make sure you watch the Christmas Special afterwards. It has no bearing on the plot for next season, but it was pretty decent.

I've now watched the season five finale and I must say that Matt Smith really came alive in the last three episodes. I now think he's very nearly the equal of David Tennant. He still doesn't express the sheer terror that Tennant could so well. But he has his own set of strengths.

Looks like the US is getting episodes the same day as the UK airing for this season. Cool. The episode that Neil Gaiman has written for this season is called "The Doctor's Wife". Hopefully that episode (or at least something in this season) finally clarifies the big details of River Song's relationship with the Doctor. Alex Kingston has been excellent in each of her appearances so far.

What did you think of the way the Doctor escaped the Pandorica? I thought the season five finale was fantastic, probably the best since season two, but surely they could have found a more plausible means of escape.

Got a little Primer/Eternal Sunshine-style sci-fi near the end, but it was pretty decent writing.

Almost done with the first season (or 9th doctor) and it's pretty good so far, I really like this first doctor, Eccleston, who reaches this sort of zaniness and this infectious dark optimism (?) during dire circumstances. Rose is annoying, but she's kinda cute in a girl next door kinda way, plus she's british so she automatically gets extra hot points. So yeah so far, it's good, but hella inconsistent. The reason being is because after further wiki research, the episodes have different writers from time to time and the bulk of the episodes were by this Russell T Davies who is a super shitty writer imo. All his scripts were ridiculously contrived and overexpositiony and not even in a fun cheesy way, just an all out borefest, that world war 3 2 part series was particularly shittimatic. Just a complete retardis so far in my book.

No coincidence that my favorite episodes so far have been by different writers, with my absolute faves being "Dalek" which had great wit, its most complex villain to date, ending with a moment of the sublime. Also "The Empty CHild/Doctor Dances" was also a very "perfect" episode, every little part just blended in with each other, the setting was "fahntahstic", lotta shit going for it. But so far what tops my list at #1 is an episode i never expected from the show in terms of depth, and that was the absolutely postively sublime "Father's Day", which actually made me cry on how emotionally affective it was (what is this Ozu??).

The show does have its geeky tendencies and I know thats its target audience, but man, when it finally decides to go deep, it transcends itself completely. Hopefully as I continue watching (11 episodes into the 1st thus far), it will have more episodes that go toward that direction, tho I do see Davies on the lineup for a lot of them on wiki. I also saw that they've gotten rid of him and replaced Moffat as the chief writer. Good on them for doing that.

Don't worry, it does get better.

in fact, Russel T Davies' scripts get better once Tennant comes around, but they'll get worse ("Love & Monsters") before they get better ("The Runaway Bride", "Midnight"). Davies was instrumental in successfully reviving the show after almost 15 years of inactivity. He has my respect for that. Steven Moffat though, is my favorite individual writer since Douglas Adams was writing scripts in the late 70's.

"Dalek" is great if you know the whole history of that race in the terms of the history of the show.

Moffat is the man. His episodes are the highlight of every season. But my favorite episode of them all is "Utopia", which was written by Davies, so he does have his moments. "Midnight" is a great Davies one, too. Davies also writes all the season finales for the first four seasons. First one is okay, second one is great, third one is cool, and the fourth one is ridiculously over-the-top. Moffat's finale to season five is wonderful. Davies also wrote several specials between seasons four and five and they're mostly pretty good, with an amazing moment in the second part of The End of Time.

The end was great. Actually, the whole thing was great. But I'm talking about the way the Doctor escapes the Pandorica the first time, at the start of The Big Bang. It's a paradox.

I found it to be more of a stable time loop than a paradox. Regardless, it was rather entertaining.

But if the Doctor is able to escape like that, then he's practically omnipotent.

Halfway through season 2, these episodes go down much easier than the rocky/iffy season 1. I've even found the Davies episodes to be much more focused this time around. Also part of the reason is probably David Tennant who I think does a really great job. So much so that I'm not even fazed that Eccleston is no more.

Well he is the last of the Time Lords. I suspect all order involving Time Lord potency was thrown out the window when they all went kaput. Similarly, I think that the Doctor now has unlimited lives (and given how popular the show is again, I doubt they'll stop after the Thirteenth Doctor based on essentially throw-away lines in a handful of serials).

Oh, of course they'll find a way around the twelve regeneration limit. The Master is already past that, anyway. Although I'm sure the Doctor's method of evading the 12 regeneration maximum will be less ruthless than the Master's.