Ranking The Doctor Who Series Finales From Worst To Best

5. The Name Of The Doctor (Series 7)

First broadcast: Saturday 18th May 2013 To all intents and purposes, The Name of the Doctor is a humdinger of a Doctor Who finale. Or at least, it had the potential to be. The title alone had sent Doctor Who fans into an unprecedented frenzy and that's not to mention the fact that it featured the returns of River Song, the Paternoster Gang and Richard E. Grant as the Great Intelligence. For some unknown reason, though, what was one of the most eagerly anticipated stories of the Eleventh Doctor's era so far was confined to one episode which resulted in the whole thing feeling rather rushed as Steven Moffat sporadically ticked off all the story arcs instigated throughout the preceding episodes that he'd seemingly forgotten about until now. There's Trenazalore for starters, which turns out to be a pretty big deal when it's revealed as the final resting place of our beloved hero himself. Never mind that, though, because the festivities are dominated by Clara Oswald as the mystery of the impossible girl is finally resolved when she decides to jump into the Doctor's time stream and imprint herself on the lives of his previous incarnations, as given away in a slapdash pre-titles sequence featuring archive footage of classic Doctors that looks like it was put together 5 minutes before the episode aired. But then there's that colossal cliffhanger - featuring the shock reveal of John Hurt as the War Doctor - which makes it all worthwhile. A spectacular moment to ease us into the 50th anniversary special.