Doctor Who “Season 1” – Episodes Ranked

New Doctor, new companion, new (or in this case returning) showrunner, and a swanky new budget courtesy of Disney. Doctor Who is back, baby!

Season 1 – or Season 14, if I’m being pedantic – has come and gone … so how would I rank all eight episodes? Be wary of SPOILERS if you haven’t finished the season yet!

Before we begin, you can check out some of my related blog posts below:

Meh

8 – Space Babies (Ep 1)

I, like many Doctor Who fans, eagerly tuned in for the season opener to see what RTD was cooking. As I should have suspected, he didn’t take “Space Babies” seriously at all.

I don’t mind a light-hearted story, but the babies and the literal bogey-monster was too much for me. Add on top of that scenes where the Doctor scares the babies on purpose and reveals his name off camera and you get one of the worst season openers outside of the Chibnall era.

Some big questions have to be asked of RTD after this. Why open your season – the grand episode supposed to draw in a new generation of viewers – with this farce?

OK

7 – The Devil’s Chord (Ep 2)

The other biggest disappointment of the season, and “The Devil’s Chord” immediately followed the season opener. RTD2 wasn’t off to the best start …

Maestro’s piano leading into the main theme was cool, and Ruby’s rooftop concert was lovely, but I was expecting more from what was billed as “The Beatles Episode”. The Fab Four were hardly in it!

The last fifteen minutes, including the cringey music battle against Maestro and the even cringier music number at the end, was one of the worst climaxes I can recall in a Doctor Who episode.

For reference, the Christmas Special “The Church On Ruby Road” would rank about here as well. It’s not technically included in Season 1, but it was another episode that had some cringey and underwhelming moments.

Good

6 – Dot and Bubble (Ep 5)

My expectations were rock bottom after seeing the trailer for “Dot and Bubble”. A modern, trendy allegory about social media via the BBC? No thanks.

Surprisingly, it ended up being a great social media / echo chamber critique with a really heavy ending to cap it all off. The characters could be annoying at points, the world wasn’t expanded and the monsters were basically forgotten about, but otherwise I had a better time than I was expecting.

5 – Rogue (Ep 6)

Let’s get the negatives out the way – Rogue swapping with Ruby at the end felt cheap, and I’m not a Bridgerton fan so the the vibes weren’t really my thing. Other than that, “Rogue” was an enjoyable episode.

Jonathan Groff is a phenomenal actor to score for a show like Doctor Who, and his chemistry with Ncuti was off the charts. The villains were fun, the sets looked great, and I was invested in the romance – in other words, the episode did its job!

4 – 73 Yards (Ep 4)

I might get a lot of flack for this one as “73 Yards” was an instant fan favourite, but I don’t think it quite cracks my top three for the season.

Let’s get the positives out the way first – this is Doctor Lite done right, and Millie Gibson gives a commanding performance. The whole monster-from-a-distance was chilling, and the way Ruby became more isolated as the years went on was truly heart-breaking.

… And now for the negatives. It’s far too early to do a Doctor Lite episode, so I wished we got more time with Ncuti to establish his Doctor. The ending made no sense with how old Ruby went back in time and into a different timeline. The politics aspect was rushed and disjointed. And there were no titles and music to start the episode!

The good definitely outweighs the bad, but this would be my pick for “overrated” episode of the season.

Great

3 – Empire of Death (Ep 8)

People are ragging on “Empire of Death” at the time of writing for being messy and anticlimactic. I agree with some of the general points, but I still had a fun time with the overall package. In other words, this is my “underrated” episode of the lot.

Sutekh had a great comeuppance, but he didn’t do much across the episode. The ending with Ruby and her mother was really touching, but that was mainly down to Murray Gold’s fantastic score more than anything else.

A big point of contention for the episode was that Ruby’s mum is revealed to be a “nobody”, which is a bit anticlimactic. In my opinion, I don’t think her story is done yet – there are too many unanswered questions that I think will eventually shed light on the whole thing.

But seriously … why did Ruby’s mum wear a hood and dramatically point at a random signpost when she thought nobody was looking?

2 – The Legend of Ruby Sunday (Ep 7)

In this case, I found the setup to be better than the actual pay-off.

It was great to see such a focus on Susan Twist, and the Time Window was such a cool set-piece in the middle of the episode. The Sutekh reveal, however overdramatic and corny, definitely got my heart-rate up and my anticipation sky-high for the following week’s finale.

1 – Boom (Ep 3)

“Boom” was my most hyped episode of the whole season – RTD showrunning and Moffat writing? A match made in heaven. Luckily, the hype delivered.

The Doctor being stuck on a landmine takes away his ability to run, and it forces the episode to stay in one location – and yet it was enthralling all the way. The performances were fantastic, the dialogue was witty, the stories of love were all affecting … Yeah, this was the best episode of the show in years.

Aaaaaand that’s my list! You can check out some of my latest blog posts below: