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Radio Times - Doctor Who's top ten episodes of the modern era (as voted by you)
Mulett
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The Radio Times seems to be doing its bit for New Who's 10th anniversary (only two days to go, people!). In all, 280,859 votes were cast in the RadioTimes.com's poll to find the best episode since 2005.
Here's the outcome:
10. The End of Time (2009, 2010) [5.37% of the overall vote]
9. Silence in the Library / The Forest of the Dead (2008) [6.09%]
8. Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways (2005) [7.01%]
7. The Girl in the Fireplace (2006) [8.51%]
6. Army of Ghosts / Doomsday (2006) [8.61%]
5. The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances (2005) [9.99%]
4. The Day of the Doctor (2013) [13.28%]
3. The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End (2008) [13.3%]
2. Vincent and the Doctor (2010) [13.7%]
1. Blink (2007) [14.3%]
So no out and out winner, and quite an even spread across writers.
The top ten is weighted quite heavily to the RTD era though (eight of the top ten) and six are David Tennant stories (seven if you include Day of the Doctor).
Here's the outcome:
10. The End of Time (2009, 2010) [5.37% of the overall vote]
9. Silence in the Library / The Forest of the Dead (2008) [6.09%]
8. Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways (2005) [7.01%]
7. The Girl in the Fireplace (2006) [8.51%]
6. Army of Ghosts / Doomsday (2006) [8.61%]
5. The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances (2005) [9.99%]
4. The Day of the Doctor (2013) [13.28%]
3. The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End (2008) [13.3%]
2. Vincent and the Doctor (2010) [13.7%]
1. Blink (2007) [14.3%]
So no out and out winner, and quite an even spread across writers.
The top ten is weighted quite heavily to the RTD era though (eight of the top ten) and six are David Tennant stories (seven if you include Day of the Doctor).
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I'm glad The Empty Child /The Doctor Dances made the list and its nice to see Vincent and the Doctor so high up above the finally episodes. Personally I think Human Nature/The Family of Blood is a glaring omission, they are great episodes and thought they were widely popular so kind of expected to see it, but for me The Impossible Planet/The Satan's Pit and Midnight is the sadly not in there how the hell public type response.
Edit - Just as a self indulgent side note my top ten off the top of my head.
10. Amy's Choice
9. Listen
8. Mummy on the Orient Express
7. The Unquiet Dead (underrated)
6. Blink
5. The God Complex
4. Human Nature/The Family of Blood
3 The Impossible Planet/The Satan's Pit
2. Midnight
1. The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
I think Vincent and the Doctor was very much Richard Curtis's baby, even if he wasn't formally in charge of everything.
When RadioTime.com ran a 50th anniversary poll in 2013, more than 20,000 readers voted and David Tennant was named 'Best Doctor' with a whopping 56.1% of the vote. Matt Smith was second with 15.93%.
Billie Piper was Best Companion with 25.09% of the vote, with Elisabeth Sladen second (15.42%) and Catherine Tate third (12.32%).
This does tend to be the way polls go elsewhere.
Because the truth is - even if modernist fans don't want to face up to it - RTD's show was exciting and entertaining whereas Moffat's show isn't.
Being entertaining outweighs any poor writing or lack of substance for normal viewers, especially when it's a bit of family fun like Doctor Who. I remember hearing so many people at the time say they thought Stolen Earth/Journey's End was absolutely brilliant, even though they didn't understand a moment of it. The new paradigm Daleks were a complete turn off for most viewers, whereas all RTD had to do was make the middle bit rotate so the Dalek could fire in all directions and people's jaws instantly dropped open. Even going up stairs was received with amazement, even though it wasn't new. But that shows what an impact the show was making on people by McCoy's time. I suspect in 30 years from now, much of RTD's show will be preserved in popular culture - like Pertwee and Baker's years. Who will remember the Silence story arc or that Clara was splintered throughout the Doctor's timeline?
People want to watch exciting, entertaining shows live. Other stuff can be PVR'd or watched on-demand later.
Oh, and I think Clara leaving, then coming back, then leaving, then coming back repeatedly is messy and annoying. I wish she'd just go and be done with it. In hindsight, it makes me respect RTD's decision to recast when Eccleston dithered about returning.
An obvious list, and it's striking how many of those were 'event' episodes or were 'bigger' episodes and therefore probably just remain in the general publics'/fans' memory more than others. Glad to see some Eccleston in there though.
Also, don't agree with the top spot. Blink is a very good episode but not the best in that list, let alone the best of the whole 10 years.
Apart from Vincent and the doctor and the end of time, I think every entry that is in that list deserves to be there, but I would have changed the order of their ranking somewhat.
haha i know whats all that about?!
instantly rendered the survey pointless to me.
There's still time for DWTV's Rank the Revival: http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/revival-face-off-semi-final-2-72523.htm
What does surprise me a litte is the number of finales in there but RTD does know how to combine pace plus story using well known enemies most of the time. End of Time wasn't my favourite but I suppose as Tennant;s swansong it was bound to be popular for the regeneration.
But kudos to Steven Moffat for creating some new aliens which really did scare and a likeable heroine in Blink and getting the number one slot. I really enjoyed Vincent too for the sympathetic portrayal of mental illness and it was all quite moving really.
I was most distressed by Matt's Doctor and Moffatt's efforts, although it is improving now with Capaldi!
That's all I have to say.
Story is key for me, and one of the things that's lacked since Moffat took over is the stellar second two parter of the series that RTD first three series had (and the fourth to but it was overshadowed by the brilliant Midnight)
But I recognise popularity of a character can skew interest.
With each reasonable, reasoned, analytical post that was being made I was reading down, thinking 'this can't continue'... and then you went and played the 'opinion phrased as immutable truth based on specious interpretation of data' card and proved me sadly right.
I feel that's also part of the slanting towards the RTD era: as writers he and Moffat seem equal in popularity but Moffat's writing was 'new' during RTD's era, rather than his own - so the RTD era reaped the benefit of it. Again, the show in general also seemed new and exciting, because it was recently returned, whereas with the Moffat era fans are more familiar and more jaded with it. They've seen the formula too much (which actually has changed very little between the two periods).
Freshness and newness are always going to be big factors in terms of generating excitement. It doesn't necessarily reflect much about the quality at all. It's extremely specious reasoning to say that an older show not generating as much excitement as a younger show must be of lower quality. People get jaded. It's especially specious reasoning when the latter writer was one of the major people generating that former excitement (shown by the presence of 100% of Moffat's RTD era episodes featuring in the list).
(11. The Eleventh Hour
10. Amy's Choice
9. Listen
8. Midnight
7. Father's Day
6. Silence In The Library/Forest of the Dead
5. Dalek
4. Human Nature/Family of Blood
3. Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways
2. Blink
1. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
I feel I want to put more from the Matt Smith era but...the stories just aren't there! His best episodes were -
The Eleventh Hour
Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone
Amy's Choice
The Lodger
The Doctor's Wife
The Girl Who Waited
The God Complex
Asylum of the Daleks
The Crimson Horror
The Name of the Doctor
Though I still don't rate any but Amy's Choice in my top 10, and that's cause it was a refreshingly different episode. Something like The Girl In The Fireplace, Human Nature/Family of Blood and Blink all easily beat anything during Moffat's own era (despite him writing two of those stories...)
I'm wondering whether Netflix are using the newer masters of these older episodes, the ones that they put on the 'complete series' Blu-ray set? I say that cause this episode looked better than I've ever seen it. They can't do a HD master because the first four series' were shot in SD, but they upscaled them for Blu-ray so I'm guessing they did a bit of picture processing as well. It seems to have lost some of that 'CBBC sheen' that some of series 1 had on it. Unless I'm just imagining it...
There are many episodes that seem to be viewed through Rose-tinted spectacles (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/06/26/article-0-13C66618000005DC-286_634x904.jpg
People do vote higher for what sticks in their minds. I did a post-Series 7/pre-anniversary thread whereby everyone rated all 102 episodes of the revived series out of 5, and then I ranked them - somewhat unsurprisingly Series 7 finale The Name of the Doctor came top of the list - though few would suggest it is the best episode in the past ten years, or even second-best. It's just that on account of being most recent, it's remembered differently.
I prefer EoT: Part Two to EoT: Part One, myself. I mean I'll admit that I'm not a fan of either part, though the latter was largely inoffensive to me. Part One, I rank as the second-worst episode of the revived series after The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe. I can only say I'm glad it's Christmas specials that sit at the bottom of that list
In this week’s Radio Times he describes Blink as “perfectly serviceable, nothing special” which made me wonder if he was a little deflated that in polls like this (public polls rather than Whovian forum polls) his own version of Who continues to be overshadowed by the RTD era (even though, in this poll, his own RTD-era episodes have rated so well).
I still think he could pull it out of the bag, however, with Capaldi!
That could be Moffat being self deprecating though, and not wanting to sound smug by saying yes Blink is the best. (though I haven't read the full interview)
I would be really surprised if that was his genuine opinion of the episode, even though I don't hold it up as the best and think its slightly overrated and an episode not to watch often as it loses it power but it is undeniably one of the most note worthy episodes made.
I'm hoping that when a new showrunner(s) takes over (whenever that may be) they bring real change and create an era that's distinct from the past two that are quite similar. Think its important for DW future health/survival for that to happen and be successful dong it.
Yeah you've got to imagine him saying that with his sarcastic tone. He knows it's a top episode!