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so I have to repost it here. This time it's all-time.
10. Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Probably the scariest Doctor Who episode out there, with a bunch of creative ideas. Both "shadows that kill you" and "Your entire world is a simulation" would make great episodes on their own (and the second one did about a decade later), and this managed to pull off both at the same time and make them work together
9. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. It's scary! It's moving! It has tons of really great lines!
8. Paradise Towers. Unpopular opinion, I know. I just really love it when Doctor Who goes for weird satire, I love how the Doctor gets all the warring factions to work together for a common goal, I love how Pex gets over his toxic masculinity, I love how you can make a bunch of Pokemon Go jokes, I love the camp aesthetic. It's just a really good story.
7. Dark Water/Death in Heaven. I don't know what else to say besides that I find this story absolutely sublime.
6. The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang. Also absolutely sublime, plus I can mention how well it pulled off the disintegration of the universe, how I cried when 11 said goodbye to little Amelia, and how satisfying it was to see Amy and Rory get their happy ending that had the added bonus of being a prelude to even more adventures.
5. In The Forest of the Night. Another unpopular opinion! Here it's because I really love the fantastical atmosphere, plus all the really great interactions between 12 and Clara. Also the kids singing about being Coal Hill's gifted and talented class while the grownups are talking about the world being doomed is one of my all-time favorite moments in the show.
4. Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. I talked about all the reasons this story is so good here.
3. The Curse of Fenric. Pure perfection. After watching this my immediate response was just to watch all the other 7 stories just to see what else this era of the show could do. The answer was "lots of great things" but this is still the best.
2. The Sun Makers. My impression is that this story is well-liked but not particularly well-loved. The reason I put it all the way up here is that it just really pumps me up, and the basic arc of "The Doctor and Leela talk a guy down from suicide and then help him overthrow the system that brought him to that point" is deeply, deeply satisfying. Cordo, incidentally, is ridiculously likable, and it's super great to see his character development. I don't know how much of that is the writing and how much of it is the acting, but either way it works really well. It's also really amusing to me how a story about how great it is to throw your oppressors off of a rooftop aired when the show was getting shit about possibly being inappropriate for children, and how obvious it is that Robert Holmes was really mad about taxes when he wrote this. You can just picture Dennis Healy's kids watching this and wondering why their dad was the bad guy on Doctor Who.
Genesis of the Daleks. This is a story that Does Things to me. The first time I watched it was after a year of feeling basically dead inside and unable to care about anything, and afterward I just couldn't stop thinking or talking about it. It's amazing how well it holds up as a piece of commentary on the dangers of fascism and xenophobia and how they can completely destroy a society from within. Davros and Nyder are both incredible bad guys. The way they're able to get away with everything just by taking advantage of the fact that everyone else has limits of how far they're willing to go is absolutely chilling. I also really like how this explicitly shows how the Daleks came from people who happened to have a really broken society. Other stories treat the Daleks like some Fenrician ancient evil, and it's really cool to see their actual origins as a result of politics. In a weird way, I find this story more depressing than any regeneration or companion exit. This story changes the Daleks from Cyborg Space Nazis to a horrifying tragedy of a society that went wrong in a way it can never come back from. It's truly haunting.
Also, giant clams are good actually. We needed a breather of some sort in all of that
10. Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Probably the scariest Doctor Who episode out there, with a bunch of creative ideas. Both "shadows that kill you" and "Your entire world is a simulation" would make great episodes on their own (and the second one did about a decade later), and this managed to pull off both at the same time and make them work together
9. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. It's scary! It's moving! It has tons of really great lines!
8. Paradise Towers. Unpopular opinion, I know. I just really love it when Doctor Who goes for weird satire, I love how the Doctor gets all the warring factions to work together for a common goal, I love how Pex gets over his toxic masculinity, I love how you can make a bunch of Pokemon Go jokes, I love the camp aesthetic. It's just a really good story.
7. Dark Water/Death in Heaven. I don't know what else to say besides that I find this story absolutely sublime.
6. The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang. Also absolutely sublime, plus I can mention how well it pulled off the disintegration of the universe, how I cried when 11 said goodbye to little Amelia, and how satisfying it was to see Amy and Rory get their happy ending that had the added bonus of being a prelude to even more adventures.
5. In The Forest of the Night. Another unpopular opinion! Here it's because I really love the fantastical atmosphere, plus all the really great interactions between 12 and Clara. Also the kids singing about being Coal Hill's gifted and talented class while the grownups are talking about the world being doomed is one of my all-time favorite moments in the show.
4. Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. I talked about all the reasons this story is so good here.
3. The Curse of Fenric. Pure perfection. After watching this my immediate response was just to watch all the other 7 stories just to see what else this era of the show could do. The answer was "lots of great things" but this is still the best.
2. The Sun Makers. My impression is that this story is well-liked but not particularly well-loved. The reason I put it all the way up here is that it just really pumps me up, and the basic arc of "The Doctor and Leela talk a guy down from suicide and then help him overthrow the system that brought him to that point" is deeply, deeply satisfying. Cordo, incidentally, is ridiculously likable, and it's super great to see his character development. I don't know how much of that is the writing and how much of it is the acting, but either way it works really well. It's also really amusing to me how a story about how great it is to throw your oppressors off of a rooftop aired when the show was getting shit about possibly being inappropriate for children, and how obvious it is that Robert Holmes was really mad about taxes when he wrote this. You can just picture Dennis Healy's kids watching this and wondering why their dad was the bad guy on Doctor Who.
Genesis of the Daleks. This is a story that Does Things to me. The first time I watched it was after a year of feeling basically dead inside and unable to care about anything, and afterward I just couldn't stop thinking or talking about it. It's amazing how well it holds up as a piece of commentary on the dangers of fascism and xenophobia and how they can completely destroy a society from within. Davros and Nyder are both incredible bad guys. The way they're able to get away with everything just by taking advantage of the fact that everyone else has limits of how far they're willing to go is absolutely chilling. I also really like how this explicitly shows how the Daleks came from people who happened to have a really broken society. Other stories treat the Daleks like some Fenrician ancient evil, and it's really cool to see their actual origins as a result of politics. In a weird way, I find this story more depressing than any regeneration or companion exit. This story changes the Daleks from Cyborg Space Nazis to a horrifying tragedy of a society that went wrong in a way it can never come back from. It's truly haunting.
Also, giant clams are good actually. We needed a breather of some sort in all of that
