(This is a work in progress. I'll update it as I have time.)
My favorite Doctor Who episodes in chronological order:
Ninth Doctor:
- Dalek. Christopher Eccleston was the perfect "dark" Doctor. What the ravages of war can do to a person.
- Father's Day. What if? A touching story about a girl and her father.
- The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. Great story. Loads of fun. First intro to Captain Jack.
Tenth Doctor:
- The Christmas Invasion. Still the best of the Christmas specials. But I liked A Christmas Carol and The Snowmen well enough to include them among my favorites too.
- School Reunion. Wherein I begin to understand how the past informs the present.
- The Girl in the Fireplace. A wonderful love story.
- Love & Monsters. Hilarious spoof of geek fandom.
- Army of Ghosts/Doomsday. Heartbreaking. Rose!
- Smith and Jones.
- Gridlock.
- Human Nature/The Family of Blood.
- Blink.
- Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords.
- Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Our first introduction to Professor River Song, and it was beautiful and sad. I wish they hadn't made River Song Rory and Amy's daughter, an assassin, and so forth though.
- Midnight. The single scariest episode of Doctor Who. More so than Blink. The "monster" is never seen. The Doctor doesn't know what the monster is. The Doctor doesn't know what to do about the monster. Yet the real monster is humanity unmasked. Our evil nature which turns against others. A suspenseful bottle episode.
- Turn Left. Possible worlds.
- The Next Doctor.
- The Waters of Mars.
Eleventh Doctor:
- The Eleventh Hour.
- Amy's Choice.
- Vincent and the Doctor. The relationship between genius and madness. The blessing and curse of being able to see the invisible, of being able to see what others cannot see. The black dog of depression.
- The Lodger. Hilarious. As is Closing Time.
- The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.
- A Christmas Carol.
- The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. Love the G-Men, the UFOs, the Silence, the conspiracies, Nixon, the Doctor's death.
- The Doctor's Wife.
- The Girl Who Waited.
- Closing Time.
- The Wedding of River Song.
- The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe.
- Asylum of the Daleks.
- The Angels Take Manhattan.
- The Snowmen.
- Hide. From eerie to ecstatic.
- Day of the Doctor.
Others:
- Favorite Doctor: Ten. Although since I've only ever seen the rebooted Doctor Who series (2005), I'm only judging from three Doctors. I like the other two Doctors though. Christopher Eccleston was great, but not around long enough. While Matt Smith had the unenviable task of following in David Tennant's footsteps, though I think Smith ended up doing a good job. Smith's acting progressively improved over time. His main flaw was his lack of gravitas for the role, or so I felt.
- Favorite Companion: It's hard not to say Rose. Although they shouldn't have brought her back after Doomsday. That marred her status a bit. I thought Amelia Pond as a little girl meeting the Doctor in The Eleventh Hour and her relationship with him beyond that point had a lovely fairy tale like quality to it. But the way the writers dispensed with her (and Rory) was a shame. Maybe Captain Jack wins. Or does Wilfred Mott count?
- Favorite Episode: Human Nature/The Family of Blood. This post sums it up pretty well.
