Season 4 overview

These 20 questions were posed by Behindthesofa.org.uk, so here are my replies.

1) Best Season 4 episode
My favourite was Fires of Pompeii - ace script, and a lot of heart. The best was Midnight, for being completely original and brilliant to boot.

2) Worst season 4 episode
Either The Doctor's Daughter (rushed, messy, unconvincing) or Journey's End (same complaints). Only I feel bad disregarding Journey's End entirely, because I had as much fun as the rest cooing when K-9 turned up. My feelings on it are just defiantly mixed.

3) Best director
I honestly never notice. Graeme Harper directed Utopia and Time Crash, two of my favourite Whos ever, so I always feel a rush of love when his name pops up.

4) Best guest star (goodie)
Does Time Crash count as part of series 4? Because I feel getting another doctor back was a bit of a coup. On the other hand, if it does, then I'd also give it a nod in almost every catagory here. We like Ross! And he totally should have survived to become our first new-UNIT regular. And Georgia Moffet's performance was, like her character, a brilliant thing in a rubbish world.

5) Best guest star (villain)
Hell, I don't want to follow the trend with the Davros thing, but not only was he fantastic, there aren't really any other candidates. Pity they gave him nothing to do. Also, Dalek Caan was awesome.

6) Best special effect
Stacey explodes into Adipose. Daft, yes - but I watched this with a 6yrold kid and he was terrified. Then again, he was watching it again half an hour later, so it doesn't seem to have done him harm.

7) Worst special effect - that beetle.

8) Best soundtrack - Midnight, as far as I remember. But Turn Left was also good stuff. Also, I loved the Oodsong.

9) Best dialogue exchange
"I point and laugh at archaologists" was juicy

10) Worst dialogue exchange
"A man who never would!" Ouch...the Doctor in patronising, moralistic mode.

11) Best overall script
Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead. Well, it had to be, hadn't it? The dialogue is brilliant, characters brilliant, the whole range of emotions is done, and have you just counted how many ideas are deftly juggled in by the end?

12) Worst plot hole
Hang on...the Doctor's presence or absence wouldn't affect Sarah Jane'n'co investigating the hospital, so was she actually there all the way through Smith and Jones but we never saw her? Why would Torchwood have defeated the Sontarans, I thought UNIT were on it? Could they have coped with an army of Sontarans anyway when Meat or Reset caused them so much trouble? Wasn't everybody out of London in Voyage of the Damned? If the Doctor was killed at Christmas, then why didn't the Carrionites destroy the world back in the 1500s? Or the Daleks in the 30s? And so on...

13) Best Catherine Tate moment
The Sontaran Strategem. Or was it Poison Sky? In any case, her sneaking around the Sontaran ship.

14) Best Tennant moment
I'm tempted to go for The Doctor's Daughter ("A sum of knowledge. A code. A shared history"), his dash at the end of Forest of the Dead, or almost all of Midnight. But particularly the last subdued scene with Donna, the quiet "don't" and absence of punchline was real gutkicking stuff.

15) Best overall scene
Does the entirety of Midnight qualify? No? I mean, it is strictly one long scene. Then I'll go for the mind reading in Fires of Pompeii, for atmosphere, creepiness and genuine tension.

16) Best bit of fanwank
Sarah Jane recognising Davros. Davros recognising Sarah Jane. Does casting both Davison+Troughton jnr count, because that was awesome? My sister loved "are you my mummy?", and those of us still not over Utopia last year got very excited about the return of the Valiant.

17) Best official spin-off (DWC, DWM, podcast, website, book etc)
The official website has a section where you can download "graphics" used in the show - the Atmos logo, Library postcards, Martha's UNIT pass, Ood advertisment. As a fan of cheap, homemade props, I've grabbed all of these.

18) Best 'coming soon' trailer
I hate DW when it gets generic, and the "coming soons" are an exercise in boiling episodes down to their basics. Consiquently, they always make their episodes look bad. Exception: The Doctor's Daughter, but I was excited about Martha on the TARDIS, and it turned out bad anyway.

19) Biggest surprise
Regeneration?! Can anyone going to put something else here? I agree seeing Rose was a shocker though.

20) Best rumour or unsubstantiated theory
That the "the threefold man who dances in the lonely" could be Christopher Ecclestone (the ninth Doctor had three sort-of canon incarnations). It was my theory, and I never believed it would happen, but it was a smart idea and would have been awesome. And everytime someone optimistically suggested the Master could be back.