Love & Monsters (2006)
Much squabbled over by fans, we will defend "Love & Monsters" to our dying days. There's so much good stuff going on here, from Marc Warren's soulful performance to thathaunting final speech. It's an episode about life, love, ELO and Doctor Who fandom.
It's also got a cackling, rubber-suited Peter Kay hurtling down the street with the faces of his victims protruding from his bellܫy, and ends with a blow job joke.
Last Of The Time Lords (2007)
Set a year after "The Sound Of Drums", the Master has conquered the Earth after all this time he's finally done it! - Martha is on the run, and the Doctor is trapped. Though it's ꦏset on contemporary Earth, it's an Earth under alien rule, with the population either dead or in labour camps. All very dramatic, but not particularly strange. And then the Doctor turns into Dobby the House Elf.
Partners In Crime (2008)
In which D🏅avid Tennant and Catherine Tate fight an army of monsters made out of human fat. Nuff said.
The End Of Time Parts 1 & 2 (2010)
David Tennant's final two-parter is a bit of a mess. The opening 15 minutes is tortuously designed to bring the Master back to♛ life, while the final 20 minutes is a sublime cap to Tennant's and Russell T Davies's era on the show. But it's the cliffhanger to part one that earns it a place on this list.
John Simm's sneering, Joker-like Master has a scheme (yes, another one) to take over the world and restore Gal♏lifrey. And how is he going to do this? He's going to turn every human on Earth into a duplicate of himself.
In fairness, it's the sort of insane plot twist that only Doctor Who can get away wit😼h. When it first happens you're not sure w꧙hether to gasp in amazement or just laugh, but it works. More or less.
The Rings Of Akhaten (2013)
So, Clara Oswald is a leaf, or something?
No, not really. There's some nice ideas at the heart of The Rings Of Akhaten. That leaf is the random factor that brings Clara's parents together, which is quite sweet, and the iꦅdea of a planet-sized monster is sure to have smacked the gobs of younger viewers. It's a proper science fiction idea on mainstream telly.
Unfortunately the rest of the episode is let down by its realisation. The episode climaxes with a child singing to a CGI v♓oid, while an army of rubber monsters sway in the background. It aims for moving, but lands on bizarre and comical.
Kill The Moon (2014)
Kill The Moon is actually a fairly straightforward episode: the TARDIS lands on a shuttle as it crashes into the Moon. There's some monsters creepy giant spiders, as it happens - and a big old moral dilemma as Peter Capaldi's edgy new Doctor sods off and leaves Clara to deal with the situation on her own (yeah, fine it's dark and complex, but it's not starting the Great Fire of Rome, now is it?).
But then the crux of the episode is revealed and the meaning behind the title and, well, it's barking. The Moon is an egg. A big old egg in space. A s💙pace egg. And then it cracks open and a dragon pops out and instantly farts out a replacement Moon, which handily deals with some of the terrifying world-ending problems that an exploding satellite would cause.
Peter Harness is a brilliant writer and we adored Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. We're looking forward to his episode in the new Who season. But𓆏 "Kil𓃲l The Moon" has a high WTF? factor.
Will Salmon is the Streaming Editor for GamesRadar+. He has been writing about film, TV, comics, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he lau🃏nched the scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunch💞ed Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for well over a decade. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places too.
