Doctor Who- Series 3: Best Story?

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Okay, I considered Doctor Who's third new series to be the best ever. There are virtually no episodes I truly dislike. And now that the DVD boxset has been released in the UK and the US (I'll have to wait till Christmas... ), I thought we will have a vote.

For space purposes, I have combined the two parters into one story. I also consider Utopia, The Sound of Drums, and Last of the Time Lords a single story (making it the first 6-parter, or equivalent, since 1985).

Cast yer votes, gents and ladies, cast yer votes.

The final episodes were the best story but Blink was by far the best episode. Blink was just plain amazing.

Blink was good, but I enjoyed the finale.

Damn, 3 votes for Blink already.

Blink. Without question. Suspenseful, scary, interesting ideas, and with enough tangendental Doctor involvement to be satisfying. I did enjoy the series the most since the revival, mostly because of Martha rather than the storywriting. It was enormously refreshing to have an intelligent, forthright companion. I was enormously disappointed when they said that the Bride from Runaway Bride (which was atrocious) was going to be the new companion for season 4. Frankly all I wanted to do throughout that entire episode was to beat her to death with a large metal pipe, while screaming "how is it possible for someone to be so monumentally stupid?"
Overall, I thought the first half of the season was below par, but the second half made up for it, with the final 3 parter, although it did go out on something of a whimper, being outstanding for its first 2 parts. But Blink was amazing.

A well constructed story (I love Steven Moffats stories, which also include The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances and The Girl in the Fireplace) with elements of psychological horror. Only real problem: not much of the Doctor and Martha. However, it is my second favourite story of the season, followed by The Lazarus Experiment and the Human Nature two-part story.

It's a pity Freema Agyeman won't be in series 4 until partway through. But as for Donna Noble being the Doctor's companion, perhaps by the time she meets the Doctor again, she will have broadened her horizons a little. Don't forget, she had said some rather profound things to the Doctor, like telling him to find a new companion, to stop him from going too far.

I'm surprised no-one has voted for Human Nature/The Family of Blood.

6 votes so far. 4 for Blink, and one each for the Human Nature two-parter, and the three-part finale.

Gah! And I'm still working my way through the second season! I better hurry. When I was watching full seasons of 24 on dvd, I'd just have a marathon with whomever I could get to watch it with me. But now I've got my son and I can only watch Doctor Who when he's asleep. It's too bad, because he thoroughly enjoyed some episodes. But the martial arts scene near the beginning of "Tooth and Claw" frightened him and he doesn't want to be around when the show is on anymore.

I'll be back to vote. Next year.

I really like the Harry Potter references in the Shakespeare Code so I voted for that episode.

But Blink is probably the episode that had the most complex plot and made the best use of time travel.

I have state, as a writer myself but also for the sake of pure Yank obnoxiousness, that the writing for this series was across the board horrible. Just horrible.

RTD should never be allowed to penned another episode - gross sentimentality, pointless tangants, very inconsistant and illogical character responses, flat-out dumb ides, etc. etc. Rememebr that bit about the Doctor vowing to shut down the drug peddlers in Gridlock? What was that about? That laughable spider queen in the Xmas epsiode? Oh and don't get me started about the Master, Jack, the hand, Imperial interrogation orbs frorm Star Wars, the Morlocks Beyond the Thunderdome, Dobby the House Elf, floating Timelords and Martha "Savior of the Human Race" Jones (I thought the hero of the was that other charatcer - what was his name again?).

That Raynor woman should never work for the series again. She conveniently and ahistorically edited out racism in the "American" episode, yet conveniently and ahistorically inserted plenty of of gun play - yeah, lovely. Starving American living in the street who happen to have a communal stockpile of guns and ammo and the brainless, trigger-happy reflect to use them. Ha!! How many contentious British stereotypes of Americans can you find in that?!? Not to mention all the dry exposition in the story (wow, the Doctor lecturing about Hoovervilles - now, that's exciting!), silly "human Dalek" concept and goofy Frankenstein allusions.

Blink, for all its hype, was a big let-down. I find the weeping angels a little too illogical to like as villians. I mean, how can they take your "life" potential yet throw you back in time to live out your potential, just in another time? What exactly do they take from you? Plus, visually, it didn't work, as a lot of things visually didn't work in these series, from throngs of Macras to people in cat make-up to philosophizing Daleks to hands in glass jars to leftover Star Wars props to sets you recognize from Series 1 & 2...but I digress... Psychologically, it's intriguing, but as sci fi, eh. I just don't like that Moffatt leans more toward psychological horror than sci fi - that's just a personal preference, but I also question whether that's what this show ought to be about. Accuse me of missing the point, but I personally think this show should be about the Doctor. This episode, as with too many in the Series 3, was not really about the Doctor, so this episode just reinforced that "What show am I watching again??" feeling I had throughout most of the series.

I voted for The Shakespeare Code, because even though I HATED the witches, the bad rhymes, the bad puns, the Vulcan mind-meld and the too, too cheeky Harry Potter references, it was probably to most Doctor Who-ish story in the whole series. The Doctor is the Doctor here - he's not being a moody ass, a bossy jerk or being a stupid git. He's just being the Doctor - inquistive, open, insighful, unselfish and likeable. Plus it's one of the only two epsiodes where Martha's tolerable (the other being Smith and Jones). She's the companion and she helps the Doctor here. The rest of the series she's playing the damsel in distress, pouting over her unrequited love for the Doctor or upstaging the Doctor.

Well, Series 3 had enough explicit, disturbing and violents scenes that by that factor alone I don't want to see this show anymore. The guns in "The Evolution of the Daleks" was excessive, enough but there was this "human Daleks" which was - let me blunt so you are aware for your child's sake - phallic in appearance, and they had a none-too-subtle S&M scene with that human Dalek on stage, on a leash, crawling on all fours in submission to the other Daleks (before they kill him). If that's not enough to disturb a parent, they also show the Daleks executing someone (painfully) in front of a group of people, the Daleks killing off their own human-Dalek hybrids and the Doctor being electrocuted by lightening. And that's just ONE episode.

In fact, there's only a handful of episodes I would consider appropriate for younger viewers because of scenes that are graphic enough to bother me, an adult. What is especially troubling is how often they show the Doctor - this character that has been an idol for kids for generations - in agony or pain. Inddition to being electrocuted, in "42" they have an excessive, gratituous scene of him being painfully "flash frozen." In "The Family of Blood" we see him screaming in sheer agony from the "Chameleon Arc" and we see the Doctor (albeit in "human form" but still the Doctor, per se) allow for a "disciplinary" beating of a young boy (who happens to be the sympathetic charatcer in that particular storyline, so this effectively makes the Doctor the "villian" in that scene). Then in the series' three-part finale., he gets prematurely aged by the "Master" until he withers into a helpless, decrepid old man whom the Master then maliciously humilates further verbally and by caging him and putting him "on display" like a trophy.

I know fans of the show will protest my protrayal, and rationalize and excuse this or that. But I really believe this show crosses to line several time in this series. There are many ways for them to do most of this stuff without having shown it in the disturbing ways they did.

Bear in mind also, I watch American TV - I see a lot of violent and graphic stuff. I'm not the most hypersensitive person around, but I do have my limitations. I wouldn't let my kids watch this crap. No way. One of the reason I watch things like Doctor Who is because these shows shouldn't have to resort to that. Yet for some reason RTD thinks DW does need to resort to that, and it's very unfortunate.

Aspiemartin, you sound like Mary Whitehouse. Doctor Who has always been about violence and introducing kids to grown-up concepts, that's why people tried to ban it from the 70s onward. If you think Docotr who is excessive, I'd hate to know what you think about the horror genre that has become so popular over the years.

My favourite was the one with The Master, because I like his plan. I like the way the Master turns the Doctor into an old man, looking like Doby (from Harry Potter) between Elk (from LOTR). I know it's cruel but it was blessing.

Least like was 42 because I hated when the Doctor was in pain.

AspieMartian, you are reading too much into things. This is meant to be a science-fiction/fantasy series, and with very little to be read into it. You have a very Mary Whitehouse attitude. I'm sure many episodes from the Classic series would have horrified you, like The Deadly Assassin, or Vengeance on Varos. But this thread is for those who actually enjoy Doctor Who, fans and viewers. If you don't enjoy Doctor Who, then why are you watching it? Go away.

Did you know that Doctor Who was originally going to be an educational series?