Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, bleeding cool, Blink, cable, Captain Jack Harkness, david tennant, Derek jacobi, doctor who, freema agyeman, john barrowman, John Simm, paul cornell, russell t davies, steven moffat, streaming, television, tv

Doctor Who Series 3: The Best Moments from Show's Darkest Season

It's been a while since we last got a "best of series" video from the Doctor Who Youtube Channel. This time it's Series 3 of the new show that began in 2005. This is the season that introduced Freeman Agyeman as Martha Jones, the 10^th Doctor's second official companion. It's weird to think that this was 2007, nearly 14 years ago. How time flies. Martha was the first black female companion. Showrunner Russell T. Davies was also starting to push the boundaries of how big and crazy the ideas could get for the show. The answer was: there's no real ceiling. The sky's the limit with Doctor Who. This was the season that introduced the Judoon, the rhino-headed fascist police squad from space. The Doctor and Martha met Shakespeare in Elizabethan London and tangled with real witches that would inspire the Bard's plays later on. This is British drama, so of course, there's going to be Shakespeare, the actors get to ham and chew scenery.

There's a future Earth that's one big traffic rush hour in the sky. The Daleks take Depression-era New York City. The Face of Boe reaches the end of his story with a prophecy for the Doctor Paul Cornell adapts his own popular 90s Virgin novel "Human Nature" into a 2-parter where The Doctor has to hide as a human in early 20^th Century England to hide from aliens who want to steal his immortality. There are so many classic stories this season. Steven Moffat's "Blink" was an instant classic and also introduced Carey Mulligan before she went on to become a movie star. Gugu Mbatha-Raw also showed up as Martha's sister before going to Hollywood years later to become a movie star.

David Tennant's 2^nd season was the darkest to date. Davies explored the Doctor's survivor's guilt from the Time War even further. Death and immortality are recurring themes this season with Mark Gatiss in his first appearance on the show playing an evil tycoon craving immortality, the Family of Blood craving the Doctor's immortality, Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) showing up and contemplating the prospect of never dying, the Face of Boe reaching the end of his million years of life, the Doctor meets the last humans alive facing doom at the literal end of the universe, and the Master returns to the show for the first time in the form of Derek Jacobi, then John Simm as mediations of the insanity of living forever. Martha Jones was an underrated companion, a complex character perhaps underserved by her unrequited crush on the Doctor while he still mourned the loss of Rose. She had a complete arc as a woman who learned to let go when she chooses to leave him at the end. And of course, Freema Agyeman went on to further success in the US with the Wachowskis' Sens8 and now New Amsterdam. That's three actresses introduced this season who went on to stardom in Hollywood. Given the ambition of the scripts and quality of the acting, this was one of the new show's best seasons.

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