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 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.
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.
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 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.
The Next Doctor drops the Doctor into 1851 London to meet a man claiming to be him, in a Christmas special about grief, identity and a very large Cyberman.
Journey’s End gives Donna the Doctor’s mind and the universe its best hour, then takes it away from her in the cruellest ending the show has written.
The Stolen Earth takes the planet out of the sky, brings every companion back at once, reveals Davros, and ends on the show’s cruellest cliffhanger.
Turn Left changes one small decision in Donna’s life and watches Britain collapse without the Doctor, in the bleakest hour Doctor Who has ever produced.
Midnight traps the Doctor in a stranded shuttle with something that steals his voice, and lets a busload of frightened people become the real monster.
Forest of the Dead explains what saved means, gives Donna a whole life she never had, and asks River Song to die for a man who has never met her.
Silence in the Library strands the Doctor on a planet-sized library where the shadows eat people, and introduces a woman who knows him far too well.