Series 5

2010 saw Moffat kick NuWho off with a drastic rehaul into a more science fiction based series which tried to jettison all memories of the soap opera tone of the RTD era as well as Matt Smith's debut trying to step out of the shadow of David Tennant. But what do you make of it?

The best of New Poo, though that's not saying much.

A good season to watch when having a breakdown (speaking from experience)

As Iank says, it’s the best of NuWho by quite some distance, though that is damning with faint praise. And to be honest, though I still enjoy quite a lot of it (The Eleventh Hour, The Time of Angels, Amy’s Choice and the Finale primarily), I’m going off even the absolute best of NuWho at this stage due to its constant melodrama, portentousness, smugness and an overall lack of respect for the audience. Oh- and Victory of the Daleks and the Chibnall Silurian two parter are utter shite. I still rate Matt Smith very highly, though (at least early on), and series 5 still has much to enjoy by all means. It’s aeons better than any other NuWho season, and I have some personal affection for it too (it being the season that encouraged me to check out TruWho at a young age).

I think it's first half is strong (up to Amy's Choice). The second is where it starts to get a bit indulgent and weightless (plus the Hungry Earth two-parter is just plain unpleasant). I can enjoy most of The Big Bang, but the ending has always seemed jarring and nonsensical to me and left me rather empty and baffled.

For the most part I do remember the future looking bright there, even if it still seemed to lack much of the richer substance of Big Finish. But in hindsight I'm not sure it was really quite the solid set-up we wanted it to be, or was ever going to be a set-up for anything that great further down the line.

I enjoyed The Eleventh Hour very much, quite liked The Weeping Angels two-parter, bits of Vincent and the Doctor, more bits of The Lodger but found the rest of Series 5 to be silly and pretty awful - particularly Victory of the Daleks and The Silurian nonsense.  At the time, I really didn't care for the dark fantasy/magical/fairy tale themes and tone Moffat was exploring and I couldn't stand the look of Matt Smith, either.  I don't feel so negatively towards it now though, mostly because it's an absolute work of genius compared to the shitty Chibnall stuff.