Doctor Who Top 10 - The Seventies

For many, including me, these were the golden days of Doctor Who. It would've been perfectly easy to make this a Top 20, and I am horrified that I was not able to include some personal favourites inside this list of 10 - no Malcolm Hulkes, no Roger Delgados, and five whole seasons ignored completely. But you can't go wrong with any of these classics - the show at its wittiest, most adult, and most entertaining.

1. The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Year: 1977
Episodes: 6
Regulars: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson
Notable Guest Stars:
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: David Maloney
Producer: Philip Hinchcliffe

The Doctor and Leela find themselves in Victorian London. Girls are being kidnapped off the street, ghosts have been sighted in the opera house run by Henry Jago, and giant rats haunt the London sewers. At the centre of the chaos is a mysterious Oriental magician named Li H'sen Chang. Chang serves a man he believes is the god Weng-Chiang, and is searching for a cabinet lost by his master. The Doctor uncovers the truth, however -- Weng-Chiang is actually Magnus Greel, a tyrant from the 60th century whose escape back through time has transformed him into a disfigured monster.

2. The Robots of Death

Year: 1977
Episodes: 4
Regulars: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson
Notable Guest Stars:
Writer: Chris Boucher
Director: Michael Briant
Producer: Philip Hinchcliffe

The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Leela to a Sandminer, a giant mining ship. The crew of the Sandminer is slowly being killed off one by one, and the time travellers are the obvious suspects. But the Doctor discovers that the impossible is coming true: the Sandminer's robot workers and manservants are responsible for the deaths, having fallen under the influence of the crazed scientist Taren Capel, who wishes to supplant the human race with his robotic creations.

3. The Genesis of the Daleks

Year: 1975
Episodes: 6
Regulars: Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Ian Marter
Notable Guest Stars:
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: David Maloney
Producer: Phillip Hinchcliffe

The Time Lords intercept the Doctor, Sarah and Harry as they transmat back to Nerva, and send them to Skaro in the distant past in order to prevent the creation of the Daleks. There they discover the planet's two native races, the Kaleds and the Thals, are nearing the climax of the Thousand Year War. As the conflict reaches its terrible conclusion, Sarah discovers that a disfigured Kaled scientist named Davros has already accomplished what the time travellers were sent to stop: the genesis of the Daleks.

4. City of Death

Year: 1979
Episodes: 4
Regulars: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward
Notable Guest Stars: Julian Glover, Tom Chadbon
Writer: Douglas Adams, Graham Williams, David Fisher
Director: Michael Hayes
Producer: Graham Williams

In modern-day Paris, the Doctor and Romana realise that someone is playing with time. They trace the disturbances to Count Scarlioni, who is actually one of several fragments of an alien Jagaroth named Scaroth. Scaroth's ship exploded on primordial Earth, scattering shards of his being throughout history. Now Scaroth has accumulated the funds and technology to send himself back in time to avert the accident. But the Doctor realises that this would prevent the evolution of life on Earth, which was instigated by the explosion.

5. Inferno

Year: 1970
Episodes: 7
Regulars: Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney, Caroline John
Notable Guest Stars:
Writer: Don Houghton
Director: Douglas Camfield, Barry Letts
Producer: Barry Letts

Project Inferno is designed to drill down through the Earth's core, where it will release a powerful new energy source called Stahlman's Gas, named after the project's director. But the Doctor realises that unleashing Stahlman's Gas will have horrible consequences for the planet, and indeed his fears are confirmed when a substance oozing up from the drill shaft begins mutating men into bestial Primords. Before the Doctor can do anything to stop Stahlman, however, a power surge in the TARDIS console sends him to a hostile parallel universe where Project Inferno is nearing completion.

6. The Seeds of Doom

Year:
Episodes: 6
Regulars: Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen
Notable Guest Stars: Tony Beckley
Writer: Robert Banks Stewart
Director: Douglas Camfield
Producer: Philip Hinchcliffe

An Antarctic expedition unearths two pods which the Doctor recognises as Krynoids. Once germinated, the pods will infect humans, turning them into giant carnivorous plants which will quickly overrun the world. The Doctor and Sarah Jane manage to destroy one Krynoid, but the other is stolen by an insane botanist named Harrison Chase, who intends to use the alien entity to help plants take over the world.

7. Spearhead from Space

Year: 1970
Episodes: 4
Regulars: Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney, Caroline John
Notable Guest Stars:
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: Derek Martinus
Producer: Derrick Sherwin

The newly-regenerated Doctor is exiled to modern-day Earth by the Time Lords, where he becomes attached to the British branch of UNIT as their scientific adviser, ostensibly taking orders from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Aided by Liz Shaw, the Doctor's first task is to investigate a shower of mysterious meteorites which landed in the countryside. The Time Lord discovers that these are no ordinary meteorites: in fact, the plastic-controlling Nestenes have landed, intending to use their automated servants, the Autons, to take over the Earth.

8. The Brain of Morbius

Year: 1976
Episodes: 4
Regulars: Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen
Notable Guest Stars: Philip Madoc
Writer: Terrance Dicks, Robert Holmes
Director: Christopher Barry
Producer: Philip Hinchcliffe

The Time Lords divert the Doctor and Sarah to Karn. The planet is home to the Sisterhood of the Flame, whose sacred fire -- which provides an elixir granting them eternal life and is used by the Time Lords to aid in regenerative crises -- is slowly dying. The Sisterhood believes the Doctor has come to steal the vestiges of the elixir and has him captured. Also on Karn, meanwhile, is the mad Doctor Solon, who has covertly taken possession of the brain of Morbius, an evil Time Lord thought to have been executed. Solon is trying to build a new body for Morbius, and is lacking only a suitable head: the head of a Time Lord.

9. Terror of the Zygons

Year: 1975
Episodes: 4
Regulars: Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Ian Marter, Nicholas Courtney, John Levene
Notable Guest Stars:
Writer: Robert Banks Stewart
Director: Douglas Camfield
Producer: Philip Hinchcliffe

The Brigadier summons the Doctor back to Earth to investigate mysterious goings-on around Loch Ness in Scotland. The Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry discover that the Loch Ness Monster is no myth -- in fact, it is really the Skarasen, a cybernetic reptile used as a servant by shape-shifting aliens known as the Zygons. The Zygons are paving the way for an invasion of Earth, and have already used their powers to infiltrate the local authorities.

10. The Ark in Space

Year: 1975
Episodes: 4
Regulars: Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Ian Marter
Notable Guest Stars:
Writer: Robert Holmes, John Lucarotti
Director: Rodney Bennett
Producer: Phillip Hinchcliffe

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Sarah and Harry to the Nerva Beacon in the far future, where the remnants of humanity have been placed in suspended animation because of the risk of deadly solar flares on Earth. The humans have overslept by millennia, however, due to the incursion of the insect-like Wirrn. More Wirrn are gestating within Noah, the Beacon's leader, and as Noah starts to succumb to the alien influence, the human race faces imminent extinction.