Since there was a thread on the Best Moffat story, I thought it would be equally interesting to do one for people's favourite RTD story, along with a Poll. Decided to phrase as favourite rather than 'best' as let's face it, no- one can really say an episode is officially the best, and it really is just voting for your Favourite.

Wasn't sure whether to include Utopia and Turn Left as part of the subsequent finale's or not, but since it is a bit of a grey area, decided to leave them as separate options


So, the list of his episodes is:-

Rose

The End of the World

Aliens of London / World War Three

The Long game

Boom Town

Bad wolf / The Parting of the Ways

The Christmas Invasion

New Earth

Tooth and Claw

Love and Monsters

Army of Ghosts / Doomsday

The Runaway Bride

Smith and Jones

Gridlock

Utopia

The sound of drums / Last of the Timelords

Voyage of the damned

Partners in Crime

Midnight

Turn Left

The Stolen Earth / Journeys End

The Next Doctor

Planet of the Dead

The Waters of Mars

The End of time parts 1 & 2


Happy Voting.

Midnight. Considering my usual feelings on RTD episodes I found it surprisingly good, bar the annoying characters and a cheesy tone at the start. Once the episode got going however I loved the atmosphere and the concept behind the monster, and it showed a rare moment we truly see the Doctor in peril. Definitely a Series 4 highlight for me.

Was struggling to vote on my own poll, given that there are so many good options. Some of the list I didn't even realise had been written by RTD himself until I looked it up.

It really is an impressive list. Not every single episode on it is brilliant, but there are so many on the list that are.

In the end though, as with so many episode poll's in the past, I had to go with The Stolen Earth / Journeys End. Simply a fantastic story, which is not only the culmination and celebration of everything that came in the previous 4 years before it, but is also a big epic tale in it's own right that has action, Drama, comedy, suspense. A story I can just watch again and again.

SOOOOO hard!! For me it came down to a choice between Turn Left and The Stolen Earth/Journey's End.

Although I love so many of his stories especially those that have a high comedy content like Partners in Crime and Boom Town. RTD does comedy SO well - that scene in Partners in Crime where the Doctor and Donna spot each other through the window. And that bitchy first conversation between the Cyberleader and Dalek Sec in Doomsday was just hilarious ("This is not war. This is pest control").

Turn Left (for me) is just one of the most powerful, dramatic and character-led episodes we've had since the show returned in 2005. Seeing a world of chaos and disaster from the point of view of a single person (Donna) was just amazing, and Catherine Tate delivered an incredibly powerful performance throughout. Heartbreaking actually.

But I had to go with The Stolen Earth/Journey's End just because they delivered two hours of the most joyful TV I've ever known. To see all the strands of RTD's Who - including Torchwood, Sarah Jane and the NuWho companions and their families - was just wonderful. I still get goosebumps when Davros recognises Sarah Jane.

And to have lived through that two week period of genuine public excitement about the show really made me feel the show was going through a golden age. I was even interviewed on national radio!

Gridlock. Really liked it when shown, and can still happily rewatch. Just think it's got a lot of heart, I like my 'offbeat' in Who, it builds an interesting world and I think it's probably Tennant's best performance in the role for me. (It would be Human Nature/Family of Blood for best performance by David, but obviously he's not really playing The Doctor for most of that!) And it's got Father Dougal as a cat with a flying helmet. That tipped it for me.

Or should that be

It's also extremely well directed by Richard Clark, who I rate highly in the list of C21 Who directors.

Also think 'Midnight' and 'Turn Left' are excellent, so that's my Top 3....

Turn Left for me. A brilliant, worryingly on-the-nose depiction of the UK/World after a series of major disasters brought about by the Doctor's absence and death after Donna's change of direction. I love how it brings home the human impact of the huge scale of the disasters through the eyes of one ordinary family and how it links events from the previous episodes to give the series a sense of continuity.

Mind you, I hated bug thing, but the "there's something on your back" moments were creepily effective.

I have to agree, that scene was comedy gold. A shame the rest of the episode was so crass though (imo).

I would have voted for Human Nature/Family of Blood given how much RTD seems to have been involved with the uncredited writing for those but chose Midnight, which just pips Turn Left for me.

Midnight. My favourite C21st DW by far. Lesley Sharp is just outstanding.


(Ooer! It's well in the lead so far in this poll! Am amazed!)

Who wrote Girl in the Fireplace that was my favourite of that era,tbh I don't tend to notice who wrote any individual episode unless it's mentioned on this board.

Judging by it so far I'm the only one but waters of mars for me. A very good stand alone episode.

Midnight, DW doing what it should be doing, alien world with a alien being we don't fully understand and great human drama, fantastic.

Hard choice actually. Narrowed it down to between Midnight and Turn Left and eventually lumped for Turn Left.

For me it had to be Waters of Mars, superb episode but followed very very very closely by The Stolen Earth and Journey's End which was a fantastic story too.

This is a real tricky one!

I think Boomtown, Tooth and Claw and silly adipose aside, Partners in Crime were enjoyable episodes.

I agree that Turn Left and Midnight are also awesome stories.

Bad Wolf and Parting of the Ways were a great send off for the ninth Doctor with the best regeneration to date imo.

However, the tricky part is that I love both The Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday and Stolen Earth/Journey's End, both for different reasons.

Army Of Ghosts because of the first Dalek/Cybermen meeting, Rose's sad departure, the action, the excitement and thrill ride it provided and also was a sort of intro to Torchwood. I remember the Daleks popping out of that sphere at the end of Army Of Ghosts and being really excited, one of the best surprises in the show imo.

Stolen Earth/Journey's End I just love because it brought so many characters together from the cross over shows, it was full of pace, excitement, urgency and Stolen Earth in particular was one big thrill ride from beginning to end culminating in that cliffhanger. Then in Journey's End, the Tennant/Tate partnership hit it's peak and both of them impersonating the other just made me laugh so much. The scene with everyone in the TARDIS at the end and Jackie being sidelined deliberately by The Doctor was fun as well. However, all that was neatly counterpointed by the sadness of Donna's memory wipe at the end.

I also liked the story arc for Series 4 and the fact these two episodes followed both Midnight and Turn Left still makes this period of the New Series my favourite yet.

So it's a tough one to choose between them and to be honest I'm not going to, I love all four episodes so much.

Definitely Midnight - a surprising episode from him, and Lesley Sharp is just unbelievably good.

Bit rude not name checking Ardal O'Hanlon as O'Brien up thread, instead referring to his most famous character. Just adding that as watched him win Mastermind with a specialist subject I actually knew about (Velvet Underground!) and another contestant referred to him as Father Ted. Which is so wrong. Um, as you were...

Midnight, as it's a great bit of writing and shows what RTD could do at short notice, and without a big budget for sets and CGI. Sometimes less is more!

Close between Midnight and Waters of Mars, but i think Waters is his best episode.

Looking at that list you realise what an impressive line-up of scripts he has (the same can be said for Moffat)... the number of duds absolutely minimal, with even the more divisive episodes having redeeming aspects to them.

Rather difficult to narrow down such a diverse range of episodes but I think ultimately I have to settle on Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. For me it was quintessential Doctor Who. The Doctor versus the Daleks, a formidable villain in the Emperor who gave the Daleks a solid identity that build upon their menacing reintroduction earlier in the first series. It features a nuanced and dignified regeneration of a fantastic Doctor. Not perfect by any means, but it adds in a dose of RTD's unqiue take on pop-culture, his genius secondary character writing, and better still two companions in Rose and Jack who complimented each other whilst being distinct and independent characters. It brought the series to a wondrous close.
Some say a writers first idea is often their finest... the Moffat family considered The Empty Child to be his most solid effort for many years (I don't know if he still does himself). If The Parting of the Ways was the culmination of RTD's first idea (as a series) for Doctor Who then it was a mighty fine one indeed!

Turn Left

Snappity-snap. My top two RTD episodes back to back and separated by a fag paper in the end!

The Stolen Earth and Journey's End for me, definitely.

Julian Bleach made a very sinister sounding Davros, and he looked scary too.

Plus, we had Rose Tyler, Sarah Jane Smith and Captain Jack Harkness in the same two parter along with one of my most favourite Comedienne's Catherine Tate as Donna.

Loved the scene with the Judoon and the Shadow Architect woman at the Shadow Proclamation.

The scene with Davros on the Tardis console screen talking to the Doctor was very well done, too.

I wept when the Doctor said to Donna, "Donna. Oh, Donna Noble. I am so sorry. But we had the best of times". Then he had to wipe her mind of everything to do with the Doctor and the Tardis.

Midnight

I've always found RTD the most diverse of Who writers. Comedy, action and at times genuine drama, more than not all in the same episode without missing a beat, along with some of the greatest character writing (lead and secondary) in the show's history, I think his pacing of an episode and blancing the tone and structure of an entire series in order encompasses these elements still holds today.

I am currently re-watching series 1. It is all about establishing the show to a new audince by using character. It uses broad strokes to begin with yet, as the series progresses I find myself invested in the charcters again. The RTD era was so diverse in it's episodes from week to week and it is this, alongside the accessible character writing, the fun, the action and drama, along with the genuine sense of the Doctor having a multi series arc that led somwhere, that always makes me want to revisit the RTD era.

What RTD did best was character devlopment, not just to the main characters but you actually cared about the other characters in the episodes, which for me is the most important aspect of writing. That said i hated Rose, but she was written very well.