Recently Doctor Who Magazine has done it's First Fifty Years Poll and I personally like how this one went more than I did the Top 200 Poll. Now we are not going to publish a full list since you should all get the magazine and read it but we are going to compare the top fifteen of this poll and others.
First Fifty Years
1 The Day of the Doctor
2 Blink
3 Genesis of the Daleks
4 The Caves of Androzani
5 City of Death
6 The Talons of Weng Chiang
7 The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
8 Pyramids of Mars
9 Human Nature/Family of Blood
10 Remembrance of the Daleks
11 The Robots of Death
12 The War Games
13 Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways
14 Terror of the Zygons
15 Dalek
Top 200
1 The Caves of Androzani
2 Blink
3 Genesis of the Daleks
4 The Talons of Weng Chiang
5 The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
6 Human Nature/Family of Blood
7 Pyramids of Mars
8 City of Death
9 The Robots of Death
10 Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways
11 The Girl in the Fireplace
12 Turn Left
13 The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
14 Remembrance of the Daleks
15 Dalek
Personal
1 The Invasion
2 The Sea Devils
3 Remembrance of the Daleks
4 The Daemons
5 The Dalek Master Plan
6 Doctor Who and the Silurians
7 The Web of Fear
8 The Power of the Daleks
9 The Tomb of the Cybermen
10 Human Nature/Family of Blood
11 Genesis of the Daleks
12 Inferno
13 The Evil of the Daleks
14 The Ark in Space
15 The Girl in the Fireplace
1 The Caves of Androzani
2 Blink
3 Genesis of the Daleks
4 The Talons of Weng Chiang
5 The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
6 Human Nature/Family of Blood
7 Pyramids of Mars
8 City of Death
9 The Robots of Death
10 Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways
11 The Girl in the Fireplace
12 Turn Left
13 The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
14 Remembrance of the Daleks
15 Dalek
Personal
1 The Invasion
2 The Sea Devils
3 Remembrance of the Daleks
4 The Daemons
5 The Dalek Master Plan
6 Doctor Who and the Silurians
7 The Web of Fear
8 The Power of the Daleks
9 The Tomb of the Cybermen
10 Human Nature/Family of Blood
11 Genesis of the Daleks
12 Inferno
13 The Evil of the Daleks
14 The Ark in Space
15 The Girl in the Fireplace
I apologise for the formatting it was a bit difficult to get it all on one page and Doctor Who and the Silurians had to be shortened. The Daleks did very well with one third of the top fifteen featuring Daleks and it is interesting to see where stories from the Tennant era have fallen in favour. The Day of the Doctor came top which I am personally pleased with as it is testament to how strong the story was but I suspect in the future it may struggle to hold onto that spot.
Stories like Stolen Earth/Journey's End and Turn Left have both dropped by about twenty ranks but as you can see from my review the general hype of Rose's return and all the companions being present have now warn off in some cases and people are beginning to see the stories for what they really are.
My favourite - The Invasion did not come top in the new poll but it was one of the only two stories not to achieve a one (along with Terror of the Zygons) and it has done this twice now making it the Least Disliked Doctor Who Story of all time.
Still think The Dalek Master Plan is too low (how is it worse than The Daleks which is so overlong and dull) but most of all I am pleased with The Second Doctor Era Stories, they did very well. The Second Doctors Era had:
- All of the top six stories of the 1960s
- The two most improved stories
- The least disliked story
It is difficult to do a coherent review of the whole survey without spoiling it any more than I did but you can make your own decisions on what you thought any way. To finish off the main five stories I think were ranked too high and the main five I think were ranked too low:
TOO HIGH
- Pyramids of Mars (I do not get this story, it is a classic in parts but slow in others IMO)
- The Stolen Earth/Journey's End
- The Mutants (AKA The Daleks)
- An Unearthly Child (Part One is good but parts two - four are tragically bad - despite being the first)
- Midnight (Cardboard characters, slow, very little happens)
(Sorry if one of these five is your all time favourites these are all my personal opinion and we are all entitled to our opinions)
TOO LOW
- The Space Pirates (There is a very good story down there just it is all lost along with its reputation)
- Nightmare in Silver (The Cybermen are now a threat for the first time since Earthshock)
- Colony in Space (I love this story)
- The Hungary Earth/Cold Blood (Why do people hate this?)
- The Invasion (For personal reasons)