So the notorious Steven Moffat begins. As common wisdom has it, Moffat's era has been wildly inconsistent - both during Matt Smith's time, and even Capaldi's. His penchant for time travel paradoxes was, and is welcome, as OldWho seemed to forget that these were the adventures of a time traveller. However, not welcome remains his penchant for story arcs that ultimately not only made no sense in the long run, but also make otherwise fine stand-alone episodes suffer even in hindsight (River Song is Amy's daughter? Seriously?!). Plainly put, his biggest weakness is the story arcs. Now granted, the Crack in Time arc worked, for the most part, but I wager that he had time to sketch out in ways he didn't in the following seasons - as 2009 was, after all, a gap year, and I presume that gave him appropriate time to work out how it would, well, work out. But clearly, the Death of the Doctor and River Song arcs were, by and large, made up as the show went along. And neither paid off really well, to the point where River, the most welcome surprise of series 5, turned into a smug avatar of Moffat within the show! The Clara Mystery arc of 7 was better, but in turn, her stories suffered - not to mention the first part of series 7 felt, for the most part, largely uninspired, held only together by the great chemistry of the cast. But yeah, because Clara was a character who was the McGuffin, too, she never had a characterization - Moffat would make her a know-it-all smug superior, and other writers would make her less assertive, and so on. As a result, few of her stories with 11 stood out.. with the exception of the grand 50th anniversary story.
Which is, of course, Moffat's strongest script since he decided River was a black kid once, apparently. But even then, Moffat's ego and assertion to put stars above characters brings it down, slightly, by introducting his Time War Doctor, instead of using either Nine or Eight for that matter, thus serving his other purpose, which was to be done with the regeneration limit early. See, Moffat's brilliant, even if limited - but he knows this, and he abuses his talent with his own egotism and laziness. And after RTD, who managed a fairly consistent tone for the show, its especially dissapointing. I mean, this is only the era in which the boring/bad/meh episodes are growing in numbers in relation to the good/mediocre/excellent/great ones.
The bright spot in this era, however, was clearly the actor himself. Matt Smith was, and always will be a fantastic choice for the Doctor. A brilliant young man, who imbued the character not with youth, but his weariness and age-old wisdom. His take on the role, an old-man-in-a-young-man's-body take, is incredible in audacity, and even more so in execution - like Peter Davison and Tennant before him, he would usually be the highlight in even the dreariest of episodes. Really, is there anything to enjoy in The Crimson Horror other than Matt Smith himself?
He's also had the good fortune of having some of the best companions with him - namely, Amy & Rory. I simply love 'em. Clara was decent, and Jenna Coleman clearly had chemistry with Smith, but like I said, her character was underdeveloped.
In any case, I'm sad that he had to go. I'm sad that, while he could've had four series under his belt, he had three, and two of them were so wildly uneven and overally unimpressive, that they ultimately failed the expectations raised by the actor himself. Its such a shame, really, for he deserved better. Unlike Eccleston and Tennant, the show betrayed the actor in this case.
Anyway, ranking:
38. The Crimson Horror
37. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS
36. The Vampires of Venice
35. The Beast Below
34. Nightmare in Silver
33. Victory of the Daleks
32. The Wedding of River Song
31. A Good Man Goes to War / Let's Kill Hitler
30. The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood
29. A Town Called Mercy
28. Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
27. Asylum of the Daleks
26. The Snowmen
25. Cold War
24. The Curse of the Black Spot
23. The Rings of Akhaten
22. The Angels Take Manhattan
21. The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
20. Closing Time
19. The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People
18. The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon
17. Hide
16. Night Terrors
15. The Bells of Saint John
14. The Name of the Doctor
13. The Girl Who Waited
12. The Power of Three
11. Amy's Choice
10. The Time of the Doctor
9 . The Lodger
8 . The God Complex
7 . The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang
6 . The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone
5 . Day of the Doctor
4 . The Doctor's Wife
3 . The Eleventh Hour
2 . A Christmas Carol
1 . Vincent and the Doctor
Although, since I rank them the same, I guess it doesn't matter)
