Tag: Series 1

It is time for a mighty quest to begin.

I recently decided to go through every single episode of Doctor Who since 2005 (thanks to BBC IPlayer), and I decided I’m going to get some prime content out of this because I’ll take every opportunity available to talk about Doctor Who.

Once a month I’m going to be taking every episode in each series, and ranking them based on how much I enjoyed them, and then talk a little bit about why. This will conclude once I’ve done all 11 series, I will write a list where I rank the series themselves from worst to best.

Christmas specials will usually be attached to the series they come before, with a couple notable exceptions, those being: The 2009 specials will be counted in series 4, The Day of The Doctor & The Time of The Doctor will be counted in series 7, and finally Resolution will be counted in series 11, since there is no series 12 yet.

Lastly, as always, I will be counting multi-parters as a single entry.

So with the rules in place, let’s start with ranking all the episodes in series 1.

10 – The Long Game (Episode 7)

This is the thing with covering series one. Sure, this is the worst episode, but it’s also still great.

Not from a singular narrative perspective, of course, the whole thing with Satellite 5 and the Jagrafess is pretty cookie cutter and not very entertaining, but overall it takes it’s time out to make a point about companions. Given that this was the first series since the ’80s, it could quite easily have been assumed by the audience that The Doctor simply decided to travel with Rose because she was the first person he came across. This episode uses Adam to show the audience that not just anyone can do this.

Adam is a bumbling idiot, who goes around making stupid decisions and having mind-altering surgery without considering the consequences. Sure he’s an unlikable idiot, but that’s the point, you need him to show us exactly why Rose is so good as a companion for The Doctor. We never really see companions get thrown out of the TARDIS like that, but when it happens to Adam, you feel like he deserves it and the line from The Doctor “I only take the best” does wonders to serve Rose as a character.

Most of the episode may just be set up for the finale, so I can’t rank it that highly, but it does serve a pretty important purpose for the first series of Doctor Who.

9 – The Unquiet Dead (Episode 3)

I didn’t expect this one to be quite this low.

This is quite the testament to just how good the rest of series 1 is that this ended up this low down because I think there’s a lot to like here. It was the first instance in modern Who of us meeting a historical figure, so it had to essentially set a template for future series, and I think it did a pretty good job of it.

It set the template for what the monster should be – something relevant to the historical figure, in this case, ghosts – it also set the template for what the goal of the episode should be about. As much as there are monsters and adventure, the ultimate goal of the episode is for The Doctor and his companion to in some way change that historical figure’s view of the world, or inspire them to make one of their most notable works.

This also had the twist of Dickens being extremely sceptical of the world around him, and for the longest time refuses to believe that these ghosts can exist. This point leads to something I wish we saw at least a little more of in future episodes like this, which is The Doctor putting his foot down, taking a second out from showering the person in praise and sternly tell them how it is.

Many of the future episodes consist of nothing but The Doctor swooning over whatever figure they’ve got for the week and it ends up hampering what I mentioned the goal should be.

Ultimately, this episode set the template it needed to for these kinds of episodes and is arguably the best example of that template in the Russel T. Davies era.

8 – Rose (Episode 1)

Talk about an impossible task.

This episode is great for a pretty simple reason. It had 45 minutes to get an entirely new audience caught up and understanding of what Doctor Who is, and make it an exciting adventure to keep people coming back next week. And it did it.

It glosses over some things that would be expanded upon further in future episodes, but ultimately Rose is able to give us our 101 course in Doctor Who, give us some quick thrills and scares, then be home in time for tea. It took pretty much the perfect angle to do this as well, which is having us view the entire episode from the perspective of Rose.

This means that for one, we get to intimately know Rose’s character within the first ten minutes of the episode, we watch her throughout her day; see how she responds to a situation she’s not used to, and also see what her home life is like and gives us the impression that she wants to get out. It also means that the audience doesn’t feel like we’re missing out at any point, because we learn exactly what Rose does about The Doctor, at exactly the same time she does. We uncover this mystery of who The Doctor is together which both makes us connect to Rose and become more invested in finding out what The Doctor can do.

In 45 minutes, we got a ground level understanding of everything Doctor Who and it was at no point boring, which is why this is such an achievement.

7 – Aliens of London & World War Three
(Episodes 4 & 5)

So up until this point, Doctor Who had shown off a lot of what it was all about, with a sense of mystery and peril being ripe throughout the first three episodes, with a sprinkling of humour, but only enough to make the tone light enough.

With that light tone, it had never really gone full into comedy, it had kept quite a large sense of drama and danger throughout. What Aliens of London (and the first half of World War Three) does is show the much lighter side of Doctor Who. Sure there are monsters that live inside people’s skin, but they’re fat and fart a lot, which is childish yes, but funny nonetheless.

The Doctor also shows his comedic chops in this story, not to the point where he’s cracking jokes all over the place, but Ecclestone’s comedic timing is impeccable, and it can have even the smallest quip seem hilarious. I think after three episodes, that got fairly dark towards the climax, an episode like this was needed to remind us all that Doctor Who can be a fun experience too.

The Slitheen are also generally just a rather comedic villain, to the point where their big plan is simply for profit. They don’t want to take over or enslave the human race, they just want to make a quick buck and then move onto the next one; despicable sure, but ultimately pretty rubbish. That’s the thing with the Slitheen, from the perspective of a monster, they’re pretty rubbish, but when you look at the picture as a whole you realise they’re a perfect fit for the episodes that they appear in, and ultimately that is what a monster should be for.

6 – The End of the World (Episode 2)

Episode 2 had arguably a bigger task than episode 1 in Series 1. Not only did it have to keep everything that was in the first episode running strong, while developing the characters further, but it also had to give us everything alien in order to truly showcase the wonders you can experience when travelling with The Doctor.

The End of the World took a pretty good approach to this, by bombarding us with a whole bunch of aliens straight away to get everyone used to the idea of seeing strange stuff. Not only did it give us aliens though, but it also gave us Cassandra, a human who doesn’t even slightly look human. It meant that this episode introduced us to new things, while also managing to force us to take a look at what the human race could become.

Rose is a really good way of communicating all of this to the audience because she ends up reacting in the same way that I think most of us would in that scenario. She’s slightly overwhelmed by it all and it takes a chat with a simple maintenance worker in order to ground her thoughts and make her realise that these aliens aren’t so dissimilar from us, and the nice little point that the only other human is, in fact, the one that’s a freak.

That said, it doesn’t get too preachy about it. The episode could’ve quite easily lingered on the “humans are the real monsters” message, but instead, it took it’s time to focus on the action and the characters themselves. This episode works so well thanks to how it gives us all of the “alien” we can handle while ramping up the action and intensity from the first episode to show everyone exactly how exciting a Doctor Who adventure can be.

5 – Father’s Day (Episode 8)

Father’s Day is an episode that seems to divide opinion in the fanbase at large, but I think a lot of the people who don’t like it are looking at it from the wrong angle.

If you look at it like it’s a standard Doctor Who adventure, then yes it’s a bit disappointing and seemingly has a lot of missed opportunities, but I don’t think that’s what the episode is supposed to be about. It had the obvious point of the dangers of messing with time and exactly what can go wrong, but also the idea of just what grief can do to people, and how people who lost a parent before they were born/old enough to remember can do to someone.

Rose had always lived with the knowledge that her dad died and we saw her mum tell it to her as a child right at the start of the episode, and you get the impression that she’s always lived with curiosity. The idea that there’s this man that she can’t remember meeting, but still has such a strong emotional connection with her is the kind of thing that is clearly very confusing for her to have grown up with, and when she actually saw him for the first time it became very real all of a sudden.

The entire episode is essentially about Rose having to finally deal with her father’s death for real, and finally getting an opportunity to grieve for him, after growing up curious about him. We see when Rose is talking to Pete that she ends up creating this ideal world where her dad was always there for her and provided for her, and we see Pete come to that realisation that none of it’s true. He knows that he could never be the kind of dad that Rose says he was, and when he comes to the realisation of what he has to do, he’s finally able to do for Rose was he believes a dad should, which is protect her, at any cost.

It’s a heartbreaking episode right from the beginning because we know what’s going to have to happen, but it’s able to make statement after statement about just what growing up in the situation that Rose can do to someone, and it manages to do it without feeling like it’s trying to push an agenda about parenting, it’s just the characters acting like you’d expect those characters to act, which is always where the best drama comes from in my opinion.

4 – Boom Town (Episode 11)

I talked earlier about how the Siltheen is an inherently funny villain, and Boom Town seems to take that concept to its logical extreme.

This entire episode seems to be designed as a light-hearted adventure to bridge the gap between the rather dark tones of Episodes 9/10 & 12/13 and it fits perfectly into that slot. There are some jokes that don’t quite work, but for the most part, I thought this episode was a blast.

It’s got a little bit of an edge to it and tries to throw in a bunch of threats towards the end, but that’s not the focus of the episode at all. Margret Blane seems to fit her role perfectly, as the bumbling villain who’s just trying to get away, and if she can do some evil while she’s at it then that’s great. The main thing this episode does though is just let the characters loose and let them have fun interacting with each other.

There’s plenty of dynamics going on like Mickey and Jack which is the clash of men trying to alpha up and then the idea of what Mickey has to cope with while Rose away. The best example of this that I can think of in the episode is The Doctor having dinner with Margret in the restaurant. That entire scene is very comedic but sits with a rather dark undertone that only serves to make the humour even funnier.

This entire episode has that sense of fun to it that I love Doctor Who to have from time to time, especially between two darker stories like what we got in season one. It’s the perfect way to bridge the gap.

3 – Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways
(EpisodeS 12 & 13)

This is a story absolutely brimming with inventive ideas. Daleks aren’t anything new I know, but the way the threat was presented in Bad Wolf was pretty fresh for the time.

While the idea of the British game shows haven’t aged well since all three of the ones featured have since been cancelled, and it wouldn’t surprise me if people watching this episode in 10 years time had no idea what was going on, and if you’re American then you probably didn’t understand it when it aired.

That said, as a Brit who was around when all these shows were airing, I thought it was quite entertaining. The idea of the deadly game show is nothing new, but Davies gave it that British charm that made it feel like a fresh idea and was able to re-add the joy that had been sucked out of ideas like that over the years.

It once again presented us with Rose potentially dying yet again this series, and while usually, it’s pretty obvious that she’s not going to die, the way the story was written made you believe that perhaps it was possible that this was the end. It was the season finale, and Rose’s death would give The Doctor the fire he needed to take down the station for good.

The second part of the episode is running with high emotions, with the Daleks going around and killing everyone one by one was the best way to keep that level of a threat going that was established in Dalek earlier in the series. Then you’ve got some brilliant moments like The Doctor telling the Dalek’s exactly how he’s going to get Rose back, or the entire sequence where Rose is trying to get back to The Doctor.

This also defines The Doctor’s character post Time War, he was so desperate to end it that he was willing to potentially wipe out the human race just to finally be rid of them. When he’s finally confronted with that choice though, his declaration of “Coward, any day” making a bold statement that he will always do what’s right, even when he’s probably going to die because of it.

Rose suddenly appearing to save the day is something that does feel a little bit cheap on a rewatch, but it was built to and makes sense in terms of the story, so that makes it ok as far as I’m concerned. Ecclestone’s regeneration was exactly what it needed to be as well, and exactly what every subsequent regeneration has been as well, giving a big climactic speech where he says goodbye and then we get flung straight into the madness of the new Doctor.

2 – Dalek (Episode 6)

This was the first time that a lot of viewers of the show would have ever seen the Daleks, which means this was an episode that had a hell of a lot riding on it. It was the one chance that the show had to show us just how deadly and terrifying the Daleks are, and why we should be absolutely terrified of them.

First of all, updating the look was essential, while the original Daleks are iconic, they certainly wouldn’t have looked very tough and terrifying by modern standard, so encasing them in a tough looking golden metal updated the look so that they actually looked the part for this episode.

Then, right at the start of the episode, the writers made a statement on how scary these things are before it was even loose, simply by putting it in the same room as The Doctor and watching his reaction. This is the first time The Doctor will have seen a Dalek since he ended the Time War, and his reaction is written and acted to perfection. That disbelief and pure terror when The Doctor realises it’s trapped in the cell with this thing, which then turns in a borderline psychopathic joy when he realises it can’t touch him.

Taunting, insulting, torturing, these things completely go against what we’d seen out of The Doctor up until this point. Seeing what the Dalek could do to The Doctor just by existing already makes it terrifying enough, and then it gets loose.

Watching it break out of the cage in an instant and then “downloads the internet”, which is a very 2005 thing for it to do, turns it very quickly from a dying soldier into a killing machine that will stop at nothing to get it wants. Once it starts killing it gets even more scary, with bullets not even being able to touch it, and it is able to intelligently overcome every obstacle that’s placed in its path; the Dalek is able to build up this aura of being completely indestructible.

Then it turns out it’s conflicted because of what Rose imprinted upon it when she restored it, with The Doctor noting that it hates its own existence manages to make it even more terrifying. Then we get a touching moment at the end, where The Doctor is so desperate to kill this thing that he doesn’t even question what’s going on, and it takes Rose once again “imprinting” on him in order to make him realise what’s going on.

The Dalek killing itself at the end is something that is able to land perfectly on an emotional level. This is pure evil, it’s killed loads of people and is a ruthless monster, but you can’t help but feel sorry for it when it feels like it has no option but to wipe itself out because it’s become impure.

This episode re-established Doctor Who’s most iconic villain as a major threat and set them up for when a whole army shows up in the finale, while also serving to be its own fantastic self-contained story.

1 – The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
(Episodes 9 & 10)

I struggled so much picking between this and Dalek for number 1.

This episode was the first one to be written by Steven Moffat, and it didn’t disappoint. Not only was Moffat able to create an iconic villain in the gas mask child, that managed to make the phrase “Are you my mummy?” terrifying, but he was also able to create an extremely clever and fully formed narrative, worthy of a Hollywood action film.

The introduction of Captain Jack added a new dynamic to the TARDIS crew and in such a short time we see him transition from a conman out to make a profit to someone who’s willing to sacrifice himself in order to save the day. Moffat was able to create a character that was truly able to stand the test of time in the Doctor Who universe, with his own spin-off series, multiple appearances in the main series and was even originally intended to be featured in “A Good Man Goes to War” if it wasn’t for Barrowman’s scheduling conflicts.

The plotline with Nancy is a brilliant part of the story too because the whole way through we know that she’s important to the solution and we get little nuggets and hints of what role she plays but it’s never revealed or made obvious until right at the end when it’s important. This episode goes to great length to create tonnes of mystery, with the pacing of when each question is answered near perfectly plotted out.

I love the level of emotion that comes out towards the end of the episode, with the utter despair of their seemingly being no solution in sight, with the complete one-eighty into absolute joy as things turn around, that pure unadulterated joy in The Doctor voice as he proclaimed that “Everybody lives!” is perhaps my favorite Doctor Who moment ever.

This episode has just about everything that a Doctor Who story should have, the mystery, the monsters, interesting and likeable secondary characters, a dash of humour here and there with the absolute joy at the end.

So that’s it! That’s what I thought of every episode of Doctor Who series 1! I hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you think of this series in the comments below and on Twitter @10ryawoo. Make sure to come back this time next week, where I’ll be ranking every game in the Assassin’s Creed franchise!