Series 4

RTD's final full season is often regarded as his best but what is your stance on it?

I thought it was alright at the time, but I suspect I was suffering from severe diminished expectations by then.

Vanilla is probably the word that best sums the season up. Which was at least a step up from 'tasteless'.

I think of the RTD seasons, it's the closest the era ever got to feeling like Doctor Who. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for fanwank.

The Sontaran and Moffat 2parters aren't bad but most of it is shite. Partners in Crime, Pompeii and Doctor's Daughter are unbelievably bad, and at the time of broadcast Journey's End was probably the worst episode ever.

There are only two that I think are worth a mention.
Turn Left, which is fairly reasonable considering it's an RTD script. And the Sontaran 2 parter, which although is nothing special, at least it's not utterly terrible, and the Sontaran is at least a proper Sontaran, unlike that stupid character that Moffat introduced.
Talking of Moffat, his contribution to this season was his first big failure. Absolute rubbish, and brought one of the worst ever NuWho characters to our screens.
The worst stories are undoubtedly the opener and the finale, but the rest are a combination of bland, and just shite.
Overall though, I thought Donna wasn't too bad eventually, after initially hating the character. But then almost anyone is preferable than Rose. Especially the unbearable levels of smug that came with the Tennant/Piper pairing.

It’s certainly less egregious and painful than series 2, although that ultimately isn’t saying much. If anything, at times, it represents the RTD era at its most mainstream and patronising, though at others represents the era at its least moronic too.

Voyage of the Damned is utter, utter shite. It’s laden with stereotypes and caricatures (the fat married couple are portrayed as fixated on materialism and as complete idiots, whilst the rest of the characters consist of similar patronising archetypes), an idiot narrative, staggeringly shit direction (the scenes where the Host are throwing their halos at the Doctor and the rest of the guest cast looks like an outtake from the Star Wars prequels without the finished CG rendering, with some woeful camera angles too), and through the amalgamation of these qualities, RTD generates a sense of unbridled contempt for the intelligence of his audience. It’s Doctor Who made for idiots, and things actually get worse with the following story.

Partners in Crime is, shockingly, even worse. The same caricatures are present here ( “I can do better than him now!”-does RTD have a vendetta against large people? Why are they all portrayed as materialistic and superficial?), Tennant’s performance gets even worse (resorting to gurning throughout the majority of it), Gold’s music is fucking dreadful, the direction is staid and insipid, and the Adipose creations are the epitome of charmless. Catherine Tate is actually one of the least awful aspects of the episode (alongside Cribbins)- the rest of it is pure drivel lacking in any imagination, charm or endearing qualities.

The Fires of Pompeii isn’t as bad, mainly due to actually having some dramatic tension, but it’s still not very good from what I recall. It’s still populated with popcultural references, thus ruining the period atmosphere on display (“I am...Spartacus.” “And so am I!”), and the script still constantly resorts to bathos when unnecessary.

Planet of the Ood is decent, at least, even if it is incredibly cliched. Although popcultural references still persist early on (the Simpsons reference makes no fucking sense), it’s at least mildly gritty, and the final 10 minutes (prior to the mawkish final scene) are actually rather violent for New Who. Not great, but miles better than the previous three stories.

The Sontaran two parter is passable at best. If done during the Pertwee era, it would have undoubtably been a lot better, but it just about works for what it is. It’s nothing challenging, but not as moronic as the first two stories.

The Doctor’s Daughter is staggeringly awful, portraying Tennant’s Doctor as an utterly hypocritical wanker with a weirdly implemented pacifist moral code that runs contrary to many of his previous actions (“I never would”... unless you’ve murdered about seven people in a WW1 setting and are simply trying to survive), a piss-poor performance from Georgia Moffat, and a nauseatingly mawkish ending coupled with another unsubtle score from Gold.

Unicorn and the Wasp is incredibly lightweight, though not quite as idiotic and downright vacuous as Partners in Shite in that it actually has a half-decent narrative idea.

Silence in the Library is the first story of the season I would call genuinely good- it’s fairly surreal, features an interesting sci-fi idea, and actually has the audacity to be about something less mundane than the previous stories. It’s not perfect, and has the occasional slice of crap direction and popcultural references, but it gets by, even if it does introduce River Song.

Midnight is probably RTD’s most airtight and least idiotic script, and has some semblance of tension in it too. The low key nature of it ensures that RTD doesn’t slip into his usual bombastic and shrill antics, and is actually restrained here.

Turn Left is similar, and actually dares to be a little dark- a complete rarity for his scripts. It’s littered with possible plot holes, for certain, but it conjures a dystopian atmosphere rather well, and it’s generally very well acted.

The Journey’s End two parter is fucking awful. Incoherently structured, featuring unrestrained noise and popularist Hollywood tropes, a script which makes fuck all sense in any capacity whatsoever (see the Old Hive for more information), hammy performances across the board (including Julian Bleach, sadly, who isn’t a patch on Wisher or Molloy in this), the utterly nauseating and illogical shit concerning the metacrisis Doctor which makes The Time Monster look like a Newton thesis by comparison, and an ending which makes even less sense, all whilst succumbing to the mawkish melodrama and purile excess sentimentality renowned within the era to an even greater extent than usual. Dire indeed.

Not the worst RTD season, featuring occasional glimmers of promise, but its lows are so low as to represent the era at its absolute worst, and most mainstream pandering too.