Doctor Who: The Doctor's Regeneration Episodes Ranked Worst To Best

This can be best summed up by Sarah Jane: "You know, this is barmy. Here am I, calmly discussing fabulous planets with blue moons, giant spiders, magic crystals, as if I was talking about er, pussycats, fish and chips, and the Liverpool docks."

In fact, you could spend at least two of the episodes having philosophical discussions about pussycats, fish and chips and the Liverpool docks, and you'd still be as equally entertained. Which is a shame because the title suggests all-out awesomeness (depending on where you are on the arachnophobia scale of course).

The first part is intriguing with the mixture of religion and pseudoscience, paralleling the mysterious subterfuge of black magic at a spiritual retreat, naturally.

Jon Pertwee flexes his all-action Doctor with great gusto. The James Bond-esque chase via Little Nellie and then farcically hovercrafting - Roger Moore-style - over someone lying down is fun, albeit overlong. Now for the barmy.

Giant spiders! Oops, sorry, that's blasphemy. With their work-in-progress force lightening, successful assimilation of the Planet of the Apes enslavement-of-humans model, psychic torturing akin to the sound of an Aztec death whistle, and an eerie possession of our Sarah Jane, the Eight Legs are one of the underrated monsters of Doctor Who. However it's Lupton who plays the ultimate villain - an overly ambitious salesman. Clearly the Great One was also reading Lupton's mind too in the end.

Goodbye dandy Doctor. Hello dawn of golden age: Well, here we go again. There's no need for a visually dynamic regeneration here as the Doctor spends his final, emotionally heartfelt moments with Sarah Jane and the Brigadier. As for the new guy behaving erratically, surely not?