This one is tricky. It’s harder to decide on a least favorite than it is on a most favorite! There are the meh/mediocre stories that I simply don’t find very interesting. There can be some good lines or scenes but as a whole they do not grab my attention that much.
No Classic stories jump to mind. I even like weird ones like Ghostlight. Maybe the Gunfighters? Because of ALL THAT SINGING! Now, I like musicals (The Greatest Showman! *Faints*), but this just did not work in this story. At all.
Even in my post on one of my two favorite series, with my favorite Doctor (other than Tom), I really did not like Face the Raven. It just got me mad because it did not make sense – in a bad way (yeah, the show has way more than one instance of not making sense, but most of the time it doesn’t bother me), and that Clara’s death didn’t seem to mean anything. Frankly, I was glad she was brought back in Hell Bent (and a lot of people did not like Hell Bent). And when I re-watched it earlier this year, I as even more mad because it made even less sense. Though I do want to re-watch it again, to see if I am missing something. And maybe one day I will go into more depth of why I don’t like it…
Next on the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Favorite Couple
The Christmas episodes have become a annual even since the show returned in 2005. And there are 2….3? Great episodes of them
First is A Christmas Carol, a sci fi spin on Charles Dickens’ classic story (which is, sort of sci fi in itself with the time traveling with the ghosts and Scrooge)
(And let’s not forget a earlier episode that took place on Christmas, with Dickens, and ghosts, although it did not air on Christmas: The Unquiet Dead.)
Another favorite Christmas episode is The Husbands of River Song.
This one was a lot of fun, Madcap-y, slapstick-y, with some dark overtones, and an introduction to a new character (Nardole).
One of the best scenes is below, when River doesn’t know that she is with the Doctor (she knew all the previous incarnations of the Doctor, except the current one). So the Doctor sort of plays along with it, but constantly drops hints. Which brings about the below:
I ma not one for romantic movies or romance novels, but even I was kind of hoping they would kiss at the end. It was so sweet!
And the other great Christmas episode was the 2016 Return of Doctor Mysterio (this followed exactly a year of no Who. that was a difficult year, in more ways than one). If you have seen the 1979 Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, the setting and certain scenes will look very familiar. While I am not really into the current super hero movies, I loved the 1979 Superman movie when I was a kid. So seeing this was a pure delight.
Below is shortly after we meet young Grant, who loves comic books
And the ending was a call back to Husbands of River Song and 12’s short speech about things ending was very touching.
A couple weeks after this episode aired, Peter Capaldi announced that the following series would be his last. And a bunch of us cried over that, and referred back to this speech.
Next on the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Favorite Cybermen Story
The enemy of the Doctor who helped save Doctor Who: the Daleks. Probably the most famous enemy that the Doctor has. And they were there from almost day1, While not my favorite enemy (I feel they are used waaay tooo much), they are cool and intimidating, and loud. Also cool to draw.
Again, a tie!
Classic Who
Genesis of the Daleks is my first pick. The story that introduced Davros. And in Tom Baker’s first season as the 4th Doctor., only his 4th story.
My other favorite Classic Who story is Remembrance of the Daleks. Aired during season 25. I think that they should have made this the 25th anniversary episode instead of Silver Nemesis, but the BBC knew better (*clears throat* ahem). It takes place in and around Coal Hill school in November 1963, right after the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara had left. And we see the junkyard again (albeit the door to the junkyard is not right, but that’s me being nit-picky)
And one of my favorite little bits. Made me freak when I first watched it. Weird Real World/In Universe type of things.
https://youtu.be/heaneTFht6s
Sadly, due to weird copyright issues, this one (along with just a few other Classic Who Dalek stories) is not on BritBox.
New Who
Got to be Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar. One of the reasons why I loved series 9.
Side Note
And a special acknowledgement for the Peter Cushing’s films as Dr. Who from the 1960s. Only two were made, and both had the Daleks. I have not seen these since I was a young fan, and have been meaning to re-watch them. After 30 years, it will be like watching it for the first time.
Next on Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Least Favorite Season/Series
It’s time to grab the tissues, because in this installment of the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge, we have the Saddest Moment. Or Moments since I’m so good at having ties. There’s a couple different types of answers I’ll give for this. One is the Real World answer. And three others would be within the show itself.
Real World
December 6, 1989, was when the last part of Survival aired. It would be the last episode of (what is now called) Classic Who since Michael Grade and others at the BBC cancelled it. And there were no new tv stories until 1996 with the single TV movie. And then not again until 2005 with the successful reboot. While there were the books, comics, official magazine, not having Doctor Who on TV was very sad for us old time fans.
Within the Doctor Who Universe
There are several sad moments, both from Classic and New Who. The saddest Classic moment to me is the death of Adric, as he sacrifices himself to save Earth in the story Earthshock. Companions deaths rarely happened in Classic Who, so this was a shock (sorry, bad pun) to me as a young fan.
New Who has three that top it for me.
While not a death, the wiping of Donna’s memories of her adventures with the Doctor in Journey’s End was breathtakingly sad. Even though he did it to save her due to the meta-crisis, it still…. just…couldn’t he have wiped out just enough for her to be safe but not everything? Ugh. They did address this a couple times during Capaldi’s era.
The other New Who saddest moment is the death of Amy and Rory in Angels Take Manhattan. Or rather the time adjusted death of them due to the Weeping Angel. I saw this with a large group of fans and we were all balling our eyes out.
The below video takes place shortly after the above scenes (kind of shortly after? Time travel messes with ya). Arthur Darvill who played Rory, did a voiceover for his letter to Rory’s dad. Interesting to point out that P.S. is written by the new showrunner, Chris Chibnall. It was released by teh BBC 3 years after the episode, and nicely concludes the story. Shame they didn’t shoot it!
…. Oh, yeah, The Doctor Falls. Just the whole freaking episode. I was still so emotionally worn out after that episode that when Twice upon a Time aired, it didn’t affect me near as much when he actually regenerated.
Next on the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge- Favorite Spinoff
To help get this blog going again, I’m going to take on a Doctor Who 30 Day challenge (there are several out there, I picked one I liked). The image below is the lineup of challenges, and I hope to have them done by the time the new Doctor makes her (it is weird to write that) appearance. If I am really lucky, I can do it on consecutive days. The below challenge is one I found on the Doctor Who group on Amino.
Day 1 – Favorite Doctor
Right, let’s start with the most asked/biggest question, shall we?
Most of my 30+ years of being a Whovian, the 4th Doctor – the jelly baby offering, loooong scarf wearing, teethy grinning, “Do I have the right?” saying – has always been at the very top of my list. I love them all, but the 4th just has not been out-beaten. Not exactly a controversial favorite since almost everyone loves him, some exclusively only him.
But a couple years ago he became tied by the 12th Doctor. The angry eyebrows, hair of amazing, sonic shade wearing, guitar playing actor who was an ultra Doctor Who fan from toddler age and wrote sooo many fan letters to the BBC as a child and teen that some people at the BBC wished he would go away – has been tied with 4 since the end of series 9. (And I noticed that he is the 4th numbered Doctor in New Who. Coincidence?). Part of the reason why he is tied is how he played the role. Another reason is how Peter interacts with fans, going above and beyond the normal expectations of someone famous.I’m going to miss him sooo much! :'(
Recommended episodes
4th Doctor
Genesis of the Daleks
City of Death
Shada
12th Doctor
The Magician’s Apprentice/Witch’s Familiar (2 parts)
Undere the Lake/Before the Flood (another 2 parts – and immediately follows the 2 parter above)
The Eaters of Light
Post Script – It took me 5 days to write this (well, and the fitting of things onto the page). Don’t think I can do one everyday, but I hope to finish the challenge before series 11 starts!
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Most of my 30+ years of being a Whovian, the 4th Doctor – the jelly baby offering, loooong scarf wearing, teethy grinning, “Do I have the right?” saying – has always been at the very top of my list. I love them all, but the 4th just has not been out-beaten. Not exactly a controversial favorite since almost everyone loves him, some exclusively only him.