Doctor Who - Each Doctor's First (full) Episode RANKED!

[Music] there was a lot to be said to getting off on the right foot and if I could understand that but I would have wrote a stronger opening [Music] all right folks Doctor Who list time and this one was selected from a number of options made available to my patreon supporters and they decided this time to have me do a ranking of the first Adventures of each doctor now this is gonna be I think the first that is somewhat related to a regenerations list because I've been getting us for a while are you gonna rank the regenerations and one of the first things I realized was that ranking the regenerations in my mind is actually a three part job there is ranking the actual instance of the regeneration the specifics of why it happened and how that's pulled off there's ranking the regeneration story as a thing in and of itself and then there's ranking the first full story of each new doctor so nor if left to my own devices that might have been the order I was doing them in in this case thanks to patreon we're doing up first adventures first yeah so although the to lay it out and be clear with I think only one exception none of these are the episodes in which the doctor regenerates into his newest form this is simply the first adventure that the audience gets to see it is not necessarily the first eventually they ever went on in the case of a couple of these or maybe just in the case of one because of just sort of the nature of what was going on with the episode but I'm still gonna put it on here and I will note that the war doctor I am NOT including because the first thing that we saw him in like complete adventure was they'e the doctor but that is so far away from his regeneration I don't really want to count it so that means I'm gonna be doing 13 of these let's get started I have a suspicion most people probably know at least what the bottom two are gonna be they probably even know what number one what the number at the very bottom is gonna be or at least they think they do we'll see if they're right number 13 time and the Rani I really did go back and forth between this one and the one that's gonna occupy the number 12 slot as to which one was worse and it was not an easy call because they're both bad but this one to me is the worst because to my mind a first adventure story of any given doctor has a number of jobs to do it needs to tell a decent tell a story worth telling in and of itself it needs to give us a sense of who this doctor is so we know who we're dealing with and it needs to establish any other major status quo changes that might be coming along with the new doctor in some cases as new companions and whatnot now that's not the case here because mel was already in place but this thing kind of fails on all levels because the doctor as we get him is I really like Sylvester McCoy as the doctor but his initial start his first season honestly is not great and you really get the feeling that they didn't know how to write for his version of the doctor yet and he's fun and energetic but like in a way that that feels kind of untethered from everything else going on they'll even got the actual story with the Ronnie and this giant stupid brain thing and it's just dumb it is so stupid and the Ronnie is such an awful character in this way she does this ridiculous dressing up as Mel to trick the doctor and it's like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon and you know I say that I know someone's gonna say this show is meant for kids you know you don't have to make something stupid that's meant for kids Pixar movies are meant for kids they're not dumb this was dumb and then the capper on this what ultimately put it in the bottom place was Mel just screaming after screaming after and look I get that she can scream really well that's actually a big part of why she got that died she got cast in that role but nope can't take it anymore so let's move it up one spot to number 12 the twin dilemma also not a good episode I would say honestly possibly slightly over hated though that's not me defending it cuz I mean it's my second worst but I think what I'd say is I feel like there's additional hate heaped on this because of how it indicated what the continuing problems of this new darker we're gonna be because in my mind the doctor in in the first adventure gets a little bit of a pass if it's not in my mind is ideal if we get right off how this doctor works and everything I shouldn't try snapping in these vids it's a week sound ham there we go so in my mind it's ideal that the doctor sort of really gives us a sense of who who they are how they operate and everything else but I will give a certain amount of leeway to post regeneration wackiness if they if the writers and the actor and whoever else want to play it a little bit more off-kilter I actually think that that works and I feel like watching the twin dilemma in isolation I was prepared to buy that this is not how the doctors gonna be all the way through this abrasive this unstable this dangerous like to the immediate people around him except that it was kind of how he was for the remainder of Colin Baker's time on the show and but I feel like the knowledge that that wasn't gonna get better gets heaped on to this episode whereas in this episode in and of itself I don't think he's that bad but the story is boring and the effects aren't great it's it's not a complete and utter disaster which I think he gets billed as a lot but it's jet it just doesn't work this is boring and it's dull and if the if you happen to know that this doctor is not gonna get better during his time on the show then yeah it's it's kind of rough across the board number eleven Doctor Who that being the 1996 TV movie starring Paul McGann this is the one instance where we have a regeneration and first adventure done in one so this I mean I've done I've done a review on this one I actually I've done review of the last two I did as well and I and I noted in that review that there are some highlights here McGann himself being the big one it's all so well shot but it's very it's very undoctored who I mean for lack of a better way to put it it you can feel the American you know network's hands on the thing in terms of the way everything gets presented the way the Masters handled like oh god what a mess that performance from top to bottom it doesn't really make any sense and it's not consistent with anything we know about the master and inserting all this weird stuff like the fact that the doctors have human and then sort of constructing the plot in this very mechanical fashion there's stuff that happens that makes absolutely no sense based off what we know the characters but it happens anyway because the plot requires it to and it's it's just not particularly effective that said McGann himself is good in the part you know thank goodness Big Finish gave him the stories he deserved and additionally it does look quite good which it's got over the two at the bottom so there you go next up number 10 the woman who fell to earth not actually this low on the list because I think there's anything actively wrong with it there just really wasn't much to elevate it so like to compare it in the one eye to the one I just mentioned you know the reason that the Doctor Who TV movie is so low is because while it does have good points it also has other things dragging those points down this it doesn't have any massive fault I don't feel but it doesn't have any real severe highlights either there are a couple little tiny moments that are pretty good but there's nothing that makes me go yes that about this episode and I think lacking that thing that grabs you and it could have been anything it could have been the Companions it could have been the doctor it could have been the alien could have been any number of things but nothing for me at least really grabbed me about this first episode 13th doctor and as a result despite not committing any major sins it still ends up down here number nine I'm gonna get in trouble for this one spearhead from space yeah I say I'm gonna get in trouble for this one because it look it just I don't think the Autons are that good I have yet to see a particularly good story with the Autons I would love to see one I think that concept is interesting enough I just don't think the Autons have been used very well like at any point not here not later and the the show is it's trying very hard to you know to update everything know the look but the thing is I honestly I love the p.m. of the opinion that the leap to color hurt Doctor Who especially visually because black and white is really forgiving in terms of covering up a lot of the seams and the wonkiness not all of it trust me there was some first and second doctor stuff that looked really wonky but it it can cover up quite a few sins and all right so the the fact that this is like ooh in color I don't consider that an inherently great thing um / - he's doing a pretty solid job in this and his dynamic with the Brigadier right off that helps quite a bit we get um Liz Shaw who I like well enough but Joe grant is very much the definitive third doctor companion and then you know Sarah Jane Smith came along later so it you know it wasn't the strongest companion out the gate it's it's fine it's like the the bottom three worthy bad ones ones from here on up are gonna be at worst fine and that's just kind of what I feel about this one I know the classic whose notes are gonna tear me apart for that ranking next up number 8 the Christmas invasion I basically he can skip this until about the last 20 minutes basically when the doctor wakes up again comes out of the TARDIS and does that all did you miss me I am on board I love it prior to that it's okay I mean there's a lot of emphasis on the the domestic drama you know with Jackie and with Rose which is not an element of especially the Davies era that I particularly care for as much as I love the character drama the character drama that wasn't it located in the TARDIS I didn't care so much for overall there's some really goofy stuff the Santa robots the killer tree I don't need any of that but once Tennant is in I think this is one of the best of accomplishing one what I said was one of the main goals of any given Doctor Who first adventure which is to establish who this doctor is and right off the bat as soon as he has the ability to start talking just run his mouth you immediately get oh you are different but I like it and that works really well and that's something that's going to recur in higher up entries where the preferred the initial performance was so good it elevates what otherwise was an OK story speaking of which number seven robot a robot was Tom Baker's first adventure and he is great he was immediately great right off the bat just that big grin and you know a little bit weird a little bit like what's going on with this guy and it's funny I cannot quantify why I like it more here than in other places but classic era Doctor Who camp eNOS tends to not go up can't camping this in general is not something I particularly care for most of the time and something that depends on really wonky effects rarely works for me and and it can drag down something that I otherwise really liked like the mummies in pyramid from Mars aren't so laughable to me they pull me out of this story but there's something about robot which is really visually like what how much money did you have to do this and like just not good effects at all I think it's just the fact that the whole notion of killer robot that at one point grows really really big is just I can't take that seriously on its face so maybe that's why I'm more okay with the fact that it's not particularly well done visually because it's not a story I would ever take seriously in the first place so I don't feel the camp damage is it maybe that's what's going on I'm not gonna go so far as to say that I love the story I'm just way more forgiving of stuff that normally bothers me in this is instance than I would otherwise be but again what really brings it up is Tom Baker his performance immediately is just stellar next up number six deep breath so this is Peter Capaldi's first episode and it is one that I have very mixed feelings about but a bit like the the 13th doctor's first story there's really nothing that is dragging it down but it has more things pulling it up that for the first being compiled himself one of my favorite things about Capaldi was ultimately the journey that he went on with his characterization of the doctor from series 8 9 to 10 and the starting point is really well established I adore who found me this face the wood the attack eyebrows I love that whole thing I love him trying to figure out who he is in deciding that the door is too boring he's gonna go out the window I love the though just the look on his fate did that the ambiguity of did he push that robot off the thing or not like I'm a little like mmm yeah whatever but the just something about the look the performance like doing that as an ambiguous am like but his performance and like having just that hint of oh he looks like he could I really like and I feel like it I also tend to like the Victorian setting when it's not saddled with a story that completely kneecaps it I like the Paternoster gang they're so they're on hand that helps and even though I come to sort she wouldn't grow on me for really until about the end of this series I do think that Clara has better chemistry with Capaldi than she did with Smith so that's working better for me here then it did before - alright top five number five Rose now there's actually a few things that I don't particularly like about Rose I mentioned already I don't really like the Autons but Eccleston is great literally from word one which is just run nice to meet you rose run for your life you know all of that I he hooked me immediately and I think Rose is quite endearing as well and they have a great rapport right off the bat and his doctor is he just he a bit like with Baker's portrayal and with tenon once he was actually on the screen in his episode that he conveys who this doctor is so quickly like trying to have fun but you can sense the damage just below the surface with him he it really does sell him and Rose and this entire concept because this episode had a lot to cover more than most because it didn't have to just introduce a new doctor and a new companion it had to introduce an entire new generation to Doctor Who who may never have even seen the classic version at all and it does all of that with an overall story that is not my favorite and with the whole thing with the Nestene I'm like am NOT a huge fan but those other things are firing so well this works number four bit of a weird one this Castroville Allah now the reason this is a weird one is because I mentioned usually it's really important that the the first adventure for the doctor established who the doctor is and this one doesn't do that like at all the majority of this episode the doctor is completely out of sorts like things are not working and clicking with him and he's like the entire plot is that he's trying to go somewhere to get himself realign so this performance is in no way representative of what Davidson's gonna do with the part and yet the other elements work so well because I would say this is one of the best stories in Doctor Who that happens to be a first adventure story so even setting that context aside this is a really cool story with what is going on with where the doctors going in then what is going on with when he gets there and this has to also continue the work started in legatos of introducing us to Anthony and Lee's master now he kind of had his first adventure with lagaa plus but we now need to get a little bit more of him you know what does he do when he has time to plan when we get more of an introduction as to what he's like and so it's pulling that duty it's got all the companions to juggle it's it's one of the more slightly head trippy kind of episodes which I always appreciate and even though this performance from Davison is not indicative of what his doctor will be it is a very good performance that he he absolutely sells every step of the way number three power of the Daleks so this is the first story for the second Doctor Patrick Troughton now to be fair I'm judging this based off the animated recreation because this is one of the lost stories but that is using the original audio it was done in a way to make it as much like what the original intention of the episode was so I still feel fair judging it by that and I feel like Trouten he knew how he was playing this character but he also knew we're gonna start holding back because initially this doctor starts out very quiet and you don't know what to make of him he's just sort of sitting there like figuring everything out he starts playing on a pan flute and he's throwing everybody off the way the second doctor so often did but doing it in a slightly more subversive way than he would tend to do later on in his run but I think that just plays up the mystery of what regeneration even was this is the first time it happened like who is this guy what are we dealing with now and the way that he approaches it instead of barreling headfirst into being his version of the doctor and kind of easy into it with a bit more mystery it lends a great vibe to this episode which is already a good Dalek episode in the first place but in addition to that we have this is the doctor you were gonna help us can we trust him to help us what kind of man is he at the same time we're dealing with this Dalek story which is a pretty dang good Dalek story in itself it's a great just combining of these elements and it is terrific top two and if you've been going through with a checklist once I tell you number two you know what number one is but you know we'll get there number two the eleventh hour the eleventh hour was the first story for Matt Smith the eleventh Doctor and it had a lot to do because new doctor new companion new showrunner with a new approach from how Davies tended to do things and the relationship with this companion is decidedly different from what it had been up to that point so it's not just a matter of introducing a new character it's introducing a new character with a new gimmick in a new way then had really been done so covering a lot of ground and Matt Smith nailed it right out of the gate he embodied his take on the doctor just right basically as soon as he starts trying the different foods you're like oh I get you but like especially when he picks it shows up in the bowtie says I am the doctor it's like yes you are so he absolutely nailed it but Amelia pond also a terrific character I still love that dynamic I love what I love about that is because he had kind of disappointed her and let her down when she was a kid she's both in awe of him but also kind of over his BS so it's this wonderful blend of like she thinks he's awesome but she is not gonna let him get away with nonsense and she's gonna call him out on stuff and I love that dynamic and introducing how that happened how it works giving it a little bit of a perspective on her just enough without actually setting it from her POV the way that Rose was and that gives us a companion with with a great sense of fun and who bounces off this doctor really really well and a doctor who like I said just basically showed up already fully formed which is dang impressive in and of itself but there was only ever gonna be one number one and that is in fact the number one an unearthly child now normally I consider multi-part stories as a single thing but I really do think that an unearthly child even as a single episode is completely its own things separate from the what is it ten thousand BC or whatever the caveman's story is that sort of follows a after that if you have never seen an unearthly child the very first episode of Doctor Who ever aired on television you need to because it is a monument to efficient storytelling in terms of it in its like 24 minutes in 24 minutes it introduces who were the primary protagonist for the show initially being you know Ian and Barbara these schoolteachers it introduces Susan a student of theirs it makes it clear why she's unusual why they are curious about her why they are concerned about her it introduces the doctor the nature of his relationship with Susan the way he treats other people how prickly he is how bristly he is it introduces the TARDIS and time travel this does so much so efficiently while still giving us characters that feel like proper characters and aren't just delivering exposition aren't just feeding us information everybody feels like a proper character from top to bottom and in a way that some of them wouldn't even equal again honestly Susan is better in this than she is at almost anything else in the entire time she's on the show she is smart and kind of mysterious and a little bit off-putting and the doctor so prickly and you he just has this this look about I'm like you know so much but you don't want us to know that you know so much and Ian and Barbara being endearing because of how much they care and just trying to help this child and all of it there is a reason that this show has lasted for as long as it has and none of it would have been possible without this episode and sometimes when you go back and look at the first episodes of some great shows it's not uncommon to see something that it's like boy they it's a good thing they had time to develop that and make it better as time went on you know go back you know watch like the first episode of Star Trek The Next Generation it's kind of rough but you watch the first episode of this you know like oh yeah oh yeah you can get over 50 years of stories out of this easy and that is why I think unearthly child is the best first adventure of a doctor that's my ranking of these so what's yours how much do you want to rake me across the coals for putting your favorite lower than you thought it should be or something that you didn't like higher whatever your thoughts are drop something down in the comments let's talk about it stuff to do buttons and links patreon I'll plug it again that's down there plus other links to other things that I do or what-have-you check them out click on them they do places there's merch all sorts of stuff but also you don't have to cuz at the end of the day you're the council I'm just running the meetings and until next time this council is adjourned [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Council of Geeks

Views: 25,910

Rating: 4.8823528 out of 5

Keywords: doctor who, an unearthly child, power of the daleks, spearhead from space, doctor who robot, castrovalva, twin dilemma, time and the rani, doctor who tv movie, doctor who 1996, doctor who rose, christmas invasion, doctor who eleventh hour, doctor who deep breath, the woman who fell to earth, doctor who first impression, best first episode, first episode ranked

Id: Pzg5HlJeeAM

Length: 27min 7sec (1627 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 28 2019