Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Some quick notes on io9's Doctor Who list

They really like New Who, don't they? There is only one episode from New Who listed as a "Disappointment" (unsurprisingly, it is "Fear Her"). The Mind Robber, Carnival of Monsters, and Remembrance of the Daleks are ranked criminally low (they're in the top 100, but they deserve to be in the top 30. The fact that they're all ranked below such tripe as "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Doomsday" is the real problem).

I'm not going to argue with the top three (The Caves of Androzani, "Blink," and City of Death), as they really are the best three episodes/serials and basically impossible to rank against each other because they're so very different. That Doctor Who and the Silurians is in the top 25 is immensely gratifying. "A Christmas Carol" is rightly judged as the greatest Christmas special ever, but placing below "The Waters of Mars" is just wrong. I can understand io9 - a decidedly liberal website - putting "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" painfully low on the list for its racial problems.

And, to end on a high note, I wholeheartedly agree with their choice of Pyramids of Mars as Tom Baker's second-best serial.  The whole list is here.

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