Which Doctor Who stories dig deepest into faith, gods, belief, and the divine?
From the black-and-white classics to the modern era, we’ve ranked our favourite episodes that wrestle with religion and unpack where each one takes the topic.
Got twenty minutes? Come with us.
And while you’re here… what would make your list? Drop us a line and tell us why.
Find us:
Bluesky: @thedwshow.net
X / Twitter: @theDWshow
Email: hello@theDWshow.net
Substack: thedwshow.substack.com
Facebook: facebook.com/theDWshow
Hi Rob and Dave
I very much enjoy listening to the list makers podcasts and here are my suggestions for turlough hat of Rassilon future episodes – hopefully you will enjoy doing them!
CLASSIC ERA
Classic era … top 5 lamest cliffhangers.
(You briefly touched on this in podcast 6 re best cliffhangers but perhaps devote an entire segment to it 😊😊😊).
Classic era … top 5 stories shot 100% in a studio (ie no location footage of any kind to help make it look good).
This one might be too similar to podcast 5 (top earth based stories), but try Classic era … top 5 earth based stories, but set between 1963 and 1989 (ie set in the present day earth relative to the production era of DW when they were made).
This time period should be able to accommodate whatever time settings you like for the UNIT stories, be they 1970s or 1980s. Yes this could allow Renembrance of the Daleks (just!). 😊😊😊
CLASSIC OR MODERN ERA
Top 5 codas. By ‘codas’ I mean a short humorous or character scene or interlude at the end of the final episode of a story, after the main action or plot has been resolved and usually involving the Tardis crew. Good example- end of episode 5 of The Daemons. Needs to exclude stories ending on a regeneration and probably best to also exclude companion departures. What we are looking for here is something more interesting than ending a story with just saying goodbye and the Tardis fading away …
Kind regards
Brian L
Hi Rob and Dave
One more top 5 suggestion but this one might be super obscure, your call …
Classic or modern era, top 5 stories with cool intriguing or unusual titles.
By this I mean the story title is intriguing regardless of the quality or otherwise of the story. For example, in my view, titles like “The Masque of Mandragora” or “The claws of axos” are interesting titles, whereas “seeds of Doom” or “Planet of Evil” or “the aztecs” are straightforward rather generic titles.
In the hartnell era could allow individual episode titles
This may or may not be able to be fleshed out to 20 minutes, as it is all about the title not the story, but thought I would mention it …
Another one is .., classic era top 5 stories that are 6 parts or longer that would work better as 4 parters, and vice versa top 5 classic era 4 parters that could expand to 6 parts without undue padding
Kind regards
Brian L
Apologies for another comment, but re my above suggestion re most intriguing titles, which may be limited in generating discussion, perhaps it could be reframed as Top 5 classic or new era stories with single word titles.
My #1 would be inferno of course!! My worst would be underworld. 🤣🤣🤣
This might have too much overlap with your previous lists??