The Curse of the Black Spot: Pirates, a Dead Calm and a Siren
The Curse of the Black Spot strands the Doctor on a becalmed pirate ship where a singing woman in the reflections takes anyone who cuts a finger.
The Curse of the Black Spot strands the Doctor on a becalmed pirate ship where a singing woman in the reflections takes anyone who cuts a finger.
Day of the Moon beats a monster nobody can remember by hiding a message in the Apollo 11 broadcast, and gives River Song her cruellest scene yet.
The Impossible Astronaut opens Series 6 with a shock at Lake Silencio, Nixon in 1969 and the Silence, a monster you forget the moment you look away.
A Christmas Carol turns Dickens into time travel, letting the Doctor rewrite a cruel man’s childhood while a starliner falls out of the sky above him.
The Big Bang opens brilliantly and ends with Amy’s wedding, but the time-travel escape in the middle left me a bit flat after The Pandorica Opens.
The Pandorica Opens is a finale that lives up to the hype: a message from River, Stonehenge, Rory in Roman times and a trap for the Doctor. Spoilers ahead.
The Lodger strands the Doctor in a Colchester flat share with James Corden, a football match, and an upstairs that shouldn’t exist.
Vincent and the Doctor takes Van Gogh to see his own exhibition, and then refuses to let that fix anything. The finest hour Series 5 has produced.
Cold Blood takes the Doctor under Cwmtaff to broker peace with the Silurians, and one killing on the surface undoes it. A haunting finish.
The Hungry Earth sends the Doctor, Amy and Rory to a Welsh village where a drill has gone too deep and the graves are emptying. Silurians await.
Amy’s Choice puts the Doctor, Amy and Rory in a sleepy village and a dying TARDIS, with a Dream Lord twisting the knife in both.
The Vampires of Venice drags Rory along to 1580 to save his engagement, and finds a house full of girls with fangs who turn out not to be vampires at all.
Flesh and Stone ends the Weeping Angels two-parter with a blind walk through a forest of statues and a crack in the universe that eats people whole.
The Time of Angels sends the Doctor, Amy and River Song into a maze of statues, and the Angels are as scary as ever. Here’s what I thought.
Victory of the Daleks puts Matt Smith’s Doctor in Churchill’s war rooms with tea-serving Daleks. I loved the idea, less so the new paint job.
The Beast Below sends the Doctor and Amy to Starship UK, where a Star Whale and a hard choice make for a filler episode I really enjoyed.
The Eleventh Hour crash-lands Matt Smith’s new Doctor in Amelia Pond’s garden, in a debut with a few hiccups and a stellar Karen Gillan.
The End of Time Part Two: Rassilon returns, Wilf knocks four times, and the Tenth Doctor refuses to go quietly. Here’s what I made of it.
The End of Time Part One brings the Master back wrong, gives Wilfred Mott the best scene of the era, and ends by opening a door onto the Time War itself.
The Waters of Mars traps the Doctor on a doomed Mars base where everyone must die, and watches him decide that the laws of time no longer apply to him.
Planet of the Dead is a sunny heist on a bus, until a passenger tells the Doctor his song is ending and puts a number on it.