Stories that are generally acclaimed that your not as keen

I was just a kid when I saw it for the first time, and I grew up in a very white community, so I don't think just how racist it was the first time I saw it.

I think the turning point for me was Alyssa Franke's essay at Whovian Feminism, where she breaks down why the episode is so problematic. I've watched it since then and I have to agree with a lot of her conclusions.

It's a great story, certainly, but it's about as racist as you can get without actually climbing out of the television and burning a cross on my lawn.

Oh Christ do I not get on with The Five Doctors; everything just feels so gimmicky in that story it's hard to actually care about what's going on.

A couple to mention:
The Day Of The Doctor
The Eleventh Hour
The Five Doctors (Just fanw**k)
Spearhead From Space
The Stolen Earth/Journey's End (Then again, doesn't deserve the hate it gets either. It's just average to me)
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang
The Daleks (I know, sacrilege)
Asylum Of The Daleks (More than any other Matt Smith story, I don't get why people like this)
The Three Doctors
The Aztecs
The Angels Take Manhattan
The Snowmen
The Mind Robber
The Invasion
The Time Of The Doctor

And to round off some Capaldi sutff:
Deep Breath
Into The Dalek
Last Christmas
The Zygon Invasion/Inversion
Face The Raven (Not as good as people say it is, but still good)
Hell Bent

There's probably more stuff I could mention, but you all probably want me to stop moaning about Moffat's era.

Agree completely. Five Doctors is quite possibly the only classic Who story that's too short for me. And we just don't see everyone interact! No Five and Sarah, no Two or Three and Susan, no real interaction between all four Doctors other than the quick scene at the end... I mean, the only sizable interaction between Doctors is One and Five - and it's not even Hartnell, so it doesn't land as well emotionally (as good as Hurndall is).

I like Five Docs and I'll gladly rewatch it again and again, but Three Docs is my favorite classic multi-Doctor story - and probably my favourite TV story for the Third Doctor, as well. Troughton and Pertwee sparkle together, the use of Benton and the Brigadier is great, Hartnell is an added bonus and Omega lifting his helmet is a great reveal. And it's actually important to the series, freeing the Third Doctor to travel once again, whereas you could skip The Five Doctors and miss nothing.

I must say a few words in defence of The Talons of Weng-Chiang (still my favourite story of all Doctor Who) and of the character of Li H'Sen Chang.

In 1977 I realised this was no Chinese actor but thought no more of it then. Obviously such casting and makeup would be totally unacceptable now, but the 70s were not a globalised world, not on 'Doctor Who' money at least, so it is understandable. Budgets were tiny, time was short and the Director had to do all of his or her own casting, quickly and with certainty, meaning that the experience of previous work with an actor or personal contacts from drama school etc. counted very strongly when quality actors were needed asap. Good actors who understood the considerable demands of the show became regulars and played multiple roles, contributing greatly to the success of classic Who.

As for the character, in my view, he's Robert Holmes' finest single invention, a multi-layered character and ultimately a tragic figure despite his villainous actions. On the surface is the stage performer who speaks 'pidgin English' to play with the prejudices of his audience; then off-stage he's the urbane gentleman artiste, intelligent, speaking perfect English and helping the local police as a translator and 'good citizen'. The third layer is the ruthless follower of his 'god' Weng-Chiang, willing to commit any crime in his service - and finally, with that delusion destroyed, the true man is briefly seen as he faces death: the awed 'son of a peasant' who would no doubt have lived in obscurity somewhere in rural China, if Greel had not fallen through Time and taken over his life.

And Holmes leaves us to speculate on exactly how Greel gave Chang the mental powers he possessed and gained such a hold over him. Perhaps it's just as well we don't know; Greel is not an alien who can perform mind-transfers or the like. He was a human war criminal from the future who performed 'vile experiments' on his victims and has (in Mr. Sin) at least one servant with a re-constructed brain...

(And the story is a literary pastiche of many famous Victorian and early 20thC works - including of course Fu Manchu. This is not 'real' Victorian London; it's a series of famous themes - Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, Phantom of the Opera, Jack the Ripper, Pygmalion etc., etc. - blended with established Doctor Who to create what I still believe is a true classic, written at great speed by Robert Holmes to complete the season when 'The Foe From The Future' fell through.)

Fair enough I can only judge by my own experiences but regardless of whether it would have been considered racist at the time in the UK it still was very much racist and its hard for me to enjoy. It hard for me to watch "black face and yellow face" films from the 1930's when they were deemed "acceptable" here.

It's funny to look at the last DWM poll, on the last page for anyone just in the thread, as some of those stories when I first started getting into fandom in the 90s are so differently viewed now. Tomb Of The Cybermen was always a top 10 story in the polls, now not top 20. The Daemons also used to be regarded a lot higher as did quite a lot of Pertwees that were once much more highly regarded than now. On the other end of the spectrum, The Gunfighters was in the bottom 10 in 1998...now it's getting much higher placing. Of course, part of that will be all the BBC Wales eps taking spaces but still quite interesting, I think, how the stories don't change but the fans do.

Yeah. It's fine, and I certainly don't hate it or anything, but I'm baffled at how it always finds itself near the top of these polls.

Perhaps availability and currency are also factors?

The excitement when 'The Tomb of the Cybermen' turned up in Hong Kong in 1992 was huge and the video release (in 1993 I think) would have been recent history in the 90s.
Similarly the 1993 return in colour of 'The Daemons' was another sensation which would have pushed a great story even higher.
On the other hand, nobody born after about 1960 would have even dimly remembered seeing 'The Gunfighters' broadcast  and I'm not sure when the VHS was released.

Now, with all the surviving classic era out on DVD there's a more level playing field for comparing the classics.
But I do wonder if polls mixing the classic and new era have much value?
Many new era stories will gain high placings simply by being recent and may fade equally quickly, as the fans change as you said, and as new stories replace them; comparing this poll with one from a few years back clearly shows this effect, while 'Blink', 'Human Nature' and the like have held their place as modern classics.