The New Doctor Who-Matt Smith

I am waiting, experiencing both excitement and dread, for the new Doctor played by Matt Smith episodes to come out.  One one hand another episode/year of the doctor is always a good one regardless of the actor (I even liked Colin Baker) but on the other hand David Tennant's turn at the Doctor challenged even my Tom Baker love.

I had decided to do a post about how going away from David Tennant and Russell T Davies might actually be a good move because it seems like this incarnation of Doctor Who was running out of steam with a plot pattern that was being recycled multiple times.  This plot of unstoppable and relatively unseen alien beings taking over a human and then using their newly gained body to kill the rest of the humans around, with a different plot device used each time to keep the humans trapped in a small finite space where they run and run and run, till the doctor, with a degree of personal sacrifice, saves most of everyone..(See: The Uniquiet Dead, 42, Silence in the Library, Forest of the Dead, The Waters of Mars,).

But I have realized that most of my media posts lean to the negative so, I changed my mind and decided to list my favorite episodes of the David Tennant era as a way to help pass the torch from him to Smith.  If you care, enjoy and if you don't just wait for my next post I promise it will be back to my to two major themes of faith and law enforcement.

In no particular order:

The Girl in the Fireplace: I was genuinely moved-it began and supported the first reoccurring theme that the Doctor is alone and lonely  and the second reoccurring theme of this Doctor that saving the world/universe is only accomplished with some great personal sacrifice.

Gridlock: Good Premise, Good threat, Good ending...and like all good Doctor Who Episodes not everything is explained

Blink:  A rare Doctor Who episode that breaks the unwritten over-riding rules of a Doctor Who episode without running out of steam with its premise.  The Pulp Fiction of the Doctor Who world.  The end is the beginning or is it really the end?

Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead:  The best of everything that is Doctor Who, killer premise-literally, has what all the best DW episodes have-the Doctor running in an enclosed space with a threat that he can not overcome physically in any way, thus he has to improvise on the fly, there is also a lot of well timed misdirection, a duality in both plot and setting that is finally brought together into what I guess you would call a mono-ality, a number a cool and unexpected plot twists and easily has the best ending of any DW episode I have seen...ever.  "Now and then, every once in a very long while..." (and I really do not like Donna as a companion yet even she has a real and proper role).

Here is the hope for the future...of these four, three (The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink and the two parter Silence in the Library and the Forest of the Dead) were written by Steven Moffat who is taking over for Russell T Davies.


(The following was an early show with meaning)
Jeremiah 43:9
"While the Jews are watching, take some large stones with you and bury them in clay in the brick pavement at the entrance to Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes.