Doctor Who has been around for more than 60 years, and that essentially means even reviewing the story arcs across different seasons is an impossible task. Now, imagine if you were a diehard Whovian and someone asked you to pick your top 10 favorite episodes out of a list of hundreds.
The sane Whovian would just laugh and shrug it off, saying that it’s impossible to make a top 10 list. Sure, we all have our favorites, and you could list a few off the top of your head at any moment, but doing so objectively, and in such an extensive manner, would take a long, long time.
So, to make it simpler, we’ve decided to dedicate this one to the so-called Modern Who, which refers to the 2005 remake by Russell T. Davies that’s still going strong to this day. What follows are some of the best Doctor Who episodes in the past two decades, even if some choices don’t necessarily align with your preferences.
10. “The Time of Angels” (Season 5, Episode 4)
One of the first episodes written by Steven Moffat when he took over as showrunner, “The Time of Angels” once again brings back the terrifying Weeping Angels and pits them against Matt Smith’s rookie Eleventh Doctor. Moffat’s name will recur throughout this list, and the reason is simple: No one writes snappy Doctor Who dialogue like Moffat, and no one understands this timeless character better. And in many ways, “The Time of Angels” has all the checkmarks of a perfect Moffat outing.
9. “The Stolen Earth” (Season 4, Episode 12)
Written by Russell T. Davies, “The Stolen Earth” is the perfect execution of drama build-up and its payoff. The Daleks are terrorizing the universe again, and the entire companion squad comes together to guide The Doctor to the place they’ve been abducted. But forget about all the big-scale universe-saving shenanigans. “The Stolen Earth” features the reunion fans had been waiting on for two seasons; The Doctor meets Rose again, and the universe exhales in joy.
8. “The Girl in the Fireplace” (Season 2, Episode 4)
“The Girl in the Fireplace” is a tale of tragic love. Steven Moffat had always been fascinated with Audrey Niffenegger’s sci-fi romance book The Time Traveler’s Wife, and here he finally got the opportunity to pay homage to it. The Doctor gets entangled with Madame de Pompadour, one of the most influential figures in French history, and saves her life from the automatons of the 51st century, but not before being faced yet again with the sad truth of his own existence.
7. “Vincent and the Doctor” (Season 5, Episode 10)
One of the reasons I love Doctor Who is the sheer flexibility of its format. Who can be anything, ranging from an epic to a horror story to a fairy tale. And while “Vincent and the Doctor” is none of those things, it’s still one of the best episodes in the show’s history. As the name suggests, The Doctor and Amy take a detour to 19th century France to meet Vincent van Gogh, sharing in an adventure with one of the world’s most tortured artists. “Vincent and the Doctor” is a love letter to history, the arts, and even Doctor Who itself. Trust us when we say; you’re going to need a lot of tissues when watching this particular outing.
6. “Doomsday” (Season 2, Episode 13)
While the first season of the revival series did an adequate job of reintroducing Doctor Who to a whole new generation of audiences, it wasn’t until the success of the second season and more specifically its one banger of a finale that Doctor Who once again cemented itself as one of the best sci-fi TV shows of our time. “Doomsday” is arguably Russell T. Davies’ greatest accomplishment in drama and presentation, and despite all the wonky aspects of production that usually plague older Doctor Who episodes, this finale still holds up after all these years.
5. “Blink” (Season 3, Episode 10)
We have “Blink” to thank for our self-conscious blinking and fear of stone statues. Many Whovians would rate this outing by Steven Moffat in the show’s top 3, and we can see why. Ironically, “Blink” is also an episode that barely features the titular Doctor or their companion. The story revolves around two people living in modern-day Earth who go on to learn a terrible truth about the unseen monsters of their world. This is an episode you should avoid if you’re too easily startled; It certainly did a number on me when I watched it in my adolescent years.
4. “The Time of the Doctor” (Season 7 Christmas special)
“The Time of the Doctor” is my all-time favorite Doctor Who episode, and it’s only for the sake of objectivity — if we can even invoke it at this point — that I don’t give it the top honors here. Now, with that out of the way, let’s see what makes this one such a standout chapter in our protagonist’s story. “The Time of the Doctor” is the culmination of three seasons worth of build-up, and at its heart, it underlines the most important aspect of the show and the character’s personalities. If this is indeed a fairy tale, then The Doctor is its ultimate hero. He is the savior of worlds, the lonely god, and the man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name. But most importantly of all, his name is The Doctor, and that’s everything you need to know about him.
3. “The End of Time” (Season 4 Christmas special)
Russell T. Davies’ last episode before departing the show in 2010 was a swansong to his tenure as showrunner as well as David Tennant’s timeless portrayal of the 10th Doctor. All those amazing cameos in the last ten minutes aside, “The End of Time” is an amazing Doctor Who story full of twists, emotional character moments, and epic confrontations. We finally get to see the bespoke Time Lords in the modern series, and they’re unlike anything we ever imagined. The Master is here again, wreaking havoc as always. And 10 is fighting against time itself, straining to delay his inevitable demise.
2. “The Day of the Doctor” (50th Anniversary Special)
How did The Doctor become the person he is today? What forged the Last of the Time Lords into a selfless hero, a tragic hero, who will stop at nothing to protect the innocent? “The Day of the Doctor,” serving as a celebration of the show’s 50th anniversary, answers this question by bringing together two of the most popular incarnations of the character, portrayed by David Tennant and Matt Smith. John Hurt is also cast as a secret Doctor from the time he fought in the Last Great Time War, and the story itself revolves around the day he decided to wipe out both his people and the Daleks to stop the war and save the universe. In terms of sheer spectacle and scale, nothing in Doctor Who will ever beat the moment when all thirteen Doctors came together to alter history.
1. “Heaven Sent” (Season 9, Episode 11)
“Heaven Sent” is the crowning achievement of Doctor Who as a work of art in the live-action medium. Rachel Talalay’s direction, Murray Gold’s music, Peter Capaldi’s performance, and Steven Moffat’s script all dance around with this idea called perfection, and while they may never technically reach it, they come pretty close. “Heaven Sent” also speaks to Doctor Who‘s amazing versatility, where you could essentially have an hour of Peter Capaldi monologuing to himself and still turn it into one of the greatest hours of television.
