12: Space Babies - 3/10 11: The Empire of Death - 4/10 10: The Legend of Ruby Sunday - 5/10 9: Rogue - 6/10 8: The Church on Ruby Road - 6/10 7: The Star Beast - 7/10 6: Boom - 7/10 5: The Devil’s Chord - 7/10 4: Dot and Bubble - 8/10 3: 73 Yards - 8/10 2: The Giggle - 8/10 1: Wild Blue Yonder - 9/10 I’m a defender of this era so far but there have certainly been duds
I do enjoy your wondering if Hartnell could meet a companion in a club... when that's how he met Ben! Joking aside, very fun video :) My list, from best to worst: Wild Blue Yonder Dot and Bubble The Devil's Chord Rogue 73 Yards Boom The Giggle The Church on Ruby Road The Star Beast The Legend of Ruby Sunday/Empire of Death Space Babies
Dot and Bubble had plenty of faults, from losing basic survival skills thanks to social media addiction to plot armor on the girl who got poked by a robot when she was supposed to die while the guy was completely one-shot. And the only heroes of the story were the slugs. I guess there's a bit of existential dread in there, so there's a few good points to be had. I just felt there were a lot of convenient takes for the sake of solving the story. A lot of people have praised BOOM, and as a Moffat fan myself, I feel like the solution is a bit nonsensical with the AI being hijacked by the memories of the people it collected and the child being so naive and so easygoing with death. It's just weird, even tonally, when the music and the characters get really grim and a second later it's all cheers. I felt the staging and concept were great, but the story and the beats were not peak Moff. I feel I would rewatch a lot of his past stuff quicker than this one. Other than that, Space Babies was not the worst-executed concept apart from the vacuum stuff and the ambiguous ending and it's actually an ambitious filming project and a fair starter for long-time fans. But for newcomers, this might've put a dent on first impressions. I feel Rogue had a good setting, but sidelining the lackluster main story over a quick affair between two strangers that feels a bit out of character for the Doctor does make the episode suffer a bit. It's not bad and the comedy does have its moments, but it's dragged down by the odd changes in character dynamics and an apparent loss in story focus. I'm surprised 73 Yards wasn't rated higher: it was a weird episode, perhaps too weird, but it does offer proof of concept of what Doctor Who is when you think about it: A deep mystery, a weird small town in Wales, an unsolvable problem, a Doctorless companion and a situation that opens many possibilities for the villain and the main arc. I also felt some minor points about Empire of Death were decent (like the production and the twists), but the execution of that episode undermined everything that came before (including the 60th and Pyramids of Mars) and I feel it did a disservice to one of the household names in the entire show and actually lowered the stakes for the story. And the story also lost most of its target audience: it's not newcomer-friendly and hardcore fans who loved Sutekh will have a hard time digesting this one imo. This season is also the first season to ever make me binge the episodes, and all the problems some people had with past seasons just turned the dial to 11 here. It's a very disconcerting episode and there's little reason to go on thanks to it. Space Babies is definitely not worse, and between this and the Davros stuff... it's a tough call, but I would say Empire has less leverage. I would say the rest share similar views to what I experienced, at least from an objective viewpoint. My only criticism for Legend of Ruby Sunday is not being newcomer-friendly and the weirdness factor around the new UNIT team not being explained (and no, I don't want a full spin-off just to explain that). The 60th also opened breaches in Donna's story that weren't there in S4 and there was a big void of legacy stuff for an anniversary in exchange for a Tennant-era retcon (as if we didn't get many of those in recent years).
12: Space Babies - 3/10
11: The Empire of Death - 4/10
10: The Legend of Ruby Sunday - 5/10
9: Rogue - 6/10
8: The Church on Ruby Road - 6/10
7: The Star Beast - 7/10
6: Boom - 7/10
5: The Devil’s Chord - 7/10
4: Dot and Bubble - 8/10
3: 73 Yards - 8/10
2: The Giggle - 8/10
1: Wild Blue Yonder - 9/10
I’m a defender of this era so far but there have certainly been duds
@@AlmightyBruce great ranking! I'd agree this era is pretty good and definitely had potential, just think RTD needs to trim the fat a bit :)
I do enjoy your wondering if Hartnell could meet a companion in a club... when that's how he met Ben! Joking aside, very fun video :)
My list, from best to worst:
Wild Blue Yonder
Dot and Bubble
The Devil's Chord
Rogue
73 Yards
Boom
The Giggle
The Church on Ruby Road
The Star Beast
The Legend of Ruby Sunday/Empire of Death
Space Babies
@@eloqi of course! How could I forgot about Ben. Great list!
Dot and Bubble had plenty of faults, from losing basic survival skills thanks to social media addiction to plot armor on the girl who got poked by a robot when she was supposed to die while the guy was completely one-shot. And the only heroes of the story were the slugs. I guess there's a bit of existential dread in there, so there's a few good points to be had. I just felt there were a lot of convenient takes for the sake of solving the story.
A lot of people have praised BOOM, and as a Moffat fan myself, I feel like the solution is a bit nonsensical with the AI being hijacked by the memories of the people it collected and the child being so naive and so easygoing with death. It's just weird, even tonally, when the music and the characters get really grim and a second later it's all cheers. I felt the staging and concept were great, but the story and the beats were not peak Moff. I feel I would rewatch a lot of his past stuff quicker than this one.
Other than that, Space Babies was not the worst-executed concept apart from the vacuum stuff and the ambiguous ending and it's actually an ambitious filming project and a fair starter for long-time fans. But for newcomers, this might've put a dent on first impressions. I feel Rogue had a good setting, but sidelining the lackluster main story over a quick affair between two strangers that feels a bit out of character for the Doctor does make the episode suffer a bit. It's not bad and the comedy does have its moments, but it's dragged down by the odd changes in character dynamics and an apparent loss in story focus.
I'm surprised 73 Yards wasn't rated higher: it was a weird episode, perhaps too weird, but it does offer proof of concept of what Doctor Who is when you think about it: A deep mystery, a weird small town in Wales, an unsolvable problem, a Doctorless companion and a situation that opens many possibilities for the villain and the main arc.
I also felt some minor points about Empire of Death were decent (like the production and the twists), but the execution of that episode undermined everything that came before (including the 60th and Pyramids of Mars) and I feel it did a disservice to one of the household names in the entire show and actually lowered the stakes for the story. And the story also lost most of its target audience: it's not newcomer-friendly and hardcore fans who loved Sutekh will have a hard time digesting this one imo. This season is also the first season to ever make me binge the episodes, and all the problems some people had with past seasons just turned the dial to 11 here. It's a very disconcerting episode and there's little reason to go on thanks to it. Space Babies is definitely not worse, and between this and the Davros stuff... it's a tough call, but I would say Empire has less leverage.
I would say the rest share similar views to what I experienced, at least from an objective viewpoint. My only criticism for Legend of Ruby Sunday is not being newcomer-friendly and the weirdness factor around the new UNIT team not being explained (and no, I don't want a full spin-off just to explain that). The 60th also opened breaches in Donna's story that weren't there in S4 and there was a big void of legacy stuff for an anniversary in exchange for a Tennant-era retcon (as if we didn't get many of those in recent years).