I've done several threads on the best Doctor, series etc as well as reviewing the recent BBC 3 repeats from Midnight to the Pandorica Opens to all of Series 6. Having looked at the best of a lot I was wondering about doing one on the worst of. On all my "best of" threads no ones just talking about their favourite Doctor or series, their also talking about their least favourite. And hey, while they are (thankfully) few abd far between there has at least been 1 story or feature of the show that even die hard fans havent liked e.g. while series 6 is one of my favourite series of all time there were a few moments in the repeats I HATED e.g. Craig blowing up the cybermen with love. WTF!

So, in your opinion, considering the whole of the near 50 year history of an otherwise beloved show, what is the lowest Dr Who has sunk. To be honest, there's no single episode of Dr Who I've ever found awful or havent ever found ANYTHING good about, hey, I'm a fan, however there are some bits I find hard or embarrassing to watch. For me the LOW point is the 80's, especially the McCoy era, though there are some gems in there (if anyone could recommend some good 7th Doctor episodes I'd eb grateful, I do quite like McCoy). While I loved the majority of the 10th and the 4th Doctor's eras, there last ferw stories I wasnt so keen on. And while 11 is my all time FAVOURITE Doctor and Series 5+the majority of Series 6 are my favourite series, there's many moments in series 6 I dont like. So what do you think? What's your least favourite story. What's your least favourite Doctor? Or what's your worst series/season?

Worst story I've seen so far is Delta and the Bannermen. A lame parody of a Doctor Who story with very little to redeem it.

Good McCoy? Easy. Remembrance of the Daleks, The Happiness Patrol, Battlefield and Survival. Luckily those stories comprise almost all of my McCoy viewing to date

For me, there's never been a series that was all bad (and only ever one series that was all good; series 14). Generally speaking every era of Who is a mixture of good and bad.

I've loved every episode since 2005, but some of the small things which have annoyed me include:
The "amor omnia vincit" ending in so many of Series 6's episodes. I enjoyed all the stories, but could have done without so many similar plot resolutions.

I could have done without the insane hungry electric skeleton Master and the Tenth Doctor's moaning in The End of Time, but I liked the episode aside from those things.

Been watching since 2006 and the only episode i've wanted to turn off halfway through is The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe. It was awful but worse, it was boring.

I love "Delta and the Bannermen", but in a guilty pleasure sort of way, and certainly prefer it to "The Happiness Patrol", "Battlefield" and "Survival"

The low point in McCoy's era for me is "Time And the Rani".

The low point in Classic Who for me is "The Twin Dilemma".

The low point in New Who for me is the Bad Wolf Bay scene in "Doomsday".

Series 4 of New-Who

Cyber King. ¬.¬

Series 6 was IMO AWFUL.I began thinking to myself, why am I watching this?Then I only watched Series 6 for entertainment, after Let's Kill Hitler was broadcast.That episode I hate with a passion and I would go back in time to stop it being made.

Whilst I agree with you 100% that it is a parody of a Doctor Who story, I still find that I enjoy it. And I think the reason for that is that it has style and personality that a lot of Doctor Who stories fail to achieve. It really has a strong aesthetic, with its cartoonish sensibility very well realized onscreen.

It's actually really well executed, for what it is; the script is very profficient and well written; it just isn't really appropriate content-wise.

For the above reasons, i just cannot bring myself to dislike this story, because there's too many admirable elements; it just shouldn't have ever been made. It was a misjudgement, but not a badly executed one.


Now, The Happiness Patrol: THAT is garbage. It's much lauded 'satire' is nothing of the sort, it's much praised 'noir' aesthetic cheaply and unstylishly handled, it's subtexts entirely irrelevant (the whole gay thing), and it's plot (when shorn of the above affectations) utterly generic Doctor who - without managing to actually be entertaining along the way. At three episodes it seems interminable.

I've no problem ranking this story as the very worst Doctor Who serial.

Really easy one this, isn't it?

Paradise Towers, quite simply the worst Doctor Who story there has ever been, yes, even worse than Love and Monsters, and that's a tough ask in itself, though it does have it's own special spot as worst New Who Episode.

A Good Man Goes To War - although loved Rory vs The Cyberman scene at the start..it doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny but great scene non the less.

Let's Kill Hitler - not one redeeming feature imo.

season 24
The Twin Dilemma
The Daleks turning the Cybermen back into a laughing stock.
The Tenth Doctor moaning about regeneration

The Happiness Patrol, Silver Nemesis and Battlefield top my "worst of..." lists every time. The rest of the McCoy era stories aren't that far from the top either. Voyage of the Damned is in my view the worst that the new series has produced so far.

The Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory and Eric Saward.

See, this is why I'm hesitant about McCoy, I've heard lots of good things about stories like Battlefield, Survival, Happiness Patrol but have not seen anything good. With all these stories I've never been able to watch past one or 2 episodes, I just cant. The only one I've been able to watch all the way through is curse of fenric and that's not nearly as good as it's cracked up to be. And what I've seen of McCoy's first season is just truly dreadful. While there are some gems in there e.g. some of the darker Peter Davidson or Colin Baker stories, I think that the 1980's as a whole were a dark time for Who. The only thing I've seen 7 in which I'd say is REALLY good is not a 7th Doctor story at all but ab 8th Doctor story, the TV Movie.

Also heard good things about Ghost Light but not sure whether to check it out. Is it any good?

So much depends on what things you like. If you like a straightforward plot where it's clear exactly what is going on, then Ghost Light is probably not for you. If you like wit and wordplay, strong themes, and being swept up in weirdness, then go for it.

What was it about Fenric, Battlefield, Survival etc. that put you off? Script, characters, special effects? We might be able to guide you to something you like if we know what you like.

See, I'm not even really sure what it is that's so bad about them. The special effects are much better than in 60's and 70's Who but this then makes the bad special effects then seem even worse. In terms of script and characters, that whole era seems to have some really good ideas and potential but the stories never quite live uo to that e.g. the idea behind Battlefields quite good but in the end it seems a bit silly. 7 feels more like a clown than the dark guy he was meant to become, and the musics dreadful, hate the disco-y incidental music and Ace irritates me. For me, this era of Who really shows how Dr Who went pretty unloved during this time, it's obvious that the people at the top wanted to get rid of it. It's a Dr Who on it's last legs, which almost everyone seems to want dead.

It's the cartoony sound effects and sparkly pyrotechnics that spoil McCoy stories .... that, Bonnie Langford and a logo that looked like it was designed for DWM more than it was for the screen.

Also the dreadful synthesiser music and shot-on-videotape look make his era seem extremely cheap and tacky. If you can get past all the technical stuff the stories aren't so bad.

But my least favourite personally is The Two Doctors because it's such an awful blot on Troughton's legacy. I can't believe the Second Doctor would be so completely unable to resist being changed into an Androgum. Besides that there's the location in Spain for no good reason, freakishly tall Sontarans, Jamie looking too old to be believable, the unbearably silly restaurant sequence, and the sheer punishing double-3 length of the thing.

But objectively speaking, Warriors from the Deep is probably worse because it's boring and has the Myrka. Also can't say much good for The Space Pirates, which is boring without even the Myrka. And I think Mindwarp is a bit painful to watch with Colin Baker not getting any direction at all.

For New Who I would go with The Long Game.

Well done, I managed to get through about 7 minutes of The Curse of Fenric the last time I tried to watch it again. I couldn't even hold out for the bits with Nicholas Parsons. I don't even bother trying to watch any more McCoy stuff. Although to be honest I tend to associate that erat too closely with the disgraceful circumstances that brought it about, i.e. Colin Baker's sacking, and what could have been if he had been treated properly.


True, McCoy didn't do at all badly in that. He would have been fine with writers who actually knew what they were doing.

Based on these, I would say to give Ghost Light a go after all. It's low on sparkly special effects (except perhaps at the end), has some lovely character stuff including the Doctor being a manipulative git, and if I remember correctly, the music's fairly low-key, as it's more of a period piece.

Three words. The. Happiness. Patrol.

Its defenders claim it's a clever parody of Thatcherism, with a gay subtext blah-de-blah. Never mind that by the time it was made spoofing Thatcher had been done to death for years by much cleverer hands than were steering Who at the time.

And the punter sitting at home didn't see a parody. They saw a third rate pantomime with a ruddy great clown made out of liquorice lumbering about. As a kid, I'd watched the best of Who through closed hands for the right reasons. I watched The Happiness Patrol the same way but because of embarrassment. The show I loved was dying a horrible, ignominious death before my eyes. And I hated it.

You see, I just find that a bit contrived and cheesy. It's like, "here's a witty juxtaposition of whimsy and pathos, just to show you that we know what they mean because we learned about them on a TV writers' course."