Doctor Who: Every Series Plot Thread Ranked Worst To Best
5. Bad Wolf
The Original.
It started out as an easter egg and as Doctor Who was such a fresh concept back in 2005, it might have been a largely overlooked one. But the recurring words of 'Bad Wolf' were not a willy-nilly addition to the scenery, but a nifty plant in the Season 1 narrative.
It also showed that the all-sacred companions of Doctor Who were destined to be a hell of a lot more than excess baggage. In a wonderfully crafted display of time-bending storytelling, Bad Wolf turned out to be none other Rose Tyler spliced with a time vortex, sending a message back to herself in order to avert a Dalek-induced catastrophe. This in turn would lead to the Doctor's regeneration from 9th to 10th. The implications were therefore cosmic, and essential to the story.
Much as we love many tricks that have been pulled in Doctor Who since, we also have to admit that a lot of them are just shuffled re-workings of this initial, simple but brilliant idea.