Mine would have to be Genesis of the Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks, and Ghostlight (I’m very original I know)
Glad to see another who likes Ghostlight! Most everybody else I’ve met thinks it’s though.
Your first is always your favorite, so mine is The Robots of Death. Runners up: Nightmare of Eden, State of Decay, The War Games, Mawdryn Undead, Dragonfire
Robots of Death and Mawdryn Undead were definitely in my honourable mentions.
Some of those (definitely Dragonfire) I’ve only seen once, so need to rectify that.
I’m with you with Genesis, apart from that I love The War Games and The Caves of Androzani… Additionally, I’m quite fond of The Time Meddler, but that is maybe due to the fact that I watched it just recently :-)
Always have a soft spot for Genesis. I remember watching the repeat showing in the 1980s and being stunned when my Dad told me that “Ronson” was his art teacher at high school.
Spearhead from Space was one of the first stories I bought on VHS and I watched it so many times, so that’s a definite favourite too. Oh, and Ark in Space.
Earthshock - Great locations, scary villains, real consequences, fantastic acting.
Four to Doomsday is a close second, for me. It’s got so much of what makes Dr Who great, in such a wild weird story.
And on third, beacuse I gotta have a Pertwee episode in my list: Inferno - Over the top acting, weird scifi stuff, escalations on top of escalations, and the Tardis console flying free of the Tardis.
Too hard to narrow down the entirety of the classic series, so here’s one story for each classic Doctor:
- The Tenth Planet
- The Mind Robber
- Carnival of Monsters
- State of Decay
- Kinda
- The Two Doctors
- The Happiness Patrol
Pyramids of Mars. The City of Death. The Key to Time. Trial of a Timelord. Anytime Jon Pertwee, Roger Delgado and Katy Manning were on screen it was magical.
In chronological order it’s Terror of the Autons, Pirate Planet, City of the Death, Shada, Warrior’s Gate, Keeper of Traken, Logopolis, Castrovalva, Kinda, Earthshock, Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks, Happiness Patrol.
So from the list you can assume that I like stories that make me laugh and stories that feel like they were written by pretentious grad students.
