while we’re on the topics of best episodes, let’s drop some bombshells 
episodes that are unpopular that are actually good:
- The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe
- The Tsuranga Conundrum
- Underworld
- The Ghost Monument
- The Time Monster
- The Invisible Enemy
- Aliens of London/World War 3
episodes that are popular that i think are actually boring or vastly overrated:
- Blink
- City of Death
- Caves of Androzani
- The Deadly Assassin
- The Zygon Invasion/Inversion
- Human Nature/Family of Blood
i’m sure I can think of more but I’ll stop here for now! Let’s just say, I argue with the DWM rankings every year
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Take out “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe” from one list and “The Caves of Androzani” from the other and I’ll stand by you in a spirited defense of these lists 
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I adore Paradise towers so much
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I agree with a lot of both these lists but you’ll never convince me Doctor Widow Wardrobe is good
Also agree with @CommanderBayban Timelash is actually good, what other episode gaslights the audience into thinking they missed a Pertwee episode?
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I’ll be back later with my patented defence of The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe - a hugely misunderstood story.
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I’m being 100% genuine here also, it’s easily one of my more favourite xmas specials and I really don’t get why it’s so panned by greater fandom
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I’m back because I really have to get this one out:
I hated Church on Ruby Road. SO SO much and it made me so sad. My favourite part of it was the bit where 15 deduces the police officer being about to propose, doing the whole TV Movie clairvoyance bit but playing it as a product of intelligence rather than super special Time Lord ability. It was so sweet and really touched on who I thought this Doctor was going to be. TO FIND OUT that they basically forced Russ to write that so the Doctor would turn up sooner was a bit rough.
But meanwhile, CORR is basically just a greatest hits run of everyone else. Cracks in time, timey-wimey foundling plot, bleak alternate universe, symbolic logic, magic? My real controversial opinion is that everything good about CORR is either copied directly from Rose, or copied from Moff’s tenure on the show. It reeks of arrogance.
And the SONG. I tried really hard. I tried really hard. But it’s both an underwritten and incredibly overproduced piece of music that just totally yanks you out of the show.
The part where Ruby is erased from existence and her foster mother turns into the most cartoonishly evil person is just fucking ridiculous. Russell has no way of convincing us of this change except having her spout generic bad person platitudes (I don’t have time/a baby would ruin my holiday) etc etc and it just doesn’t convince. Ncuti Gatwa succeeds basically in spite of everything around him, and knowing that Russ is now writing 6/8 of the new series episodes just makes my heart sink.
That’s my rant out, the stomach ulcer has been delayed by another month thank goodness.
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The song is interesting, hated it in the preview, by the time the episode itself came out I loved it
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Disney asked him to write a scene with the Doctor appearing a bit earlier, to help with audiences who perhaps weren’t familiar with the show.
This doesn’t mean it wasn’t Russell’s writing. It was. So you can’t take that away from him.
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I enjoyed it and I think it’s probably the best little bit of character work in the show, but we also almost never got it at all in favor of, presumably, a much longer Doctor-less montage. I don’t mean to take the quality of the writing away from him, but the fact that he had to be strong-armed into writing characterization for the show’s lead when we got a completely superfluous 4 minute song (and then literally three pages of playing catch for the climax of the previous episode) makes me feel that either his priorities are all wrong, or he’s half-arsing because there’s so much on his plate.
I think Russell is an excellent showrunner because he is the biggest champion for the show. You can tell he loves it with every fiber of his being. He just needs a team of good writers so he can focus on publicity, long-term story arcs that actually pay off because he has time to make them work, and generally just being the spearhead (from space lol) of the show’s new era. Bring in a team of new blood and established old hands to actually write the episodes. He gets too caught up in the bumpf of his own publicity, he’s much better when he’s hyping up stuff he didn’t write.
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I don’t think the song or the game of catch are symptomatic of half-arsed writing - I see it is as symptomatic of a writer who likes having fun with his writing and the freedom a show like Doctor Who allows. There are very few shows where those two things can be dropped into an episode - Doctor Who can be all things and it’s one of its strengths.
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So here’s my controversial opinion about The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe. I truly believe that a lot of fans completely misunderstand what Moffat is doing in the episode and, at the same time, hate it because it reminds them that Doctor Who is - at quite a major level - made for children not for grown-ass adults.
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Hello fellow DWW enjoyer.
Your phrasing of the fundamental point is much kinder than mine, which was basically “Doctor Who grognards hate anything with children in it because they are child-hating joyless people” but it’s basically the same thing.
It has, I’m not joking, THE best Eleventh Doctor aphorism in it by far, that being “Because what’s the point of being happy now, if they’re going to be sad later? The answer is, of course, ‘Because they are going to be sad, later’”. It’s a punch in the gut every time but such a stunning line.
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all of that is SO true - it’s not my favourite xmas special but by far is it not my most hated one (looking at you, Doctor Mysterio…)
it’s sweet and it’s festive. I don’t need more than that
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I don’t enjoy Mysterio at all sadly. Would probably rank as my second-least favourite - my least favourite is Twice Upon a Time.
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Last Christmas is just so dreadful, also.
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Don’t know if it’s controversial but for me Doctor Who is at its best when it has a shoe string budget and doesn’t take itself to seriously. A lot of New Who takes itself to seriously and tries to hard to be EPIC SCIFI while its core has always been quirky, small stories. If thats your thing then more power to you but I think its done better elsewhere.
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