As the season comes to a close, and nearly 200 episodes of the show to rewatch, what are the best Doctor Who episodes since 2005?
Doctor Who has been on our screens since An Unearthly Child in 1963, making it one of the longest-running science fiction shows ever, but determining which are the best Doctor Who episodes is no easy feat.
Travelling throughout time and space with the TARDIS, the Doctor has encountered countless stories and mishaps over 60 years on screen. From the Daleks terrifying children into hiding behind their sofas to the Cybermen threatening to delete all existence, the Doctor has faced many iconic and fearsome foes.
But of course, what is an excellent monster without a great story?
These incredible stories transport us across the stars and through time, as we witness the Doctor battling werewolves with Queen Victoria, witches with Shakespeare, or experiencing the last moments of humanity. We become captivated by the premise, themes, and characters. As we turn to the Whoniverse to fill the time between the current season and the Christmas special, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the plethora of incredible finales, story arcs, and fan favourites.
As we know, internet lists often spark disagreements. When creating this list, we aimed to include every Doctor, ensuring those unfamiliar with specific eras could find a good starting point.
10. Demons of the Punjab (2018)
Broadcast originally on 11 November 2018, one hundred years after the end of World War One, Demons of the Punjab marks itself as one of the most compassionate episodes to honour a historical event.
However, audiences may expect an episode released to mark this anniversary and reflect how Doctor Who is a British product, becoming a reflection of the war and the British troops lost. Instead, the episode invites us to consider the British Empire’s colonial history, how the British Raj resulted in the Partition of India and the founding of Pakistan in 1947.
Directed by Jamie Childs and written by Vinay Patel, Demons of the Punjab becomes a self-reflexive take on the British relationship with our history on a day meant for remembrance. Without a substantial alien threat, the episode becomes a character study for the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and companion Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) in a beautiful understanding of her family’s ancestral history.
As a show, Doctor Who shouldn’t always be significant threats, big scares, and big emotions. Sometimes, a small story about one family, set against a larger landscape or event, is enough to contextualise it within a way of thinking, and this is precisely what Demons of the Punjab excels at. Especially as stories told from a British diasporic identity are scarce for the show, to dedicate a monumental part of British history to finally highlighting an underrepresented area of British identity instantly marks it as a cut above the rest.
9. Mummy on the Orient Express (2014)
Placing the Doctor on board any historic voyage, whether it’s the Titanic or the Orient Express, will almost certainly bring it an otherworldly twist. As the title may suggest, in Mummy on the Orient Express, directed by Paul Wilmshurst and written by Jamie Mathieson, the Doctor lands upon an intergalactic train ride that journeys through the cosmos.
Except for its sightseeing guests, a Mummy appears before its victims, stalking closer towards them within 66 seconds before killing its host and disappearing. However, why can only its targets see their impending deaths approach them, and who decides the order in which the targets get picked? These are but two questions the Doctor must answer whilst the travellers around him are picked off individually.
Then, when you throw in a guest starring role for comedian Frank Skinner and a 1920s-era production design, the story becomes truly unique, immortalised with Foxes’ jazz cover of Don’t Stop Me Now, elevating the whole experience and its story into one of the all-time greats. The chemistry between Skinner and Peter Capaldi‘s Doctor is rare, and even still on a rewatch, it feels refreshing to have a one-off companion join the show mid-series.
8. The Beast Below (2010)
Our favourites will always crop up if we find ourselves revisiting a face or two. In the first of a few Matt Smith appearances on this list, where better to start than with the first out-of-this-world adventure as Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor whisks a young Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) to see the stars.
Her first adventure with her Raggedy Man, directed by Andrew Gunn and written by Steven Moffat, sees them land in a divided England as its population travels the cosmos to find somewhere safe to start anew. But after a quick investigation, there may be a conspiracy to reveal to its citizens where they really are — if they choose to remember it.
The Beast Below is easily one of the best Doctor Who political episodes the show has produced. It asks audiences to confront their beliefs head-on in a way the revitalised show had yet to do until that point. Whilst also highlighting the flawed voting system within the United Kingdom, where The Beast Below triumphs is how, by learning about atrocities in the world, we are, through our inactions, as complicit in them as those doing the atrocities. Cleverer still, The Beast Below invites us to challenge our moral grey area, and at what point will we draw the line between complicit ignorance and finally saying enough is enough.
Of course, then it’s easy to see why, as an episode that reflects back onto its audience, it is worth such high praise. Better still, the first travel into space for any new companion is always meant to teach us about the Doctor and their world, and no more succinctly put is it than in The Beast Below. We see the Doctor immediately rush out of the TARDIS to comfort a crying child when all the adults pass. His brain matches his physical speed, processing as much of the new sensory information as possible, trying to find an answer for the ripple-less water in space.
Even the episode finishes with a high as Amy and the Doctor show how spectacular The Beast Below is in selling the new series and why these two new travelling buddies are so brilliant. In one short speech, Amy surmises our travelling timelord, explaining how she understands him and why, over all else, he chooses to be kind.
7. A Christmas Carol (2010)
Nothing says Christmas like Charles Dickins’ A Christmas Carol. So when director Toby Haynes and writer Steven Moffat work their magic by stirring in the charm of Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor, add a dashing performance from the late great Michael Gambon, and a tear-jerking song from Katherine Jenkins, the whole potion becomes a mesmerising spell of brilliance that elevates it not only into an annual tradition but also to one of the best Doctor Who episodes.
The Doctor must encourage Kazran Sardick (Gambon) to use his weather machine to save the lives of others. However, much like any Ebenezer Scrooge archetype, the idea of prioritising any life over money isn’t worth considering. By taking on the role of Ghosts Past, Present, and Future, the Doctor traverses Kazran’s timeline to teach him the beauty of living, the joys of adventure, and the wonder of love, hoping to change him for the better.
Directed by Toby Haynes and written by Steven Moffat, the episode is an exquisite example of how the story of Doctor Who is, at its core, about the people involved. Monsters are frightening and world-ending, but the human stories matter the most. The lives the Doctor touches are sometimes as necessary, but even, as the episode suggests, through our individual actions, we can all shape the future.
6. Dalek (2005)
When Doctor Who returned in 2005, all eyes were on Russell T Davies to see how he would revitalise the show. Not just in how he would reintroduce the Doctor but also his iconic foes, all for an audience that knew little – and with limited internet to fact-check.
Dalek, written by Robert Shearman and directed by Joe Ahearne, then becomes the show’s opportunity to showcase how a single Dalek can be as villainous as a fleet. Beyond this, Dalek fills in the gaps for returning audiences who wonder what happened whilst the show was off-air, revealing the Time War between the Gallifreyans and the Daleks, resulting in a mutually destructive genocide with only two survivors.
Christopher Eccleston delivers one of the most exhilarating performances as the Doctor. For the first time, we see his apathy to saving a creature’s life, instead begging it to kill itself. This is the first instance for many to understand who the Doctor is, his ethos, his beliefs, and his reason for adventuring. Yet all we see is darkness, alluding to the weight of all the years off-screen.
Equally, as the Daleks were satirically mocked throughout the 90s, Shearman introduced something to make them as scary now as they were in the 1960s: levitation. To see a monster built off the Nazi regime, stripped of its only weakness, elevate itself to a godly height, towering over humanity, patiently waiting in one scene before showcasing the murderous abilities the Daleks possess remains harrowing nearly twenty-five years later.
It lays rest to every armed soldier in two charges of its weapon. The first was activating the water sprinkler system to douse every soldier, creating a puddle at their feet, and the next was an electrifying blast, shocking them all, travelling up the chain link gate and zapping every barrier to its path. The Daleks have been a mainstay on our screens since, but never has an example arisen that has presented the Daleks as such a cold-hearted machine as Dalek does, highlighting similarly the threat of a single rogue Dalek compared to its fleet.
5. Human Nature/The Family of Blood (2007)
The only two-parter on this list, it’d be a travesty failing to include either Human Nature or its counterpart, The Family of Blood, among the best episodes of Doctor Who. Directed by Charles Palmer and written by Paul Cornell, the episodes rely strongly on Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) as the companion and carer to John Smith (David Tennant) after the Doctor undergoes a procedure rewriting his DNA to hide from The Family.
Arriving in Britain in 1913, the episode, set in the lingering tensions of the First World War, is an extraordinary character study of Agyeman and Tennant, with their relationship pushed and tested into discomfort. Yet, even in human form, the mysticism that Tennant sees the world with is a lingering side-effect of the transforming process.
Cornell originally wrote this novel for Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor in 1995. Watching it, it’s apparent how much this story is a passion project for the writer and how that same affection infects its viewers as supporting characters Joan (Jessica Hynes) and Tim Latimer (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) fizzle with the energy of its first initial publication twenty years prior. In fact, even after its broadcast, Cornell has been lovingly attached to his story, further writing three follow-up adventures: The Shadow Passes, Shadow of a Doubt, and The Shadow in the Mirror in 2020.
Doctor Who is a show that means a lot to many, but when those behind the scenes care wholeheartedly, too, every inch of that admiration seeps into their work and onto the screen. Therefore, it’s easy to see what the show meant to Cornell in both Human Nature and The Family of Blood, as the quality of the end result is flawless.
4. The Girl in the Fireplace (2006)
When we think of David Tennant and Billie Piper together, it’s almost impossible to overlook The Girl in the Fireplace, directed by Euros Lyn and written by Steven Moffat. Set between the French Revolution and a spaceship in the far future, the episode clicks and whirs with creativity, romance, and humour as clockwork androids threaten the life of Madame de Pompadour (Sophia Myles).
Where Blink may have a killer monster, The Girl in the Fireplace becomes the first of many instances where Moffat manipulates time to deliver a heartbreaking conclusion. After all, one may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel. Instead, the episode gives a slow-burning love story set in the early days of the Romanticism movement between Myles and Tennant, where each line and slowness accentuate the gaps in time between the Doctor’s visits.
Even as the episode closes, audiences are still left wondering why precisely Reinette Poisson became the target for the androids, except, with a single camera pan, all is revealed. In fact, the parallels between The Girl in the Fireplace and the later works of Steven Moffat suggest that the episode was his testing ground. For instance, the same camera pan and reveal was repeated in The Beast Below, with a returning imaginary friend becoming the foundation of the relationship between Matt Smith’s Doctor and Amy Pond (Karen Gillan).
3. Midnight (2008)
As a bottle episode, Midnight, directed by Alice Troughton and written by Russell T Davies, sees the Doctor onboard a cruising truck across the untouched planet of Midnight, except, after a diversion, the vehicle falls under attack, and one of the tourists onboard becomes host to an unknown force.
Russell T Davies is a phenomenal ensemble writer, giving each supporting character a voice, a background and a reason for them to invoke a reaction from the audience during its runtime. No more evident is this than in Midnight, where, along with the Doctor, he’s joined by a family of three, a professor and his trainee, and a lone woman travelling by herself following a break-up – each character uniquely different to the next.
Predominantly filmed within the cabin, Midnight is a seriously poignant episode presenting a message on mob mentality and how easily a frenzy can be whipped up when fear is used as a tactic. Further, the episode’s sacrificial hero, our hostess, remains unnamed, forcing audiences to feel uneasy about how we treat those in the hospitality industry who put our lives above theirs. Midnight is a creepy story, well-polished to perfection, as every line, beat, and performance heightens its commentary, especially as when Midnight was released in 2008, it was still in the infancy of social media where a tweet or a viral video could send its viewers into a similar level of hysteria.
2. The Time of the Doctor (2013)
Different publications often favour regeneration stories in these lists, and as the only regeneration story featured in this list, placing second, its anomalous inclusion does stick out. Any regeneration episode ultimately celebrates that actor’s time on the show, closing that chapter with a heartfelt goodbye and embracing a welcome change and a new direction.
The Time of the Doctor, directed by Jamie Payne and written by Steven Moffat, is not only the only regeneration story on this list but the first written by Steven Moffat. Tying together narrative threads under series five and six, Moffat reintroduces his feared inventions like the Weeping Angels and the Silence to pair with traditional foes or the Cybermen, Daleks and Sontarans as the Doctor lives out his lifespan in the village Christmas, on the planet Trenzalore, all to prevent the return of Gallifrey.
Even in his last episode, how Matt Smith’s Doctor is written is laced with affection, echoing the same tenderness he carried with the role. Most rememberable for his poetic monologue in the third act, delivered almost entirely to the camera, a knowing nod to audiences, as Smith’s Doctor stifles tears, and Murray Gold’s The Long Song swells, the culmination of all the years boiled down to that scene, that shot, and that look to camera. Matt Smith had his career propelled by Doctor Who, but he’ll never forget when the Doctor was him.
1. The God Complex (2011)
What do you get when you put a gambler (Daniel Pirrie), a Muslim nurse (Amara Karan), a prolifically online forum commentator (Dimitri Leonidas), and a submissive alien (David Walliams) all in a 1970s hotel where in each room is someone’s worst nightmare? The best Doctor Who episode, that’s what.
Written by Toby Whithouse and directed by Nick Hurran, The God Complex is often overlooked and disregarded as an episode, but its simplicity in manipulating our deep-rooted fears asks us to find our faith.
For Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), though, her faith has always been the Doctor (Matt Smith). But putting all that trust into one person, deity, or justification is enough to give anyone a complex. Thankfully for Whitehouse, when writing about something so complex, so labyrinthian, one creature fits perfectly into the allegory of becoming a prisoner of its self-made prison.
With acute precision in its execution, the familiarity of a dingy hotel corridor endlessly looping on itself, as though from The Shining (1980), and the discomfort of seeing realised fears — disappointed parents, clowns, or talking puppets — makes everything about the hotel feel hopeless.
But when hope and the Doctor become synonymously tied, a heart-breaking speech and a beautiful cameo reprisal from Caitlin Blackwood burst the perceived complex put onto the Doctor, showing us as an audience that every episode should end in a newly created state of equilibrium and that once your understanding of a person has changed, it is impossible to see them any other way.
All episodes of Doctor Who are available on BBC iPlayer for audiences within the UK. Meanwhile, international audiences can watch the show exclusively on Disney+.
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