Tennant has said that he became an actor because he wanted to be the Doctor.

Oh yeah that sounds like him I guess

He does get killed almost immediately. :P

It's such a minor part they'd probably just been going to have someone who was already doing another bit come in and do a funny voice.

@BESW Probably yeah.

Alas, Tennant's Doctor is probably my second-least favorite.

@BESW Aww

He tried so hard, but he didn't have the chops to be consistent and nuanced, a lot of the stories he was given were junk, and the direction did him few favors.

Every now and then he'd do something and I'd go "THAT is the Tenth Doctor I want to see!" but then it'd be gone.

I know it's not just the scripts and directing because he had the same problems in Hamlet (every time Hamlet got excited, he turned into the "manic Doctor"), but if he'd had another five or ten years of acting experience he would've been a lot better--his performance in Day of the Doctor was great.

@BESW Ah I guess I can see him being a bit inconsistent but you if you think that the stories of that time were a bit lacking, what would you consider the highlights of that era?

Hmm.

I've watched pretty much all of it, other then The shakespear one, the First River Song one, and the Doctor's Daughter.

In order... School Reunion was stupid, but Sarah Jane Smith and Mickey had moments that make me forgive the actual story.

(which irks me to no end)

@BESW Yeah it did seem silly but gosh that last scene.

So many feels

And "I'm the tin dog!"

Hah

Blink, of course, but it hardly had the Doctor in it at all.

I loved the Master being the Shalka Doctor's slightly psychotic tin dog.

Yes.

Midnight was brilliant, partly because it was a send-up of a lot of what I found irksome about Ten's run.

Ten had this habit of breezing in and taking charge with the magic words "I'm the Doctor," and nobody really challenged him.

Midnight turned that on its head, took his arrogance and the ease with which he takes control, and threw it in his face.

Great acting and directing all around, including Tennant.

Oh, I don't think I've seen that one...

@RedRiderX The one where he's in a bus that breaks down and something gets in? It's a great "bottle episode."

One of Ten's great recurring motifs is his confidence that he can mold humanity into the shape of his own moral code, as a kind of atonement for the destruction of Gallifrey.

Midnight is one of the starkest examples of humanity standing up and telling him to shove off.

And as much as I dislike the John Simm Master, and some of the Gallifreyan retcon, and a LOT of the side plots, The End of Time gets a stamp of approval because it introduces Gallifrey and the Time Lords to the New Who audience with pitch-perfect arrogance, egotism, and corrupted power.

@BESW Yeah that's a very Ten thing

@BESW Nope definitely haven't watched it...

Shame.

Don't know how I missed it.

Dalton's portrayal of Rassilon is great, and exactly what we always knew he should be.

@BESW Yeah it really shows why he needed to blow up them up as well as the Daleks

Which does make him saving them now a bit awkward...

But hey, it was for the children.

Sigh.

> Ten million years of absolute power! That's what it takes be really corrupt!

@RedRiderX It still could've been for the children, they just needed to show in Day that there was an actual moral dilemma, instead of TELLING us it existed without actually describing it!

That's the unforgivable ball-dropping in Day, and it's telling that iTunes feels the need to package Day of the Doctor and Night of the Doctor with The End of Time.

But anyway. Rassilon and his Power Glove are definitely a highlight in an otherwise cringeworthy story.

(It's so bad!)

@BESW Yeah that Gauntlet was sweet.

@BESW Hmm I guess I'm not a good Screen critic but how did they tell us about the children rather then show us?

And those are the highlights of Ten's run for me: School Reunion, Blink, Midnight, and The End of Time, and half of them are for a particular part of the episode rather than the episode as a whole.

@RedRiderX Oh, they showed us the children... but didn't show us any reason that Gallifrey had to be destroyed.

There was the question, "What of the children", and then we see (for like the first time right?) The Children.

@BESW Oh you mean in Day...

Oh yeah that's very true.

The War Room guys weren't doing anything!

Rassilon's universe-ending plan had already failed!

Yeah in End of Time it was all "yeah totally blow them up!" and in DotD it was all "yeah totally save them"

The Omega Vault was empty of everything except the weapon the Time Lords were too afraid to use!

The Time Lords had already blown their wad in Day, there wasn't anything left they could do that the Doctor had to save the universe from.

Hmm yes that is a good point

They did apparently have nothing left.

And the Doctors were still like, "Yeah got to blow'em up"

Hmm.

I guess I had just held End of Time and DotD so close together in my head canon I didn't consider them separately.

Unfortunately, even if you do that... Rassilon failed. The War Room guys as much as say so.

The universe-ending justification in EoT is thrown out in DotD with a throw-away line.

Hmm yeah you'd think that if the Time Lords' tank was empty that the Doctors wouldn't have just blown it up "because that's the time line".

(without companion intervention, of course)

I think The Moment could've done a lot better with a verbal beatdown than meddling with time like she did.

@BESW Yes but that does seem to be Bad Wolf's style

She didn't have to "create herself" by scattering a strange phrase along her timeline

She could have just left herself a phone message saying "crack open the Tardis"

True.

Eh, Day had a LOT of problems.

What's so time-locked about the war?

@BESW Well the Moment is special

If it ended with a laser fight, why are Time Lords suddenly forgotten by the majority of the universe?

There are only three things I really liked about Day. 1) Gallifrey is coming back. 2) Tennant and Smith had great chemistry. 3) The Fish Doctor.

The first one justifies the episode and gives me cause to forgive Moffat a great deal (but I will never forgive him for River Song).