The Ten Best with the Tenth Doctor...

[fajrdrako]

I saw Ten For Tennant, MSN's pick of the ten best Doctor Who episodes featuring the Tenth Doctor.

You know I love lists.

Now, I didn't think this particular list was very good. What's "The Waters of Mars" doing there? I mean, it wasn't bad, but one of the ten best - ? And "Journey's End" was a dog's breakfast of an episode - too much, too jumbled together.

I don't think there's an episode in which there isn't a great scene or a great moment that I love - even the few episodes that I dislike have some gem within them. (Except one.) And my choices don't really reflect Tennant's skills: there are scenes in which I don't like Ten, but the blame always falls on the writer and the story, not on David Tennant's acting.

My list, illustrated, in ascending order:

10. Smith and Jones (3x01)

This episode introducted us to Martha Jones, the wonderful Martha, whom I adore with a passionate passion. It has a flirty Doctor, which is fun. It has Judoon and the Judoon language, and a hospital on the moon - it's one of those episodes where to my thinking, the Doctor Who sense of humour works perfectly.

9. The Shakespeare Code (3x03)

The plot with the witches does nothing for me; but Martha is wonderful here, and I loved seeing Shakespeare the way he was characterized. The depiction of Dickens (another of my favourite writers) in "The Unquiet Dead" didn't seem right to me, not even when we were told Davies' rationale. But Shakespeare was just plain fun. Perhaps it was because so little is known of him, Davies felt he had a free slate when it came to personality?

I also loved seeing Elizabethan England, I love Queen Elizabeth sending her guardsmen after the Doctor, I love the dialogue, I love seeing the Globe.

8. Midnight (4x08)

Loved this because it was an unusual story. Grimmer than most Doctor Who stories. Unusual in that it focussed on the Doctor in a solo adventure, not just without his Companion with him, but without any surrogate Companion. I thought Lesley Sharp's acting here was superb; she played beautifully against David Tennant.

And Colin Morgan.

This was what I think of as "real science fiction", something we don't usually see in Doctor Who.

7. Time Crash

Cheating here, because "Time Crash" isn't an episode, it's a tossed-off vignette. But it's so funny, so charming, so delightful to see two Doctors with this witty script and micro-adventure. Beautifully characterized. Because of "Time Crash", I laugh now when I see celery, the sartorial vegetable.

6. The End of Time, part 2 (4x18)

Part 1 of this story didn't impress me much, but part 2 was splendid. Time Lords - and it's Timothy Dalton! And it turns out to be Rassilon himself! And then we have Ten's beautiful relationship with Wilf, with the Doctor playing half commanding officer and half loving son. We have the Doctor's beautiful speech to Wilf about how and why he won't kill. We have the explanation - so devastating - of what he really did to bring about the end of the Time Wars and the destruction of Gallifrey.

And then beautiful scenes with his various companions: Martha in action, Jack in a bar, Donna getting married, and Rose... Rose before he ever met her, with all her shining potential.

5. Gridlock (4x03)

Another story that slots into that "science fiction" category in my head. Cars and motorways gone wrong; a story that is part metaphor and part quest. I love the idea of the Doctor feeling responsible for Martha and going to save her, at any cost. This might be my favourite setting (and my favourite set) of any of the Doctor Who episodes - and I love the characters, including the cheery drug pedlars with their booths, the people in the cars where we only get a glimpse, the sad death of Boe.

To top it all off, we the Doctor fearing to talk about Gallifrey, yet wanting to. Martha, so desperate to hear what the Doctor is so relucatant to tell. The Doctor lying to Martha, extolling its beauty, breaking my heart with the scene.

4. Army of Ghosts (2x12) and Doomsday (2x13)



A perfect ending to Rose's story, in my opinion. (Can I pretend her role in "Journey's End" never happened?) I loved the use of Torchwood under Yvonne, so corporate and dangerous. I always love Jackie, and she was wonderful here. I loved incidental characters like Rajeah; the reapparance of Jake; the use of interdimensionality. I loved the snarky Cybermen and the snarkier Daleks.

And the scene at Bad Wolf Bay... the Doctor devastated and brave, knowing what must be; Rose simply devastated. And a dwarf star sacrificed for her sake.

3. "The Doctor's Daughter" (4x04)

Again, I liked this for the character: Jenny. We don't often get a young girl in an action-adventure role, and seldom one as bright and brave and triumphant as this. I cheered Jenny on. I wanted her to win over her father (and she did). I wanted her to triumph over adversity; I wanted her to rise above her preconditioned role; I wanted her to live - and she did. She's out there, somewhere. I hope we see her again.

But I didn't just get Jenny, I also got Martha - always good to see, even if she was somewhat wasted here. I also got Donna, feisty and smart, stating her point of view and doing her best to reconcile the Doctor with a daughter he never wanted.

And I love, totally love, the moment in which the Doctor pointed a gun at Cobb and might have killed him. Because much as I love it that the Doctor doesn't shoot people, I love it that resisting the desire to do it is sometimes difficult for him.

2. School Reunion (2x03)

So many reasons to love this episode. Let me count the ways:
1. Anthony Head as Mr Finch, one of the best Doctor Who villains ever. I love it when he's trying to seduce the Doctor to the dark side.
   
2. Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. When I first saw this, I'd never seen her before. I fell in love.
   
3. K-9. One of the few images from Doctor Who I'd ever known before this time. He charmed me utterly. I thought I'd hate a robot dog. But. No.
   
4. Kenny.
   
5. The friendship that develops between Rose and Sarah Jane. (And Mickey's snarkiness about the ex meeting the girlfriend.)
   
6. The relationship, in all its aspects, between Sarah Jane and the Doctor. I've heard fans say that "there was none of this in the old show", and of course I didn't see the old show, but I can't imagine being the adolescent Sarah Jane and not loving the Doctor.
   
7. The ending, where the Doctor gives Sarah Jane an upgraded K-9. In a garden.

1. Blink (3x10)

Smart. Scary. Original. Riveting.

And the Doctor, with his video-inserts and his "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey" explanation of what's going on. The intertwined time paradoxes. Billy. Martha with a bow and arrow, in a hurry. The Angels. The statues that might or might not be Angels. The cinematography, the sets, the letters from the past, the script, the acting, the casting.

I've seldom seen a story that uses time travel so well - in its premise, in its carry-through of the premise, and in the use of the TARDIS at the end.

Carey Mulligan is just about perfect as Sally Sparrow.