10 Best Episode Runs In Doctor Who History

Series 1 is regarded by many as one of Doctor Who’s best. Hell, if it wasn’t for Boom Town and The Long Game, the entire second half of the series could've made it onto this list.

Alas, the 2005 revival’s first run of consistently great episodes begins with Father’s Day, a story that takes the show’s rule of historical non-intervention and plays with it to devastating effect. The moment when Pete realises who Rose is, and what he has to do to save her and Jackie, is utterly heartbreaking.

The emotional consequences of time travel have been explored many times since, in stories like The Fires of Pompeii and Demons of the Punjab. But Father's Day did it first, and did it best.

Then came the equally groundbreaking The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. The legacy of this story is hard to overstate – aside from the fact that it had children chanting “Are you my mummy?” up and down the country, it was the first outing for both Steven Moffat and Captain Jack Harkness, and the moment that cemented the Doctor as a romantic hero. Those scenes with Rose where he’s talking about “dancing” walked, so that his relationships with Reinette, River, and Rogue could run.

It's chilling, it's genuinely funny, and it brings out the very best of the Doctor – it's Steven Moffat in a nutshell.

This story also gave us our first mention of Villengard, an organisation that continues to be a big part of the Whoniverse almost 20 years later.