive, we listened to the audios and in some cases watched telesnap reconstructions. Sorry, no novels or Big Finish stories included here, because that would be an insane list!







And finally, this list is divided roughly into five categories: Classics, Good Stories, Decent Stories, Below-Average Stories, and Disappointments.







Classics:







1) Caves of Androzani - Yes, it really is that good. Peter Davison's final story as the Doctor is both thrilling and fascinating, thanks to a complex plot, intense performances and beautifully staged action. The Doctor is dying from the first moments of the story, and this is all about him making his final hours count.







2) Blink - You could argue that it deserves the top spot. This insanely inventive story about stone statues that can get you when you're not looking, and a DVD extra showing a missing time traveler dispensing cryptic advice, is still unrivaled, even after years of copies.







3) City of Death - Douglas Adams co-wrote this witty story about an alien fractured in time, who is creating duplicate Mona Lisas as part of a ploy to time-travel and erase humanity from history. The most stylish classic Who, but also the cleverest.







4) The Doctor's Wife - The TARDIS is made flesh, and we finally get to the bottom of the Doctor's relationship with his time machine, in this intensely moving story.







5) Midnight - When the Doctor's gift for being the "cleverest man in the room" is turned against him, he's at the mercy of human nature at its most revolting, in this misanthropic, scary story.







6) Vincent and the Doctor - Of all the "meeting famous people" stories, this is the most heart-breaking. An astonishing look at art and madness and what being able to see things that nobody else can see might do to someone.







7) Pyramids of Mars - justly revered, this story about mummies and pyramids is a great example of Tom Baker's Doctor coming up with three or four plans to defeat an ultimate menace... all of which fail. Sutekh is a fantastic villain, and it's great that we've never seen him since.







8) The Ark in Space - Years before Ridley Scott's alien, a wasp creature laid its eggs inside cryo-preserved humans. The Doctor is at his wits' end coming up with plans to defeat the Wirrn.







9) The Genesis of the Daleks - The Daleks' origins as space Nazis are fully displayed here, and the ethical debates in this story are absolutely mind-boggling. Davros is a master manipulator who gives a human face to the Daleks, in his one really great outing.







10) Turn Left - a fantastic alternate-universe story where one little change wrecks everything, and we see just how bleak things could really get.







11) Dalek - A single Dalek brings more danger, and more emotional intensity, than a whole fleet. The Doctor's arch-enemies have never been more iconic. Or tragic.







12) The Deadly Assassin - The Master returns and the Doctor's people are redefined forever. The show's penchant for gothic horror and twisty intrigue is at its absolute best here, and Tom Baker seems determined to prove he doesn't need a companion, by giving enough of a performance for three time-travelers.







13) The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances - The creepy gasmask people are a huge part of making this such a memorable epic — but a lot of the magic also comes from the introduction of Captain Jack, and the Doctor's determination to save absolutely everbody.







14) The Robots of Death - This is such a brilliant story, in which the alien robot-dependent society is beautifully depicted and thought-out. Mostly structured as a murder mystery, but it opens up a ton of questions about identity and subaltern relationships, with loads of witty dialogue.







15) The Curse of Fenric - the "dark Doctor" story to end all "dark Doctor" stories — facing an ancient evil from the Dawn of Time, the Doctor is willing to manipulate everyone, including his companion Ace. So much cleverness and creepy darkness, you can forgive the dodgy vampire effects.







16) Rose - The best introduction to the Doctor, this story is all about the mystery of the time traveler who brings death in his wake. There's a reason why this story was such a captivating launch to the new series.







17) The Waters of Mars - The real horror here isn't the water zombies killing everyone on an isolated base — it's what happens when the Doctor decides to throw out the rulebook and do what he wants.







18) Earthshock - one of those stories where the Doctor is trying to outwit an alien menace, and keeps coming up with things on the fly in the face of worsening odds. It all leads to the first death of a companion since the 1960s, and by far the most shocking.







19) The Girl in the Fireplace - probably the best "unstuck in time" story, where the Doctor meets Reinette at various points in her life, and winds up shaping her life story only to lose her after they share an intense intimacy.







20) A Christmas Carol - There are lots of time-warping stories on this list, but this one uses temporal pokery in the service of a great story, where the Doctor tries to change a harsh man to save his friends, only to find that it's not as simple as he'd hoped.







21) The Christmas Invasion - The Doctor's absence for a good part of this story defines just how essential he is, and his intervention in the final minutes is fantastic to watch. And then we see just how ruthless he can be, when humanity disappoints him.







22) The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang - The Doctor is put in an inescapable prison to stop the universe being destroyed, which turns out to be a bit of a miscalculation on everybody's part. The Doctor's hubris, but also his kindness and self-sacrifice, are on full display here — and then there's a jolly wedding.







23) The Silurians - the first meeting with the creatures who owned Earth before humanity, in which the morality is murkier than ever. Despite its insane length, this story keeps coming up with creepy new plot twists, notably the deadly plague halfway through.







24) School Reunion - the return of Sarah Jane Smith, in a touching story about what happens to the people whose lives have been touched by the Doctor. Plus there are creepy bat aliens who are turning kids into super-geniuses for evil reasons.







25) Human Nature/The Family of Blood - The Doctor chooses to become human, but he doesn't expect to find romance. Nor does he expect some bloodthirsty aliens to track him down and wreak havoc, on the eve of World War I.







26) The Eleventh Hour - The freshly regenerated Doctor has just minutes to save the Earth, with no technology at his disposal, which just forces him to be even more resourceful than usual.







27) The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit - a great foray into horror, in which Satan claims the humans on a planet orbiting a black hole, but the Doctor outwits the Devil.







28) Father's Day - a great cautionary tale about time travel, in which Rose tries to fix her greatest tragedy, only to break everything else.







29) Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways - The "reality TV" spoofs are kind of off kilter, but the Daleks are pretty intense, and the Doctor's final choice between ruthlessness and "cowardice" is astonishing. Even a bit of a deus ex machina ending can't wreck this party.







30) The Edge of Destruction - a "bottle" episode set inside the TARDIS turns out to be a brilliant exploration of madness and the travelers' telepathic bond with the Doctor's time machine.







31) Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords - This three-part story brings back the Master in amazing style, putting the Doctor through the wringer as the Master enslaves the entire human race. Your view of this one depends on how much the somewhat miraculous ending bothers you.







32) The Time Warrior - our first meeting with the cloned warrior race, the Sontarans. And a great "meddling with history" story, in which the Doctor is at his absolute most swashbuckling.







33) The Moonbase - Let's hope the upcoming DVD release will give this amazing tale of Cybermen attacking the Moon the love it deserves. Neil Gaiman cited it as an inspiration for "Nightmare in Silver."







34) The Crusades - possibly the best historical story, this epic shows the costs and dilemmas of war, while going out of its way to show complex characters on both sides.







35) Tomb of the Cybermen - really hard to choose between this one and "Moonbase" - the Cybermen are even creepier here, turning people into Cybermen and slowly defrosting in a justly famous sequence.







36) Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel - The Cybermen get reintroduced, in an alternate-universe story that finally emphasizes their main point: the way they tear down people's humanity and turn them into emotionless machine-people.







37) The Power of the Daleks - Based purely on telesnap reconstructions and clips, this is a marvelous story in which the endangered Daleks are at their most cunning — but they face a brand new Doctor, who's at his most unpredictable.







38) Inferno - The Doctor visits a mirror universe ruled by fascists, and realizes our world is doomed to destruction. Despite dodgy "Primord" monsters, it's an intense horrifying ride.







39) The Dalek Invasion of Earth - a future Earth overrun by Daleks and their cyborg slaves, and a totally classic story of love and sacrifice.







40) Amy's Choice - Amy has to choose between two different worlds, at least one of which is a dream — but more than that, she has to decide what she values. The Dream Lord is like a scary mirror version of the Doctor.







41) The Pirate Planet - Douglas Adams' other story (we'll skip his unfinished "Shada") is a weirdly campy story of a pirate captain who commands an entire decadent planet. There are enough clever ideas in here for a dozen stories, and K9's showdown with a robot parrot is a thing of beauty.







42) The Fires of Pompeii - The perennial theme of not being able to play god with history has one of its best realizations here, as the Doctor has to let Pompeii die in a volcanic eruption. But maybe not everybody has to die?







43) The Face of Evil - an alien computer has schizophrenia and it's the Doctor's fault. The two societies the evil computer has created are kind of a fascinating sociological experiment, and it's great to watch Tom Baker grappling with being the Devil or God, to different people he meets.







44) Robot - Tom Baker's first story is just nonstop fun, including a robot with an oedipus complex and some evil technocrats. Baker keeps everybody else on their toes, and Sarah Jane Smith gets to show some initiative.







45) The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon - The Doctor's apparent death kicks off a wild adventure, including Richard Nixon and the horrifying Silence. Steven Moffat's writing is seldom more inventive and unnerving than it is here, even if the overarching plot is a bit half-baked.







46) The Massacre - considered an all-time classic for a reason. William Hartnell is great as the Doctor and his doppelganger, the Abbot. And the Doctor struggles with his companion Steven's inability to understand why they have to let innocent people die in a historical bloodbath. The final scenes are heart-breaking.







47) Evil of the Daleks - the "final" end of the Daleks, in which the Doctor engineers a civil war between humanized and regular Daleks. Some amazing stuff here, including remorseful Victorian mad scientists and Daleks playing trains, plus the first meeting with the Emperor Dalek.







48) Terror of the Autons - our first meeting with the Master, the Doctor's arch-nemesis. The plastic monsters, the Autons, are put to much scarier and more horrible uses this time around.







49) Army of Ghosts/Doomsday - Mostly memorable for the Dalek/Cybermen smackdown, although it also has the ultra-emotional departure of Rose, and the downfall of the never-too-formidable Torchwood London.







50) Ghost Light - a story about Victorian naturalists and Darwinism, in which an alien doesn't understand evolution. The whole thing is so heavily stylized and clever that you can feel the show's ambition to be not just a good story, but actual Art.







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the conversation's started on the P&CE board, if you want to join in there, too
www.pandce.proboards.com/thread/256270/single-doctor-who-story-ranked#ixzz2lEN3VDML

[Dumbledork]

I have a special place in my heart for "The Girl Who Waited" because it was the first episode of Who I've ever seen and also the one that made me go "Okay, this show is awesome. Netflix it ALL." I'm sad it's only at 63.

Random Note: I'm coming up on my Who-Birthday! I watched my first two episodes last Christmas Eve at my momma's house, alone and late at night because I couldn't sleep.

[BlackCanary]

Nov 20, 2013 21:43:14 GMT -5 Dumbledork said:

I have a special place in my heart for "The Girl Who Waited" because it was the first episode of Who I've ever seen and also the one that made me go "Okay, this show is awesome. Netflix it ALL." I'm sad it's only at 63.

Random Note: I'm coming up on my Who-Birthday! I watched my first two episodes last Christmas Eve at my momma's house, alone and late at night because I couldn't sleep.

I LOVE "The Girl Who Waited." I also love the end of season 6.