Doctor Who: All Of Series 8 And Last Christmas Ranked

The definitive countdown.

By Mike Morgan /

2014 was an incredible year for Doctor Who. The eighth series and its Christmas special achieved an extraordinarily high level of quality throughout, guaranteeing that Peter Capaldi's first year in the lead role was one audiences will remember for a long time. Daleks, Cybermen and the Master all returned, but none of these rematches felt forced or stale. Each time, the creative team behind Who found ways of injecting fresh life into the proceedings. After only a couple of weeks, fans could tell the new era of Doctor Who was going to be a fun and exciting chapter in the programme's unfolding history. By the end of 2014, audiences were convinced that showrunner Steven Moffat was reinvigorated and many of the voices that had been calling for a change at the top had been silenced - at least for a while, anyway. Also, the new leading man had demonstrated beyond any doubt that he was not too old to be the Doctor and that he had most certainly been a superb choice for the coveted part. Given the consistency of this series, ranking the episodes is something of a challenge. How can one great story be rated higher or lower than another? It's only by looking at the finer details of each adventure that distinctions in the degrees of greatness can be made. There is no disgrace in an episode being less good than another - it still has many redeeming qualities and even a relatively unsuccessful episode of Doctor Who was, in 2014, head and shoulders above much of the competition. But which episode was the best of the crop of Capaldi's tenure so far and which episode succeeded least in amazing the show's ever growing legion of fans? Let's begin!