10 Best Doctor Who Time Travel Stories

10. City of Death

Forget Biff Tannen's almanac, the greatest use of time travel for financial gain can be found in Douglas Adams' classic Doctor Who story. Trapped on Earth and splintered across human history, Scaroth needs funding for the time experiments that will make him whole again.

In what is one of the most ingenious villainous schemes in the history of Doctor Who, he plots to steal the Mona Lisa using alien technology. Not only that, but centuries earlier, he has also managed to convince Leonardo Da Vinci to paint six copies of the famous artwork. Once the news breaks, he intends to sell one each to the seven nefarious art collectors who covet the painting. After all, they're hardly going to brag about it are they?

It's a wonderfully inventive use of past and present communicating with each other, and clearly influenced Steven Moffat's later work. Not only that, but the accident that splinters Scaroth across time is the very spark that begins life on Earth. In one of the best jokes in the whole story, the brutish but well-meaning Duggan puts human history back on course by lamping Scaroth with the most important punch in human history. It's a simple resolution completely at odds with the tricksy time narrative, which is why it's utterly hilarious.