Now, this is the hard meme of the list. Favorite moment? There are so many to choose from, for so many different reasons! I can't choose just one.
Here are my favorite moments from the modern Doctor Who, in no particular order.
Sarah Jane: "It's you!" - Sarah Jane's reunion with the Doctor after thirty years was so perfect. I really don't have much to say about it.
The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors joining the War Doctor to fire the Moment - While the 50th anniversary special (in my mind, this phrase is always said in the sarcastic voice of Moffat's secretary in "The Five(-ish) Doctors Reboot") had many awesome scenes, this one is the best. The older Doctors finally come to terms with the way they ended Time War and join together to support their earlier self and repeat the action, tacitly admitting that it had been and still was the right thing to do. I tear up every time I watch this, and I've seen this episode at least 25 times. While the rest of the episode was great fun, to me, this is where the story should have ended.
Donna joining the Doctor to set off Pompeii - The Doctor's life and responsibilities are not simple, black and white moral choices. Donna learns that and steps up to support him, as best friends do.
Donna punching the Doctor on the arm - Do you even know which scene I'm talking about here? When Luke Rattigan takes the Doctor's place and destroys the Sontarans, the Doctor survives and appears back on Earth. Relieved that he's still alive, Martha runs up to hug him, but Donna punches him on the arm, earning her a very surprised and offended look from her target. The moment doesn't even last a second, but it tells you everything you need to know about their relationship.
Ninth Doctor's regeneration - This regeneration fit the incarnation and his relationship with Rose perfectly. 'Nuff said.
The Doctor in the stasis chamber - The Doctor is trying to fight off the solar entity from taking him over, and he's terrified. Moreover, what he's terrified of is not his impending death/regeneration, but that he's not going to be able to stop himself from killing everyone on the ship. The Doctor is never more the Doctor than at this moment.
"Everybody lives!" - The sheer joy in this scene, from the weary, cynical alien, is breathtaking.
Playing football - This is very meta, but I really love watching Matt Smith (who wanted to be a professional football player) play football.
The Doctor in the window - Which window, you ask? Kazran Sardick's. This scene, where you see through the video record that the Doctor has gone back in time to change Kazran's past to try to fix the present, was beautifully done. (Of course, he's broken the Laws of Time, but Eleven does that many times and will do so again later in the same episode, so we can overlook it here.)
The Doctor in the window - Yes, there's another window. This time it's Reinette's. This episode is beautiful all the way through, but the moment that does it for me is when the Doctor realizes that he's thrown everything away to save Reinette and is stuck on the wrong end of time.
"He never raised his voice..." - The fate of the Family of Blood. Terrifying, cruel... Just gorgeous.
"So much bigger on the inside..." - Everything about the TARDIS' interactions with the Doctor while she was human (Humanoid? We really don't know if Idris was human, do we?) was perfect, but my favorite moment was when she realized that these sentients had so much more in them than you can see from the outside.
Here are my favorite moments from the modern Doctor Who, in no particular order.
Sarah Jane: "It's you!" - Sarah Jane's reunion with the Doctor after thirty years was so perfect. I really don't have much to say about it.
The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors joining the War Doctor to fire the Moment - While the 50th anniversary special (in my mind, this phrase is always said in the sarcastic voice of Moffat's secretary in "The Five(-ish) Doctors Reboot") had many awesome scenes, this one is the best. The older Doctors finally come to terms with the way they ended Time War and join together to support their earlier self and repeat the action, tacitly admitting that it had been and still was the right thing to do. I tear up every time I watch this, and I've seen this episode at least 25 times. While the rest of the episode was great fun, to me, this is where the story should have ended.
Donna joining the Doctor to set off Pompeii - The Doctor's life and responsibilities are not simple, black and white moral choices. Donna learns that and steps up to support him, as best friends do.
Donna punching the Doctor on the arm - Do you even know which scene I'm talking about here? When Luke Rattigan takes the Doctor's place and destroys the Sontarans, the Doctor survives and appears back on Earth. Relieved that he's still alive, Martha runs up to hug him, but Donna punches him on the arm, earning her a very surprised and offended look from her target. The moment doesn't even last a second, but it tells you everything you need to know about their relationship.
Ninth Doctor's regeneration - This regeneration fit the incarnation and his relationship with Rose perfectly. 'Nuff said.
The Doctor in the stasis chamber - The Doctor is trying to fight off the solar entity from taking him over, and he's terrified. Moreover, what he's terrified of is not his impending death/regeneration, but that he's not going to be able to stop himself from killing everyone on the ship. The Doctor is never more the Doctor than at this moment.
"Everybody lives!" - The sheer joy in this scene, from the weary, cynical alien, is breathtaking.
Playing football - This is very meta, but I really love watching Matt Smith (who wanted to be a professional football player) play football.
The Doctor in the window - Which window, you ask? Kazran Sardick's. This scene, where you see through the video record that the Doctor has gone back in time to change Kazran's past to try to fix the present, was beautifully done. (Of course, he's broken the Laws of Time, but Eleven does that many times and will do so again later in the same episode, so we can overlook it here.)
The Doctor in the window - Yes, there's another window. This time it's Reinette's. This episode is beautiful all the way through, but the moment that does it for me is when the Doctor realizes that he's thrown everything away to save Reinette and is stuck on the wrong end of time.
"He never raised his voice..." - The fate of the Family of Blood. Terrifying, cruel... Just gorgeous.
"So much bigger on the inside..." - Everything about the TARDIS' interactions with the Doctor while she was human (Humanoid? We really don't know if Idris was human, do we?) was perfect, but my favorite moment was when she realized that these sentients had so much more in them than you can see from the outside.
Comments
*HUGS!*
As for the second moment, I like to think that they both were thinking back to Donna in the third moment (Pompeii) when they offered to share the burden.
Yup, Donna briefly punching the Doctor on the arm before giving him a hug says it all!
"He never raised his voice..." That's when you truly know he's alien. He's dead scary when he goes quiet.
Idris was wonderful; their whole interaction where they are bickering about getting to where he wanted was just perfect. She said it well when she told him she might not get him to where he wanted, but she always got him to where he was needed, just said it all and personified their relationship. Those portions of that episode made that one my favorite of the Eleven era.
Well done, on all moments!
From what I understand, Three and Four had a close relationship with Sarah Jane Smith, so Ten seeing her again brought those messages home to him, that he'd have to watch those he cares about wither and die, while he goes on. It's torture for him. So maybe "love" wasn't what he was going to say?
Ten had quite a few chances to tell Rose he loved her if he did, but he didn't. Even that "final" scene on the beach the first time around, he had 2 minutes, and he wittered them away and never ever said what she was dying to hear. He could have said "Me, too," when she told him, but he didn't. Then again, maybe it's a Time Lord thing...
In my opinion, the Doctor loved Rose, but he loves all his companions. Some more than others, of course, and in different ways - I'd call out Jamie, Jo, Sarah Jane, Nyssa (based on the audios more than the TV show), Ace, Charley, Donna, and River as the ones he was particularly close to. (I'd include Jack, but that might be more my headcanon than anything else, though at the Raleigh panel, DT's waffling on the subject pretty much indicated he thought there was something more going on there.) How his love manifests is different with each of them, but he knows he can't allow himself to show it and confirm such a relationship between himself and any of them. The complication was that Rose, being who she is, needed that and could not relate to him on any other level. The only other character with that level of obsession was River, but she at least understood the Doctor and knew how much she could expect him to give.
Truth be told, as DT himself said at that conference, there were children present. How could he get as detailed as that with them in the room? He also said that both Rose and Donna were love stories, albeit different... Rose was "sort of" the girlfriend, but Donna was his best friend. Personally, I think Donna's loss hit him harder. He traveled alone after Donna, refusing any other companions, became reckless, spiraled out of control,.. became Time Lord Victorious because there was no one to stop him. It was only after he regenerated that he could even think about another companion.
The Doctor loves all of his companions, you are right. Each was special in their own way. Still, he tries to keep himself at arm's length because he knows he will lose them all.. Doesn't always succeed, but he does try.
I also believe that Donna's loss hit him harder. Rose's loss was the death of a loved one, which is always difficult. Donna's loss was the loss of a loved one compounded by the fact that he had tear from her all of her experiences and growth. He had also just been smacked down by Davros about turning all of his companions into soldiers, and here, the one companion who didn't turn into a soldier, he had to destroy - yet another thing to add to his list of things to feel guilty about. And unlike Rose, who at the time of Doomsday, was at least going to be with her rich family who dotes on her, Donna's not returning to a happy or comfortable situation. I could go on - there are so many layers to Donna's departure that it would take an essay to explore.
I like him calling her "My Sarah Jane," too.
"He never raised his voice... - The fate of the Family of Blood. Terrifying, cruel... Just gorgeous.
Yes, I love the glimpses of deep darkness inside Ten that this sequence shows, similar to the scene in The Runaway Bride where he stands above, hard and implacable, while the Racnoss drown.
I want so much to write another glimpse of deep darkness in Ten - it's always so beautiful. I'm just too afraid to try.