Mmmm I think my favourites would be:
1- The Empty Child
2- The end of the world (This story convinced me to jump head first into this series, I love it)
3- Bad Wolf
I think I preferred The End of the World to Rose at the time. Something about Rose felt a bit off (and knowing now about the production problems on that episode and the issues surrounding Keith Boak, now I think that might be something to do with it).
I wasn’t a huge fan of The Empty Child until my recent rewatch but it is head and shoulders above the rest of the season in many ways - and Nancy is the greatest companion we never had.
Rose is pretty good, it’s a good start, but comparing it to The End of the World… The scenery of the Earth, so many races united, the Doctor talking about his planet even a little bit and the last human.
It was a better chapter for me in many ways and I appreciate it for making me like Eccleston.
I definitely need to rewatch the era because my overwhelming memory is of loving it because it was New Doctor Who but, in the years since my enthusiasm for it has considerably waned to the point where I’d struggle to enthuse about any of the stories (although my rewatch of The Empty Child helped considerably.
Honorable mention to Boomtown. Haven’t gotten a chance to listen to the audios yet, but as far as the show is concerned there’s not an Eccleston story I dislike.
“Dalek” and “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” are two of my all-time favourite stories, so they’re easy picks. “Father’s Day” isn’t quite on the same level for me, but it’s still a great episode – the cutting way Eccleston said “just another stupid ape” really sticks in my mind.
I’ve listened to one of the 9DA audio sets (the first one, Ravagers) and I enjoyed it even though the plot was hard to follow I keep intending to listen to more, considering the consensus is that the later ones were better. Haven’t done so yet, though!