#DoctorWhoLockdown - The Capaldi Years

Hand on heart, I adore the Peter Capaldi era. I think it’s the stage at which modern Doctor Who blossoms, grows up even. I know that may be an unpopular view, but I don’t think the show has ever been this good. It is Doctor Who being made for men in their 30s rather than the whole family though and its scheduling reflects that. Even at its weakest, the scintillating Capaldi mesmerises and bedazzles with his strange, aloof, dynamite portrayal. He is the best actor to have taken on the part. Tom Baker may be the most Doctorish by nature, but here is an actor embodying the part from the inside out, taking himself on a journey through the outer cosmos but through his inner spaces as well. He is magnificent and in Series 8, Steven Moffat writes what I think is the apotheosis of his time on the show. That run from Deep Breath to Death in Heaven is glorious, full of fireworks between its leading trio and real human drama beating its way through each strange tale. The sad story of Danny Pink is not the warm and happy ending we usually expect from Doctor Who and we are left devastated at the series’ conclusion. There are a few languid two-parters in the middle of the Capaldi years but we’re soon back on form. Clara’s departure and the arrival of Bill Potts bring with them abundant ammunition for drama, for new stories, and even in his last year at the Doctor Who helm, Steven Moffat is experimenting with form – a mid-series trilogy of monkish devilment takes on the scope of a finale right at the heart of the series. The eventual finale itself only ups the ante and we finish the Capaldi years with some of the most sublime Doctor Who ever written. Throughout, one gets a sense that whilst Moffat always had a writerly brain, here he gives the show his heart too and there is a keen sense that during the four years of adventures they are being genuinely felt by all involved, not least by Peter Capaldi, allowing himself to embody his childhood hero, living and breathing time and space. I doubt very much whether Doctor Who will ever be this magnificent again.

Here are DoctorWhoVews’s rankings of the Capaldi years, from least to most favourite. Enjoy!

35. IN THE FOREST OF THE NIGHT

So it’s the end of the year, the budget’s running out and then Frank Cottrell-Boyce rings and asks to write a show about London being taken over by trees. You can imagine the conversation: “I… think we’ve got enough money left, Frank, yeah. It should be doable.” In honesty, the biggest issue with In the Forest of the Night is not its almost complete lack of jeopardy or absence of a narrative motor, its wistful pacing or even its sickly final scene; it’s that a small Welsh forest never remotely convinces as London. Where on Earth are all the people? A couple of strategically placed traffic lights and a spare road sign prop do not a capital city make. There are no buildings here, no walls, no screaming. We are simply in a forest. Still, there’s some great dialogue and Capaldi is always worth watching, especially when tasked with playing awkward. And you can see what Cottrell-Boyce is aiming for: he wants this to be a Red Riding Hood tale of the dark fairy-tale ilk but it’s a lovely sunny day and the wolves are more scared of the baby tiger. Ultimately, it’s all a bit misguided.

34. THE MAGICIAN’S APPRENTICE / THE WITCH’S FAMILIAR

As mentioned above, I think Series 8 represents the very apex of Steven Moffat’s time on the show. This Series 9 opening two-parter was a big comedown. As a matter of irritation, there are some great moments: fireworks fly between Davros and the Doctor, and the scene in which the withered despot opens his eyes is imbued with profound sadness. I have no objections to the tank scene so unfavourably greeted by the fans: what else would you choose to do if you knew you were about to die? I love both pre-titles hooks – one mythic, the other cheeky. In the publicity run up to Series 8, Capaldi stated that one of the differences between his stories and those of his predecessor was that the scenes would be longer. Deep Breath is testament to that: the extremely long restaurant scene one of the best and most nail-biting of the entire series. Here, the scenes are long but they’re achingly long. They feel tedious and languid, lacking energy and motor. Steven Moffat has written an opening akin to the start of The Stolen Earth, darting from planet to planet, but we get lingering establishing shots and drawn out line readings which seem to be trying to make this feel important, sapping the story of its energy. The Magician’s Apprentice feels like a story without a sense of its own pace, tedious scenes left to hang around too long. The Daleks have an empire at their command and… sit around in their control room before the Doctor defeats them with their own literal shit. There’s a sense that this wants to be an all-important mythology story: the Doctor is dying, his confession is written in a dial, Missy has returned to tell Clara as much, Davros has sworn to kill his nemesis, the Dalek Supreme is back. Ultimately though, the whole affair is simply boring.

33. THE LIE OF THE LAND

The end of the Monk trilogy and really not half bad. The opening has a disconcerting and definite allure. The conclusion with Bill’s mum is the stuff of season finales and the infiltration of the pyramid is as tense as any action thriller. There’s also a unique feel to The Lie of the Land, that of a true dystopian Earth, where governments broadcast from harboured and protected ships and people are taken away for holding onto the truth. There is one serious issue at the centre of Toby Whithouse’s script though: the faux regeneration scene. The Doctor and Nardole lure Bill to the ship and push her to the point where she wants to actively commit murder. She fires at the Doctor who pretends to regenerate and then… everyone in the room points and laughs at her. To be frank, it’s unforgiveable behaviour on the part of our hero and explained away so weakly, so glibly. So he needed to be sure? OK. Or was this simply trailer bait? Whatever, it seems cynical and wretched. And a real shame because it does spoil what is an otherwise accomplished and assured piece of work.

32. SMILE

Here, Frank Cottrell-Boyce suffers the opposite problem he did on In The Forest of the Night. Smile looks a million dollars. The overseas filming and the city in the cornfields is as beautiful an alien world as Doctor Who has ever imagined. This is the city we saw in our minds when reading In An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks. The problem is Cottrell-Boyce has a great idea for a story here, but it simply remains an idea, a concept, not particularly well dramatized. It’s lovely to see the Doctor and Bill as the stars of the show for a good chunk of the running time but it means that Ralf Little’s Steadfast must be the most underdeveloped guest character of the entire new series run. And Mina Anwar fares even less well as Goodthing. Smile feels like a sci-fi story written by somebody who doesn’t write sci-fi stories, who doesn’t understand that “have you tried switching it on and off again?” does not hold as a satisfying ending, however many magic haddock it’s served with. Smile might be the very epitome of The Emperor’s New Clothes story: don’t be fooled by how beautiful it looks but enjoy the scenery.

31. THE EATERS OF LIGHT

It’s worth pointing out that every story from hereon in is in its own way deeply treasurable and I adore them all. Ranking them is like choosing one’s favourite children and a fun but difficult pursuit. Rona Munro brings with her the characteristic poetry of her glorious stage work as well as some surprising sexual politics. There is the definite air of folklore about this Scottish play but there’s something in its production which doesn’t quite tally. Charles Palmer’s blue, grey colour palette ends up disguising the richness of the text rather than mirroring it. Despite the story’s darkness, what we need here is colourful imagery to match its lyricism. The dimension inside the cairn is washed out looking and cloudy and the musicians heading off to protect us in its inky depths isn’t the visual triumph the script and music paint it as. I can imagine a version of The Eaters of Light which looks as magnificent as it sounds. Its relatively dull pictures do its words something of a disservice.

30. THE WOMAN WHO LIVED

For some time, it looks like this strange episode is going to be a two-hander. It’s lit against candlelight and the sorrowful story of Lady Me is captivating. The omission of the deleted scene in which the Doctor spies on Ashildr during the plague is a real shame and I wonder if it wasn’t felt that the episode needed to move along to the alien lion just that bit faster. As it stands, the lion plot is a bit of an undercooked turkey. The concluding “They will kill me,” line turns off the narrative in an instant rather than solving a problem cleverly. But those scenes between Peter Capaldi and Maisie Williams are majestic. They sing with real heart and profundity and make the bolted-on sci-fi aesthetic seem even less necessary. I wish Catherine Tregenna had written the two-hander this story seems to want to be. It might have been a more memorable if peculiar outing.

29. SLEEP NO MORE

Mark Gatiss’s promised “instant classic” - as Steven Moffat would have it – proved to be fandom’s new Fear Her. I’m not quite sure I understand why. The unique filming techniques involved and its lack of discernible music make for compelling viewing. The inclusion of the Mr Sandman song proves to be a real moment of terror and conceptually the monsters work rather well. There is an obviously missing “really big” sandman at the climax and I’m not sure the logic of the piece really makes any sense at all. But this is a found-footage horror flick for Halloween and that means that the thrill of the piece is in its moment by moment vitality rather than its internal cohesion. Perhaps though the casting of the show’s first transgender actor as a grunt was a bit stupid.

28. THE CARETAKER

Gareth Roberts attempts his third riff on The Lodger, this time with less certainty. The idea of plonking the Doctor down somewhere innocuous and seeing him sink or swim is a terrific idea but by the time The Caretaker comes along, Peter Capaldi is a crazed, aloof incarnation and far from bringing out the Doctor’s innate charm, this episode ends up with him feeling even more distant and unidentifiable than ever. The PE gag is great fun and I certainly don’t see the racist connotations that DWM cited. Indeed, it brings out the unwelcome jealousy of the Doctor, making him all the more interesting. The Skovox Blitzer is a nifty little robot and as always in this season, the three regulars come off amazingly well. But it feels rather like Roberts is yesterday’s man. For better or worse, the programme is leaving this sort of loveable fluff behind; Capaldi’s Doctor just doesn’t fit here. It feels like Roberts is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Strangely, only The Caretaker and Robot of Sherwood seem like relics of another season, but whereas Sherwood feels like an early way to highlight this new Doctor’s differences within a familiar setting, The Caretaker doesn’t quite sit right in this new iteration.

27. THE RETURN OF DOCTOR MYSTERIO

It’s a peculiar island of an episode, this Christmas Special. After a year off the air, Mysterio offers the viewer no real flavour of what the new age of Doctor Who will bring, aside from that final very moving speech by the table followed by Nardole’s unexpected revelation that the Doctor is still mourning the loss of his wife. Capaldi’s last snarling moment of ferocity in the console room is a reminder of the rage of this Doctor. But for the most part, Mysterio is content to be its own mini superhero movie. It feels as charming as those old films and works as a romantic comedy as well as you’d expect from the Coupling creator. The sequence with the dangling Doc by the child’s bedroom window is lovely stuff. But in the middle of all the wonderful drama of the Capaldi years, it feels slightly aimless, a pitstop between destinations, however successful it might be on its own terms.

26. EMPRESS OF MARS

Despite the fact that the caves don’t quite convince as the Martian landscape, Mark Gatiss’s final turn as Who writer yields a story which looks completely gorgeous. The red uniforms of the Brits set against the dark greens of the Ice Warriors is the stuff of remarkably visual television, the Warriors’ guns issuing an unforgettably lurid effect on their attackers. This is a Tomb of the Cybermen for the modern age, a deceptively simple-looking script of boys’ own peril. There’s a portrait of Pauline Collins for fans of the 00s and an appearance from Alpha Centauri for fans of the 70s. It does feel a little pastiche, a little homage-y but it’s played straight and with such charm and it’s only the greatness of the stories around Empress of Mars which makes for its undeservedly lowly placement here.

25. THE GIRL WHO DIED

“I am Odin!” the Doctor cries and then Odin appears in the clouds. That’s a ballsy moment. This Magnificent Seven story of the weaponizing of a group of countryfolk might feel like small fry for the Doctor and Clara, especially after space spiders, but it’s the small moments here that thrill: the Doctor’s oddly-delivered translation of the baby’s crying is weird and alarming; his meeting with Ashildr in her room is dangerous and charming; his realisation that he’s seen his own face before suddenly injects proceedings with that Capaldi lightning and we realise the small stuff here will have seismic consequences. For a story told on such a small scale, its ending packs an unexpectedly hefty punch.

24. FLATLINE

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t think Flatline’s outstanding reputation is quite deserved. Its characters are weak and some of the dialogue is cloying. But there is a great wealth of imagination on display here from new-boy writer Jamie Mathieson. How many excellent ideas does a first-time Who script need? This surely has too many: the policewoman eaten by the floor, the escape via hanging chair, the flattened train against the tunnel walls, the shrinking TARDIS, the Doctor’s hand, stealth mode, the 2-D door handle, the graffiti artist, the boneless themselves. The list goes on. This is a Doctor Who story which truly dives into its ideas and in the end, leaves us without any real understanding of its frightening and surreal adversary. Mathieson’s later scripts were more focussed but here, it feels like he got the commission and just thought, “What the hell? I’m going to go for it!” And it’s incredibly exciting for that.

23. THE ZYGON INVASION / THE ZYGON INVERSION

This might seem like an undeserving position for Peter Harness’s body snatchers story in which to find itself. The culminating Capaldi speech makes the entry price effectively priceless. There is nothing like seeing this most intense and raging actor pummelling through this powerful piece of persuasion. It is sensational television. The remainder, however, is fairly dreary. What’s more, it’s all been done better elsewhere. We have an exploding presidential plane, just like last year, but this time the crash is off-camera and the escape unseen. Where this cliff-hanger should be the peak of excitement in the first half of the story, instead it feels tepid and lacks energy. Bonnie raising her weapon towards the plane should be the scene immediately after our discovery that she’s a bad ‘un. Instead, we see Bonnie casually infiltrate UNIT in-between and the pace begins to sag. Invasion/Inversion feels a script that has been massively overworked. Harness has revealed that in an earlier draft we found out why Bonnie was called Bonnie. Here, without an explanation, it just sounds stupid. Why do the passers-by react with vacuous disinterest in the online video of the Zygon changing form? Why is Rebecca Front so unbelievably useless? What exactly is the Zygon plan? The antagonists have unclear motivations and the threats feel vague and nebulous. Thankfully, there are many other elements to enjoy: Clara’s dreaming is suitably disconcerting and the scenes between the Doctor and Osgood are sparky and fun. Ultimately though, the lasting impression of this story is that final, rarefied speech, the vitriol and kindness and passion it is imbued with bore through the TV screen and the words seer their way into our collective hearts. A rallying call for intelligent thought and human kindness, the best of us all.

22. FACE THE RAVEN

Sarah Dollard’s first script for the show is one of three distinct thirds. The first is the most fast-moving fifteen minutes of Series 9 – darting from flat, to city centre, to library, to TARDIS, to sky, to Trap Street at a rate of knots. The final third is a heartbreaker. The desperate Doctor, unable to do anything to prevent Clara’s death is devastated and understandably selfish. “What about me?” he asks painfully, before simply kissing her hand and allowing her to walk to her death. This is the silence before the storm because Capaldi – inimical as he has ever been – finishes this tale with a declaration of revenge. Sadly, the middle third of the raven story is a bit dull, the boring murder mystery plot unmemorable and lacking thorough examination. Clara’s incredible death scene is the rightful lasting impression of Face the Raven but I wonder if it isn’t because the rest of the episode is only lukewarm?

21. THIN ICE

Bill’s first trip into history, despite that huge and beautiful Thames set, feels sparse, simple and succinct. That’s not a bad thing. This is Doctor Who rebuilding itself again. This is the usual fare for a companion first travelling back in time, but Pearl Mackie’s superlative Bill Potts throws up some interesting questions we fans had probably become too familiar to ask. When Bill asks the Doctor if he has ever killed anyone, the relationship is firmly tested. As early as her third story, the companion is willing to call the Doctor out on the things he has begun to disassociate himself with. The TARDIS dynamics here are very different to those between the Doctor and Clara but no less interesting. Tellingly, the Doctor tells the truth to Bill. This new energy in the spaceship is shaking up the format and here, in an apparently simple historical romp, the excellent character work ignites the narrative, makes it fresh and exciting. The Doctor’s punching of Lord Sutcliffe is a triumphant wallop, the death of Spider and the Doctor’s flippant reaction to it is staggering. The minimalist use of the monster of the week, never seen completely, is exciting in its restraint. This is a vibrant, beautifully designed and rich tale, far more complex than its apparent simplicity belies.

20. UNDER THE LAKE / BEFORE THE FLOOD

If there’s any new series Doctor Who story which feels like a classic era one, it’s Toby Whithouse’s dark two-parter. Perhaps it’s too slow but it’s never less than interesting. The first half feels like an old base under siege, akin to The Robots of Death or The Web of Fear; the second half feels like The Curse of Fenric and Battlefield with its timey-wimey shenanigans and bleak location filming. Still, Whithouse proves that within the old-school formula there’s plenty of room for invention. The Doctor’s brazen, to-camera pre-titles of Before the Flood followed by the “rock version” of the theme tune is surprisingly new territory for a 52-year-old show. Sophie Stone’s Cass is an incredibly strong role for a deaf actress and the sequence in which she is chased by the axe-wielding ghost, unable to hear the scraping of the weapon across the floor is edge-of-the-seat stuff. The Fisher King is a gruesome creation and the Doctor’s cards an inventive one. It looks traditional but it’s full of incident and ideas and stands as the most satisfying two-parter of Series 9.

19. TIME HEIST

Doctor Who does Bank Job is a genre clash you’d have thought might happen more often than it does. Here, we have the ultimate sci-fi heist, Steve Thompson producing easily his best script for the series. It also looks like a megabucks action thriller, the bank itself marble and gleaming, the corridors bold and colourful. As clever as Thompson’s heist plotting is, the show’s monster is a movie idea in itself, the killing of its first victim a deeply affecting and horrid shock that takes the breath away. The scenes in which Clara tries to disguise her thoughts from the Teller are suspenseful and gripping. The guest cast are memorable and well-played, the cleverness of the teleporting and memory tech rewarding and ingenious. There can’t ever be a Doctor Who Bank Job show again: it wouldn’t better this one.

18. HELL BENT

There’s so much to talk about when it comes to Hell Bent, it’s probably worthy of an article in itself. So let’s just focus on that scene by the matrix, when the Time Lords reveal to Clara how long the Doctor spent in the Confession Dial in order that he might save her. He palms it off as “a duty of care” and looks away. And then something quite unusual happens. For the first time, he and Clara tell one another the truth. Whatever that may be, we aren’t made privy to it, the camera flying away from them, up through the cloisters and towers of the Panopticon. The Doctor and Clara have the most complicated, layered and dynamic relationship between any TARDIS pair. They are by turns aggressive towards one another, then secretive, evasive and loving. They are also liars, both keeping secrets from the other as a matter of course. Here, at last, they lay it out: exactly what they think of one another and we aren’t allowed to see it. How wonderful. How respectful. There’s so much more to enjoy in Hell Bent. The Doctor’s silence as he returns to his village, the tragedy of his memory loss and Clara’s happy ending – but there is a feeling throughout the whole story that Steven Moffat is writing with truthfulness and heart and sympathy. The more you watch Hell Bent, the more its intricate layers are revealed.

17. THE PILOT

Unlike other “First Nights” – your Roses or Eleventh Hours or Women Falling to Earths, this one feels different. Because the set-up being introduced is not quite the same as what we’re used to. Here, we’re not meeting a strange traveller from the void beyond the mind, who voyages from place to place righting wrongs and fighting evils. No, here we are meeting a university professor with a dark secret. It’s such a fresh approach to introducing the Doctor that its novelty still feels thrilling. Alongside that, we meet Pearl Mackie’s exceptional Bill Potts who lights up the screen with her wide-eyed charm and confident, idiosyncratic line deliveries. We also get to see the thrills and spills of TARDIS travel in our opening episode, visiting Australia and a future Dalek war. Best of all though, like all truly great Doctor Who, the scares are more affecting when they take place in the home and Bill’s unsettlement by the thing in her shower is a standout scene. The Pilot is packed full of refreshing incident and is breezily directed by Lawrence Gough, making for a perfect, memorable introduction to a new TARDIS team.

16. KNOCK KNOCK

Playwright and TV writer extraordinaire Mike Bartlett’s only foray into the Who world was met with a muted reception by fans but there’s so much here that’s the stuff of riveting, classic Who. David Suchet is the sort of villain-of-the-week the Capaldi era is arguably missing. His performance is delicate, steely and frightening, his final breakdown a worrying and moving moment. The wooden girl Eliza is frightening and although she recalls the Wooden King and Queen from The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe, she is still very much at home in this brown, panelled world. This is Doctor Who doing haunted house properly. It’s attempted it before in shows like Hide and even Day of the Moon but it’s never as scary or direct as here, the pre-titles illustrating the extent to which Bartlett is ready to push his spooky, creaking tale. This is essentially a short teen horror flick and it works frighteningly well, and also at the end reveals its beating heart. Terrific.

15. TWICE UPON A TIME

The regeneration story that shouldn’t have been, Twice Upon a Time is one last chance to spend some time with the mysterious, mercurial and magnetic Peter Capaldi after the Christmas Special was foist upon Steven Moffat at the eleventh hour. This is a love letter to his Doctor and feels like a show in which everybody knows the end is coming. There’s nothing here to even fight for, the mystery more a ponderous exploration. David Bradley disappoints with his staccato delivery and lack of subtlety but before we zoom off into voyages new, it’s nice to be reminded where this whole barmy journey began. Capaldi is the undoubted star of this aching poem though. When he thanks Bill and Nardole, we feel it. When he sips his last glug of tea before returning to the TARDIS, we feel it. All the way through that last majestic speech, we feel it. As he sees Clara for the last time, we feel it. One last walk with our hero before the end, Twice Upon a Time is not so much an adventure as a thought process, assessing what we’ve learned from the Doctor, where our hearts lies. It’s a quiet, rather beautiful last stand. I’m so glad it exists.

14. ROBOT OF SHERWOOD

Somewhat forgotten amongst all the big hitters of Series 8 surrounding it, Robot of Sherwood is the funniest Capaldi story of them all. The Doctor’s ranting alongside Robin Hood from the dungeons is hilarious, their cries of who to execute first proving senselessly amusing. We see Capaldi try out some early Venusian Aikido and stick his middle finger up before revealing his fighting spoon. This is Mark Gatiss’s most joyous story in the canon. It’s cheeky (Pat Troughton IS Robin Hood!), camp (anything Ben Miller does – and doesn’t he look remarkably like Anthony Ainley under that beard?), knowing (“an intriguing gallimaufry”) and heart-warming (fairy tales are real). Set against glorious sunshine and the greenest Sherwood Forest you could imagine, Robot of Sherwood is the feelgood hit of the summer.

13. HEAVEN SENT

I’m not quite as enamoured with Heaven Sent as a loud contingent of fandom seem to be, but it is definitely bold and does what it sets out to do with craftsman-like accomplishment. Perhaps it comes at the wrong time for the show. Series 9 had consisted of fairly slow two-parters and a monologue at the series’ apex feels as if Steven Moffat was actively wishing away that child audience. (Having said that, my class at school happened to watch this on iPlayer during a wet lunchtime the week of transmission and many were rapt.) Why shouldn’t Doctor Who present us with a dramatization of grief though? It was content to spend an episode almost without dialogue in The Deadly Assassin’s matrix and that is a storming piece of drama. It was content to confine itself to only a busload of passengers in Midnight and that too was a gripping success. Here, Capaldi’s hook-nosed prince of a Time Lord wanders his castle in solitude, thinking his way through a profound problem of the heart. It’s a joy to be with him to share the burden. Moffat recently tweeted that this might be the best performance given by an actor playing the Doctor in a single instalment. That’s a bit of hyperbole, however: Capaldi does even better elsewhere in his own era. He isn’t really given that much to do in Heaven Sent. This isn’t the Doctor at his most emotional or venomous; he’s simply wistful throughout. Nevertheless, Capaldi’s star status and peculiar, great talent in the hands of this very particular and intelligent Steven Moffat script means that we’ll stay with him all the way, for four billion years even.

12. OXYGEN

Jamie Mathieson’s sci-fi thriller does indeed thrill from its very opening. The astronauts, spinning rather beautifully through the black void, towards Chasm Forge, accompanied by a funereal voiceover from Peter Capaldi, feels like a shot from a movie. It brings Gravity to mind but wisely, this episode makes its set-pieces achievable. The scale here might be smaller but it’s more intimate than gravity and more frightening. The Forge itself is a hellish place, dangerous with the fatal atmosphere of space so bluntly described at the story’s opening beyond its fragile walls. This is a base under siege story to better all others. The desperate trip from one side of the station to the other, through the vacuum is idiosyncratically shot, as if we’re witness to movement, feelings, moments but no real sense of geography or understanding. It’s quite something. Pearl Mackie is extraordinary as the panicking Bill and it comes with the alarming full stop that the Doctor has been blinded. The climax – fighting the suits – doesn’t quite work. Had the monetary value of the oxygen supply been more a of a hang-up for the characters, it might just have got away with it. In the end, it feels like a slightly fudged and unclear message. But then, we have the real icing on the cake – the cliff-hanger. Capaldi’s coruscating voice scrapes through the viewers’ ears echoing long after the titles end.

11. INTO THE DALEK

Rusty stood on top of my wedding cake, a miniature Doctor and Clara before him. So close to my heart are these Capaldi stories that the top 20 here really are interchangeable. I’d happily sit and watch any of this Scottish Doctor’s encounters over and over again. His first episode with the Daleks is a storming action thriller directed with aplomb by Ben Wheatley. This is a filmic, large-scale, gung-ho explosion of a story. It has a tremendous guest cast of vivid characters, the relationship between Journey Blue and her uncle complicated and arresting. The Doctor’s final speech to camera is Capaldi telling us he’s arrived. He speaks directly to us, as he would in his last minutes on the show. “Put it inside you and live by it,” he tells us of beauty and hope and faith. His early, more severe, strait-laced take on the Time Lord is undercut by a beating passion and a felt confusion as to whether or not he is a good man. His early chat with Clara in the TARDIS feels real and traumatic (although Steven Moffat really doesn’t set up the reasons why the Doctor is suddenly so insecure very effectively). The deep blues and metallic look of Into the Dalek mark it out as visually distinct. In fact, the first three shows of this run do just that: Deep Breath is soaked in red and burgundy. Here, we have blues and silvers, Robot of Sherwood would employ greenery. It stands as testament to how each episode of this remarkable series boasts its own distinct identity. Into the Dalek is perhaps one of the ultimate Dalek stories, an exploration of their psyche as well as featuring some supremely well-shot footage of their mass exterminations. The opening scene of Journey’s rocket spiralling in its escape from the Mothership is heart-stopping stuff. Doctor Who really does manage Action Movie this week.

10. LISTEN

From the highly explosive to the lonely quietude. Listen is an intensely clever script, flitting from restaurant sitcom dialogue about “twenty-three wells” and “I might go straight for extras” to theses on the nature of fear. There is a vague sensation that this is three short, cheap set-piece scenes thrown together to form the series’ budget episode. But closer inspection reveals its layers. First time round, the vivid thrill of the thing under the blanket is indelibly printed on the brain. Second time, it’s the material at the end of the universe which stands out, particularly in its stillness and soundscape. As the doors open and the unknown is let in, the Doctor is being pulled from the room by the escaping pressure and hanging precariously from a handrail. But we don’t get the hero action music we might elsewhere: we get almost nothing in the way of a score. It’s quiet, synthy and ethereal. The weirdness of this typifies what an outré episode this is. It seems like small fry but it isn’t. It’s atypical, strange and profound. How nice, also, to see John Hurt again, returning to where all those fears began.

9. WORLD ENOUGH AND TIME / THE DOCTOR FALLS

This is an astonishing finale and sure to top fan polls for many years to come. I can’t deny its remarkable nature, its high-stakes ambitions and its obvious success but I do have one major issue with it: the handling of the Masters. Once together, Gomez and Simm are content to hang out on a dry-stone wall, joke about erections and apply eye-liner. They don’t have a plan, or indeed very much to do in their episode together which is a shame, especially as once Gomez smacks him with her umbrella on the rooftop, you’d imagine there would follow some tension between them that wasn’t sexual. Aside from that, however, there is a great wealth of enjoyment to be found in the bleak resolution of Series 10, not least those haunting, terrible scenes in the hospital. The most worrying moment for me is seeing the plastic-coated patients walking to their conversions, one intoning, “Die. Me. Die. Me.” It’s genuinely horrific and the sort of scare usually reserved for the likes of Black Mirror. The whole of World Enough and Time is audacious from the offset. Missy introducing herself as Doctor Who sets the breezy tone of the near-the-fan-knuckle comedy. We’re even witness to her delightful putdown, “Don’t be a bitch.” Another linguistic envelope being pushed. Then Bill gets shot and we’re plunged into a nightmare. There follows the most doom-laden and dreadful story of all of Doctor Who: the genesis of the Cybermen and the death of Bill Potts. Both events are profoundly affecting, desperate and inevitable. This is exactly the sort of tragedy you’d expect from a Doctor’s final story. Capaldi plays it that way, raging against the dying of the light as he sonic-booms Cybermen to death in the forest. That we were granted an extra hour in his ethereal company is our blessing and probably The Doctor Falls’s loss.

8. EXTREMIS

Another astonishingly clever and overlooked masterpiece from Steven Moffat. This list just cannot stop being brilliant. Extremis is a dark tale of the question of reality and in its ingenuity forces the reader to ask the same question of their own reality. How do we know that we are real? You can’t say that Moffat avoided the big questions during his time as showrunner. As well as a matter of philosophical interest, there’s also something of the James Bond film about Extremis. It might not have the spectacle and scale of Spyfall but it proves a more frightening and unsettling world tour. It feels like a huge departure to see our TARDIS team at CERN or the Pentagon and the locations give Extremis a flavour all of its own. The introduction of the Pope raises the stakes yet further because this Doctor Who story is about to transcend even religion. At the finish though, it comes down to that man Capaldi again. As the gruesome monk looms towards him in the Oval Office, he eulogises to himself in terror. This is a literal blind-scared Doctor and when the episode finishes, we are scared too. Something is coming, something very, very big and I think very, very bad…

7. LAST CHRISTMAS

After the depressing and tragic events of Death in Heaven, we might feel in need of a hopeful coda. Fittingly, Last Christmas acts as just that. Characteristically, it is in her dreams that Clara Oswald finally mourns her beloved Danny Pink. She has always struggled to articulate her troubles, happier to lie to herself and others. It is in her subconscious that she works out how to say goodbye, how to let go and how to admit to herself that she still wants to travel with her fairy tale hero, just as she admits to herself that Santa Claus is real. There may be one too many idiots’ guide explanations as to how the dreamscapes are working, but for the most part, this is an intriguing, sad, funny, nightmarish way to spend Christmas Day. It’s far darker and more horrific than any other festive special and Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman are divine. As the Doctor arrives at the door of Clara and Danny’s house, the pain of Clara’s grief comes knocking. He is here. Which means Danny can’t be. In that moment, the whole tragedy of Series 8 is manifest.

6. MUMMY ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Here we have Peter Capaldi’s tour de force. The final third of the episode is him at his finest, driving the narrative with his dangerous, amoral and pragmatic approach to murder mystery. His advice to those about to die is seemingly without pity and when he asks Clara to lie to Maisie we feel for the school teacher. He has put her in the most unenviable and cruel position. It seems to confirm all her reasons for wanting to leave him, giving even more weight to the early scenes conveying the aching distance that has begun to separate our heroes. When the Doctor asks if he can talk about the planets, it becomes clear how very alien and faraway this relatively new Time Lord is: he is so very far from human but his sympathy and energy and huge heart drives him to rescue the passengers of the Orient Express. On the beach, Clara’s doubts about her awkward fellow traveller, himself still visibly moved by events, are allayed and they can continue their journeys together. This is classy, complicated and assured character work: the finest TARDIS team at their best.

5. KILL THE MOON

I don’t understand the objections to the “science” of Kill the Moon because it never purports to having any. It is a strange story existing in its own peculiar bubble: a story in which the moon really is an egg and from it hatches the most beautiful dragon. Why try to argue with such wondrous magic? Before that, though, we have a gripping, scary narrative, gloriously filmed and told with fire. The spiders are frightening and there pervades a tangible feeling of dread throughout the forty-five minutes. When the shuttle disappears down the crevasse, it becomes suddenly apparent that there is no easy way out. As the spiders emerge in their droves, the terror of the moon trip is made incarnate. The final TARDIS scene is a masterclass of acting prowess from both Capaldi and Coleman, the latter in particular providing a furious and enraged explosion of a performance. The Sixth Doctor and Peri used to bicker. I imagine scenes like the ones here were the intention because the dynamism between the regulars here is dynamite.

4. THE HUSBANDS OF RIVER SONG

It’s not often we would consider the Twelfth Doctor to be well-suited to a screwball romantic comedy but he fits so easily into this freewheeling anarchic world that it feels a shame he didn’t have more fun more often. The Husbands of River Song has the same energy as Voyage of the Damned and a stronger love story at its centre. Watching River refuse to notice the Doctor is a joke played to its absolute limits before the realisation is masterfully played out. The Twelfth Doctor rarely flirts but here he teases River, mocking her melodramatic outbursts by mimicking her in whispers. The final scene of the lovers together is full of complication: their last night together, the beauty of the towers, the sadness of the ending, the happiness that this isn’t really an ending at all. I love watching Capaldi here: see how he remains at a distance from River, standing in the background watching her watch the towers. This is an alien love, an enigmatic one. It’s impossible to read what Capaldi is playing but whatever it is, it’s clearly a deep feeling, one we probably could never hope to understand. This is how the Doctor does his love stories: in complex, unknowable ways which happen to include a man who can split his gooey head in two to hide a bank card. The Husbands of River Song is adorable.

3. DEEP BREATH

It’s the length of a short movie and is perfect fodder for the big screen. The differences between Deep Breath and the Matt Smith stories before it are stark, even more obvious when the Paternoster Gang are thrown into this very different world. Peter Capaldi’s Doctor is at once more dangerous and unpredictable than Matt’s loveable clown. Capaldi looks severe and even sinister. And here’s a thing: does he beat up the tramp? We end the scene with him barking orders at him: “Give me your coat! I need it!” Then when Clara asks him where he got it from, his first instinct is to lie. “I bought it from a shop.” Why lie? What did he do to the tramp? It goes unresolved. And by the end of the episode he has certainly either killed the Half-Face Man or talked him into his own death, both dreadful possibilities. That final confrontation in the restaurant above London, below a balloon made of skin, is Doctor Who at its best, the spiky intensity of the new Doctor raging against the matter-of-fact logic of his lamentable aggressor. The restaurant scene with Clara is one of the best written scenes in the history of the programme, full of quotable gags and disconcerting notes. “You don’t want to eat?” “Do you have a problem with the grey ones?” “Is there a children’s menu?” “There’s something else they’re not doing: breathing.” Deep Breath is a perfect introduction to a new Doctor but it takes a deep breath to throw oneself into this more dangerous Victoriana where droids steal people’s “good eyes” and our heroes impale their enemies on clock towers. Welcome to the greatest era of Doctor Who. If it’s not to your tastes, tough. The restaurant is closed.

2. THE PYRAMID AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Somehow, this nail-biting thriller was overlooked by fandom on transmission. Perhaps it’s because it feels like Part Two of a three-part narrative but to my mind, it is its own marvellous story. We only really need to know that the monks are bad to understand Pyramid. Daniel Nettheim directs from the off in dread mode, the slow-motion smashing beer bottle and the broken spectacles signalling something awful this way coming. This is a peculiarly earthly end of the world, one in which humanity kills itself far away from the Doctor’s involvement, a hungover scientist punching in a number with a misplaced decimal point. It’s worrying and real and gets under the skin if you think about it too much: Perter Harness has clearly been to some dark places in his consideration of how the world might realistically end. The last sequence in which the Doctor is trapped behind the door and is forced to admit he has been blinded is the stuff of the most intense season finale. Bill can do nothing but accept the monks’ invitation to save the Doctor and the Doctor himself disconcertingly resolute and accepting of his own death can do nothing. At the end of the world, the thing that comes between the Doctor and the monsters is a locked door and this time, he can’t get out. The Pyramid at the End of the World is so gripping precisely because it is so down to Earth.

DARK WATER / DEATH IN HEAVEN

I know it’s not for everyone. I was with a group of fans in Yorkshire watching Dark Water together. One fan shook his head at the conclusion and decried the episode as “totally tasteless.” My reaction: “So?” Doctor Who has tangentially been about death for a very long time and here it explores what comes after life head on. We start with Clara’s furious reaction to Danny’s ordinary death and the scene by the volcano sees the most explosive display of fireworks between our two leads, Capaldi’s Doctor ever more aggressive and strident. His later forgiveness, when has asks Clara, “Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?” is a stark and emotive reminder of  the kindness of this most troubled Time Lord. We are allowed some humour too: there’s the merciless Steve Jobs gag, the “breathe into a bag” gag and the “we’ve got a burner” gag, as well as my favourite: “Why? Was he an idiot?” But under all the jokes, Steven Moffat presents us with the worrying world of the Nethersphere. Danny Pink being presented with the Afghan boy he accidentally killed in service is as troubling and horrible as Doctor Who gets. The Cybermen in their glass tombs and parading down the steps of St Paul’s is classic series imaginary brought to vivid life for a new series of fans. The reveal of Missy’s identity is a masterstroke. The change of gender means we would never have guessed and Michelle Gomez is so utterly captivating that her sex doesn’t matter one jot. In the second episode, we witness the horrifying sight of Kate Stewart being pulled from a moving plane, flailing her limbs as she is swept into the night sky. The Doctor screams and a dreadful horror begins to hang in the air: the Master is winning. The death of Danny Pink and the long scenes in the graveyard are full of despair. The Doctor’s speech that “he had a friend once. We ran together when we were young. And I thought we were the same. But when we grow up we weren’t,” is the story of anyone’s childhood friendship. The Cyber Brig is a final literal salute to a character who has hung over the modern show from its sidelines and this acts as a moving and welcome goodbye. But there are moments of triumph too: the Doctor’s flight to the TARDIS is heart-poundingly exciting and his realisation that he is “an idiot” elicits this incarnation’s first genuine smile. But as the Doctor and Clara separate at the journey’s end, there is a sense of the mournful, the depressing. It’s an odd note to end a series on but is all the more unique and memorable for it. Sad is happy for deep people. This is Doctor Who written by Steven Moffat for himself. This is Doctor Who for adults. This is the most mature and harrowing season finale of them all and perhaps the greatest Doctor Who story ever told.

JH

#DoctorWhoLockdown - The Smith Years

The three seasons of Matt Smith’s tenure as the Doctor are each in their own way distinct. We start with the strange fairy-tale of Amelia Pond, then we’re sprung into the timey-wimey complexity of the heart of River Song before a split season sees off the Ponds and introduces a not-quite fully-formed Clara Oswald. Each season has a different agenda. As Steven Moffat would admit, the first follows the basic formula of a Russell T Davies series – the familiarity working against the differences. For the first time, the whole season is shot on HD and a new colour palette is introduced to the show, the result the most beautiful pictures the show had up to that point seen. The second is – give or take an episode or two – one, continuous story. It’s perhaps the most ambitious series ever made in terms of structure but to my feeble mind it falls short of greatness on multiple counts. The third starts with five short barn-storming movies then loses its way after Christmas, a result of scripts simply not being ready. Nevertheless, despite it being less than the sum of its parts, there are some very interesting and engaging episodes to found in Series 7B. Lastly, Matt Smith’s time as the Doctor ends with two blockbusters, both enormous successes and a worthy finish to the bold, brave, inconsistent and imaginative era which they bring majestically to a close. Things would be even more different from then on…

Here are the 39 stories ranked in order of preference. Just a quick note to add that although some of these entries may seem to condemn some tales without very much mercy, the articles are written with deep love for this show. I’d watch any of the Doctor Who episodes listed here again more than willingly, apart from perhaps Number 39.

39. THE REBEL FLESH / THE ALMOST PEOPLE

As an unleashed and unfunny Matt Smith might say, “’Ee by by by gum, it’s a rum do, this ‘un.” And it is. Matthew Graham’s second go at Doctor Who is even worse than his first misguided try-out. It’s flabbier, uglier, unwieldy, worthy and nonsensical. It seems to be trying to tell us something, but I’m not sure what. The flesh are people too? OK, so let’s kill Flesh Amy. The flesh should have equal rights? OK, so they’re in a darkened room plotting to start a war. Just how many Jennifers are there, why is one of them seemingly dead and stuck to a ceiling and why does nobody call her Jenny? Why are there eyes on the wall asking the question “Why?” What’s most irritating about this flaccid offering is the excruciating dialogue. A character repeating a word or phrase all but becomes a trope. Exhibit A: rubbishy rubbishy rubbish. Exhibit B: chinny chin chin. Exhibit C: I have things to do, things involving other things. The most egregious Exhibit D: Yes, it’s insane and it’s about to get even more insanerer. There are also terrible, hackneyed clunkers that no ordinary factory worker ought to get away with saying without being called out. “Strike at will;” “If it’s war then it’s war;” “Who the hell are you?” Perhaps the line that makes me want to crawl into my shoe the most is, “I could still feel how sore my toes got inside my red wellie boots.” I just can’t get past the dialogue. It’s devoid of character, unrealistic, ham-fisted and inelegant. And then the real Doctor slams Amy into a stone wall and screams in her face. God, I think if there’s a Doctor Who story I might eventually come to hate, it’d be this travesty of a two-parter.

38. JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE TARDIS

It’s got the title to end all titles but what was ever really going to lurk in the centre of the TARDIS? More corridors and a few rooms? The mystery of the time and space machine should probably remain just that. Although there are some exciting images here, especially the static, white engine room, looking inwards rather than outwards is usually anathema to Doctor Who. When the show becomes about the show, it’s often alienating, but more often dull. What really spells Journey’s failure most acutely though is the awful cast. Ashley Walters is just about passable but only when compared to the truly dreadful Mark Oliver. He brings a gruntish, arrogance to his character Bram belying an inability to deliver any line of dialogue at all convincingly. I’d possibly go so far as to say that this episode contains the weakest guest cast ever to arrive on a Doctor Who set. What’s more, they’re playing indolent, unlikeable scavengers who really don’t deserve the happy, timey-wimey ending they get here. With a setting which inevitably disappoints and a cast of characters with whom we hold no sympathy whatsoever, this is in the end an uninspired and dreary excursion.

37. THE CURSE OF THE BLACK SPOT

If you’re going to tell a pirate story, for heavens’ sake tell a pirate story. As soon as we’re in the mirror ship, we might welcome a nice piece of thematic plotting but all the gorgeous finery of that atmospheric ship dissipates and we’re on a futuristic set of black drapes and plastic curtains. For a tale of the high seas, there’s very little water to be found. It rather feels like a budget pirate film where the only ship the guys can afford is a harboured one, there’s no money for underwater filming and there’s certainly never a suggestion of sharks or sea monsters or lagoons. No, we’ve got a tepid father-son plot, a disappearing cast member and Lily Cole posing for Piratical Fashion Mag. And Rory’s death feels like a dramatic resolution bolted on to a story without one. Oh, for a return to the days of The Smugglers. “It will be a merry night, but not for ye!”

36. VICTORY OF THE DALEKS

It’s the third story of the Matt Smith era and the second to disappoint. We’ve got Winston Churchill vs the Daleks here so that’s a massive gut punch. How could this not have worked? The problem is that this isn’t the story of how the Daleks inveigled their way into Churchill’s War Rooms; it’s the dull story of the Dalek Progenitor and the birth of some other Daleks, less good-looking than the khaki variety. Once we’re onboard the Dalek ship and Matt Smith is left to act out a speech which feels like it was written for David Tennant against the Duplo Daleks and a Jammie Dodger, no amount of “Danny Boy”-ing can save this wasted opportunity.

35. THE WEDDING OF RIVER SONG

Sadly, this is the only season finale written by Steven Moffat to truly disappoint. He’s got 45 minutes to tie up the series-long River Song / Lake Silencio narrative, which has by now become perhaps needlessly complex and something of an albatross around the neck of the whole show. Moffat himself has described making the series in DWM like, “disappearing down a plughole.” This is that plughole. This is an episode that’s purpose it to wrap up plot threads and effectively put all the toys back in the box in surprising ways. But for those well versed enough in how the grammar of television works, we know the Teselecta’s going to be the answer thanks to its appearance and explanation in the Previously On… opening. The Wedding of River Song isn’t actually about anything. It’s a story that feels as if it’s trying to be spectacular – flying cars, “live” chess, Dickens on BBC Breakfast, the pyramid tombs – but it keeps being drawn back to Madame Kovarian, River Song, the Lake, the Silence. Resultantly, none of the explanations is particularly satisfying: Moffat’s spread himself too thinly. At least, however, this showcases the ambition of the showrunner. Not content with repeating the highly successful formula of seasons past, he goes for broke on something entirely new. It fails but its huge size and scope of endeavour can at least be admired and it’s only at the final hurdle that Moffat stumbles to the finish.

34. THE POWER OF THREE

Season 7A was going so well and then The Power of Three happens. It’s the weakest of the five Amy and Rory “movies,” chiefly because it hasn’t got the movie-sized idea at its centres that the others enjoy. The world’s invasion by small, black cubes isn’t cut from the same cloth as The Dalek Asylum, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, The Gunslinger or The Statue of Liberty as Weeping Angel. But The Power of Three is by no means totally poor. In between the grand standers comes this smaller piece of character work. It’s lovely to see Rory’s father again and Mark Williams is fantastic. His final exclamation to his son and daughter-in-law to go out and enjoy their travels is a gorgeous, kindly piece of writing, but it’s a shame Steven Moffat never follows it up. How criminal that we didn’t get to see what happened to Rory’s dad on screen. The ending of The Power of Three is famously fudged by Steven Berkoff in a typical actorly tantrum, and the sonic screwdriver as King Cop-Out necessarily comes into play here. I don’t mind the screwdriver but it only irritates here and in its incessant use in The Rings of Akhaten. There are some lovely moments throughout – especially the Doctor and Amy’s conversation on the wall - but The Power of Three feels piecemeal. It introduces Kate Stewart who fails to make much of an impression here; it’s a Doctor in the House play but it was done better in The Lodger; and it’s an earth invasion story with barely any spectacle.

33. COLD WAR

So the Ice Warrior has this new thing: it opens up and a slithering, lithe reptile comes out. It’s a monster movie pitch to end them all. We have one great monster but we really have two: the big lumbering one to terrify the kiddies and the silent, slippery one to terrify the adults. I’d go with that. The only thing is the second monster was delivered in the wrong size and its limitations are obvious throughout this otherwise well-directed submarine drama. Skinny puppet hands tremble pathetically around the head of Tobias Menzies, who tries his best to look scared. But there’s a definite feeling of a show struggling to achieve what it needs to be successful. Jenna-Louise Coleman’s newly arrived Clara is a shapeless character, partly due to the scripting issues with Series 7B. She does brave, companion-y things but she lacks a real voice. Who is this person? A baby-sitter? A rebel? A “normal” girl? There’s nothing yet for Gatiss to work from but he at least gives her some screen time with David Warner. Unfortunately, the lasting impression of the episode is the CGI Ice Warrior head, which like its puppetry arms, fails to impress. (Unusual for Doctor Who’s CGI to prove so lacklustre.) It’s a crushing shame because that new, physical Ice Warrior costume is as frightening and powerful as the Martians have ever looked. What a boon that they got to return under the next Doctor in all their glory.

32. THE GIRL WHO WAITED

The story Tom MacRae “fought” to get to the screens seems to have garnered a loyal fan following, but to my mind that “fighting” is written through this script so patently. At every opportunity, MacRae points up how important his little story is. I’m not sure how many times Amy makes it clear that she’s been on her own for 36 years but it’s far too often and far too frequently. “I don’t think I’ve smiled in 36 years,” she says. Where this should elicit sympathy, we’re left thinking, “36 years, yeah, we get it.” Bluntly, The Girl Who Waited is grossly overwritten. The tale does have a cruel sting in it though, which punctures the heart: it’s the moment we realise Matt Smith’s Doctor isn’t going to be kind. He looks at Amy across the room, they meet one another’s eyes… and he shuts the TARDIS doors. It’s a devastating moment and easily worth the laboured dialogue elsewhere.

31. NIGHT TERRORS

This is one to scare the children with. The nightmarish tale of George plays all the familiar beats of childhood terror and it’s filmed magnificently against the dark walls of the bedroom or the shadows of the doll’s house. When we’re not with George though, things go slightly awry. Danny Mays doesn’t know how to pitch his performance tonally and starts to pick up on Matt Smith’s rhythms rather than play the straight man. This is something that The Lodger got exactly right and it only makes Night Terrors feel like its poorer cousin. Dropping the Doctor into a familiar setting should feel anachronistic (as Pertwee does in the living room of the Farrells in Terror of the Autons) but when the setting warps into something as anachronistic itself, there’s no point of comparison. Having said that, there are some terrific, searing images on display here: the old lady eaten by the binbags; the eyeball in the drawer; Amy distorting horribly into one of the peg dolls. This episode’s job is to be weird. And on that count, it’s a major success, just a difficult one to truly engage with. Perhaps in a season with fewer blue, shadowy tales, it might have made its own oddball impression.

30. THE VAMPIRES OF VENICE

Toby Whithouse wrote some terrific Doctor Who episodes but The Vampires of Venice is the only one which feels a little bit like a cut and paste job, like Doctor Who by Numbers. It’s structured like a “typical” adventure in the way that say, an episode of The X Files would start with a de-brief in Mulder’s office and end with a climactic chase sequence amongst some hissing pipes. Here, we have the arrival in Venice, a suggestion of mystery, an exploration, a mid-story moment of jeopardy, a de-briefing, and a tete-a-tete with the baddie before the exciting showdown. That’s no bad thing. The dialogue is great, the camerawork is glorious and there’s so much chemistry between any number of paired characters. The “We are Venetians!” moment sizzles and the pre-titles sequence is fabulously funny. The quiet moment when the Doctor threatens Calvierri with the understated, “You didn’t know Isabella’s name” is a tremendous decision on the part of still-new boy Matt Smith. However accomplished this show looks and however strong some of its set-pieces, there’s still the feeling that you can see the structure at work, you can anticipate the beats and it ends up feeling a bit predictable and middle of the road. If The Vampire of Venice is MOR, though, we’ve got a magnificent favourite show!

29. THE ANGELS TAKE MANHATTAN

You can’t fault Steven Moffat for a lack of ambition. He revels in the clevernesses of scripting, sees deep joy in the gambits and twists of a thrillingly complex piece of writing. The only trouble is, when he’s riding that author’s bike too fast, he often risks going over the handlebars. Here, like in The Wedding of River Song (and probably much of Series 6), he goes for brain over heart. When Amy and Rory are zapped away into the past and a sobbing Matt Smith is left to dispose of an angel all by himself, our over-riding emotion is not one of sympathy or sadness; it’s one of confusion. We’re left going, “Wait… so if he can get back earlier in the adventure even though he definitely couldn’t, then…?” Moffat hasn’t set his stall all clearly enough. He’s not set up the rules of this time travel malarkey efficiently enough to allow this ending to work without further explanation. It’s a shame because there are lovely moments – the dash to see the final page; the film noir look of the early parts of the episode; the amazingly well-shot and scored fall from the tower block; that last shot of Amelia, wrapping the narrative up satisfyingly, tidily. But there’s a sense that we’re just not clever enough to have got all the rules yet and so The Angels Take Manhattan is not nearly so powerful as it could and probably should have been.

28. THE DOCTOR’S WIFE

I’ve never been enamoured with this possibly now iconic tale of the TARDIS, despite the high regard in which it seems to be held by fandom. For my money, it’s all a bit dour and ponderous. Suranne Jones does her dreadful “posh” accent and garbles or swallows important lines, seemingly unsure which she needs to emphasise. Still, there is much to enjoy here: the haunting and properly frightening episode in which Rory ages to death is harrowing stuff; the nightmare journey into the TARDIS corridors is the stuff of classic Doctor Who. It just takes a long time to get there and there’s a lot of dour techno-guff to wade through before the story really begins to take flight.

27. THE HUNGRY EARTH / COLD BLOOD

Chris Chibnall’s two-parter isn’t just a homage to the Pertwee years, it’s practically a resurrection. This is no bad thing. When it’s directly riffing off the early 70s tropes, it’s terrific: the drillhead; the church; the heat barrier; the Silurians themselves – it’s all great, wholesome Doctor Who. When we reach the second half though, and we’re sat across tables having conversations we don’t really get to see, as if Chibnall shies away from the difficult stuff, Cold Blood stalls in its tracks. Also, I’m a bit too long in the tooth at 34 years old to find “squeaky bum time” an acceptable choice of words from our Doctor. It goes through me far more than the burping bin or the farting Slitheen! There’s a possibility a much stronger version of this story existed once: with allosaurus wrapped up in balls and a non-linear second half, but what we’re left with feels quite easy and straightforward after a great opener. Frankly, the Silurians and the humans could never hope to co-habit the Earth in the Doctor Who world so the ending of the story was never going to be a climax, rather a stalling.

26. LET’S KILL HITLER

Series 6B premiers with a brazenly bold assault on the viewers’ expectations. We open with new girl Mels cutting across the corn field in her stolen vehicle, sending our heroes off to Berlin where Hitler is to be locked in a cupboard before we get on with the real story: a romantic comedy with one half of the yet-to-be lovey-dovey duo in the throes of his kiss of death. Let’s Kill Hitler works best of all first time round, its unpredictable nature its ace card, but there’s still loads to balk at after the event: how is a story like this even pitched? It’s got to be a turn-off for any new viewer: it’s simply so extraordinary. Fans don’t seem to like Let’s Kill Hitler. It’s a shame because it’s such a frothy, heady brew. Its one major failing, however, is the casual way the missing baby plot is dumped. Amy and Rory seem to have very quickly got over the fact the Doctor essentially helped lose their child. They don’t have it out with him after his casual apology at the start of the episode and then they’re off for more fun adventures at the story’s conclusion. Despite the fun of Let’s Kill Hitler, something as seismic as the loss of child is simply too big a subject to ignore. “Oh, it’s a time loop,” doesn’t quite cut it.

25. THE RINGS OF AKHATEN

Vilified on transmission, even by DWM, The Rings of Akhaten isn’t nearly as bad as its detractors would have us believe. There are two major problems in my books: the overuse of the screwdriver and that climactic Matt Smith speech. To take the former: it’s the only time the Doctor’s wand is irritating for me. Smith wrestles with it operatically and annoyingly throughout much of this tale and it really is used to escape disaster. By the close of Akhaten, I’d be happy to see the back of it. The second problem is more profound: I don’t know what this asinine speech is trying to do. Smith cries his way through it but it doesn’t mean anything. He’s seen the birth of the universe. So? It feels like Neil Cross is aiming for profound but he ends up writing dreck. Aside from these issues (and the fact that the scary mummy simply withers away on its escape) there is loads to love about Akhaten. It’s colourful, bizarre and every aspect of design comes together to create something arresting in its look. The Vigil are frightening, the scenes early on in which they follow Merry Gejelh proving merciless and sinister. Even the songs are lovely: Murray Gold steering just the right side of twee. It’s unusual. There’s nothing quite like The Rings of Akhaten but its uniqueness alone makes it a memorable voyage.

24. THE BEAST BELOW

The biggest issue with The Beast Below is not its own; it’s The Eleventh Hour. With such an incredibly successful, stone cold, knock out piece of brilliance as its introduction, any other script was going to struggle to follow it up. But The Beast Below is a little malformed anyway, slightly unsure of what it wants to be, who it’s about and indeed, what its own internal logic actually consists of. How exactly do the Winders have three faces? When are we going to be told they’re called the Winders? Why don’t we see Peter the Winder’s incredible make-up as showcased on Doctor Who Confidential? Where has that moment gone? There’s a feeling that The Beast Below has lost much of its translation in the editing suite. Amy’s talk with the Doctor by the windows also slides into mawkishness. Even Matt Smith’s performance seems a little more unfocussed and less well-disciplined. Still, the Winders themselves are a tremendous idea, the thought of being left alone in a lift with one a terrifying idea. There’s the scene on the giant tongue, Terrence Hardiman being brilliantly dependable, some outstanding design work, the memory booths, the CGI, that first floating-in-space scene. Perhaps The Beast Below spreads itself too thinly. Rather than seeing an aspect of the society of Starship UK, Steven Moffat attempts to show us it all, from its Queen to its literal underbelly.

23. NIGHTMARE IN SILVER

Neil Gaiman was quite unafraid to tell the world how disappointed he was with this, his second and last foray into the Doctor Who world. But to my mind, there’s much more to enjoy here than in the more focused but less freewheeling Doctor’s Wife. Here, Gaiman aims to tell a larger story. We’re in a future theme park, with bullet-time Cybermen, a castle under siege, a spaceship and an exploding planet. It aims to do so much more. There’s the creepy scene with the waxworks, the floating on the moon sequence, and the chess-playing Cyberman. Nightmare in Silver is a rich experience, although it does feel somewhat distant and difficult to engage with. The character work, as in The Doctor’s Wife, isn’t Gaiman’s strongest suit and the unbelievable punishment squad don’t exactly light any fires. But then, there’s the severed Cyber hand, the headless body and the oncoming army. Frankly, Nightmare in Silver is full to the brim with ideas, none of them particularly well-developed but all of them imaginative and stirring. Even down to the Cyber-mites!

22. THE GOD COMPLEX

Here, Nick Hurran auditions for the 50^th anniversary episode. Look at the camerawork: it’s mad. Only in The God Complex, The Day of the Doctor and the astonishingly well-made Sherlock episode The Lying Detective can we find Hurran freewheeling his way through a script in such self-styled weirdness. The God Complex is a perfect match for Hurran’s directorial panache which confuses even the geography of the viewer from both a scripting and shooting perspective. Exempting Rita, the character work isn’t terrific, and the ending in which we say goodbye to Amy and Rory doesn’t convince for a second, the “standing over your graves” line is gut-churning in its awfulness. But the thrill of The God Complex is in its strangeness. When we leave the hotel, like the walls of the virtual prison, everything falls down. But for those 35 minutes spent in the gauche corridors of the labyrinth, Toby Whithouse’s weird world is something quite wondrous.

21. THE DOCTOR, THE WIDOW AND THE WARDROBE

This Christmas Special is arguably Moffat’s weakest but its faults were more pronounced at the time of transmission and it has weathered the passage of time with admirable grace. Off the back of the elaborate and challenging Series 6, it was always going to seem almost disappointingly simple and even simplistic, the plot a linear journey through some woods. But out of context, that doesn’t seem to matter quite as much. There is something charming about this easy to follow, child-like tale of a brief trip in and out of Narnia. The pre-titles sequence is frankly astonishing: possibly the most exciting ever put to camera, maybe even the best of the whole series. The sequence in which “The Caretaker” introduces the rooms of the house typifies the childhood allure and magic of the Doctor. The ending is a little twee but it spoke to my step-daughter, just as the Androzani gag spoke to me. Surely that’s who Doctor Who is aimed at: a legend for everyone.

20. A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR

This was jaw-dropping. Divorced from its 2011 transmission date, everything seems so obvious now. But River as Amy and Rory’s daughter was a literal jaw-dropper. And before that bombshell, we get a lesbian Silurian, a good Sontaran, the triumphant punch-the-air return of Captain Avery and some more – ridiculous but joyous – spitfires! We also see Rory and the Doctor mount an attack on some soon-to-be exploding Cyberships and the Doctor bring down an army of headless monks without firing a single bullet. It’s a script which works so hard – throwing every thrill it can at the viewers. And it absolutely works. There is a real moment of horror too when Melody “turns into milk” as one of the children in my class put it at the time. It’s truly harrowing in a very human sense and the darkest individual moment of the whole Moffat tenure. Sadly, the episode doesn’t lead anywhere, its promise remains unfulfilled. River will not be saved. The baby will remain missing and everything else will rollick along as usual.  But for the time being, A Good Man Goes to War is riveting.

19. HIDE

Quietly and almost invisibly, Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine put in the best guest performances of the season, in their understated manner revealing the key themes of the episode itself. Their subtlety highlights Matt Smith’s almost irritating wackiness, here sadly at its most pronounced. Thankfully, he reins it in for the trip to the netherworld, where his usually unflappable Doctor becomes genuinely terrified. The crooked man himself is a sinister creation and there are tremendous “haunted house” staples throughout which add to the uncanny atmosphere of Hide. It’s a hallmark of Doctor Who to give its ghosts sci-fi explanations, but the show’s never revealed the ghosts to be a part of a love story across dimensions before. Unusually structured, thematically profound and with moments to spook, charm and haunt, Hide is a peculiar, idiosyncratic, rather lovely beast.

18. THE BELLS OF SAINT JOHN

In a revealing interview with DWM, Steven Moffat hailed The Bells of Saint John as the very epitome of average Doctor Who. If this is Moffat’s idea of average, it’s no wonder he got the top job. The pre-titles hook is disturbing; the scene in the rooftop restaurant the stuff of the best Hollywood output; there’s a crashing plane sequence, a motorbike ride up the side of the Shard and the return of Richard Intelligence Grant is an unexpected shuddersome moment. What’s not to enjoy in this wild, fast-moving introduction to Doctor Who anew? Jenna Coleman is a terrific new companion and it feels like the show is fresh and breezier after the departure of Amy and Rory. Celia Imrie does a great turn as Miss Kizlet, her final lines suddenly terrifying. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of The Bells of Saint John is that despite the huge ideas in play, the blockbuster action sequences and the cleverness of that teacup, it still feels fluffy and joyous, as if these things big moments are secondary to having a grand old lark. But then that’s Moffat to a tee.

17. CLOSING TIME

Gareth Roberts – the writer who went off the rails and was vilified for his opinions. Ironically, his work on the show got better and better and better. Here, in his last outing for Matt Smith, we get Gareth Roberts Unbound. The Doctor and Craig are mistaken for a gay couple by Lynda Baron, bringing up baby whilst defeating the Cybermen with love. There are bucketloads of charm on display here and it never gets saccharine. I tend to find James Cordon rather tepid and annoying but as Craig he excels, he captures our hearts. Him and Daisy Haggard make for the loveliest couple and we ache for everything to work out well for them. There’s also a gnashing Cyberman, the shushing gag and a segueing, cliff-hanger ending. If only we’d had the third in the Craig trilogy with the Sea Devils. It could have been magnificent. As it happens, the brilliance of Closing Time will have to do. It’s more than any of us probably deserve.

16. A TOWN CALLED MERCY

Doctor Who Discovers Westerns has historically been a bad move for the show, The Gunfighters for years derided in fandom as the worst of the worst. Thankfully, A Town Called Mercy rectifies the situation and we have a beautiful-looking, sun-soaked voyage into Olde Americana. Whilst Toby Whithouse’s tale of the Gunslinger looks a million dollars, it’s in the quiet character moments when it really comes to life. The most disconcerting comes when Matt Smith’s Doctor turns on Kahler-Jex and literally throws him out of the town. Watching our hero push and shove the small man through the streets in front of the town’s populace is extremely disturbing. The High Noon climax is nail-biting and cleverly worked out. If Doctor Who were ever going to attempt a Western again, I can’t imagine it beating this tremendous effort.

15. ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS

Doctor Who returns after a brief absence, bigger, bolder and better. Asylum of the Daleks is such a far cry from the likes of The Wedding of River Song it almost feels like a different show entirely. Frankly, it feels like the series just got its mojo back. The Daleks are bad-asses, the plotting robust and well-paced. The location work is strong and lavish, the sets are frightening in their rusting dankness. The dream sequence in which Amy sees the Daleks as people is strange and troubling. Perhaps, like Earthshock, it doesn’t quite hold up to repeated viewing, its ending proving a real shocker, but repeated viewing also reveals the cleverness of the script. Eggs, Eggsterm, Eggsterminate. Eggs = Souffle. Such well thought through feints are the trademark of Steven Moffat’s scripting and even here, in this story which seems to trammel its way forwards (and is directed with supreme assuredness), Moffat still makes time for these clever sleights of hand. Asylum of the Daleks is the sort of script produced by a master craftsman.

14. AMY’S CHOICE

Simon Nye’s one trip in the TARDIS and he doesn’t leave it! The money’s clearly running out: the monsters of the piece are pensioners and the villain’s definitely a talker but Amy’s Choice is mesmeric fare. Toby Jones’s Dream Lord is a revolting figure, especially when he’s at his nicest. The sound work is tremendous: the birdsong is somehow pervasive but we never hear it begin. It’s Nye’s script which sings the loudest though – full of his usual macabre gags (self-harm, anyone?). Like Moffat, Nye understands that when Doctor Who is at its best, it’s terrifying and hilarious at the same time. The ending doesn’t quite work: Amy’s sacrifice seeming unearned and unbelievable. But the remainder is the stuff of classic Doctor Who, bringing the innocuous world to vivid, frightening life. Even the butcher’s shop becomes a place to fear.

13. THE CRIMSON HORROR

Mark Gatiss’s finest hour. No doubt. Tasked with writing a script that Steven Moffat wouldn’t have time to oversee, he does his friend the best service imaginable, delivering a Victorian tale of exhilarating originality and fine campery. So many images forge their way into the memory: blinded Ada feeling her way up the stairs to the attic, the crimson “monster” Doctor unable to move his jaw,  Mr Sweet hiding on the chest of Mrs Gillyflower, the organ, the rocket, the photograph. Gatiss’s script is replete with so many successful Doctor Who elements, it makes one wonder what a series under his direction would have been like. The Crimson Horror makes me wonder if it wouldn’t have been quite marvellous.

12. DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP

Is this the script that got Chris Chibnall the job as showrunner? It’s such a ballsy, funny, bold approach to Doctor Who storytelling, that it’s a shame the joy of the eclectic gang he builds here hasn’t been quite transmitted to his current TARDIS team. Whatever the present situation on the box, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship was a shedload of fun. It bounds from scene to scene: Africa, Egypt, ladders and lightbulbs, spaceships, dinosaurs, pterodactyls on the beach, triceratops, robots, T-Rex, Silurians. It’s almost as if Chris Chibnall had missed being involved in Series 6 and wanted to rectify the budget-loss problems of The Hungry Earth from Series 5 with a show that threw everything it could at the bursar. He succeeds triumphantly and even makes room for a sting in the tale, making Matt Smith’s Doctor more dangerous than ever. Along the way, he manages to include the crudest joke in the history of the show (“only my balls”) and the most lascivious threat from a villain in the history of the show (“I will break you in.”) I’d love to see Chibnall pushing at the boundaries of what Doctor Who can achieve now as he did then. And I don’t mean the dull Ruth-Doctor lore stuff. I’m talking about making the show the funniest it can be, the most exciting it can be, the crudest it can be. Here, he manages all three of those.

11. THE IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT / DAY OF THE MOON

When a story returns to the TARDIS for a de-briefing, I get annoyed. It feels like we’re not moving forwards anymore, rather stopping to catch our breaths. This two-parter manages it at least twice but it still manages to fill our screens with ironically unforgettable iconography and travels at a pace most other stories only dream of reaching. It’s so fast that great swathes of action are only ever alluded to. What happens in the three months between episodes?! The deserts of Utah make for the most unusual and vivid of Doctor Who settings. The corridors of the White House are a strange fit and seeing the Doctor sat at the desk of the Oval Office is an image to conjure with; a definite publicity photo call if ever there was one. The Silence are a creeping, unsettling menace. The pre-titles sequence of Day of the Moon is bold, brazen and delightful. Moffat really was the master of the early “hook.” The fall of the Silence is a terrific piece of plotting, though how the Doctor planned to use a video of them telling the population to “kill us all on sight” before it was ever conceived or recorded is curious. There are also elements which seem like they might be important later which aren’t: who took the photo of Amy and Melody and why is it in the girl River’s bedroom? With a script so ambitious though, so complex and so adventurous, it was bound to elicit a few cracks. Otherwise, there are few tales in the whole of the Doctor Who canon which can really hope to match the scale, ingenuity and breadth of this remarkable two-parter.

10. THE SNOWMEN

Yet again, Steven Moffat wows the viewer with the number of ideas he’s happy to throw away: the snowmen themselves are rarely used, the Doctor as Sherlock Holmes lasts one scene, the memory worm is introduced for comic effect and makes its appearance at the tale’s climax just long enough later for us to have forgotten about it. Moffat is the master at keeping those plates spinning. This is Clara’s story though, the story of how she rescued the Doctor before her tragic fall. It’s also full of magic, the kind of Disney magic the show rarely aims for. When it does so however, it’s entrenched, engulfed in Doctor Who’s idiosyncratic magic too. The TARDIS in the clouds, at the top of an invisible spiral staircase feels like the stuff of Mary Poppins, but here Mary is dragged from the edge by an ice queen and dies. The children are saved by their nanny and their nanny’s lover, but not for long. The intelligence is defeated by their unquenchable tears. That’s what makes The Snowmen such a memorable tale: it’s lush and gorgeous and magical but it’s also sad and leaves us hanging, a family crying on Christmas Day. Now there’s chutzpah.

9. THE LODGER

The first outing for James Cordon’s Craig just pips his Cyber encounter in the poll by a few places. The tale of Something at the Top of the Stairs is a simpler one, but its heart is afire. Before the show returned, romantic comedy would never have felt like the right fit for the series but it absolutely works. The sci-fi is secondary to the indefinable magic going on between Craig and Sophie but both are played to their fullest. In fact, the moment when the elusive couple eventually become just that works as just a strong a sci-fi climax as a romantic one. Matt Smith’s Doctor is at his most alluring here too, contrasting beautifully with the earthlier James Cordon. The duo never try to outdo one another; they play their respective parts faithfully and this never turns into a cast of one-upmanship, despite Cordon’s status as a star in his own right. The Lodger is a small charming tale of how an eccentric Doctor helps the love between two retiring types blossom and on that tiny count, it’s a rather beautiful success.

8. THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR

With no money, no time and no sets left, Steven Moffat delivers the funereal bleakness of The Name of the Doctor, perhaps mirroring his then mood? As production on Series 7 crashes around him, both Moffat and the Doctor are left feeling bereft. The planet of Trenzalore has nothing left on it but graves, the TARDIS has been gutted: there is a feeling that everything is being stripped back to reveal the core of our hero. Matt Smith is wonderful here, sad and defeated, even as he kisses River for the final time. Jenna Coleman, despite not having had much to work with during Series 7B, brings her all to this climactic story. Everybody is feeling the mood of the atmospheric terror of Trenzalore, not least the muted and sinister Richard E Grant but also the distant and lovely Alex Kingston. When we think about The Name of the Doctor, it comes with a feeling of deep sadness and dark shadows. Doctor Who will last forever, but this is as good a final story as we could hope for.

7. VINCENT AND THE DOCTOR

It’s all about those last ten minutes. As Vincent, Tony Curran cries tears of joy and our hearts burst in sympathy. Richard Curtis’s script though is otherwise pedestrian. There’s a sense that the trip to France is rather laconic and restful, and it makes for a unique atmosphere in a Doctor Who story. We are able to immerse ourselves in the world which seems set against Vincent from the off. There are some great gags, as you’d expect from Curtis: the “Where’s he got to now?” moment is a cracker. The location work, and particularly the lighting, are sumptuous and blissful. We relax to look at the stars and they transform into Van Gogh’s starry night. This is a reflective, open-minded script with an underlying profound sadness layered throughout. “Why ae you crying?” asks Vincent and Amy remains unaware as to the answer, underlining the unsaid sadness within each of us. It’s complex and classy, Bill Nighy’s understated turn as Doctor Black perhaps personifying what a strong and assured production this is. But again, it’s all about those last ten minutes. They are breathtakingly, alarmingly affecting and some of the best Doctor Who has ever produced.

6. THE PANDORICA OPENS / THE BIG BANG

Steven Moffat’s first finale. How else would the Coupling writer dramatise the end of the world than as a cheap sitcom in a museum? This is a story of two distinct halves. The first is the bigger, brasher one, the second the talkier, funnier one. Both are full of love and equally magnificent. The Pandorica Opens itself opens with an ambitious and rousing pre-titles sequence, followed by the Indiana Jones-style Underhenge scenes. There is the hauntingly wonderful moment - left hanging - in which the Doctor asks Amy if it has ever occurred to her that her life doesn’t make sense because her house is too big. It catches us in our tracks. Then there’s a headless Cyberman and its poison darts before a race to the finish as River visits the house of Amelia and Rory kills his fiancée before the universe explodes. We’re then into mop and fez territory. In twelve minutes you can “suck a mint or have a fast bath.” There are stone Daleks and trips back through time, back through our heroes’ triumphant Series 5 adventures. Wrapping up the Flesh and Stone mystery is a touch of perfection and it’s a real shame they couldn’t get the shot of Matt rushing through the bedroom in The Eleventh Hour to work in the edit. We loved the timey-wimey plotting so much that Moffat made it his modus operandi the following year (perhaps mistakenly). The drunken giraffe is introduced at the wedding disco and the mummy on the orient express foretold. There is so much in this feast of a finale that it’s impossible to list all its wonderful elements. Perhaps my favourite though, is when Matt Smith kisses Amy’s hand and tells her she’ll “have [her] family back.” It’s a quiet and kind and beautiful moment in an otherwise complicated rollercoaster or glorious storytelling.

5. THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR

Steven Moffat’s 50^th anniversary. At the time, truth be told, I was a little disappointed. Why no Ian? Why not use the Moment’s changing form as a way to give the old Doctors their deserved cameos? Now, with a bit of distance, I struggle to think how it could have been bettered. Sure, there’s a little bit too much twatting about in the woods and a little bit too much sulking in a dungeon. But these scenes only seem excessive when pitted against the unparalleled wonder of those around them: the Time War itself is truly epic in its onscreen conception, the sort of all-out space war we rarely see in Doctor Who. The Doctor’s flight via helicopter-driven TARDIS into Trafalgar Square the stuff of movie-sized stories. The scenes on Gallifrey feel like deep lore and mythology with all the grandeur those terms imply and none of the often attendant boredom. The Zygon-UNIT plot perhaps feels secondary but anything leading to Peter Capaldi’s speech at the end of The Zygon Inversion must get brownie points. John Hurt’s War Doctor is haggard and resistant, but at the finish proves himself to be our Doctor through and through, just before the ultimate incarnation solidifies behind Matt Smith to talk about paintings and scratch his nose one last time. This is as thorough a celebration of what makes Doctor Who as we are ever likely to experience in just one show. Perhaps the closest the classic series came was The Five Doctors, but even in 1983, viewers could never have imagined a world in which “All 13!” becomes the triumphant cry of our incoming, eyebrow wielding new hero. Spectacular.

4. THE TIME OF THE DOCTOR

In the light of The Day of the Doctor, the following month’s Christmas Special went largely uncelebrated, fans still reeling after the seismic 50^th revelry. However, Matt Smith’s swansong is perhaps even more crammed full of delights. There are certainly several moments which stimulate the tear ducts. The death of Handles is surprisingly upsetting, the reveal of the ancient, wizened 11^th Doctor is heart-stopping. There’s a time in the episode when it suddenly becomes a possibility that we might not meet “our” Matt Smith again, and we can’t even remember when we last saw him. As Clara reads the maxim from the cracker, the Doctor looking wistfully into the middle distance, a sense of great loss begins to creep over the viewer (before Moffat typically deflates it with a good gag). This really is the end though. And during it all, we get invisible Sontarans, wooden Cybermen, hoards of Daleks, an army of Silence, the clerics... Everything from the Matt Smith era comes together, wrapping the era up in a neat bow harking right back to the crack in Amy’s bedroom wall, as if the whole three and a half years were one neat Mobius strip. It’s blissfully satisfying, deeply heartbreaking and as is par for the course with Steven Moffat, incredibly clever. With every viewing of The Time of the Doctor, yet more complexity is revealed. This is the work of a fiendishly clever mind and should be found up there alongside the classics. It’s one of the all time best.

3. THE ELEVENTH HOUR

To think that the high-ups at the BBC weren’t sure whether Doctor Who could survive without David Tennant! (So easily, they must have forgotten that it survived without Christopher Eccleston.) Matt Smith and Steven Moffat land with such assuredness, such insouciance, such vitality that this vision of what Doctor Who can next be seems to come fully formed and with supreme confidence. From Smith’s smile as his head pops from the TARDIS to his valiant “Who da man?” at the climax, we are captivated. This is a story with so much to prove: a new Doctor to convince us, a new writerly voice to be swayed by. On both counts, it exceeds expectation because the two things work in unison, Moffat understanding that the Doctor is the heart of the show. No TARDIS, no screwdriver, 20 minutes to go and this new guy is gonna go and save the day! And he does so with such aplomb that we don’t mind that he wants to get undressed and put on a dickie bow before he zooms off again. This is perhaps as triumphant as Doctor Who has ever been and from here, we’ll go anywhere with Matt Smith.

2. A CHRISTMAS CAROL

The first and best of Moffat’s Christmas Specials: and that’s saying something because his Christmas Specials are to die for! Michael Gambon’s frustrating, damaged turn as Kazran Sardick is the perfect foil for Matt Smith’s Doctor, now with the knowledge of success energising his performance yet further. Here are two acting monoliths, ready to do combat. Their scenes together are a delight: poignant, haunting, sad and complicated. As Kazran’s memories warp and weft, Gambon by turns plays each moment for what it’s worth. Moralistically, this is a ruthless story and one which can’t allow itself a happier ever after, Kazran’s last night with Abigail being exactly that. But it does however reveal that matters of the heart are the at the heart of Christmas and richer or poorer, we can all enjoy the celebrations if we have people to love around us. And throughout this rich tapestry of a special, Murray Gold has his best day. The score here is incessantly beautiful, culminating in Katherine Jenkins’s magical song. This could be a Christmas movie in its own right. As we see the Doctor and his party riding a shark-led sleigh through the cloudbelt, we know that Christmas cannot be more enchanting, spellbinding and in the end sorrowful than this.

1. THE TIME OF ANGELS / FLESH AND STONE

Matt Smith’s first outing proves ironically to be his best. For my money, the more unsure Smith of his first series delivers the most interesting performance. Here, his Doctor is as complete as one could ever hope for a Doctor to be. The part is such a natural fit for him. He doesn’t need the sometimes enforced, zany flailing of his later stories. What he does here is plenty because Matt Smith is quite eccentric enough. Aside from his holistically brilliant frontman, Steven Moffat delivers a script which is belt and braces Doctor Who at its absolute nail-biting best. This is an Earthshock story, a Satan Pit story, a story in which the action Will. Not. Stop. Moffat’s keen sense of physical geography allows the story to move forever upwards. We start below the mountain which itself has an upturned spaceship at its peak. From the labyrinth of deep catacombs, we climb ever upwards to the ship itself, then into its corridors, before traversing its forest to get to the control deck. All the while, the weeping angels are coming... Even as a precis, it sounds unbeatable. Adam Smith directs proceedings breathlessly. If this were any other action movie, it’d be a Hollywood hit. Look at the first ten minutes of Flesh and Stone alone. We’re in the caves, then on the roof, then in a corridor, then stuck there, then “there isn’t a manual for this,” then the lights go out, then the angels are coming, then we’re in another corridor, but the angels are STILL coming and we need to move! Throughout, the magnificent Iain Glen stoically utters his lines as if reciting gospel. “We don’t have bullets to waste.” “Do not let it move.” “The angels are advancing on all sides.” All his readings come out in a monotone but earthy cadence. We trust him and his death is felt. Matt Smith sheds silent tears for him before shockingly realising that time can be unwritten. The very nature of Doctor Who is suddenly about to be turned on its head. What’s best about this whole story is that the geography that carries us through the adventure is the key to its solution. The ship, we forget, is on its side, and it needs the artificial gravity switching off to allow the angels to tumble to their deaths. Simple in hindsight but in the event unpredictable; now there’s complete writing genius, and I don’t use the term lightly. What is genius if not discovering something obvious that everybody else has been blind to? This is the sort of story we like to think Doctor Who manages every week. The truth of it is, no show on Earth could manage anything quite so heart-stoppingly brilliant even if it tried its very best. We’ve got the most glorious pre-titles sequence, the ultimate cliff-hanger, the greatest monsters, the chilliest chills, the cleverest writing and up to this point, the best Doctor the show has ever had. The Time of Angels is unassailable Doctor Who. I can’t think of a single thing I’d change about it.

JH