Every Doctor Who Finale - Ranked Worst To Best
Which Journey's End is the best of all?
Doctor Who is a show renowned for its finales. Even though every season is spent travelling across all of space and time, The Doctor and his companions always have a much larger story to play a part in. From The Silence to Bad Wolf, every finale is able to resolve the biggest mysteries in the show and often set up future events.
Over the last 11 seasons, The Doctor has come across many enemies in these final battles. While they most often end up being the Daleks, Cybermen, or The Master, every finale seems to offer a unique take on these iconic villains and puts The Doctor in more danger than they've ever faced.
Most of these episodes sit among the very best that the show has to offer while others are plain and mediocre. Some are even outright hated for their divisive endings while others adore them. With so many iconic and important episodes finishing each season, which can truly lay claim to the greatest Doctor Who finale?
11. The Battle Of Ranskoor Av Kolos (Season 11)
Jodie Whittaker's first finale, much like her entire first series, was incredibly underwhelming. The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos saw Whittaker reunite with her first enemy Tzim-Sha, who had abused the power of two ancient beings over thousands of years to seek his revenge on The Doctor.
The episode does have a few redeeming qualities. The most notable of these is Bradley Walsh's Graham, who has one of the more shocking moments of the series when he tells The Doctor that he will kill Tzim-Sha if he sees him. While he doesn't kill him in the end, this creates one of the few truly deep character moments across the series and gives Whittaker a real moral dilemma to contemplate.
As for the rest of the episode, very little else can be praised. Tzim-Sha is an incredibly disappointing final villain who would be better served as a mid-season antagonist for Tennant or Smith. Despite the supposed power of the Ux the episode is almost never tense, and much of this relies on Chris Chibnall and Whittaker herself. While she does deserve some respect for having to make the most of some terrible scripts, she is still unable to create the kind of tension that the series is known for, especially in their finales.
At the end of the episode, almost nothing is changed outside of Graham's arc, and the episode could easily be forgotten within the same day. Not the mark of a good finale.