10 Doctor Who Episodes More Important Than You Realized

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https://whatculture.com/tv/10-doctor...ed?rf=homepage

From new technology to cultural records, Doctor Who has way more important episodes than you think.

BY MARK DONALDSON
MARCH 27TH, 2024

The big, important Doctor Who episodes are easy to pick out. An Unearthly Child introduced Doctor Who for the very first time in 1963, and Rose relaunched it for a new audience in 2005. These are huge, important milestones in the 60-year history of the show.

And then there are the big lore episodes like The Deadly Assassin, which establishes much of the Gallifreyan mythology that still defines Doctor Who today. Interestingly, The Deadly Assassin is also considered by some to be the first cultural work to use the word "Matrix" to refer to a virtual reality, years before it was popularized by William Gibson's novel Neuromancer.

"Important" Doctor Who episodes, therefore, can have a wider impact than how they shape the lore of the show. As the longest-running science-fiction show of all time, Doctor Who has become a fascinating time capsule of changes in television production, and the wider cultural shifts in society between 1963 and 2024.

It's possible to give unassuming episodes of Doctor Who a new level of importance by framing them in the context of the time in which they were broadcast. Or, in the case of one story, how a repeat viewing changed the course of the show's future.