Doctor Who: Best And Worst Story Of Each New Who Doctor
2. Ninth Doctor - Best: Bad Wolf/Parting Of The Ways
Much like picking a worst episode of the Ninth Doctor’s run, picking a best episode is also nearly impossible and ultimately comes down to personal preference. Arguments can be made for episodes like the tense “Dalek”, the highly emotional “Father’s Day” and even Moffat’s first two-part story “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances.”
Ultimately though, Eccleston peaks in his final outing as the Ninth Doctor, in a story that serves as an effective pastiche of reality television culture and a scarily accurate prediction of humanities future as lazy, feeble-minded TV-drones. The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack find themselves transported to The Game Station; where seemingly endless reality TV and gameshows are broadcast out to the Earth.
Rose finds herself a prisoner of the Anne-Droid on a deadly edition of The Weakest Link, Captain Jack nearly loses his head dealing with a robotic Trinny & Susannah, whilst The Doctor becomes a contestant in the smallest Big Brother house ever (ah, those season one budgets!).
The episode works so effectively for several reasons. Firstly, audiences hadn’t yet become familiar with the RTD twist of having Daleks make a surprise appearance in nearly every season finale. Not only that, but the Daleks actually come across as big time villains, something to be feared and that might have a chance of doing some serious damage.
Eventually The Daleks became less intimidating through overuse and the fact that The Doctor’s reaction to them became less and less serious but in this first season finale Eccleston effectively sells the fear of the Daleks, the disbelief at their resurrection and the anger at the injustice of them having survived the Time War whilst the Time Lords perished.
This was also the most low-key of all of the New Who regeneration scenes, no tears or massive speeches. Just Nine joking about how he might have two heads or no head. He says a final well done to Rose and lastly gives himself a pat on the back – something nice to see from an incarnation that had been so self-hating.