Doctor Who: 10 Worst "New-Who" Episodes Ever
8. The Bells of Saint John
Season 7b kicked off with The Bells of Saint John a modern-set episode that involves a mysterious group using WiFi to abduct people and upload them to a weird data core. This is all at the behest of The Great Intelligence, though it’s never quite explains why. It is also the introduction of Clara Oswald as the new companion (technically speaking, Jenna Coleman had already appeared in the show as two alternate version of this character in Asylum of the Daleks and The Snowmen, but let’s not get into that!).
Whilst Clara would soon go on to become a great companion, her introduction is a muddled one and this, her official debut, is less impactful than the previous episode The Snowmen. She also never quite clicked with Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor like she would later with Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor and their friendly banter just feels forced.
Overall the episode is just a bit dull. Aside from a tentpole sequence where The Doctor rides a motorcycle up the side of The Shard in London, there isn’t really anything of note in this episode and it just sort of vanishes into the mix of lesser Doctor Who episodes.