Ranking first trips in the TARDIS

Television Doctor Who (2005-2022)
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People on twitter are ranking companions first proper trip in the TARDIS (New Who) before we see Ruby Sunday’s first trip so how would you rank the following episodes?

  1. The Beast Below
  2. The Fires of Pompeii
  3. The End of the World
  4. Vampires of Venice
  5. Smile
  6. The Girl in the Fireplace
  7. The Rings of Akhaten
  8. Rosa
  9. The Shakespeare Code

(Notes on why these specific episodes: Rosa is the first time the fam actually travel via TARDIS, replace with Ghost Monument if you prefer, Nardole seems to have travelled a bunch between Husbands and Mysterio so I elected to not include that one, Fires of pompeii is the first proper TARDIS adventure for Donna but you could argue Runaway bride)

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  1. The Fires of Pompeii
  2. The Girl in the Fireplace (a pretty crap trip from Mickey’s perspective, but the episode’s great lol)
  3. Smile
  4. The Shakespeare Code
  5. Rosa
  6. The End of the World
  7. The Beast Below
  8. The Vampires of Venice
  9. The Rings of Akhaten

Never realized how good of a track record these first trips had, there isn’t a single bad one imo.

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  1. The Rings of Akhaten
  2. The End of the World
  3. The Fires of Pompeii
  4. Smile
  5. The Beast Below
  6. The Vampires of Venice
  7. Rosa
  8. The Girl in the Fireplace
  9. The Shakespeare Code

I love Akhaten so much—a big comfort episode for me. And I know it’s beloved, but I’m not a big fan of the Girl in the Fireplace!

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  1. The End of the World (strong 2nd episode of the show)
  2. The Girl in the Fireplace (:face_holding_back_tears:)
  3. The Beast Below (11+Amy= :heartbeat: ) + bi/pan hotness
  4. The Fires of Pompeii (just a solid episode that comes back multiple times)
  5. The Shakespeare Code (minus JK/HP stuff :face_vomiting: )
  6. Vampires of Venice (fun)
  7. The Rings of Akhaten (just doesn’t click with me)
  8. Rosa (neat idea but as subtle as a sledgehammer)

Smile (i know i’ve seen it but can’t remember it)

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The Girl in the Fireplace
The Fires of Pompeii
Smile
The Beast Below
The End of the World
[GAP]
Vampires of Venice
[GAP]
The Shakespeare Code
The Rings of Akhaten
Rosa

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Rosa
Smile
The Girl in the Fireplace
The Fires of Pompeii
The End of the World
The Shakespeare Code
Vampires of Venice
The Beast Below
The Rings of Akhaten

It’s always fun to see just how different fans are when it comes to rankings :+1:

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  1. The Girl in the Fireplace
  2. The Fires of Pompeii
  3. The End of the World
  4. The Beast Below
  5. Smile
  6. Vampires of Venice
  7. The Shakespeare Code
  8. Rosa
  9. The Rings of Akhaten

I’m just realising how little I like these stories, everything after The Fires of Pompeii range from mediocre to awful for me.

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Ooh I started a trope for this but only been adding it to audios I’ve been listening to, I can at least add these in too now :smiling_face:

As for my rankings:

  1. The Girl in the Fireplace
  2. The Fires of Pompeii

Those two are so close it’s almost impossible to say. Both top tier.

  1. The End of the World

The rest are harder to rank:

  1. The Beast Below
  2. Smile
  3. Vampires of Venice
  4. The Shakespeare Code
  5. The Rings of Akhaten
  6. Rosa
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  1. The Fires of Pompeii (even more fun after listening to Fires of Vulcan and knowing 7 is also running around somewhere)
  2. The End of the World
  3. The Shakespeare Code (HP references aside)
  4. Smile
  5. Girl in the Fireplace
  6. Vampires of Venice
  7. The Beast Below
  8. Rosa
  9. The Rings of Akhaten (all I remember is they used a leaf to kill a sun? or something???)
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my definite favorites…

  1. The End of the World
  2. The Beast Below
  3. Smile
  4. Vampires of Venice
  5. The Fires of Pompeii
    …the ones i care about less…
  6. The Shakespeare Code
  7. The Girl in the Fireplace
  8. Rosa
    …and at the very bottom…
  9. The Rings of Akhaten
    ^^^sorry to Akhaten, this one always feels like a fake episode that would be playing on tv in a sitcom to me
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Oh hard actually, I like a lot of these, but probably I’d go:

  • The End of the World
  • The Fires of Pompeii
  • The Beast Below (I have a great fondness for this one bc I had the DVD of the first 3 series 5 eps and I watched that enddddlessly)
  • Smile
  • The Rings of Akhaten
  • Rosa
  • Vampires of Venice
  • The Shakespeare Code
  • The Girl in the Fireplace
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Hmmm for me, it’s probably:

  1. End of the World
  2. Fires of Pompeii
  3. Smile
  4. Beast Below
  5. Vampires of Venice
  6. Rings of Akhaten
  7. Shakespeare Code
  8. Girl in the Fireplace
  9. Rosa

I know I’m in the minority with disliking GitF, but i will stand by that opinion lol. It’s really interesting seeing people’s differing opinions on this!

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It really is - more than can be gleaned from just looking at ratings.

Some people’s lists are the total opposite of others.

Fascinating, and shows how wide and varied fandom is :blush:

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I’m right in there with you, I do not understand what about that episode makes people crazy about it :person_shrugging:

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Tricky but I think I’ll go with this for now.

  • End of the World
  • Fires of Pompeii
  • Rosa
  • Shakespeare Code
  • Girl in the Fireplace
  • Smile
  • Beast Below
  • Vampires of Venice
  • Rings of Akhaten
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What an interesting list! I’d plop with:

  1. The Girl in the Fireplace
  2. The End of the World
  3. The Fires of Pompeii
  4. The Beast Below
  5. The Shakespeare Code
  6. Smile
  7. Vampires of Venice
  8. Rosa
  9. The Rings of Akhaten
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(Considering we have now Ruby’s first Trip I’ll include it) My List would probably go like this:
1 The Fires of Pompeii
2 Beast Below
3 Smile
4 The End of the World
5 Rosa
6 The Rings of Akhaten
7 Space Babies
8 Vampire of Venice
9 The Girl in the Fireplace
10 The Shakespeare Code

(Yes, I love replying to an older Topic out of nowhere :partying_face: )

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Feels to me like a lot of first TARDIS trips are missing in here.

For one thing, School Reunion for Mickey, Boom Town for Jack Harkness, and The Long Game for Adam, but we’re missing all of classic, too!

I’d tend to count An Unearthly Child for Ian and Barbara, since it happens in episode one. We don’t see Susan’s.
Vicki’s was The Romans.
Stephen was definitely The Time Meddler.
The Daleks Master Plan for Katarina, Bret, and Sara Kingdom.
Dodo gets The Ark.
Ben and Polly’s first outing was The Smugglers.
Jamie would be The Underwater Menace.
Victoria was in The Tomb of the Cybermen.
Zoe was The Dominators.
Liz didn’t get one.
Jo Grant was Colony in Space, I think.
Counting Sarah Jane Smith as The Time Warrior for the same reason as Ian and Barbara.
The Ark in Space was Harry.
Leela got Robots of Death (which would have to be high up the list)…
K9’s first first TARDIS trip was Image of the Fendahl.
The Ribos Operation for Romana? Surely she’s been in a TARDIS before, though. It counts as K9’s second first TARDIS trip, regardless.
Adric would be State of Decay.
Nyssa and Tegan would come in about Castrovalva, I think.
I believe The Brig would be Mawdryn Undead. Turlough could either be that or Terminus.
Kamelion, sadly, I think is Planet of Fire.
Peri gets The Caves of Andorzani.
Mel’s was offscreen.
And Ace would have been Remembrance of the Daleks…

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Nice one! I’m adding the missing ones right now!

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This is a tough one

  1. The Beast Below (perfectly sets up the 11th Doctor as a character, a eccentric and wild “young” man with a tired darkness lurking beneath the surface.)
  2. Girl in the Fireplace.
  3. Rings of Akhaten (10/10 song.)
  4. Smile
  5. Fires of Pompeii (Donna’s just save someone speech might be enough to bump this up past Smile.)
  6. Vampires of Venice
  7. The End of the World (Good episode that I don’t care for that much, Cassandra will outlive us all in meme form.)
  8. Space Babies
  9. Rosa
  10. The Shakespeare Code

Keep doing it so I can find new topics to yap in :smirk:

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