Underrated New Who stories

As with my underrated TruWho stories thread, which episodes from New Who would you guys call underrated?

The Unquiet Dead, probably the closest Eccleston story to the spirit of classic Who.
Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, which tends to get knocked for being the inferior sequel to Blink.
Rings of Akhaten, which actually blew me away and I lost my heart to, and was surprised to learn it was so hated.

Also, although Asylum of the Daleks has its problems, there are a lot of moments I like in it, and occasionally I've enjoyed The Stolen Earth/Journey's End as a fanwank guilty pleasure even if it's not exactly a story I can say is good.

Completely agree about The Time Of Angels. To be honest, I’ve always preferred it to the rather overrated Blink myself.

Fear Her.


.... sorry ...

stengos wrote:Fear Her.


.... sorry ...

The basic premise I thought was quite good, and Rose and Tennant are more tolerable than usual. It's just it has a lot of incredibly corny scenes.

I’d also argue that Fear Her is incredibly poorly directed and lousily attempts to create atmosphere via applying flimsy Dutch angles in the most uninspired of settings. If the setting was more foreboding and the direction less crap, it might not be as maligned as it is. Oh, and as Tanmann says, the amount of cringeworthy scenes is insurmountable (“it’s courage, and it’s love!”- fucking awful) and the acting is piss poor as well. Still, it’s not as bad as many other New Who stories I could think of, so I guess it’s underrated in that respect.

Fear Her is an absolute disgrace. As for underrated, I think Daleks in Manhattan is quite a fun Dalek adventure. I also think The Shakespeare Code is rather underrated.

I agree there about Manhattan. I don’t see why most see it as the worst Tennant Dalek story- it’s leagues ahead of the fucking dreadful ‘Doomsday’ and more coherently put together than ‘Journey’s End’.

Bernard Marx wrote:I’d also argue that Fear Her is incredibly poorly directed and lousily attempts to create atmosphere via applying flimsy Dutch angles in the most uninspired of settings. If the setting was more foreboding and the direction less crap, it might not be as maligned as it is. Oh, and as Tanmann says, the amount of cringeworthy scenes is insurmountable (“it’s courage, and it’s love!”- fucking awful) and the acting is piss poor as well. Still, it’s not as bad as many other New Who stories I could think of, so I guess it’s underrated in that respect.

Yeah ... but ... apart from all that ...

Bernard Marx wrote:Completely agree about The Time Of Angels. To be honest, I’ve always preferred it to the rather overrated Blink myself.

Thirded.
Although I haven't seen TotA it since it was on. I liked it at the time.

The Unquiet Dead I find to be underrated.
The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, still my favourite NewWho story and is actually in my top 5 favourite Doctor Who stories of all time, and I'm including Classic, Big Finish and Books when I say that.
A good chunk of Series 3 is underrated, The Shakespearean Code, Gridlock, the Dalek two-parter, 42 and Sound of Drums.
Planet of the Ood is a great underrated story, as well as Unicorn and the Wasp.
Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone is better than Blink honestly.
Amy's Choice is probably the most underrated story in the show next to Greatest Show in the Galaxy, I love it as much as Vincent and the Doctor.
The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex.
A Town Called Mercy
The Bells of St. John.
The Rings of Akhaten.
The Crimson Horror.
Time Heist
The Lake Two-parter in Series 9
Face the Raven
Smile
Extremis
The Empress of Mars

Just realised that there is more NewWho stories that I find underrated than I thought.

I agree with DIM and Time of Angels. There seems to be a lot of Moffat era (esp in Smith's time) that are underrated, possibly due to the bizarre belief in fandom that RTD was the golden age (lol) and it was all downhill from there. I also nominate Crimson Horror - series 7 is very poor but I think TCH is a real hoot. It's better than anything Chibbers ever did, which is why I'd much rather have seen Gatiss get the showrunner post. Is Girl Who Waited underrated? That shows how fucking dumb fandom is if it is!
I also like the Under the Lake 2parter and Face the Raven quite a lot too, certainly the best things in the otherwise shite series 9.
The Pilot is quite underrated too. As a soft reboot/reintroduction it works really well and Capaldi knocks it out of the park.

iank wrote:I think TCH is a real hoot. It's better than anything Chibbers ever did, which is why I'd much rather have seen Gatiss get the showrunner post.

So would I.

‘Is Girl Who Waited underrated?’
Yes, it is. And fandom typically rates overrated stories like Dalek, Doomsday and Human Nature above it- fuck knows why! It owes more to sophisticated cinematic influences (especially Kubrick) than most New Who stories, and I love it myself.

I agree with you guys about Gatiss as well. He gets a lot of shit, but he’s rather inspired outside of Who (and his work on An Adventure In Space and Time is brilliant), and seems more genuinely intelligent and passionate about the series than Chibnall in every way (not that that says much, granted). To be fair, Gatiss’ scripts aren’t always shit as some believe. I like The Unquiet Dead more than most of series 1, I will defend Night Terrors, and his series 7 and 10 scripts were decent too.

He's hit and miss, but that's better than all miss, and I generally like the tone of his stuff. Idiot's Lantern is shit, but I think that's more down to me disliking the acting and directing more than anything else.

Oh- that one was fucking awful, though for many other reasons as you acknowledge. Victory of the Daleks is utter shite too, granted.

Bernard Marx wrote: I agree with you guys about Gatiss as well. He gets a lot of shit, but he’s rather inspired outside of Who (and his work on An Adventure In Space and Time is brilliant), and seems more genuinely intelligent and passionate about the series than Chibnall in every way (not that that says much, granted). To be fair, Gatiss’ scripts aren’t always shit as some believe. I like The Unquiet Dead more than most of series 1, I will defend Night Terrors, and his series 7 and 10 scripts were decent too.

Gatiss seems quite close to Moffat - they're very good friends. Hence i can't help thinking Gatiss as show runner would be an extension of Moffat or at least something very similar.

He probably would be, granted. I’m not saying he’d be good- just a little less intolerable.

I don't get the impression Gatiss has as much self-loathing though, or as much desire to troll fandom. His scripts - even the crap ones - are all very traditional and no-nonsense in style. He seems to love classic Who and oldschool horror without all the "but I'm not a geek you know!" self-consciousness of Moffat.

He’s never shat on previous eras like Moffat has, no. Mofftwat thinks that all of 60s Who is ‘shit’, and none of that comes across from Gatiss in An Adventure In Space and Time, so I don’t think he’d be as egregious.

I remember around the time when production photographs of An Adventure in Space and Time's recreation of the Hartnell cast, someone on the gallifrey5 forum (a lovely little oasis) saying he thought they should just end New Who and start again from scratch with this new Hartnell-esque cast.

In hindsight he was probably right.

Gatiss also expressed doubts about enforced diversity casting in his Series 10 episode on the grounds of historical accuracy, suggesting that he might at least have put up a little more of a fight against the identity politics brigade than Moffat and Chibnall.

I have some respect for Gatiss. Stuff like The Lazarus Experiment saw him take a risk by writing and starring, and I felt it didn't break new ground but told its simple moral tale in an effective manner.

Sleep No More, aided by a fine performance from Reece Shearsmith, is one of the most unique and stylish, and darkest, stories since 2005: how I wish it was like that more often.

Gatiss has written some excellent Who novels in the past. He seems to love his history, too. I rather enjoy Victory of the Daleks despite the ending being a bit off. Would have worked a lot better if it were two parts long.

Can’t say I disagree there. I’m not a fan of Victory myself, but it’d probably function much more with an extended length.