10 Best Episode Runs In Doctor Who History

The Twelfth Doctor’s era had many highlights, but the ending of his second series is difficult to top.

Face the Raven is an unnerving, doom-laden tale, which builds to a tragic yet inevitable climax. The final ten minutes is one of the best Doctor/companion interactions ever committed to screen, with Capaldi and Coleman saying so much, with so little.

And then what is there to say about Heaven Sent that hasn’t been said already? Putting the Doctor in a castle for an hour and making that the first part of the finale was a massive risk – but the lightning-in-a-bottle combination of Steven Moffat, Rachel Talalay, and Peter Capaldi rose to the challenge and delivered what is consistently and rightfully voted one of the greatest hours of television in 61 years of Who.

The trilogy was brought to a close with Hell Bent, which may not have been the Gallifrey-centric epic it was made out to be, but it's all the better for it. In the end, it all comes back to Clara and the Doctor, and for a duo that regularly pushed each other to some dangerous limits, their ending was absolutely perfect.

Points must go to The Husbands of River Song too. It's a banger of a festive story, starting off as a simple screwball comedy but becoming something much more poignant by the end.

What's especially impressive about this run of episodes is that it's one long story, with Husbands serving as the epilogue. Mini arcs within Doctor Who don't get much stronger than this.