Doctor Who: The Best Episodes From Each Modern Series
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT! Midnight is on this list.
Although the first series of NuWho was first broadcast during spring 2005, news that the cult sci-fi show was being revived – or regenerated – actually took place two years previously.
The only thing confirmed back in 2003 was that a Welshman by the name of Russell T Davies would be penning the new episodes, which he described would be “fun, exciting, contemporary and scary… which embraces the Doctor Who heritage, at the same time introducing the character to a modern audience”. Four years later – when Davies turned down a fifth series as showrunner – he said:
“A fifth series! Did you ever think that Doctor Who would be this important to the BBC? That’s the maddest and best thing of all.”
Well, here we are. With a 13th NuWho series on its way, the show has become a worldwide phenomenon thanks to some of the greatest-ever episodes from the modern era. So let’s take a look at the very best to join the pantheon of Classic Who greats like Genesis of the Daleks, City of Death and The Caves of Androzani…
14. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (Series 1)
It was a close run thing with the other par excellence episodes of Robert Shearman's Dalek and Paul Cornell's Father's Day. But Steven Moffat's very first (proper), award-winning Doctor Who story has everything, and is memorable for many wonderful reasons.
Things quickly escalate, literally, when Rose takes her new Union Jack T-shirt for a spin around London via... barrage balloon during a Blitz bombing raid. Fortunately, a rather dandy and dashing 51st century Time Agent, whose invisible spaceship is casually (and awesomely) tethered to Big Ben, rescues her in suitably spectacular fashion. Hello our favourite cheesy beefcake!
We have a sweetly-sounding child in a gas mask looking for his mummy, innocently going about Wartime London transmitting cries of "mummy" via the TARDIS telephone, a radio, in sync with a cymbal-banging toy monkey, and a typewriter - which was added later on because the episode was originally too short.
It has one of the best cliffhangers, which followed that viscerally vivid scene straight out of a Lovecraftian horror where Doctor Constantine's face agonisingly and terrifyingly transforms into a gas mask. But best of all, following the traumatic events of the Time War, it continues the Doctor's personal healing process in the most uplifting and joyous way: just this once, everybody lives!
It showcases some of the very best in British acting talent with Richard Wilson's resolute Doctor Constantine, Florence Hoath's brilliantly nuanced portrayal of the canny and caring Nancy, and the best NuWho Doctor-companion dynamic - alongside Ten and Donna - in Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper.