20 Greatest Moments In Modern Doctor Who

"It's taken me all these years to realise the Laws of Time are mine, and they will obey me!"

So says the Tenth Doctor in one of the most remarkable sequences of his entire era.

In this one mad moment, the Tenth Doctor says the quiet part out loud – he's the last of the Time Lords, and he has mastery over past, present, and future... and why doesn't he exploit that more often?

It was a powerful moment that wasn't afraid to show the Doctor as a more complex, antagonistic character. In the modern television era, it would never have been enough to simply see the Doctor as a two-dimensional "goodie", and so the Time Lord Victorious revealed the monster the Doctor could become if left unchecked.

Bonus points for the preceding sequence of the Bowie Base One crew being wiped out by the Flood. The sense of dread, of desperation, of hopelessness – it's a truly brilliant slice of dramatic television that lives long in the memory.