20 years ago, Doctor Who's most misunderstood episode drew ire from critics and fans alike

Ask a Doctor Who fan what the worst episode of all time is, and they’re all going to say something different. Ask a Doctor Who fan what the worst five or so episodes of all time are, and you’re bound to start seeing a pattern. While a loud minority will most certainly point to some real stinkers in Classic Who (the period from 1963 to 1989), most are quick to point the finger at Doctor Who’s New Who, particularly the episodes from around the 2017-2025 period. We wonder why that could be.

However, while there are some real duds in the later periods of Doctor Who (I’m looking at you, “Legend of the Sea Devils”), one of the lowest-rated episodes in Doctor Who history comes from season 2 of New Who. This is particularly surprising, given that season 2, featuring David Tennant as The Doctor and Billie Piper as his companion, Rose Tyler, is so widely regarded as the Golden Age of the 2005 revival. That said, perhaps it was the absence of The Doctor and Rose’s undeniable chemistry in the maligned “Love & Monsters” that made it an episode most Doctor Who fans skip whenever they rewatch.

That, and the fact that there’s a plot thread that involves a fella getting sexual favors from a woman stuck in a slab of cement. Guess we’ll never know.

Yet for as much criticism as “Love & Monsters” earns over its 45-minute runtime, in my mind, there’s far more to this episode than meets the eye that justifies its existence.

The episode follows Elton Pope (Marc Warren), whose life is forever changed when The Doctor saves him as a young boy. Years later, his obsession with uncovering the truth about The Doctor leads him to join a group of people (who adopt the name LINDA) who have also encountered the Time Lord. However, the group is soon taken over by Victor Kennedy (Peter Kay), an alien known as an Abzorbaloff, who seeks to absorb The Doctor’s body and, with it, all his knowledge.

Although Russell T. Davies's first two seasons focus on the wonders of time travel, whether in the distant past of 18th-century Wales or in extravagant worlds in the far-off future, the showrunner was never shy about reminding viewers of the all-consuming influence of The Doctor. For Rose, a working-class girl who has always resented her seemingly inevitable future of mediocrity, The Doctor represented a way to break free from those shackles.

Image: BBC

Yet while Rose would soon learn the life-changing repercussions of traveling with the Time Lord, Davies and episode director Dan Zeff use “Love & Monsters” to remind viewers that it isn’t just companions who have the potential to suffer once their lives have been touched by The Doctor. It’s a theme that would go on to be explored several times throughout New Who, with episodes such as “The Woman Who Lived,” in which the character Ashildr/Me (Maisie Williams) laments that The Doctor saved her life (and made her immortal in the process), a change that has left her grappling with an identity crisis.

The same goes for all of LINDA. While their experiences with The Doctor draw them together into a community, that soon is taken advantage of, and they all — minus Elton and his pavement slab girlfriend, Ursula (Shirley Henderson) — perish as a result.

Yet for me, the biggest draw of “Love & Monsters” is the performance of Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler, Rose’s overly protective and fast-talking mother. Introduced in the revival’s first season, Jackie could easily be mistaken for a comedic character with very little substance beyond slapping The Doctor when he ran his mouth too much and spoiling Rose’s fun. It was certainly how I viewed her when I was a young child.

Image: BBC

But, looking back now, it’s clear that Jackie is one of the most underrated characters of New Who. While she shines throughout much of season 2 thanks to a much meatier role, her appearance in “Love & Monsters” fleshes her out considerably. She’s not just Rose’s mom and a pain in The Doctor’s side; she’s a young, single mother who sacrificed so much to raise Rose, and now, with Rose on adventures, she’s lonely and wants one of her own. While production issues and budget help explain why Jackie and LINDA are the main attraction (though The Doctor and Rose both appear as well) in this episode, I can’t deny that Jackie’s prominence only further underscores what it’s like for the people whose lives are changed by The Doctor but who don’t want the life he leads.

It’s true that there’s a lot wrong with “Love & Monsters,” but if we had to write off every Doctor Who episode that was offensive and trite, we would chuck “Voyage of the Damned,” the 2007 Christmas Special featuring Kylie Minogue, into the bin where it belongs as well.

So, give “Love & Monsters” another chance, and you might just realize that underneath all that eyeroll-worthy bluster of fart jokes is a thoughtful and empathetic script about those who get left behind in The Doctor’s wake, and what they do after.