Was looking back to see if I'd done a top ten before (I hadn't!) and the forum's search took me to this page:
Ooh, just occurred to me... River Song does not shoot the Doctor dead by the shores of Lake Silencio in 2011.
Very simple leap of logic, but when she's invited to the lake, she has no idea why, and when the young-Doctor comes out of the bathroom she presumes that it's a joke ("cold, even by your standards,") and asks if he knows who Jim the Fish is.
More specifically, it means that if she did do it, she doesn't remember. Which is possible - the astronaut was introduced in an episode where the villains were playing memory games. But it's a spanner.
Not that this is new news, it wouldn't make sense if it were her, anyway. The astronaut is in a space-suit, and we never get to see their face. If you think of it as a magic trick, why would you veil the identity of the killer, if not because you want their identity concealed? It'd be a bit like hiding a ball under one of three cups, tapping the top, and then revealing it to be under the same cup. You might as well get rid of the cups entirely if that's the plan, they're just vessels for disappointment.
Which is why I think it's a big lure for the Doctor to make the Lady whats-her-face think she's won the war...
Nice work, Adam! 100% spot on, and well over a full month ahead of schedule.
On which note, having not found my top ten anywhere in the thread, here's what it'd be today:
1. The Eleventh Hour
2. The Girl Who Waited
3. The Waters of Mars
4. The End of Time (1&2)
5. Human Nature (1&2)
6. Vincent and the Doctor
7. The Pandorica Opens (1&2)
8. The Impossible Astronaut (1&2)
9. The Snowmen
10. Silence in the Library (1&2)
Something like that. I'm not sure. I keep remembering things. And wanting to change it. Blink! Blink just missed out. I make it 11, at the moment - but do I really prefer SitL? Does that mean anything, "Blink is one point higher?" What's a point, who's keeping scores? And do I like The Snowmen more than A Christmas Carol, or is it just more recent? Have I just put it in because there's nothing else from series 7? And where's all the Russell T Davies? Smith & Jones! I love Smith & Jones. Plus there's Doomsday, and Midnight, and, hey! The Christmas Invasion. The first amazing christmas special.
What I've done, there, is put ten stories that I really like into a list and gone, "Yeah, that'll do." The top three, certainly, I will stand by as a top three. The rest? Oh, who cares, it's all Doctor Who innit?