The Ten Best Episodes Of New Doctor Who

Leave it to Doctor Who to somehow be celebrating its 10th anniversary just a couple of years after celebrating its 50th Anniversary. Ten years ago today, “New Who” was born when “Rose” aired on the BBC. The series has since grown as an interenational sensation, touching thousands of fans around the world and launching the careers of some of the best genre actors in the business. We thought today would be good day to look back and pick out some of the best of the best of what “New Who” has offered.

We’ve listed our ten favorite epsiodes of New Doctor Who. This was a very, very hard list to nail down, so don’t hate us if your favorite episode isn’t here. Also, note that we’re counting two-part stories as one episode, and that they’re listed in the order that they aired. Trying to rank them numerical was just too difficult a task.

Here’s our ten favorite episodes of New Doctor Who.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances

Of Christopher Eccleston’s often overlooked single series playing the Ninth Doctor, the Steven Moffat written two-parter “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” is the best story, and the one where new Doctor Who really found its voice. The story has the Doctor and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) travelling back to London during the blitz, and discovering that a mysterious child is transmitting a strange disease throughout the city. It showed the series could be campy, science fiction fun, unsettlingly creepy, and dig into tender, emotional territory in equal measure. It also introduced Jack Barrowman as fan favorite Captain Jack Harness.

Paul Cornell adapted a Doctor Who his 1995 Doctor Who novel, Human Nature, into the Hugo-nominated two-part “Human Nature/Family of Blood” story from Series 3. The story sees the Doctor, now played by David Tennant, on the run from the Family, and in hiding as a human schoolteacher in 1913. The Doctor puts his entire persona into a device that looks like a pocket watch, and only companion Martha Jones remembers who he really is. As a human, the Doctor falls in love with the school’s nurse, but the results are predictably tragic when the Doctor must inevitable return to his life as a time lord. The story brilliantly puts the most human and the most god-like of the Doctor’s personality on full display.

Blink

Series 3 immediately followed up “The Family of Blood” with the Doctor-light episode “Blink.” The episode starred a not-yet-famous Carey Mulligan as Sally Sparrow, a curious young girl who becomes wrapped up in investigating a mysterious man who appears, without explanation, as an Easter egg across seventeen otherwise unrelated DVDs. The man, whom audiences recognize as the Doctor, delivers a cryptic message. As the mystery unfolds, the episode introduces the Weeping Angels, perhaps the most iconic (and most reused) antagonists to be introduced in “New Who.”

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead

The Series 4 two-parter “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” introduces River Song, whose complicated relationship with the Doctor would be further chronicled in Series 5-7. It also lays out an incredible mystery: an empty library the size of a city, all of the people in it have disappeared, and for some reason we keep seeing flashes of a young girl spending time with her therapist. The story slowly reveals the answer, with David Tennant giving a fantastic performance as the Doctor deals with losing more and more innocent lives to the enemy in the shadows, eventually building up to one of those moments where the Doctor simply refuses to let anyone else die. There’s also a heartbreaking subplot for companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), who lives out a lifetime as a happy wife and mother before it all fades away.

Midnight

“Taking a big space truck with a bunch of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight. What could possibly go wrong?” That’s how the Doctor ends his cold open conversation with Donna Noble in “Midnight,” and things go about as well as you’d expect from there. As you can probably tell from the rest of this list, I’m more of a Steven Moffat guy than a Russell T. Davies guy, though I absolutely respect and admire how Davies revitalized the series. Of all Davies’ work, “Midnight” is my favorite. When the Doctor’s simple tour ends up discovering a brand new lifeform, his pioneering spirit becomes wrapped up in a philosophical argument with a bunch of ignorant, scared, and paranoid humans. The Doctor’s frustrations only add to the tension built from the episode’s horror movie atmosphere.

The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End

While David Tennant would stick around to do a series of specials, “The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End” was really his farewell tour as the Tenth Doctor, as it was Davies’ farewell as showrunner. Sure, “Journey’s End” got a little sappy, but after everything Davies and Tennant built together, they’d earned it. The episode sees all members of the Doctor’s extended family – Martha Jones, Jack Harkness, Sarah Jane, even Rose Tyler and her family – return for one more showdown with the Daleks. There are fond farewells, new beginning and, most memorable of all, a heartbreaking last goodbye between the Doctor and Rose.

The Eleventh Hour

When Matt Smith took over as the Eleventh Doctor, he had some huge shoes to fill, but boy did he hit the ground running. The first episode for a new Doctor is often awkward, as the new actor is still growing into what their version of the character should be, but Stephen Moffat provided Smith with an excellent, fast paced episode to capture audience’s imagination. The episode also introduces Karen Gillen as companion Amy Pond, “the girl who waited,” and begins the fairytale relationship between her and her “raggedy man.”

The Doctor’s Wife

In his first outing as a Doctor Who writer, Neil Gaiman did exactly what you’d expect Gaiman to do, put an interesting, post-modern spin of the Doctor’s mythos. The episode see the TARDIS given a biological body, and explores the intimate relationship between the Doctor and his blue box. Gaiman also slyly hints that a Time Lord can swap genders during a regeneration, which opened the door for Missy in Series 8 and has left the door open for a female actor to play the doctor in the future.

The Day of the Doctor

The 50th Anniversary Special, “The Day of the Doctor,” is, like “Journey’s End” before it, a bit on the fan service side, but when you’ve been an institution of science fiction for 50 years, you earn some slack when it comes to fan service. The episode sees David Tennant return to reprise his role as the Tenth Doctor and team up with Smith’s Eleventh Doctor to finally explore what exactly happened to the Doctor during the Time Wars. It’s unfortunate that Christopher Eccleston refused to return as the Ninth Doctor, because his absence was felt, but John Hurt did a stellar job as the newly introduced War Doctor. Billie Piper also returned, though not as Rose, and classic Doctor Who star Tom Baker made a cameo appearance. We even got a first look at the Twelfth Doctor’s eyebrows. All in all, it was a sound celebration of the Doctor’s heritage.

Listen

In 2014, Peter Capaldi made a stellar debut as the Twelfth Doctor, and “Listen” was the best episode of the season. It had every twisty trope you expect from Steven Moffat at this point, but executed exceedingly well. It turns out, the Doctor fears something that lurks in the dark and sets out to track it down, with companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Louise Coleman) at his side. They accidently visit Danny Pink, Clara’s boyfriend, as a child and possibly influence his future career as a soldier. That’s all before they end visiting the Doctor as a child himself. The episode has time loops, and leaves as many questions unanswered as answered, and it’s all the better for it.

Doctor Who will return for Series 9 later in 2015.