LogFAQs > #965209628

1. Series 4 (The Doctor: David Tennant, Companion/s: Donna Noble)

*SPOILERS BELOW FOR SERIES FOUR OF DOCTOR WHO*

Best Episode: Midnight/Turn Left (The Waters of Mars, if I include the David Tennant Specials)
Worst Episode: The Poison Sky

I don't know where to start on this season, because there are two routes I could take to explain why it is the best season of the reboot. I suppose I'll start with the simpler explanation. Though David Tennant is not my favorite Doctor (in fact, he's probably not even my second favorite Doctor when I consider his entire body of work), I think if he had more seasons like this (and like the departure specials, which are not counted towards the season's rank...but I'm including them with the seasom because they'd otherwise be ingored), he would easily be in the running.

When you don't boil him down to a romantic lead to pretty companions like Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman, David Tennant is actually a fantastic actor. He's able to toe that line, perhaps even better than Eccleston, between the kind of light-hearted goofiness that the Doctor should embody as a detached alien genius, and the deadly seriousness of someone who realizes the immense and power and responsibility he could potentially wield if he put his mind to it. And we get to see a bit more of the Doctor's dark side with Tennant in the regard. He's not the immediate PTSD Doctor that Eccleston was, so he's able to have that lingering anger in his heart and awareness of the type of power he could command.

We see this dynamic at work in Fires of Pompeii with his ultimate decision to maintain history at the cost of a small piece of his soul. We see it in Planet of the Ood where he's forced to endure sorrow that most people can't. We see it in the library two-parter where he refuses to accept a defeat and saves River's consciousness. And of course we get multiple instances of this over the course of Tennant's final few specials, culminating in him making the ultimate sacrifice to save a single life. We hadn't gotten THAT kind of showing from Tennant up until this season, and it really makes for some great, dramatic television.