The Family of Blood: The Man Who Had to Die
The Family of Blood asks a human man to give up his own life so the Doctor can come back, then shows exactly why the Doctor was hiding in the first place.
The Family of Blood asks a human man to give up his own life so the Doctor can come back, then shows exactly why the Doctor was hiding in the first place.
Human Nature hides the Doctor inside a human schoolmaster in 1913, leaving Martha to guard a fob watch while scarecrows close in. Superb Doctor Who.
42 runs in real time as a cargo ship falls into a living sun, the crew burn from the inside, and the Doctor gets more frightened than we’ve seen him.
The Lazarus Experiment turns a scientist’s rejuvenation machine into a monster movie, and finally promotes Martha Jones from passenger to companion.
Spider-Man 3 finally puts the black suit on screen and then wastes it, with a thin Venom, a buried Sandman and a jazz club scene I can’t defend.
Evolution of the Daleks gives Dalek Sec a conscience and his own kind a mutiny, in a Manhattan finale with great ideas and a very messy execution.
Daleks in Manhattan drops the Cult of Skaro into Depression-era New York, with pig slaves in the sewers and a plan hidden in the Empire State Building.
Gridlock sends Martha to a motorway jammed for decades, with a hymn in the dark, the Macra in the fumes and the Face of Boe’s last words for the Doctor.
The Shakespeare Code takes Martha to 1599, where three Carrionite witches plan to use Shakespeare’s lost play as a spell to free their species.
Smith and Jones opens Series 3 by dumping a London hospital on the Moon, siccing rhino police on it, and introducing the excellent Martha Jones.
The Runaway Bride drops a shouting Donna Noble into the TARDIS and sets a grieving Doctor against the Empress of the Racnoss. Here’s how I got on with it.
Doomsday sets Daleks against Cybermen over London, then ends on a cold Norwegian beach. My take on the Doctor Who finale and that goodbye.
Army of Ghosts turns a planet’s grief into a Cyberman invasion, opens up Torchwood Tower, and ends on a Dalek cliffhanger I never saw coming.
Fear Her sends the Doctor and Rose to the 2012 London Olympics, where a lonely girl’s drawings are making children vanish. A gentle, uneven episode.
Doctor Who’s naffest monster, the Abzorbaloff, can’t quite sink a surprisingly moving episode about fandom, found family, and Jackie Tyler’s loneliness.
The Satan Pit sends the Doctor into the abyss to face the Beast itself, in a Doctor Who two-parter finale about faith, reason, and believing in Rose.
The Impossible Planet strands the Doctor and Rose on a base by a black hole, where the Ood turn deadly and something ancient stirs in the dark.
The Idiot’s Lantern sends the Doctor and Rose into 1953 Coronation London, where the Wire feeds on TV viewers by stealing their faces.
The Age of Steel reveals the Cybermen’s true horror and gives Mickey Smith his hero moment in an emotionally sharp Doctor Who finale.
Rise of the Cybermen strands the Doctor on a parallel Earth where Rose’s dad is alive and John Lumic is building an army of steel men from the living.
The Girl in the Fireplace sends the Tenth Doctor through time windows into 18th-century France, clockwork monsters and a love story that breaks your heart.