Doctor Who: 20 Most Satisfying Moments

From Hartnell to Smith, here we reliving those Doctor Who Moments that made you punch the air and cheer.

By Paul Hammans /

2014 is upon us and we cannot wait for the next series of Doctor Who to hit the streets. During the past 50-years we have seen some brilliantly satisfying moments from the show and leaving aside that some of the stories were simply duds, others live on in the memory as classics. 'The Fanbase', as TV likes to call us, has remembered moments from the show so clearly that we're all experts. We can actually give very plausible reasons why some series worked well while others did not. Still, this is not the time to bring up Michael Grade or John Nathan-Turner, now is it? 'Satisfying' is a big word. If you don't believe me, ask your boss! So let's unpack that a bit. What were the little moments that made us punch the air and utter a silent, 'Yes!' The big moments that made it all worthwhile, perhaps that rescued a lacklustre episode along the way. The moments when The Doctor did something out of character, but upon which we reflected, "Yeah, OK. Just this once €“ it works for me." 'Satisfying' is a movable, but interesting feast. It's all about the moment. We're talking about the value it held for you when you sat and watched it. Perhaps it came when you took the trouble to delve deeper into the classic era, but not like a cluster of TV critics getting together after the event would. There must be no stroking goatees and agreeing that the first invasion by Cybermen offered us a watershed in 'televisual entertainment', or some-such twaddle. How The Celestial Toymaker was defeated for example was a real moment in time, at the time. That these moments mean so much to us is nothing but a tribute to the show's entire history. The pay-off for a plot line could seal an entire episode's fate, or literally just a few seconds of TV magic could turn into the stand out moment that will forever stick in our memories. The difficulty with this list is not in finding moments, but in arriving at a top twenty at all. Not necessarily the 'best' moments then, (though some were that too), but the ones that thrilled us at the time we first saw them.