Doctor Who: Every Series 1 Episode Ranked Worst To Best

If The Doctor Dances represents the height of television writing in the mid-2000s, then Dalek is so good that it could’ve been a movie.

Adapting and heavily improving an earlier story, the Doctor and Rose find themselves underground in the future of 2012, where a collector of alien artefacts introduces them to his prized possession: a Dalek. This episode sees Nine quite literally foaming at the mouth, once again confronting the enemy he sacrificed so much to destroy.

This is everything Doctor Who needs to be, firing on all cylinders. Rose unknowingly awakens the creature out of compassion, while Christopher Eccleston plays a Doctor exuding fear, rage, and the trauma of the Time War. Even better, the lone Dalek asks our leading players (and the audience) to confront an age-old question of morality and mortality - how does a killer of killers excuse themselves?

A single Dalek causes so much chaos through a series of brilliantly-directed scenes, and becomes more of a character than just a simple villain. Best of all, it defines who the Ninth Doctor is in this part of his life.

Considering that Eccleston only got one series, there is no better episode to demonstrate who he was as the Doctor.