But seriously:
The Tomb of the Cybermen
The Invasion
Inferno
The Ark in Space
Genesis of the Daleks
Pyramids of Mars
The Robots of Death
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
City of Death
The Caves of Androzani
The Curse of Fenric
The Empty Child
The Girl in the Fireplace
Human Nature
Blink
Apart from Ark in Space, which I didn't like at all - yaaaawn. Boooring. I could have worked out this list with my eyes closed. I'm also very upset about the absence of Sixth Doctor.
Last month, Team Traken added up their ratings to come up with a provisional top episode list, and it's better than the above by leaps and bounds. Maybe it's not a very good list (I've been trying to tweak the system for days, to get Inferno into the top ten somehow - where I feel it totally deserves to be), but it's certainly interesting for being very biased and personal.
The thing about a list voted on by only three people, the presidence is given to those quirky random opinions we all hold. In a forum-wide vote, those nutcases who give Kings Demons and Trial 10/10 ratings are more than evened out by sane, straight thinking voters. Here, we are the majority. The Gallifrey forum list is going to be colourless and homogonised - it has to be, because it represents the majority opinion. So Caves will come at the top, and King's will come at the bottom, and nothing at all will be learnt. Forgetting that the spice of life, not to mention fandom, is those odd opinons and lone defenders.
There are three of us, and we sort-of hold our Doctor Who collection in common - but our votes also prove we hold our opinions in common too, as not a single vote is more than two points apart. Bearing in mind we've only seen about 50% of the Classic series, here's some of our stats:
Episodes voted 10/10 by everyone
Last of the Timelords (trilogy)
Fires of Pompeii
Midnight
(see why I suggested there was a flaw in the system. An endearing flaw nevertheless, but these three episodes are not the greatest episodes of all time, though I'd argue each would deserve a place in a top ten)
Episodes receiving 10/10 from at least one person
King’s Demons
Trial of a Timelord
The Impossible Planet
The Satan Pit
Attack of the Graske
Inferno
The Ribos Operation
Enlightenment
Frontier in Space
Classic or new series? Classic pips it, with an average of 7.7 vs. 7.3
Most popular Doctor – One (9), Six (8.3), Five and Seven (8), Four (7.5), Ten (7.4), Three and Nine (7.2), Eight and Two (7) - least popular Doctor
There’s barely anything in this, which once and for all proves how meaningless the Doctor-era comparison is. These results could be interesting in a year’s time – but WH’s victory is meaningless because we’ve only seen two great episodes, which aren’t necessarily representative. They might be. It’d be nice if they were. Same goes for PT and SMC – at two episodes each, it hardly counts. But this statistic is not expected to change.
Most popular villain – unsurprisingly, and appearing in six of our highly rated episodes, the Master proves to be the best villain of all time. Well, it is us after all.
Top and bottom stories by Doctor (not counting Dimensions in Time)
One – totally meaningless statistic.
Two – The Two Doctors, The Mind Robber (mostly meaningless)
Three – Frontier in Space, Planet of the Spiders
Four – Logopolis, Brain of Morbius
Five – Enlightenment/King’s Demons, The Visitation
Six – Trial of a Timelord, Timelash
Seven - totally meaningless statistic
Nine – The Parting of the Ways, Boom Town/The End of the World
Ten – Our entire top five, Fear Her
Did you see what we did there, with Brain of Morbius and King's Demons? I love our list!
Lowest rated episode: Dimensions in Time (shudders), followed by:
Fear Her, The Idiot's Lantern, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution, Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, The Doctor's Daughter
It's interesting that the Tenth Doctor occipes the lowest possible ratings as much as he does our highest. The lowest rated classic episodes are Planet of the Spiders and Brain of Morbius (“It has been decades since we boiled in oil!,” Proper Doctor Who fans were observed to remark, but we really didn't like that episode. It's the Sisterhood...)
Time-Flight was the highest rated episode with the word "time" in the title. All the multi-Doctor episodes bar one were voted 7.6/10, for no apparent reason. Doomsday and Earthshock were equally rated as the best Cyber-episodes, while Resurrection and Parting of the Ways championed the Daleks. Logopolis and Parting of the Ways were the highest rated regenerations, with Last of the Timelords the highest companion departure for Martha. Unearthly Child was rightly voted the best "first episode for a Doctor", and Mel technically won the highest companion introduction with Trial of a Timelord.
Enlightenment was the highest rated episode set on sailing yachts in space. Though I'd challenge that.
The top 19 are, in no particular order:
Caves of Androzani
The Daleks
Terror of the Autons
Gridlock
Resurrection of the Daleks
Planet of Fire
Logopolis
School Reunion
Blink
The Parting of the Ways
An Unearthly Child
Inferno
The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit
The King's Demons (it is too, and I bloody love our list!)
Frontier in Space
Trial of a Timelord
Last of the Timelords (trilogy)
Fires of Pompeii
Midnight
So there's some food for thought for ya.
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