Vampyros Adric
Global Moderator
Timelord
Favourite Doctor: 4/6/7
Favourite Companion: Jo Grant
Posts: 3174
He is also vain, ego-centric and quite mad
Badges: (View All)
|
|
« on: July 15, 2012, 01:49:28 pm » |
|
Choosing an individual story from this season was difficult as, viewed as a whole, it is absolutely superb. Like most fans, a shudder of dread went through my bones when I heard that a children's TV writer had got the rights to the show. The next big announcement was the Billie Piper was going to be in it. "Ha" thought I, "I shan't be watching the BBC desecrate the grave of my all time favourite show. Its going to be a pastiche and i'm going to get annoyed with it."
How wrong could I be? This season was amazing. And i'm going to be bold here - I don't think ANY season of Doctor Who has ever been this good, before or since. This was science fiction as I always wanted it to be: Character driven with interesting themes and complex issues underpinning the central stories. High production values, wonderful acting and superlative writing. This season could have killed the show stone dead but instead it breathed new life into it - and has put Doctor Who at the centre of the BBC's saturday night schedules.
So, to pick a favourite... Not an easy task because each story does a specific job within the season. "Rose" just blew me away when I watched it - and it got the show off to a scintillating start. "End of the World" showed how Doctor Who could 'do Alien and outer space' and "The Unquiet Dead" would not have been out of place in the Hartnell era.
In the end it boiled down to a choice of four for me. "Dalek" - a superb, re-imagining of the Dalek story (and there has not been a better use of the Dalek's since "Genesis". ) "Father's Day" saw the role of the Doctor and companion thrown wonderfully into contrast (with one of the best acting performances I've seen from any Doctor by Chris Ecclestone). "The Parting of the Ways" introduced us to Rusty's taste for epic, over the top finale's and showed how a wonderfully subtle story arc can be so rewarding.
Ultimately (and predictably) I went for one of the best science fiction stories that I have ever seen and needless to say one of the best Doctor Who stories of any era. The Empty Child/Doctor Dances was just amazing. Jaded revisionism might have undermined the impact this story had when it first transmitted but, at the time, this was one of the best stories i'd ever seen - nothing I have seen since changes my mind.
What a come back, what a season, what a show!
|
|
|
|
|
|