10 Greatest Classic Doctor Who Stories

If anything sums up the unique appeal of Doctor Who, it's the plot of City of Death. An alien menace plots to destroy life on Earth, and funds his villainous plot with mass-produced Mona Lisas.

Could any other show get away with telling that story?

City of Death is everything you could possibly need from Doctor Who. As well as its high-concept premise, it has laugh-out-loud comedy, a brilliantly-designed alien, stunning location work on the streets of Paris, a winning Doctor and companion partnership, time travel, and a guy that really loves punching people in the face.

Shows like Star Trek would just settle for Scaroth's time travel plot, but writer Douglas Adams throws in a gallery heist, a commentary on the mass-production of art, and resolves the story with the most important punch in human history.

City of Death is a complex and sublime work of art, refusing to settle for being one particular type of Doctor Who story. It throws everything in, from bug-eyed aliens in cool spaceships to traveling through time to meet a historical celebrity.

But above all, it's the greatest Doctor Who story because it's a breezily confident, yet unassumingly perfect example of what makes this 60-year-old show so utterly magical.