With the current season of Doctor Who on hiatus and Matt Smith announcing his departure from the series, I thought this would be a good time to put together a list of the seven best episodes of the current Doctor Who series. Why seven? Because there have been seven “seasons” since the re-launch of the series in 2005. Are they really the best? Well, I think so and it’s my blog, so there. So, if you’re not interested in Doctor Who spoilers or theory or anything related, come back in a day or two when I can guarantee the subject will not be Doctor Who. Otherwise, paraphrasing Bette Davis in “All About Eve,” fasten your seatbelt because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Each story I’ve selected added something to the Doctor Who legend and demonstrated a bit of character growth for both the Doctor and his companion(s). I purposely select one story from each season and therefore included all three Doctors: 9 (Christopher Eccleston), 10 (David Tennant) and 11 (Matt Smith).
So let’s begin and again you are reminded: Continue reading at your own risk.
Season One (2005) – The Unquiet Dead
The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler travel to 1869 Victorian Cardiff to investigate the sighting of strange gas-like creatures. They team up with Charles Dickens to solve this mystery. It was the first episode of the new series to reference “Bad Wolf,” a term which would be troublesome later in the series. Written by Mark Gatiss, we learn that the Time War did not just affect the Time Lords, but also innocents on other worlds. One of the worlds affected was the home world of the Gelth, the gas creatures now in Cardiff. This episode shows us a Doctor who is troubled by his actions in the Time War and even when he tries to correct the horrors of the past, he finds out that some of his actions can never be undone.
Fun Note – Eve Myles stars as Gwyneth, the undertaker’s assistant. Myles would later portray Gwen Cooper on Torchwood. Gwen Cooper would later confirm to the Doctor in the episode, Journey’s End that she is related to the Gwyneth in this episode.
Best quote – The Doctor speaking to Rose – “I saw the fall of Troy. World War V. I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party. Now I’m going to die in a dungeon. In Cardiff.”
Season Two (2006) – School Reunion
At the request of Mickey Smith, the Doctor (David Tennant) and Rose look in the strange happenings at the Deffry Vale School. During the investigation, the Doctor runs into his former companion, Sarah Jane Smith and the robot dog, K-9. There is absolute joy on the Doctor’s face when he is reunited with Sarah Jane, who he (in his 4th incarnation) had abandoned on Earth when he was summoned back to Gallifrey.
Written by Toby Whithouse, this episode shows what happens to the companions the Doctor leaves behind (assuming they don’t die). Sarah Jane admits her readjustment to a more normal life was difficult after she left the Doctor. It was fun watching Rose not hide her jealousy as the Doctor, who was delighted to see Sarah Jane again, paid her scant attention. The banter between Rose and Sarah Jane was laughingly good. But Sarah Jane’s return also brings up some tender moments and we see that every time the Doctor loses a companion, it hurts him. We also see that some companions put there lives on hold waiting for the Doctor’s return with detrimental results. We’ll come back to this thought in season seven’s, The Power of Three.
Best Quote – The Doctor speaking to Rose – “I don’t age. I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone you… You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can’t spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on, alone. That’s the curse of the Timelords.”
Season Three (2007) – Blink
Blink is the best Doctor Who episode. Ever. There, I said it and I won’t take it back. This episode establishes the greatest psychopathic villain, short of the Master, in the Doctor Who archive. The villains, the weeping angels, can only move when they are not being observed. But when you look at them they take on the appearance of stone statues. They hide in the midst of a human civilization that is forever building monuments and statues of itself to itself – statues that now can kill.
Written by Steven Moffat, Blink is a Doctor Who story without the Doctor. It tells the tale of photographer Sally Sparrow who in 2007 enters an abandoned house looking for subjects to photograph. She is shocked to find a message written on the wall from someone called the Doctor telling her to duck. She does and her journey into fear begins. This is an episode that has to be seen because words can’t adequately describe how well done this is. Some concepts came out of this episode that would be repeated later in the series. Among them is that “time is not a strict progression of cause to effect…but more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey…stuff.” When Moffat becomes the show runner three years later this will be his approach to the Doctor’s time travel stories – sometimes to the chagrin of his viewers.
Best Quote – The Doctor (via DVD) speaking to Sally Sparrow – “The angels are coming for you, but listen, your life could depend on this: don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead. They are fast, faster than you could believe. Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and don’t blink! Good luck.”
Season Four (2008) – Turn Left
This episodes explores Robert Frost’s ‘path not taken.’ Donna Noble, in a confrontation with aliens, experiences an alternate reality where she never met the Doctor. As a result the Doctor is killed before he can regenerate during the events of the Christmas episode, The Runaway Bride. Therefore, Martha Jones, the Torchwood team and Sarah Jane Smith die in separate events that the Doctor had fought in, in the other reality. London and much of southern England is destroyed by the nuclear explosion of the spaceship Titanic because the Doctor wasn’t there to prevent it. Written by Russell T Davies, this is a showcase episode for Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), who really up to that moment had been primarily comedy relief. When Donna realizes her friends are going to concentration camps or that she has to die in order to make history right, you feel her pain. This was the episode that made me like Donna Noble.
Best quote – Rose speaking to Donna – “I thought it was just The Doctor we needed, but it’s the both of you. The Doctor and Donna Noble. Together. To stop the stars from going out.”
Season Five (2010) – The Big Bang
Written by Steven Moffat, The Big Bang has everything a Doctor Who viewer could want. It is the second part of the two part season finale and it is a stand up and applaud piece of work. The Doctor (Matt Smith) is trapped in an inescapable prison by all of the enemies he has ever made over his 900+ year life. The Silence has blown up the TARDIS with River Song trapped inside. Amy Pond has been killed by a plastic Rory Williams and we still have 50 minutes of story to get through. This episode is a roller-coaster with young Amy freeing the older Amy from the Pandorica, Rory standing guard over the Pandorica for 2,000 years, the Doctor using the TARDIS to reboot the universe, River Song killing a crippled Dalek in the most vengeful manner possible and everyone is late for a wedding. This episode is all about time and you wouldn’t want it any other way.
Best quote – Believing a Stone Dalek has killed the Doctor, River kills it while it begs for mercy after instructing the machine to look her up by saying in a most sinister voice, “I’m River Song. Check your records.”
Season Six (2011) – Let’s Kill Hitler
What can you say about an episode where Amy discovers that her childhood best friend is actually her daughter who is determined to kill her adult best friend, the Doctor. We get to see the “death” of Melody Pond, the birth of River Song and confirmation that Melody/River is a Time Lord.
Melody grows as a person as she learns to care about others by watching the Doctor, in his dying moments, care about his companions. She learns to be more than she was born to do. Melody Pond is an assassin who the Teselecta hellishly punishes for her crime, but River Song is a heroine who was born the moment Melody Pond gave up being a Time Lord to save the Doctor. Just like Gem, the Empath in the Star Trek episode of the same name, saves Doctor McCoy from death at the risk of her own life, Melody saves the Doctor because she, too, learned to care.
This episode, written by Steven Moffat, also marks the first time that the Doctor knows more about River than she knows about him. It was fun to watch the dying Doctor rattle off a list of Time Lord “rules,” and chastise Melody for not writing them down. Those rules included:
- Rule 408 – Time is not the boss of you.
- Rule 27 – Never knowingly be serious.
- Rule 7 – Never run when you’re scared.
- Rule 1 – The Doctor lies (perhaps the must important rule of them all).
While the episode was primarily about Melody becoming River, the real star was Rory (Arthur Darvill). Rory got to show what a real action hero he really is and made the audience see why Amy is so much in love with him. You couldn’t help, but believe that Rory spent 2,000 years aggressively protecting his bride-to-be who was locked inside the Pandorica. You knew at the end of this episode that Rory could defend himself and his and you marveled at how he’d grown from the tag-a-long in the Vampires of Venice to the warrior, the Last Centurion.
Fun note: This episode had shout outs to the original Star Trek series and the movie, The Graduate. Also this is the episode in which River Song learns the Doctor’s name, a name she will whisper in his ear on the Library planet to gain his trust.
Best quote: Mels speaking to (and pointing a gun at) the Doctor – “Well let’s see. You’ve got a time machine, I’ve got a gun. What the hell. Let’s kill Hitler.”
Season Seven (2012) – The Power of Three
This episode wasn’t much on plot, but was a great character study in the daily lives of Amy and Rory Williams. Written by Chris Chibnall, this episode follows Amy, Rory and his dad, Brian, over the course of one year during the slow alien invasion of the cubes. It’s a fun episode because unlike the Doctor’s previous companions, Rory and Amy recognize that traveling with the Doctor is not a life building strategy. The Doctor comes to realize that the companions become part of his life, but that he doesn’t stay around long enough to become part of theirs. He needs the companions because he is lonely, but in this episode the Ponds (Williams) remind him that they have lives and goals apart from his. This is something Sarah Jane was not able to do until the Doctor literally abandoned her and forced her to reestablish her normal life. It’s sad to watch the Doctor accept the fact that these companions and not him are the captains of their own destiny.
It is truly heartbreaking to hear Rory’s father almost beg the Doctor to bring them back safe when Amy and Rory leave with the Doctor for what the audience now knows is the last time. The episode was funny and heartwarming and that’s the best you can ever ask of any Doctor Who episode.
Best Quote: The Doctor speaking to Amy after she asked why he kept coming back for them, “Because you were the first. The first face this face saw. And you were seared onto my hearts, Amelia Pond. Always will be. I’m running to you and Rory before you… fade from me.”
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While there have been other good and even great Doctor Who stories since the re-launch in 2005, the above shows are really companion showcases. From them, we learn much about the way the Doctor views himself and the inhabitants of the planet he decided to place under his protection. So, until Doctor Who returns in November 2013, “River, get them all home!”