BBC does it again, as they continue to show they know what they're going when they produce anything for the television.
OK, it's official David Tennant is the best Doctor. And after this season ended I'm really looking forward to Season 4 even though it will be the last season of David Tennant, but what a good two seasons he's had and I imagine what a good third season he's going to have. He really got the time to flesh out the Doctor and bring his own eccentricities to the role, which are really what help to make the Doctor, well you know the Doctor. His acting ability has just blown me away as he seems to bring just a joy and passion to the role that started with Tom Baker and continued with Christopher Ecccleston, but now David Tennant has brought it to a whole new level that has been a joy to watch.
This season also gave the Doctor a new companion, Martha Jones, and I thought the best thing about her was that she was training to be a doctor. This dynamic brought a whole new twist to the companion assembly line, as she's first companion of the new Doctor to have some education behind her. Personally, I thought the writers should have focused more on that aspect of her instead of her infatuation with the Doctor, which I never really bought into. There just didn't seem to be enough time for her to fall in love with the Doctor, as there did with Rose. This is why I thought her education should have been focused on more thoroughly, because it would have explained things a lot better as to why she willing went along with the Doctor. I mean why wouldn't a doctor in training want to go exploring all sorts of strange alien races and cultures? It would open up all kinds of new physical characteristics, bone structures, uncommon anatomy to name just a few that any doctor in their mind would give up a lot to go gallivanting through universes just to behold those strange and wonder things. Her being a doctor in training and more educated than Rose brought a whole new awareness of things to the role of the companion than Rose did in the first two seasons. There was a comment on the education of people and how it influences reaction and decisions. I don't know if this was intentional or not but it did factor into the show, at least I noticed and that was the best thing about Martha Jones' character being as educated as it was. It added a whole other dimension to the show that hadn't been there before.
Now the writing for this season was just flat out brilliant and in full on nerd mode. I will admit the first 7 episodes weren't the strongest but when the episodes that followed were, as strong as the ended up, I will forgive the first 7 episodes. They seemed to be laying a large part of the ground work for what followed after them. The last 6 episodes were as follows: a two parter, a stand alone episode and a grand finale three parter. There's not many American shows that have the balls to do multi-part episodes anymore. The main television networks - I'm not not writing about the Cable shows because they really seem to understand how to do television shows - seem to think viewers are stupid and therefore produce nothing but stand alone episodes, with little or no continuity with the plots or characters. Doctor Who bucks that trend in spades, as they continually put things in ever episode that foreshadows things to come. Like I've said before, to me that just shows the writes really care about what their doing. As they continued to stick to the over all plan and not just free wheel it all time like Lost, X-files and about every other show out there, that seems to have a plan, but instead just want to milk everything and get no where. In the end they only end up frustrating the fans. Doctor Who is the exact opposite of that.
I will stay this, season 3 has one of the most brilliantly executed stand alone episodes ever, called Blink, that used statues in a horrific way and make them truly scary. Just writing sentence seems oxymoronic, but this episode proved it 100% wrong. As Jess and I were talking about after that episode: to do what they did with nothing but statues, that technically didn't even move in that episode, and yet they ended up being some of the scariest and creepiest monsters and scenes I've seen in a long time, was on a whole other level of awesomeness than about 90% of the horror movies achieve. They did more with less than many horror movies do with more and they proved that less is more when it comes to being scary. The mind produces so much more intense things than can ever be filmed.
The last three episodes bring a truly great story line and give some good nerdgasms. We finally get another time lord. Who turns out to be insane and calls himself the Master. We get to see the time lords planet and a city on the planet. We find out that time lords chose their names - thus the name of the Doctor is a chosen name, just like the Master is chosen name. And we get to see how what an evil time lord would be like - and well it's not good at all - as the Master turns out to be one of the best villains the Doctor has ever had. Let me tell John Simm, who plays the Master, does an amazing job of it, as he equals the intensity and charisma brought by David Tannant. Watching those two on screen together was some great TV.
Just some random things I noticed during this season. A lot of actors I saw who in my opinion have a lot more to give to the acting world as they've been prove that popped up in some Doctor Who episodes. Andrew Garfield from The Amazing Spiderman and The Social Network, personally I think The Social Network is of more worth. Carey Mulligan whose been in Public Enemies, Shame, and Drive, is a really good actress and completely carried this episode that didn't feature much of the Doctor. Derek Jacobi who is easily one of the best actors I've ever seen and who I've liked in everything I've seen to name a few: The Brother Cadfael series, Gladiator and he stole every scene he was in, Henry V and again he played the narrator but he was absolutely amazing, Dead Again, Hamlet (1996), and I Claudius. Jessica Haynes who helps to show the Doctor love she's from Spaced which she also helped write. Now looking forward to season four.
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