10 Doctor Who adventures you must watch before the show leaves Netflix
Here's what 280,000 fan votes, and our own Who experts, told us where the most important episodes to catch up with and why...
At the end of January, US Doctor Who fans who rely on Netflix for their Time Lord fix were dismayed to discover that the show was no longer available. Since then, RadioTimes.com has confirmed that the series is currently set to leave the streaming service in the UK too.
That means fans will have to find another way to watch the Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith in action, or simply go cold turkey. So with less than three months left to go, which are the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctor adventures you simply must watch before time runs out?
We turned to RadioTimes.com readers to tell us (over 280,000 votes were cast) and asked some of our biggest Whovians to give their thoughts on why your picks are such essential viewing...
10. The End of Time (2009, 2010) [5.37% of the overall vote]
Coming in at number ten is, well, Doctor Ten going out. Aired on Christmas Day 2009 and New Year’s Day 2010, David Tennant’s two-part swansong was a ratings smash, with both episodes reaching the No 1 spot in the UK charts.
Tennant was stratospherically popular as the Time Lord and his legions of devotees were bereft to see him go. The tenth Doctor himself wailed, “I don’t want to go!” as, racked with pain and alone in the Tardis, he started to regenerate.
For me, back in the day, The End of Time was a tad disappointing. It resurrected John Simm’s deranged Master, who seemed to have attained superpowers. He could shoot off into the sky from a standing start and, even more bizarrely, created a “Master Race” by transplanting a copy of his own head onto everyone on Earth.
The Time Lords re-emerged from oblivion, then promptly retreated – but were headed by an impressive cast: Timothy Dalton and Claire Bloom. June Whitfield guest-starred, and the delightful Bernard Cribbins, playing Donna’s granddad Wilf, was deservedly elevated to the status of companion. He travelled in the Tardis and became the Doctor’s oldest human sidekick to date.
Tennant’s tenure was wrapped up with a whistlestop tour of his former friends – from Sarah to Martha to Jack to Rose – before he finally abdicated to Matt Smith. “Geronimo!” Patrick Mulkern
