Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction series of all time. It has has millions of devout fans, each with their own opinion on who is their favourite Doctor, their favourite villain,companion and favourite moment. Now 50 years is a long time, and being a lifelong fan with, I’d like to think, a little bit of knowledge on the matter, here, after weeks of planning with my fellow Whovians, are my top 10 most iconic moments in Doctor Who history. I’ll be taking slight liberties with a few of my picks, but without further ado… ALLONS-Y!
10. Rose
Now I’m not way talking about the character Rose, but rather the first episode of the modern series, “Rose”. Doctor Who had been on hiatus essentially since 1989, despite Paul Mcgann dropping in for an adventure in the 1996 TV movie. Unless you watched repeats as a child, like I did, that’s a whole generation of children that missed out on Doctor Who (curse you, Michael Grade!). As such, the beauty of “Rose” is in its using essentially the same format as “An Unearthly Child”, the very first episode of Doctor Who which aired some 42 years before: it introduced an unsuspecting companion to a familiar foe in Who lore – The Autons – and threw a new Doctor in the form of Christopher Eccleston into the mix, paving the way for Who to capture the unsuspecting hearts and minds of a whole new wave of parents and kids.
9. The Death of Adric
It may come as an out-of-left-field surprise, but this is one of the most iconic moments in Doctor Who history. In the episode “Earthshock” starring Peter Davison‘s Fifth Doctor, Adric, the annoying child genius who’d been a companion to The Doctor since the final season of Tom Baker‘s tenure, made the ultimate sacrifice by crashing the ship and stopping the Cybermen from destroying a primeval Earth, and, in doing so, inadvertently triggering the start of all life on the planet. At the end of the episode, The Doctor is left devastated, leading into a new era of the show where not even The Doctor’s companions – in this case, a child! – were safe from the dangers of time travel.
8. Peter Cushing
“Doctor who?” Peter Cushing is the black sheep of all the actors who played The Doctor. Back in the 1960’s when Doctor Who was in its first boom period, the BBC wanted to sell the idea to the Americans and commissioned Amicus Studios (mostly known for low-budget horror) to create two Doctor Who films based on the two most popular Dalek stories of the time. Made on a shoestring budget, these films made little change to the original story-lines from the TV show, but Peter Cushing reveled in the role of The Doctor, truly embracing the character while never copying William Hartnells mannerisms. He may not be considered canon, but Cushing put the idea into the public’s mind that someone else could, perhaps, play The Doctor…
7. The Invasion
“The Invasion” is another unexpected choice I’ve decided to throw into the mix. By itself, this story might sound like a throw away: it’s eight parts long and the Cybermen don’t even appear until Episode 4. Still, the most iconic part of the story is when the Cybermen finally show their hand and begin their invasion of London in earnest. We see Cybermen coming out of the sewers, walking around the streets – the money shot is of them appearing at the top of the steps by St. Pauls Cathedral. As a child, I vividly remember having nightmares of this scene of the Cybermen invading, and it’s stuck with me even till this day.
6. An Unearthly Child
Now I’m going to cheat a little bit here with this particular moment. On November 22nd, 1963, (the same day President Kennedy was shot), Doctor Who hit our television screens for the first time. It introduced us to this mysterious old man who refers to himself as ‘The Doctor’, his highly intelligent granddaughter and a mystical police telephone box that was somehow bigger on the inside. It laid down the foundations for a show that’s still running 50 years later. Exactly how it is referenced in “The Day of the Doctor” remains to be seen – whether the famous Totter’s Lane sign makes it reappearance or, perhaps, something even subtler – but it formed the touchstone for the whole of Who as we know it.
5. Daleks
The Doctor’s second adventure took him and Susan into the future and the planet of Skaro. The Doctor, fascinated by this futuristic city, wants to explore,though in hindsight a touch of caution might have proven invaluable. It was in this story that The Doctor came across his most dangerous and relentless foe: the Daleks. This seven-episode story introduced these monsters to the British public and scared children into hiding behind the sofas. With promised reveals about the nature of the Time War, the most deadliest of the universe’s menaces will definitely take up a starring role in anniversary proceedings.
4. Cliff Hangers
Like any good episodic serial, the key to getting the viewers back for next week’s episode is to leave them wanting more, leave them asking questions, hoping that our hero will not meet his maker. I’m talking of course about the cliffhanger. It became the benchmark of every Doctor Who episode. It wasn’t until the John Pertwee episode ‘”The Claws of Axos” where the theme sting was introduced leading into the classic Doctor Who title track.
3. Tom Baker
While I love all the doctors, my two favorites are Colin Baker and Paul McGann (both hugely underrated by everyone not in the Whoniverse), but it’s another Baker, Tom Baker, that is the most well-recognized of all the original Doctors. Yes, everyone can have their say about Hartnell and Troughton, even David Tennant for the new era of fans, but Tom Baker is “The Doctor”. He embodied the character for seven years, a whole generation of children growing up between 1974 to 1981. Verity Lambert, one of the original producers of Doctor Who, said that the reason Tom Baker worked so well as The Doctor was because he never let you forget that he was an alien and it worked. He represented all the Doctors that came before him, the genius of Hartnell, the playfulness of Troughton, the toughness of Pertwee, but still managed to be his own man. Though many actors have played the Doctor since, and will do in the future no one has come so close to having the total package that Tom Baker had as The Doctor.
This is just a cheap plug also, due to me having a quick interview with him at this year’s ComicCon in London- what a lovely man, he offered me a jelly baby.
2. Genesis of The Daleks
“Genesis of the Daleks” is the most complete Doctor Who serial of all time; it’s six parts of television gold. Written by legendary Who writer Terry Nation, the story takes us back to the very beginning of the Daleks creation. Terry Nation used inspiration from stories of Nazi Germany in terms of creating the ultimate race. But it is also famous for introducing us to in my opinion The Doctor’s greatest singular villain: Davros. Oh, golly gosh, Davros was one nasty piece of work. He is the opposite of everything The Doctor stood for. The Doctor embraced life and believed in free speech, whilst Davros wanted to eliminate everything that was less than perfect compared to his Daleks. Though he has appeared in many Doctor Who stories since, “Genesis of The Daleks” is where he shines as a threatening villain and thus made the Daleks a threat again in the mind of Doctor who viewers.
1. Regeneration
The regeneration is undoubtedly the key recurring moment in all of Doctor Who. Back in 1966, despite the fact that the show was still a ratings hit, the producers wanted a change, something fresh, and William Hartnell wasn’t getting any younger. Not wanting to cancel the show, they came up with the idea of regeneration. The Doctor would die… sort of. As an alien, instead of dying he simply changed into someone else a new man. A new actor playing the same character would take over and a lot of credit has to be given to Patrick Troughton, being able to convince the public that The Doctor didn’t just mean William Hartnell, and since then every Doctor has had this experience. Its the most anticipated event in the show’s history, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the ratings for the episode go through the roof at Christmas when Matt Smith‘s Eleventh says his goodbyes and turns into Peter Capaldi‘s Twelfth.
So there we have it my top 10 list of what I consider to be the greatest Doctor Who moments of all time. What are your favourite Who moments from past and present? Are you a lover of the old tin dog? Scared of the Weeping Angels? Or do you, like me, miss poor Peri Brown?
So from all the Whovians around the world, heres to 50 years of Time Lord magic and heres to 50 more years of bumbling around in time and space.
