top 10 non-rtd episodes part 1 (#10-#6)
So when I was bored at work last week, I considered MOAR LISTS I could make, as one does. I thought about doing a top 20 or "top 10 fun Doctor Who episodes" or something like that but basically it occurred to me that the most accurate description for this list would really just be "Top Ten Non-RTD Episodes", given the fact that 8/10 of my top 10 were RTD episodes. I also disqualified the lone two non-RTD episodes (Father's Day and Human Nature/Family of Blood) just for... continuity.
SO... HERE GOES. In two parts, because I'm long-winded. Most of the pictures are borrowed~ from Tumblr so click for the source.
10. The Lodger by Gareth Roberts
The Lodger is when I finally learned to love Eleven. I'd been alright with him throughout most of season 5, and towards the end of the season I was warming up to him more and more, but The Lodger is what did it. Matt Smith does comedy well, and apparently a totally irreverent episode about just Eleven getting into shenanigans and interacting with normal people and trying to behave like a normal person was precisely what I needed to warm up to him. I think it helped to see Eleven without Amy, not because I hate Amy, but because we hadn't seen him on his own yet, and putting him on his own gave us a chance at who he was besides Amy's Raggedy Doctor. He's hilarious and this episode is just so much fun. I know a common complaint is that the Doctor is too stupid in this episode, that it should not be this hard for him to blend in and that he knows more about human culture than they pretend in this episode. Aaaand... maybe that's all true. BUT IT'S SO FUN OKAY.
9. The Fires of Pompeii by James Moran
Fires of Pompeii is a great episode because it sets the tone for the Doctor and Donna's relationship through the rest of the season. We've already seen them together twice by this point, but Fires of Pompeii is multi-purpose, introducing Donna to the realities of TARDIS travel while beating the Doctor over the head with the fact that he does, actually, need someone with him. We see that Donna isn't afraid to question his choices, stand up to him, and flagrantly disregard him. She's not intimidated by his Time Lord-iness. But we also see -- or at least witness Donna learning -- that the Doctor isn't being totally unreasonable, that there are reasons that sometimes these sacrifices have to be made.
The fixed point in time/time in flux dichotomy in Doctor Who is an interesting one, and one I actually like quite a bit. Using both of these concepts of time travel allows for the most story options, I think, because it allows for suspense (as much as is possible) in an episode like Shakespeare Code while keeping some rules in place. Fixed points, I think, are the kind of story device you can't rely on constantly, but used sparingly they can be brilliant, and both here and even moreso in Waters of Mars I think the show lives up to that. Fires of Pompeii is particularly interesting in wake of Waters of Mars, because they're such opposites in basically every way. And since Waters of Mars is basically my favourite episode ever, it's probably no surprise that the prequel is one of my favourites, too.
Plus LOL Malcolm Tucker, Autobots in Vesuvius, and unexpected Amy Pond.
8. Vincent & The Doctor by Richard Curtis
Ah, Vincent & The Doctor. I actually think I like this episode less than the average person in fandom seemed to. I didn't cry, and it wasn't even my favourite of series 5. It's not even my favourite historical-person episode.
It IS a really solid episode though, and coaxed me down from the flouncy rage I got over The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood. As someone who admittedly does not "get" visual art, I know very little about Vincent Van Gogh, but even still his portrayal was interesting to me and he was a compelling character so I didn't mind missing some of the throwaway references to his work and his life that I'm sure I missed. The invisible monster and its obvious allegory for depression is handled with surprising grace, I thought, and I loved that the episode was far more about the characters than it was about the monster-of-the-week plot.
Considering Rory had just been erased from time to seemingly make way for a fun romp with Van Gogh without emotional repercussions, I thought this episode did much better than I expected at showing Amy's ~secret grief~ and making Rory's absence palpable. I liked the idea of the Doctor taking Amy to all these nice places without explaining why he was being "so nice", and after a couple episodes of being pretty irritated with Amy Pond, I actually found her quite likable and human in this one. Her childlike excitement to see the "dozens" of new paintings and her grief when she found they "didn't help at all" were nice moments for her character.
7. The Eleventh Hour by Steven Moffat
The Eleventh Hour is pretty easily my favourite Moffat-penned episode, in an unusual twist of fate. I think we all know of my issues with TEC/TDD and GITF, and "Blink" -- while great the first time -- can't hold up on rewatching, and while I have varying degrees of affection for the rest of his work in s5/s6, Eleventh Hour is far and away the stand-out for me. Everything about Moffat's Who was so uncertain up to that point, and I remember watching Eleventh Hour and being totally delighted that, despite the clear changes, there was still a definite sense of familiarity and lulziness and just general fun that I was hoping for. Amelia is adorable and I remember being just totally delighted by Amy Pond in this episode and all the potential her character and her story was brimming with. She had a different relationship with the Doctor than what we'd seen before, and I was totally thrilled by this turn of events. Even if ultimately Amy's story didn't go where I was hoping it would, I still think Eleventh Hour set up the potential for her to be a really complex and interesting character -- little orphan Amy with her abandonment and trust issues.
Rory, at the time, didn't leave much of an impression on me, but in retrospect he's great here too -- it's a nice little introduction and preview of his relationship with an uncertain Amy, his devotion to her, AND Rory doing The Companion Thing of noticing things are wrong and coma patients are walking about and being the oddball taking photos of coma patients instead of the sun. Four for you, Rory Williams. You go, Nurse Williams.
Also NOT A SINGLE TIME LOOP WAS HAD THAT DAY. Praise the lord. In the Confidential Moffat talks about how he was intentionally trying to ~challenge himself~ by removing the TARDIS from the equation and thus forcing Eleven to solve things mostly-linearly and without any convenient resources, and in my opinion the result was great because it did force the Doctor to rely on his own smarts -- and incidentally on Amy and Rory as well. Basically I thought Eleventh Hour did a great job of modifying the show to reflect the changes behind the scenes without reinventing the wheel and it left me really excited for the rest of season 5.
6. The Unicorn & The Wasp by Gareth Roberts
I've learned recently that there are lots of people who hate this episode? WTF? What is there to hate? IT IS A FUN WHACKY HISTORICAL FIGURE EPISODE ugh I will never understand you, fandom.
Anyway, this episode is on my list for precisely probably the reasons people hate it: the plot is silly and the monster is bizarre and it makes great use of the 'historical figure's life is just like their work!' trope but it is so much FUN and David Tennant and Catherine Tate get to be so FUNNY which they are great at and just lol whatever fandom, stay mad. I don't even know much about Agatha Christie's work (though I've since read Death in the Clouds, har har) but she's enough of a pop culture behemoth that I imagine the average person can pick out plenty of the title references and you'd have to be especially thick to not ~get~ the genre shift in this episode.
I generally think of s4 as a relatively fun season, perhaps just in contrast to s3, but when I think about it there's certainly a lot of doom and gloom in the latter half, following on from this episode. As a last full-episode whacky romp for the Doctor and Donna, though, it's great. They're clearly in full-on BFF stage by this point, they're comfortable with each other and teasing each other, and the episode gets to capitalize on the great relaxed friendly chemistry between the two leads. Plus, come on, that charades scene is easily one of the funniest in the entire show.
Basically, as fun episodes go, The Unicorn & The Wasp one of the best. Haters gonna hate.
SO... HERE GOES. In two parts, because I'm long-winded. Most of the pictures are borrowed~ from Tumblr so click for the source.
10. The Lodger by Gareth Roberts
The Lodger is when I finally learned to love Eleven. I'd been alright with him throughout most of season 5, and towards the end of the season I was warming up to him more and more, but The Lodger is what did it. Matt Smith does comedy well, and apparently a totally irreverent episode about just Eleven getting into shenanigans and interacting with normal people and trying to behave like a normal person was precisely what I needed to warm up to him. I think it helped to see Eleven without Amy, not because I hate Amy, but because we hadn't seen him on his own yet, and putting him on his own gave us a chance at who he was besides Amy's Raggedy Doctor. He's hilarious and this episode is just so much fun. I know a common complaint is that the Doctor is too stupid in this episode, that it should not be this hard for him to blend in and that he knows more about human culture than they pretend in this episode. Aaaand... maybe that's all true. BUT IT'S SO FUN OKAY.
9. The Fires of Pompeii by James Moran
Fires of Pompeii is a great episode because it sets the tone for the Doctor and Donna's relationship through the rest of the season. We've already seen them together twice by this point, but Fires of Pompeii is multi-purpose, introducing Donna to the realities of TARDIS travel while beating the Doctor over the head with the fact that he does, actually, need someone with him. We see that Donna isn't afraid to question his choices, stand up to him, and flagrantly disregard him. She's not intimidated by his Time Lord-iness. But we also see -- or at least witness Donna learning -- that the Doctor isn't being totally unreasonable, that there are reasons that sometimes these sacrifices have to be made.
The fixed point in time/time in flux dichotomy in Doctor Who is an interesting one, and one I actually like quite a bit. Using both of these concepts of time travel allows for the most story options, I think, because it allows for suspense (as much as is possible) in an episode like Shakespeare Code while keeping some rules in place. Fixed points, I think, are the kind of story device you can't rely on constantly, but used sparingly they can be brilliant, and both here and even moreso in Waters of Mars I think the show lives up to that. Fires of Pompeii is particularly interesting in wake of Waters of Mars, because they're such opposites in basically every way. And since Waters of Mars is basically my favourite episode ever, it's probably no surprise that the prequel is one of my favourites, too.
Plus LOL Malcolm Tucker, Autobots in Vesuvius, and unexpected Amy Pond.
8. Vincent & The Doctor by Richard Curtis
Ah, Vincent & The Doctor. I actually think I like this episode less than the average person in fandom seemed to. I didn't cry, and it wasn't even my favourite of series 5. It's not even my favourite historical-person episode.
It IS a really solid episode though, and coaxed me down from the flouncy rage I got over The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood. As someone who admittedly does not "get" visual art, I know very little about Vincent Van Gogh, but even still his portrayal was interesting to me and he was a compelling character so I didn't mind missing some of the throwaway references to his work and his life that I'm sure I missed. The invisible monster and its obvious allegory for depression is handled with surprising grace, I thought, and I loved that the episode was far more about the characters than it was about the monster-of-the-week plot.
Considering Rory had just been erased from time to seemingly make way for a fun romp with Van Gogh without emotional repercussions, I thought this episode did much better than I expected at showing Amy's ~secret grief~ and making Rory's absence palpable. I liked the idea of the Doctor taking Amy to all these nice places without explaining why he was being "so nice", and after a couple episodes of being pretty irritated with Amy Pond, I actually found her quite likable and human in this one. Her childlike excitement to see the "dozens" of new paintings and her grief when she found they "didn't help at all" were nice moments for her character.
7. The Eleventh Hour by Steven Moffat
The Eleventh Hour is pretty easily my favourite Moffat-penned episode, in an unusual twist of fate. I think we all know of my issues with TEC/TDD and GITF, and "Blink" -- while great the first time -- can't hold up on rewatching, and while I have varying degrees of affection for the rest of his work in s5/s6, Eleventh Hour is far and away the stand-out for me. Everything about Moffat's Who was so uncertain up to that point, and I remember watching Eleventh Hour and being totally delighted that, despite the clear changes, there was still a definite sense of familiarity and lulziness and just general fun that I was hoping for. Amelia is adorable and I remember being just totally delighted by Amy Pond in this episode and all the potential her character and her story was brimming with. She had a different relationship with the Doctor than what we'd seen before, and I was totally thrilled by this turn of events. Even if ultimately Amy's story didn't go where I was hoping it would, I still think Eleventh Hour set up the potential for her to be a really complex and interesting character -- little orphan Amy with her abandonment and trust issues.
Rory, at the time, didn't leave much of an impression on me, but in retrospect he's great here too -- it's a nice little introduction and preview of his relationship with an uncertain Amy, his devotion to her, AND Rory doing The Companion Thing of noticing things are wrong and coma patients are walking about and being the oddball taking photos of coma patients instead of the sun. Four for you, Rory Williams. You go, Nurse Williams.
Also NOT A SINGLE TIME LOOP WAS HAD THAT DAY. Praise the lord. In the Confidential Moffat talks about how he was intentionally trying to ~challenge himself~ by removing the TARDIS from the equation and thus forcing Eleven to solve things mostly-linearly and without any convenient resources, and in my opinion the result was great because it did force the Doctor to rely on his own smarts -- and incidentally on Amy and Rory as well. Basically I thought Eleventh Hour did a great job of modifying the show to reflect the changes behind the scenes without reinventing the wheel and it left me really excited for the rest of season 5.
6. The Unicorn & The Wasp by Gareth Roberts
I've learned recently that there are lots of people who hate this episode? WTF? What is there to hate? IT IS A FUN WHACKY HISTORICAL FIGURE EPISODE ugh I will never understand you, fandom.
Anyway, this episode is on my list for precisely probably the reasons people hate it: the plot is silly and the monster is bizarre and it makes great use of the 'historical figure's life is just like their work!' trope but it is so much FUN and David Tennant and Catherine Tate get to be so FUNNY which they are great at and just lol whatever fandom, stay mad. I don't even know much about Agatha Christie's work (though I've since read Death in the Clouds, har har) but she's enough of a pop culture behemoth that I imagine the average person can pick out plenty of the title references and you'd have to be especially thick to not ~get~ the genre shift in this episode.
I generally think of s4 as a relatively fun season, perhaps just in contrast to s3, but when I think about it there's certainly a lot of doom and gloom in the latter half, following on from this episode. As a last full-episode whacky romp for the Doctor and Donna, though, it's great. They're clearly in full-on BFF stage by this point, they're comfortable with each other and teasing each other, and the episode gets to capitalize on the great relaxed friendly chemistry between the two leads. Plus, come on, that charades scene is easily one of the funniest in the entire show.
Basically, as fun episodes go, The Unicorn & The Wasp one of the best. Haters gonna hate.