The Time of the Doctor: Raggedy Man, Goodnight
The Time of the Doctor strands Matt Smith’s Doctor on Trenzalore for nine hundred years, and a messy first half gives way to a great goodbye.
The Time of the Doctor strands Matt Smith’s Doctor on Trenzalore for nine hundred years, and a messy first half gives way to a great goodbye.
The Day of the Doctor takes the Time War apart with a tired John Hurt, a weapon wearing Rose’s face and three men stuck on one big red button.
The Name of the Doctor answers the Impossible Girl question properly, goes to Trenzalore and ends on a John Hurt shot I can’t stop thinking about.
Nightmare in Silver gives me the best Cybermen in years and Matt Smith playing chess against himself, then buries both in a theme park.
The Crimson Horror drops the Paternoster Gang into a Victorian model village run by Diana Rigg at full tilt. I give it 4/5.
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS takes us inside the ship at last, then throws it all away with a reset button. A 2.5/5 from me.
Hide sends the Doctor and Clara into a haunted house in 1974, and the ghost story turns into something kinder than I expected. I give it 4/5.
Cold War thaws an Ice Warrior aboard a Soviet submarine in 1983 and leaves the Doctor with no TARDIS. Tense, tight and old-fashioned.
The Rings of Akhaten sends Clara to an alien market and a girl singing a god to sleep, then ends on a leaf. Thin plot, big heart.
The Bells of Saint John harvests people through the Wi-Fi as the Doctor meets Clara a third time. Fast and fun, but far too easily solved.
The Snowmen drops a sulking, retired Doctor into Victorian London and hands him a barmaid he can’t quite stop thinking about.
The Angels Take Manhattan sends Amy and Rory off with a chosen ending, a book from the future and the nastiest Weeping Angels idea yet.
The Power of Three drops a billion black cubes on Earth that do nothing for a year, wonderful about ordinary life and hopeless about its monster.
A Town Called Mercy hides a war criminal in a frontier town with a cyborg waiting outside the line, and the Doctor nearly throws a man to his death.
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship sends a Silurian ark at Earth with Rory’s dad aboard holding a trowel, and the Doctor does something genuinely cold.
Asylum of the Daleks: they kidnap the Doctor to save them, and a girl making souffles in a crashed ship is the most upsetting reveal in years.
My Doctor Widow Wardrobe review: a bumpy Christmas special, saved only by its last few minutes with Amy and Rory.
The Wedding of River Song collapses all of history into one afternoon when River won’t fire, and then gets out of a fixed point through a loophole.
Closing Time sends the Doctor to babysit with Craig Owens and fight Cybermen in a department store, with a goodbye hiding under every joke.
The God Complex puts the Doctor in a fake 1980s hotel with a room for every guest’s worst fear, and it’s more ruthless about him than I expected.
The Girl Who Waited strands Amy in a faster time stream for thirty-six years, and makes Rory choose which version of his wife gets to live.