Day 11 - Your Favorite Season (Classic or New)

Blast it all! It stipulates a choice by using the word "or." fjdklsajfdklsa;. Hmm.

Well, I'll choose my favorite series of the New Series (therefore, this is not my overall favorite, nor my favorite of the Classic Series ... just of the New Series, meaning the series on BBC One starting in 2005).

Which is easy.

Series 5 x 8 billion. Matt Smith had me at "can I have an apple?" and continually impressed me throughout the entire series. He really made this series. Turns out Moff was totally right about him. And I admit that I was worried .. not because I thought he had "big shoes to fill," but because Moff and the production team kept hyping him up so much.

I was worried that they were setting up these ridiculous expectations that could have never been met. But man, Matt Smith really is an amazing Doctor. I really loved Christopher Eccleston's Doctor, but I think Matt Smith is the best of the revived series. Miles ahead of Tennant, for sure.

The series had its lowpoints, like "Victory of the Daleks" and "The Vampires of Venice," but as a whole the series-wide plot was so much more well-formed, the companion much more interesting (except maybe when compared to Donna, who is super awesome), the TARDIS was full and happy (except when it 'sploded), and
RIVER
F'N
SONG
Good lord, do I love River Song. I really liked her in "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" (I'm one of a small minority that did, I feel) and I absolutely loved her this season. The showdown with the stone Dalek, writing "Hello Sweetie" on the face of a mountain, jumping out of a spaceship and knowing the TARDIS would be there ... she's just so fantastic.

And Rory! Oh Rory. Talk about a fantastic character. I think we see the most growth in his character out of all of the characters this season. And rather than just go along with the Doctor, and let himself be trampled, he researches things. He confronts new ideas and information head on, and finds out what he can about it. And he grows a rockin' ponytail. He's the Second Companion done right.

I think my only real complaint is that the end of the series was so open ended. I think we're so used to closure from RTD that we have an expectation of something ending and something new beginning. But if you think about it, I think Moff needed to set things up that way. Because we have the same companions again next series, he has to give the audience some clue as to what's coming up. What the drive of the next series will be. It won't be introducing a new companion to traveling, as so many of the New Series episodes have been. It won't be introducing a new Doctor, as pretty much half of the New Series years have been. So I think leading in with a problem already in place provides an interesting and evocative dynamic for next year's production team to play with.

Oh, and the fez. And bowties.

I think I'll stop ranting now.