The Rundown: It’s a new Doctor, with a new face, and a new companion. The eleventh hour has struck and The Doctor’s TARDIS is breaking up, he doesn’t know what he wants to eat, oh, and there’s a little Scottish girl with a terrifying crack in her wall.
When Tennant decided he didn’t want to go, he came back, does that make sense? Also I just realized that David Ten-nant… that is so weird. Anyways, so yes, Matt Smith, new Doctor, not so new now, but still, newer than David Tennant. The fifth season of the new series on the BBC marked a change in leadership for the show. Steven Moffat became the primary show runner after Russel T. Davies stepped down in the wake of Tennant deciding to leave. It was like talent dominos! Kind of. With less pizza.
Moffat wasn’t coming in fresh though, he had actually written a couple episodes for seasons 3 and 4, including “Blink” and “Silence in the Library,” some of my favorite Who episodes ever. Moffat brings a bit more suspense to the Whoniverse than Davies did, and his first season writing follows a more cohesive arc from beginning to end. Despite this, the monster of the week formula still thrives this season, but is more heavily inundated with tidbits that relate to the larger plot at hand.
That plot starts from the get go, with a TARDIS that can’t quite get the timing right. With the catastrophic damage it took during “The End of Time,” and the Doctor’s subsequent regeneration, the TARDIS is a bit more buggy than it should be, resulting in some crazy time mishaps. There is also the troubling appearance of several cracks in space time, and a new companion, even more of a handful than the last.
Amelia Pond is my second favorite companion, right after Donna Noble. Amy has all the sass and wit of Donna, with a bit of that sexual component thrown in. While that bugged me during the Rose and Martha seasons, Amy does away with all the mooning and just makes her attraction clear. This leads to some fun stuff, especially with her fiancé’ and all…. Ah yes, the other thing that makes this season super fun is that the Doctor gets a bonus companion!
After some crazy mishaps and adventures, Amelia Pond’s future husband gets to come on board. Hi Rory! Rory is great, in a lot of the ways that Mickey was also great in seasons one and two. Mickey saw the insanity of just running off with a strange man into time and space, all the while still fascinated by the opportunities it presented. Rory is very much the same, calling both Amelia and the Doctor crazy while at the same time totally enamored with them both. There is also a new dynamic with Rory, in that Amelia seems to have some genuine romantic affection for him, in a kind of ‘she-used-to-beat-him-up-for-his-lunch-money’ kind of way. It makes for some fun drama when Amy and the Doctor go off on a tangent together and he’s left sadly by the wayside. That sentiment runs through a large portion of the season, with it coming to a head in “Amy’s Choice,” an awesome parallel universe episode that is not to be missed.
The other reason to love Moffat’s Who is the return of River Song from the “Silence in the Library” episode! Someone who can keep up with, and often manipulate, the Doctor is a real treat and is definitely a refreshing change of pace from ‘The Doctor knows everything and will save us all’ mentality that many of his companions seem to have. River has a great mystery surrounding her, and often knows things about the Doctor that he himself seems oblivious to.
The fact that she seems able to bounce around space and time without the aid of the Doctor doesn’t hurt, and gives her a lot of the rogue-ish charm that Jack Harkness displayed in his day. River actually reminds me a lot of Jack, well, without all the endless flirting… or wait, flirting with everything that moves. River flirts with the Doctor relentlessly and his blustering attempts to figure out her origins are always met with a smile and ‘spoilers.’ This seems to frustrate and attract him, and watching the two of them together is a nice topping on any episode.
Season 5 marked a new start for Doctor Who, with a new writer, a new face, new companions, and some new perils. The return of Daleks, the Weeping Angels, and other Whovian villains over a backdrop that questions the very nature of the Doctor’s existence makes this season one of my favorites. One of the few downsides is that Moffat tends to gloss over or straight out ignore much of Davies’ contribution, and I will often recommend Season 5 as a good one to start with if you find yourself weary of simple monster-of-the-week cheesy sci-fi and want something more substantial.
If you love the Doctor and don’t mind trying new things, this season delivers in spades. I could tell you what happens next, but… ‘spoilers’.