Kate O'Mara's Rani upstages the Master in a costume romp set during the Industrial Revolution

Jason Connery, bound and tortured, and Nabil Shaban as a sadistic tadpole – what’s not to like in this “video nasty”?

Close encounters with Halley's comet, the Cybermen and my own brush with producer John Nathan-Turner...

An abysmal debut for sixth Doctor Colin Baker – what went wrong?

It's Peter Davison's exhilarating final adventure – but is it really "the best story ever made"?

Hot stuff in Lanzarote – Peri joins, Turlough leaves, the Master burns... Plus, a studio visit and JN-T on companions

A violent Davros/Dalek crowd-pleaser with a brave departure for Tegan and a pre-EastEnders Leslie Grantham

The Tardis explodes on the way to a colony beset by Tractators – in this red-blooded adventure...

The ancient, evil Malus awakes in an English country church in this short, pacy, almost perfect Peter Davison story

The Silurians and Sea Devils return – with a disastrous Myrka. Even Ingrid Pitt can't save this turkey...

Time Lords, companions and monsters gather for the triumphant 20th anniversary special, but could it have been a classic? RT speaks to Ian Levine and Waris Hussein...

The Master dons another cunning disguise for a jaunt to the time of King John – and we meet shape-shifting android Kamelion

Keith Barron, Lynda Baron and sailing ships in space create a little magic in the conclusion to the Black Guardian trilogy...

Nyssa strips off for her series departure – in a grim tale about disease, a big dog and the centre of the universe

The Brigadier is back (as a teacher!) and new boy Turlough must kill the Doctor in this timey-wimey classic

An early role for Martin Clunes and the return of the serpentine Mara in a limp sequel to Kinda

An excruciatingly dull season opener, set in Amsterdam and on Gallifrey, features Doctor Who's most absurd monster...

Even a school-panto Master and two Concordes can't save this "unmitigated drivel"...

The most thrilling tale in years sees the shock return of the Cybermen, the death of Adric and Beryl Reid camping it up

The Doctor plays cricket and Nyssa meets her double at a 1920s garden party

A delightfully old-fashioned yarn sees the Doctor battling Terileptils at the time of the Great Fire of London

Buddhism, the Book of Genesis and Gay Pride... all in the subtext of this riveting psychodrama guest-starring Nerys Hughes and Richard Todd

Burt Kwouk guest-stars and Stratford Johns plays a giant toad in this "peculiar, half-forgotten oddity"...

Peter Davison's confident debut as the fifth Doctor, who must escape a convoluted trap set by the Master

In Tom Baker's sombre final story, the Doctor battles the Master to save the universe from collapse...

The Master is resurrected and Nyssa is introduced in a fairy-tale piece that has withered over time

This is "hardcore, head-scratching, literary sci-fi" featuring time-sensitive Tharils and a farewell to Romana and K•9

Ancient vampires surface in a supremely atmospheric production of Terrance Dicks's inventive scripts...

An outstanding story with the Doctor and Romana passing into E-Space, meeting Adric and Marshmen on the planet Alzarius

Tom Baker plays cactus-villain Meglos, while Jacqueline Hill (1960s companion Barbara) returns in a new role

It's the 1980s and new producer John Nathan-Turner gives the series a stylish revamp

Despite drawing on Greek myths, this tatty, embarrassing production is lowest-calibre Doctor Who

Stimulating ideas, barrel-scraping antics and the Mandrels – Doctor Who's least frightening monster...

A patchy effort with electrifying Lady Adrasta and Erato – "a giant green blancmange with a four-foot phallus"

Filmed in Paris, co-written by Douglas Adams and with a John Cleese cameo... is this fan-favourite smug and overrated?

Davros returns and Lalla Ward is the new Romana in this fun, tatty and unintentionally hilarious Season 17 opener...

Atrios and Zeos face oblivion in this disappointing season finale, saved mostly by a magnificent villain – the Shadow

A soggy off-day for writer Robert Holmes delivers a giant squid and green, loincloth-clad Swampies

A summery romp in which the Doctor and Romana must stop Count Grendel from becoming King of Tara

The 100th story offers a Celtic goddess, blood-sucking Ogri, fabulous Beatrix Lehmann and a Sapphic undertone...

"Revered writer Douglas Adams embraces the show's new comedic approach with buccaneering vim"

The White Guardian sends the Doctor on a season-long quest for the Key to Time and gives him Time Lady companion Romana

In a very silly, shoddy six-parter set on Gallifrey, Sontarans arrive, Leela departs and the Tardis has brick walls

"Thud! The sound of my head hitting the keyboard after this unremitting exercise in tedium..."

Robert Holmes's ingenious, witty spoof of bureaucracy and the tax system – set on Pluto

The Doctor and Leela encounter an ancient skull with a terrifying power in a spooky English mansion

A change in tone for Who – less horror, more humour and the arrival of K•9

Season 15 kicks off in a Victorian lighthouse beset by an eerie shapeshifting Rutan

Mr Sin, Magnus Greel, giant rats... A grisly pastiche of all things Victorian makes for a Grand Guignol classic

Robots attack their masters aboard a Sandminer in this immaculately crafted whodunnit – "my Desert Island Who"

Louise Jameson is a "stonking success" as Leela in an otherwise lifeless tale about power-mad computer Xoanon...

The Master's putrid skull and split bangers for fingers have to be the most revolting images presented on teatime TV

"Eldrad must live!" – Elisabeth Sladen's charmingly playful turn builds to her poignant departure from the series

The Mandragora Helix – a "vortex of vomit swirling down a loo pan" – heralds a renaissance for Doctor Who

A truly disturbing story sees an alien Krynoid lead a plant rebellion on Earth

Gory pastiche of Frankenstein in which surgeon Solon plans to transplant an evil Time Lord brain into the Doctor's head

Kraals engineer an android invasion of Earth in this limp effort from Dalek creator Terry Nation

A bona fide classic sees supremely chilling Sutekh the Destroyer freed from his Egyptian tomb

Flesh-tingling anti-matter terrors await on Zeta Minor, in Elisabeth Sladen's favourite story

Season 13 begins with an atmospheric classic that even a feeble Loch Ness Monster model cannot spoil

Travesty follows anticlimax as the Cybermen return after a seven-year break...

Is Dalek creator Davros, as played by Michael Wisher, the greatest villain in Doctor Who history?

A short, sadistic two-parter shot on Dartmoor, in which Tom Baker broke his collarbone

A riveting horror story in space as the last of humankind is attacked by locust-like Wirrn

Battling a giant robot, Tom Baker begins his epic seven-year run as the fourth Doctor

The one with the giant spiders and the blue crystal from Metebelis 3 – it's Jon Pertwee's final story

The Ice Warriors are back but a sense of déjà vu pervades this return to Peladon...

The Doctor, Sarah face the Daleks in an atmospheric but patchy adventure on the barbaric world of Exxilon

"A roaringly good script from Malcolm Hulke" is undermined by dire dinosaur models

December 1973 marks Elisabeth Sladen's debut as Sarah Jane Smith in a classy first encounter with a Sontaran

The one with the giant maggots emerging from a Welsh coal mine. Plus Katy Manning's tearjerking departure

"Terry Nation rummages in his Dalek grab bag and picks out all the best elements from previous tales"

Can a space war be averted between Earth and Draconia, in the last story featuring Roger Delgado's Master?

Ingenious story with the Doctor and Jo aboard a cargo ship and fleeing omnivorous Drashigs, while trapped inside a Miniscope peepshow...

William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee unite in this landmark story to open Doctor Who's tenth season

"Drama dribbles away" when the Doctor goes to Atlantis and the Master tries to control a parrot-like Chronovore...

With its psychedelia, hippy aliens, socio-political subtext and avant-garde electro-score, The Mutants reeks of the early 70s zeitgeist...

The thrilling peak of the Pertwee era as the Doctor and Jo team up with the Navy against sea reptiles and the Master

"Inventive, ambitious Who" with a galaxy of aliens, and surprisingly friendly Ice Warriors...

The third Doctor's first encounter with the Daleks and Ogrons takes him to the 22nd century

Classic five-parter in which the Master conjures up ancient demonic forces in the village of Devil's End

Hippies in space take on a mining corporation, while the Master seeks the Doomsday Weapon in a primitive city. Underrated...

The Master brings the parasitic Axons to Earth in this garish but fun adventure

The Master gains control of a prison and the Thunderbolt missile in bid to trigger World War Three

Season eight kicks off with the debut of the Master and Jo Grant – and the exciting return of the Autons

Nicholas Courtney plays the villain when the Doctor is trapped on a totalitarian, parallel Earth that is about to die screaming...

This atmospheric story instantly evokes the world of my childhood: the Space Race, derelict warehouses, gasometers and creepy aliens in Doctor Who...

A race of reptile men emerge from caves in Derbyshire in this gritty, provocative seven-parter

It's 1970 and Jon Pertwee debuts as the third Doctor in a battle against the Autons

Patrick Troughton's final story is a ten-part epic culminating in his trial by the Time Lords

Is this "the most yawn-inducing tract of the entire black-and-white period"?

The Ice Warriors attack the Moon as part of their Earth invasion plans

Frazer Hines called it a "horrible story" with "cardboard" monsters. For director David Maloney it was "a disaster". Was it really that bad?

The Cybermen invade London via the sewers in a gripping eight-parter, featuring the Brigadier and the debut of Unit

The police box explodes and the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are trapped in the Land of Fiction

Season six kicks off with the robotic Quarks and bickering Dominators for a "boring" operation

The Cybermen attack a space station and Wendy Padbury joins as companion Zoe

A terrifying seaweed monster breaks out at a gas refinery – and Victoria leaves the series

An all-time classic in which the Yeti invade the London Underground and Nicholas Courtney debuts as Lethbridge Stewart

Patrick Troughton is superb in dual roles as the Doctor and megalomaniac Salamander

Another classic foe debuts - "cruel Martian invaders" who surface during a new Ice Age

The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria must defend a Tibetan monastery against robotic Yeti

The long-lost classic in which the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria encounter the Cybermen frozen on Telos

An epic tale leads from Gatwick to Victorian England to Skaro, where the Doctor at last meets the Dalek Emperor

Body-snatching Chameleons are at work at Gatwick Airport. Pauline Collins guest-stars - as companions Ben and Polly leave

The Doctor must save a human colony from insidious crab-like parasites

The Cybermen return with a plan to attack Earth from the Moon

The Tardis team encounter Fish People and mad Professor Zaroff on Atlantis in this camp misfire

Frazer Hines joins as companion Jamie in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden

Patrick Troughton debuts as the second Doctor, facing his archenemies on Vulcan

William Hartnell's final adventure, set at the South Pole, sees the debut of the Cybermen

Season four kicks off in Cornwall with a tale of smugglers and pirates

The Doctor tackles a computer menace at the Post Office Tower in 1960s London – and gains Ben and Polly as companions

Peter Purves bows out as companion Steven in a satire about progress and slavery

Doctor Who takes on the Wild West in a comedic take on the shootout at the OK Corral

Michael Gough stars as the Toymaker in this sinister tale about life-size dolls

The human race flees a dying Earth aboard an ark-like spaceship and Dodo encounters invisible Refusians and one-eyed Monoids

A sombre historical adventure with two roles for William Hartnell and the debut of companion Dodo

A 12-part Dalek epic, guest-starring Nicholas Courtney and Jean Marsh, and featuring a bizarre Christmas episode and the deaths of two companions

Comedy turns nasty as Troy falls to the Greeks and Vicki leaves the Tardis – to become immortalised as Cressida

Space agent Marc Cory faces Daleks and Varga plants in this one-episode curio, which doesn't feature the Doctor at all.

Season three kicks off with Drahvins, Rills and Chumblies vying to escape an exploding planet

It's 1066 and Peter Butterworth guest-stars as the Meddling Monk, one of the Doctor's own race. An utter delight...

The Daleks pursue the Tardis through eternity, taking in the Mary Celeste, Dracula, Mechonoids, the Beatles and Peter Purves twice...

The travellers jump a time track and see themselves as exhibits in a Morok museum

Julian Glover guest-stars as Richard the Lionheart with Jean Marsh as Princess Joanna in a classy historical drama

The Tardis lands on Vortis, a world inhabited by giant-ant Zarbi and butterfly-like Menoptra

A comedy drama in which the Doctor and Vicki meet Nero, while Ian and Barbara are sold into slavery

Maureen O'Brien joins the Tardis as space orphan Vicki in this neglected gem...

The Doctor's archenemies return – invading the 22nd century – in Terry Nation's "doomy, deadly serious" sci-fi sequel

Season two begins with the Tardis crew miniaturised but having to avert an eco-disaster

The Doctor visits his favourite period of Earth history - the French Revolution – and meets Robespierre

The Doctor and Susan clash over telepathic aliens from the Sense Sphere

Can Barbara change Earth history and stop human sacrifice? One of the very best period adventures...

The rubber-suited Voord attack in Terry Nation's second adventure

The Doctor's epic seven-part encounter with the Venetian traveller and mighty Kublai Khan

A bizarre psychodrama unfolds almost entirely inside the Tardis...

The Doctor's archenemies make their electrifying debut in Terry Nation's instant classic...

How Doctor Who began in 1963 with an exciting adventure starring William Hartnell