Doctor Who: 10 Best London-Set Adventures

1. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances

Steven Moffat's The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances of 2005 pitched the Ninth Doctor and Rose into the turmoil of World War II. And by pitched I really mean hurled headlong into danger. Within minutes Billie Piper was dangled over London, clinging for dear life to a barrage balloon, explosions going off all around her. As for the cheeky champion of the vortex, well he had his own troubles, which were quite unlike any he'd coped with before. Who could forget the bizarre yet chilling sight of TV's Victor Meldrew, his skull being slowly and hideously transformed into a gas mask? The story excels in every sense and in every scene, with warped delights round every darkened corner. It also ushered in the dazzling presence of John Barrowman's Captain Jack Harkness, swaggering in to fight a type of eerie menace that would come to define whole eras of the show when Moffat inherited the showrunner's chair from Russell T. Davies. Perhaps this tale's most significant contribution was its ending. The threat wasn't trying to wipe out humanity, it was trying to cure it. The nanogenes gave Eccleston's crusader one of his standout moments: one, two, three... "Everybody lives!" An unexpected factor in an already-unexpected triumphal return for Doctor Who. Do you agree with this list? Are there any important London-set stories in Doctor Who you think we've left out? Let us know in the comments section!