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Charlie Jane Anders’s September 17, 2015 Gizmodo feature ranked Doctor Who stories as a critic’s personal list—not an official BBC ranking or a fan poll. Anders put The Caves of Androzani first, followed by Blink and City of Death. She described the ranking as “a conversation starter, rather than the last word.”
Anders’s top 10 Doctor Who stories
These are the first ten entries in Anders’s 2015 ranking, in her order. They are her editorial choices, not a settled fan consensus. Read the original Gizmodo feature.
- The Caves of Androzani
- Blink
- City of Death
- The Doctor’s Wife
- Midnight
- Vincent and the Doctor
- Pyramids of Mars
- The Ark in Space
- Genesis of the Daleks
- The Day of the Doctor
The list spans classic serials and modern stories. “Story” is useful here: older Doctor Who adventures often run across multiple episodes, while many newer entries are single installments.
How the 2015 ranking was made—and what it leaves out
Anders based the ranking on viewing surviving television stories. For episodes that no longer exist, she used audio and, in some cases, telesnap reconstructions. The list excludes novels and Big Finish stories, so it is not a ranking of every story in every Doctor Who medium. The article does not report a poll sample size; it is one critic’s assessment, published in 2015.
#1 Best Overall
How it compares with Doctor Who Magazine’s reader polls
Reader polls offer a different answer to “What is the best Doctor Who story?” because their results depend on who votes, which stories are eligible, and how votes are collected.
The 2014 poll: 241 television stories
Doctor Who Magazine asked readers to rank 241 television stories from the show’s first 50 years. The Day of the Doctor won, followed by Blink and Genesis of the Daleks. The BBC noted that The Caves of Androzani had won the magazine’s previous poll in 2009. The full 241-story chart appeared in issue 474. BBC’s report on the 2014 result.
Rank #2
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The 60th-anniversary poll: a 37-story final
For its 60th-anniversary process, the magazine first invited scores out of ten for all 300 television adventures through The Power of the Doctor. It then selected the top three stories for each of the first 13 Doctors, plus the 1996 TV movie, producing a 37-story final shortlist. Readers picked their top five from that shortlist, and Heaven Sent won. This was not a full ranking of all 300 eligible adventures: the final vote compared only the selected finalists. Doctor Who Magazine’s account of the result.
A newer poll shows why format matters
Doctor Who TV’s poll of the 2024 episodes used another method: it collected more than 25,000 votes and averaged readers’ scores on a one-to-ten scale. Boom led with 7.10, just ahead of The Legend of Ruby Sunday at 7.09. That result compares episodes from one season, not stories from the whole franchise. Doctor Who TV’s 2024 episode-poll results.
| Ranking | Eligible stories | How the result was decided | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anders’s Gizmodo list (2015) | Television stories; missing episodes assessed through audio and sometimes telesnaps. Novels and Big Finish stories excluded. | One critic’s editorial ranking. | The Caves of Androzani |
| Doctor Who Magazine poll (2014) | 241 television stories from the first 50 years. | Readers’ poll; full chart published in issue 474. | The Day of the Doctor |
| Doctor Who Magazine 60th-anniversary poll (2023) | 300 television adventures through The Power of the Doctor initially; 37 finalists in the final. | Initial scores out of ten narrowed the field; readers then chose their top five from the final shortlist. | Heaven Sent |
| Doctor Who TV poll (2024 episodes; updated 2025) | Episodes from the 2024 season. | More than 25,000 votes; one-to-ten ratings averaged. | Boom (7.10) |
So, which Doctor Who story is the best?
There is no single definitive answer in these rankings. Anders’s list reflects one critic’s judgment and has a distinct scope; the magazine polls reflect reader votes over defined sets, with the anniversary final restricted to a shortlist; the 2024 poll averages ratings for one season. Their different winners are better read as answers to different questions than as competing measurements of one objective result.
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