There's been a lot of talk (and defence) about episodes which were a bit more poorly received across the last decade. DS recently tried to defend Series 8's In The Forest of the Night, there's been a recent thread defending the divisive Love & Monsters, and numerous references to episodes like Fear Her and The Rings of Akhaten.

Which story from the past ten years is your all time least favourite...only one. If you could choose an episode to remove entirely as if it had never even been written (in the hope that something better would take its place) which one would you go for?

The Doctors Daughter or Fear Her.
God it's difficult.

The Doctors Daughter just about. It's a disgrace of an episode.

Gridlock.


No, just kidding. It's not the worst.

Fear Her is not particularly bad, just dull.
The Doctor's Daughter is worth it just for Ms Moffat. I'd like to see a re-appearance of her character. A bit of a waste of a significant event in the Doctor's life, though.

No, it has to be one from series 8... but which one?

Robots of Sherwood
Kill the Moon
In the Forest of the Night

OK - I'd loose Kill the Moon, for the Doctor's un-Doctor-ish behaviour without adequate justification. Teaching Clara some sort of lesson wasn't a good enough reason for doing that for me.

Okay well it has to be only one.

So Love and Monsters.

a christmas carol, the only time I ever voted poor for an episode.

The story I was most disappointed by was The End of Time, so think I'd have to go with that. Tennant deserved more. SO MUCH MORE!!!

(Arghhh. Flashbacks!) Didn't help what they did with my favourite companion in that story. If she remembers The Doctor...gasp...she'll....oh, be alright, actually. Let's marry her off and give her some lottery money. Sorted. Yeurgh. )

Voyage of the Damned. I really can't abide it. It was almost enough to put me off wanting to watch Series 4.

Another vote for The End of Time alongside In the Forest of the Night, too.

It's funny how stuff like this gets forgotten especially in light of all the shit Moffat gets for his alleged 'sexism'.

Consider Donnas story arc and it's nothing like the strong willed empowerment tale some seem to think it is. So you have this dopey working class charicature of an office clerk who lives an entirely unremarkable life of tedium and head in the clouds ignorance. It takes a brush with the Doctor to make her realise how pitiful her life is and for her to open her mind and start realising some pretty basic concepts (empathy, human kindness, tolerance) that she should know anyway but we are expected to applaud her for because 'Oh look she's crying at the poor Ood!'. The silly chav DOES have a heart! Yay! Go Donna!

Anyway. So yes. Finally she makes something of herself and becomes all that she can be except 'Uh-oh!' We can't have her staying that way forever so an entire season of character development is erased with the touch of the Doctors hands just to serve the plot and make everyone cry. And there she is. Back to sad old Donna. Not changed a bit. Still a bit of an idiot. And then when we see her again her own Grandfather basically admits she's useless and that she was 'better' with the Doctor (what was that about Moffat always defining his female characters by their relationship to the Doctor or other men? Ooops). She's stuck in a functional but loveless engagement. And while nearly everyone else who has crossed the Doctors path has in some way stepped out from his shadow or bettered themselves...Jesus Christ even Mickey the Idiot!...silly Donna. Comedy working class archetype Donna? Well let's just fob her off with a lottery ticket. Thatll keep her happy. Money money money! Paid off like an unwanted third wife. Utterly woeful. And if you think for one second that would ever lead to The Noble Foundation or something similar then think again. She will have blown most of it on a Mock Tudor mansion in Gravesend, divorce settlements and bottles of Gordon's Gin. Because Donna! Silly Donna.
If Moffat had written this then tumblr would have marched on television centre.

Got to be the rings of akatan.

I loved Donna's character, but Saladfingers, you are spot on how they treated her. Sigh.

I think my worst Ep has to be End of Time. No way would the Doctor whine about saving Wilf. He wouldn't put bitch about the situation to him. I don't know who was in that coat, but it wasn't the Who we thought it was. While we're at it, lets just throw away Tim Dalton as Rassilon. Sigh. What a complete waste.

I think other stories were worse (cough Time and the Rani cough) but that had Pipnjane at the writing helm and JN-T on the producer's chair. It was never going to amount to anything. It was *supposed* to suck. End of Time had RTD and Euros Lyn on the bridge
How did we get this?

Plenty to choose from, makes me sound like I hate the program. When its good its great but around half the episodes since it came back in 2005 have been poor for me.

The episode that manages to annoy me the most as well as being the top of shitesville is Fear Her.

Let's Kill Hitler

Even thinking about is putting me in a foul strop. So I'm going to stop thinking about it.

Oooo, I had even managed to forget about that - so thanks for bringing it back.

Fear Her, definitely.

In the Forest of the Night. It has not one redeeming feature.

Fear Her for me too, although In the Forest of the Night now runs it a very close second!
Love & Monsters is a masterpiece compared with both of those episodes.
That absolutely cringe-worthy Olympics sequence in Fear Her means it still just gets the nod IMO.
I can't imagine anything ever being worse than that!

There are too many to choose from, though often there was a good idea hidden in what came across on screen.
But Fear Her has got to be way up there.

The thing about Love and Monsters is if I try to view it as some odd sci fi and forget its part of Dr Who then it has its moments.
Pity the central alien is something dreamed up by a Blue Peter winner and played by Peter Kay though.

Have to agree with this. I never thought I'd see the day where a story, especially from the New Series, would be worse than Paradise Towers from Classic Who. Even Love and Monsters just edged ahead of it but then this episode came along which aside the opening moments was painstakingly dull and I still don't get the point of the episode bar a lot of singing even after rewatching it a couple of times.

I have to agree also about The End Of Time. The first episode especially sent me to sleep and it was totally inappropriate for any Doctor's swansong let alone the Tenth's. For me, though it was written by RTD, it was a forerunner of the snorefests that were to follow in Series 5.

Last of the Timelords

Voyage of the Damned

Rings of Akhaten for me also.

I remember someone on here stating (at the time it was originally screened) that it was like 'an extra terrestrial X-Factor, with the dodgiest CGI since the Nestine-consciousness bins in 'Rose'.

The CBBC-esque dull-fest that is In the forest of the night a close second.

Like a few others I'll go with The End of Time

One of the few stories of Nuwho I've only watched the once even though I bought the Specials box set.

Yeah there are a few other stories that are pretty bad but tEoT gets the title as it could and should have been so much better.

Interesting choice, there's a group of episodes that most choose from and I can see (if not necessarily agreeing with) why someone would have that as their worst (or one of), but TDD I always see as one of those quiet episodes that no one loves but no one hates and so it never appears in any best/worst of lists (at-least that's what I expect will be the case), be interested to know what didn't work about it for you? Personally I thought it was passable but not an episode I'd be in any hurry to watch again.

For me the worst episode is probably The Doctor The Widow and The God Awful Humany-Wumany Line, Kill the Moon and ITFOTN were very close but while they are terrible and insulting to brain cells they did have good performance where as TDTWATW was embarrassing on all fronts, even Matt was bad in that episode.

Love and Monsters