Woohoo, I finally have some free time again, so let's get this show back on the road. I should be able to get through the rest of my list reasonably quickly now!
14. Hide (Series 7, 2013, Neil Cross)Hide was a very popular episode here when it aired, and for good reason as there’s a lot to love about it. It’s a fantastic example of Doctor Who’s knack for fusing together genres and styles into something that is somehow coherent and engaging.
Ostensibly, it’s a classic ghost story. Haunted house, ghost chasers, creepy visions, it’s all there. This side of the story is done really nicely, particularly in the way the episode is directed. The use of lighting, in particular, in this episode is very moody and effective. There are also some great touches with the ghost itself – some of the images of it on the wall are genuinely creepy and gave me chills the first time I saw it.
Intertwined with the ghost story is the sci-fi story we expect from Doctor Who, and this is great too. There are some nice twists, and some lovely character stuff between the Doctor, Clara and the TARDIS (yes, I’m including the TARDIS as a character, shut up). I think this is the episode where we see a really nice side to Clara and the sass starts to shift away a bit and we someone more vulnerable.
And then, of course, there’s the love story. This could have been a bit overly cheesy, but it’s well written and, crucially, superbly acted. I find both characters just adorable and their feelings for each other completely convincing. For me this really makes the story that bit more relatable and, as result, absolutely gorgeous.
13. The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang (Series 5, 2010, Steven Moffat)I’ve mentioned in earlier entries how much I love series 5. When I talked about the Eleventh Hour, I focussed on the fairytale feeling that the whole series has, and how that episode kicked it off. Well, this closing two-parter is where it all comes together in superb fashion.
I remember when this aired (The Big Bang in particular), some people weren’t so keen on the timey-wimey stuff as an explanation for how the Doctor gets out of his predicament. Not me. I love that stuff! I’ve always been someone who, when watching a film or TV show about time travel, simply accepts paradoxes about causation and history. That’s sort of the point really, it allows you to have fun with these sorts of ideas, and Moffat is simply the master when it comes to that.
Moffat’s humour and sense of fun are on absolutely cracking form throughout these episodes. The eleventh Doctor’s fez has, since, become an iconic image of the show because of the way it entertained so many people, and much of the dialogue is fantastic.
But really, the wonderful thing about this story is the fairytale story of Amy, Rory and the Doctor. The scenes at the end are wonderful and heart-warming. Under Russell T Davies, the previous few series had ended in ways that were a bit bleak or depressing (Rose unreachable, Martha’s family go through horrifying experiences, Donna has to lose all memory of her time with the Doctor) so the fact that series ended in such a happy way really was a nice change, and I think signalled a more upbeat era (on the whole) for Doctor Who.