The Parting of Ways might very well be my favourite of the New Who series finales, even after all this time. I don't think any other run manages to so elegantly seed the ideas of "Bad Wolf" throughout the series and pay it off so well with the creation of the Bad Wolf entity. In just a few short minutes they tie in content that would be drawn on in the future and it feels like most other series are simply trying to imitate to varying degrees of success in the series that would follow Eccelston's short but memorable run.

Everything about this episode really holds up well. It's great pay-off to the big ending of the last episode. There's good action as the Daleks just plow through all these defences that had been carefully set up by our characters, cementing their sense of threat we first saw in the Dalek episode.

Even the Time War content is paid off nicely, with it being sort of implied the Doctor is just doing his last-minute, desperate manoeuvre to once again just try to wipe out the Daleks rather than letting them wipe out everything else.

Some of the effects are a little dated, but with fantastic acting all around, especially from Billie Piper who really sells her transformed state, and obviously Christopher Eccleston who gives us a memorable farewell, I'm easily sold on what we get in terms of effects and enjoy this story from start to finish. It's a classic story of the Doctor up against all odds, and prevailing against brute force and despair. A very important episode to the franchise, and a brilliant send-off to a short lived, but much loved Doctor. Absolutely part of the must-watch run of episodes in series one, a run that kicks off from Rose and pretty much includes every episode in between. For all the faults of the first series, the entire thing is very watchable and all comes together pretty nicely as an introduction to the world of Doctor Who.