A single 60 minute episode inadvertently paved the way for Doctor Who's bright future.
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00:00We can all probably name 10 or 15 massively important Doctor Who episodes off the top of
00:05our head, right? My mind goes straight to Silence in the Library for obvious reasons and stuff like
00:11An Unearthly Child and Rose. But there are plenty of more unassuming episodes that are very important
00:17too. For instance, The Deadly Assassin is considered by many to be the first cultural
00:22work to use the word Matrix to refer to a virtual reality, years before it was popularised by
00:27William Gibson's novel Neuromancer. It's possible to give many episodes of Doctor Who a new level of
00:34importance by framing them in the context of the time in which they were broadcast. Or,
00:39in the case of one story, how a repeat viewing changed the course of the show's future.
00:44I'm Ellie for WhoCulture, and here are 10 Doctor Who episodes more important than you realised.
00:4910. The Next Doctor
00:52Building on the response to David Tennant's announcement that he was leaving Doctor Who,
00:56The Next Doctor was a tremendous bit of misdirection from Russell T Davies. David
01:01Morrissey was not David Tennant's replacement, but was instead Jackson Lake, a man who believed
01:06he was the Doctor after an accident with an info stamp. Which brings us to the importance of The
01:11Next Doctor in the history of Doctor Who. Because while we'd seen sketches of previous incarnations
01:17in John Smith's Journal of Impossible Things in Human Nature, we'd never seen any actual footage.
01:23And so it was that upon activating the info stamp, footage of the first eight classic
01:28Doctors plus Eccleston and Tennant appeared on TV on Christmas Day 2008.
01:33While we'd had it confirmed time and time again that New Who was a continuation,
01:38it was thrilling to have the lineage displayed for all to see.
01:42The Next Doctor was the last episode of Doctor Who to be filmed in standard definition. From
01:46the Planet of the Dead onwards, it was shot in HD and now, years later, UHD. To fit alongside
01:52the other 2009 specials, The Next Doctor was the first Doctor Who episode to be upscaled to
01:57high definition. Another feather in its cap of importance.
02:01Number 9. The Rescue
02:03Vicki is technically the third Doctor Who companion, but there's a case to be made that
02:07she's the one who defines the role in The Rescue. Susan was the Doctor's granddaughter,
02:12so she doesn't really count, while Ian and Barbara were kidnapped. They became a close
02:16family unit over the course of their travels, but there were a few teething problems.
02:20No such problems with Vicki, though, who is the first person to actually be
02:24invited to travel in the TARDIS by the Doctor. Missing his granddaughter, who departed in the
02:29previous serial, the Doctor meets and rescues the young orphan who will become his next companion.
02:35The Rescue establishes Doctor Who's core ideas of the title character as a lonely
02:39god seeking someone to share the universe with. It's far more subtle here, but all the elements
02:44are in place over 40 years before Russell T. Davis would make it the show's core ethos.
02:49This means that The Rescue, a diverting enough two-parter involving a murder mystery on a
02:54crashed spaceship, is much more important to the history of Doctor Who than it initially seems.
02:59Number 8. Dimensions in Time
03:02Sure, there are doubts over whether 1993's charity sketch Dimensions in Time is canon,
03:08but what else was the seventh Doctor referring to when he mentioned the Rani in Tales of the TARDIS?
03:14But aside from now being canonically the beginning of Ace's final regular adventure,
03:18Dimensions in Time represents a notable technological first for Doctor Who. That's
03:23because it was the first Doctor Who story to be shot in 3D. It's worth pointing out that this
03:28was part of a wider gimmick deployed by Children in Need in 1993, but Doctor Who was the show that
03:33best fit the format. On the original broadcast, a little icon would pop up in the corner of the
03:38screen, instructing viewers to put on the 3D glasses they got from the front of the Radio
03:43Times, so that they could be dazzled by the nightmarish floating heads of William Hartnell
03:47and Patrick Troughton. It's obviously far more primitive than the technology used to realise the
03:52day of the Doctor's eye-popping 3D sequences, but that doesn't stop it being the first Doctor
03:57Who story to use it. So that's 3D for the 30th anniversary and the 50th anniversary.
04:03Uh, 4DX screening for the 70th anniversary, anyone?
04:07Number 7. Fear Her
04:09It's easy to miss, but the moment in Fear Her when the Tenth Doctor says
04:14I was a dad once, is the first time modern Doctor Who confirms that the Doctor was a parent.
04:20You could say that it's the first time this fact has been confirmed in the entire history
04:24of Doctor Who. Despite the Doctor being a confirmed grandfather in Doctor Who's very
04:28first episode, some fans and 80s producer John Nathan-Turner were uncomfortable about the idea
04:33of the Doctor, um, procreating, shall we say. To that end, then-script editor Eric Sayward
04:39wrote Birth of the Renegade for the Radio Times 20th anniversary special in 1983.
04:45The non-canon story revealed that Susan was actually a descendant of Rassilon,
04:50given shelter in the TARDIS by the Doctor during a bloody uprising on Gallifrey.
04:55Hang on, so, wait, grandfather was just a nickname? What's wrong with offhandedly
04:59mentioning that the Doctor was once a parent and then quickly moving on before you have to
05:03consider William Hartnell a sexual being? Uh, huh? You've all got it in your head now too,
05:07haven't you? But point being, it worked for Fearher. The Tenth Doctor would once again state
05:12that he used to be a father in The Doctor's Daughter, confirming his offhand comment in
05:16Fearher and putting any doubt to bed. 6. The Crotons
05:21The Crotons is seen as something of a nadir for the Patrick Troughton era of Doctor Who,
05:26but there are two reasons why it's an important serial in the overall history of the show.
05:30In November 1981, the Crotons were selected to represent the second Doctor in the five
05:36faces of Doctor Who on BBC Two. This series of repeat stories was a way to keep fans occupied
05:41while they waited for the proper debut of Peter Davison's fifth Doctor in January 1982.
05:47The reason that The Crotons was chosen was because it was the only complete
05:51four-part Patrick Troughton serial in the archives at the time. Thankfully,
05:55much more of his era has resurfaced in the years that followed.
05:58The other big reason that The Crotons is so important to the history of Doctor Who is
06:02the debut serial from Robert Holmes, who would go on to bigger and better things.
06:07Holmes' tenure as script editor marks an undisputed golden age of Doctor Who between
06:111975 and 1977. Holmes is also responsible for much of the Gallifreyan and Time Lord
06:18mythology that still defines the show in 2024, and it's all thanks to his inauspicious start
06:23scripting The Crotons. 5. The Power of the Doctor
06:28The Power of the Doctor regenerated Jodie Whittaker back into David Tennant,
06:32celebrated 100 years of the BBC, and brought back almost all of the surviving classic Doctors,
06:38along with multiple companions, most notably Tegan and Ace. So it's already a pretty important
06:44Doctor Who story. However, it was also the very first Doctor Who story to air
06:48after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, marking a whole new era for the UK.
06:54She had reigned for every single bit of Doctor Who up to that point, which speaks to both her
06:58and the show's incredibly long tenures. Rumoured to be a Doctor Who fan herself,
07:03the Queen is said to have received pre-released DVD copies of episodes,
07:07leading to the wild rumour that Prince William is hoarding missing episodes.
07:11In just her first decade on the throne after her coronation in June 1953,
07:16the Queen reigned over one of the UK's most culturally important periods in recent memory.
07:21As well as Doctor Who, the 1960s saw the birth of Bond and The Beatles,
07:26cultural powerhouses that still define the United Kingdom's national identity to this day.
07:314. Underworld
07:33As you work your way through the Doctor Who Season 15 box set, it may be tempting to skip
07:39Underworld. It's long been derided as one of the low points in the Tom Baker era,
07:43due to its dreary story and over-reliance on green screen. However, the fact that Underworld
07:49is the first Doctor Who story to use virtual sets is just one of two reasons that it's more
07:54important than fans give it credit for. Sure, the colour separation overlay in Underworld is
07:59a perfect example of why innovations like the volume are needed, but it stumbled so that Doctor
08:04Who in 2024 could fly. Underworld is also a fairly big Time Lord mythology episode, exploring why
08:10they established the non-intervention policy that the Doctor so regularly flouts. In the time after
08:15their war with the great vampires, the Time Lords involved themselves in the affairs of the wider
08:20galaxy. Opting to help the Minyans, they shared advanced technology that accidentally caused a
08:25nuclear war. Horrified at the consequences of their actions, the Time Lords vowed to merely observe
08:31the universe, never involving themselves in the affairs of other species. Until the Doctor came
08:36along, that is. 3. The War Machines
08:39In The War Machines, the First Doctor finally returns to 1960s London, only to find strange
08:44things going on at the Post Office Tower. It's the blueprint for the Unit era and RTD's own take
08:50on Doctor Who. But that's not the most important thing about the War Machines. As with a lot of
08:551960s Doctor Who, the War Machines were sent out to Commonwealth nations, including New Zealand,
09:00Australia, and Nigeria. Many of these prints became the only existing copies when the BBC
09:05began junking their film cans. Over the years, many Doctor Who stories have been recovered from
09:10old broadcast stations in Commonwealth nations by people like Philip Morris. Before all of that,
09:15however, an Australian collector had acquired a print of The War Machines Episode 2 at some
09:20point in the late 1960s to the early 1970s. This was years before the complete serial was
09:26discovered in Nigeria in 1984. That Australian print was returned to the BBC archives in the
09:31late 1970s, making The War Machines Episode 2 the first of Doctor Who's many missing episodes
09:37to be returned from overseas. 2. The Runaway Bride
09:42On Christmas Day 2006, The Runaway Bride proved that Doctor Who could survive without Billy
09:48Piper's Rose by introducing Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, an important moment in the history
09:53of the modern era. The Runaway Bride took on added significance in 2020 when it was the subject of
09:59one of Emily Cook's lockdown tweet-alongs. Rewatching her debut story had a real impact
10:04on Catherine Tate, who mentioned to Russell T. Davis how marvellous it would be to do more
10:09episodes as Donna. Tate then spoke to David Tennant, who predictably voiced a similar desire
10:14to return to Doctor Who. Russell T. Davis dutifully reported this news to the BBC,
10:18who were struggling to find a way to keep the show going. In fact, Chris Chibnall was so sure
10:23that the BBC would rest Doctor Who for a bit that he left the ending of The Power of the Doctor
10:27open-ended. To be clear, the Chibnall era did not kill Doctor Who. It was more that the BBC
10:32were out of options for a viable replacement showrunner. That was until a giant Welshman
10:37kicked open the doors of the BBC, offering them the way forward. If it hadn't been for
10:42a 15-year-old bit of television, then we may not have a brand new season of Doctor Who to come in
10:472024. 1. The Chase
10:50With the Beatles appearing in Doctor Who in Season 1, it's a good time to remind ourselves of their
10:56earliest connection with the show. In an incredible bit of irony, a clip of the Beatles performing
11:00Ticket to Ride on top of the Pops only exists because it's preserved in a bit of 1960s Doctor
11:06Who, one of the biggest victims of the BBC's notorious junking policy. The opening scenes of
11:121965's The Chase see the First Doctor introduce his companions to the time-space visualiser,
11:18which allows them to view moments from history like they were a TV programme. Basically Rick
11:23and Morty's interdimensional cable before it was a thing. One of the sequences was some
11:27classical music, the Beatles performing live. The sequence was lifted from an episode of the
11:32BBC's Top of the Pops, which no longer exists in the archive, meaning that this little snippet is
11:37all that remains of the performance. However, if writer Terry Nation had his way, the clip
11:42wouldn't have been included at all. The original script for The Chase would have shown the Beatles
11:46in old man make-up performing at a 50th anniversary concert in the 21st century.
11:51Keen for the Beatles' young fans not to be put off by middle-aged versions of their idols,
11:56manager Brian Epstein turned down the offer, and the Top of the Pops clip was used instead.
12:01And there you have it. But while we're on the topic of importance,
12:04why not check out 10 Doctor Who characters more important than you realised? In the meantime,
12:09I've been Ellie for WhoCulture, and in the words of River Song herself, goodbye, sweeties.