A monster-licious (with one notable exception) sextet of selections chosen salaciously…
#18 —Terror of the Zygons – For a very long time the Zygons were the great one-off monster in Doctor Who lore, and this story is the reason why. The last full UNIT outing had great esprit de corps, and a ‘memorable’ CSO monster to cap it all off.
#17 — Blink – Rightfully considered a classic in the nu-Who realm, this story, hastily written to solve another production issue, the Weeping Angels, nu-Who’s greatest villain, were minted here, but will be remembered forever, as long as we don’t look away of course.
#16 — The Christmas Invasion – Although we had previously declared A Christmas Carol as our favorite Christmas Special, and while we stick to that, this initial special had much more work to do. The first post-regeneration story of the nu-Who era had to reassure the audience that the show had changed, and yet was still the same show. ‘Classic’ audiences had seen this trick, but what would a ‘modern’ audience do? Turns out, in spite of the otherwise canny move of withholding Tennant for the 40 minutes, the audience rolled with it, and as such this marks it as not only entertaining, which it was, but important.
#15 — Heaven Sent – An exercise in style that might have been regarded as a gimmick, notably that it’s all-Capaldi, all-the-time, except that it’s not a gimmick if it works. And boy did it ever. Not intended for the Doctor Who fan novice, but quite rewarding for the long-term fan.
#14 — Terror of the Autons – While the Tour regards Jon Pertwee’s first season as one of the best of the classic series, it could be considered a bit on the dour side, and then Terror of the Autons begins Season 8, and everything pops brighter and more vibrant than before. Pertwee acquired a worth adversary in Roger Delgado, and he was suave, sinister, and ultimately … around for every story of Season 8.
#13 — The Tomb of the Cybermen – There’s a quality, a sensibility, about Tomb which marks it as NOT a Doctor Who story, at least for the time. It feels larger, more filmic, more of a mystery box, and, with the continued ‘evolution’ of what made the Cybermen special, unique, because the real villains in this story were the power-mad humans ,,, the friends we met along the way.
You will be like us … You will be like us … as 60 for 60 forges on.
