2. Eleventh Hour
This is the introduction of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, and as a David Tennant fan I was fully prepared to hate him. But from the moment he opened his mouth you could see that he had inhabited the Doctor's shoes. I did hold onto my animosity, just for the sake of loyalty to Tennant, but in the end I'm a Whovian and we have to make these adjustments. Some do it gracefully and some do it kicking and screaming the whole way. I found myself in the middle. Not only did we have to adjust to a new Doctor, but we had to adjust to a new companion. Change is never easy, but these two won me over. The story starts with a young Amelia Pond discovering a crash landed TARDIS and Doctor in her back yard, just as she had been praying to Santa to send someone to help her with the crack in her wall. He ascertains that there is a prisoner from Atraxi on the loose. He wants to give the situation his full attention, but the TARDIS is still in trouble. He goes to fix the problem, but his time trip ends up bringing him back to Amelia 12 years later. Present day Amy Pond is bitter that the Doctor left her hanging all those years ago. It sets up a great dynamic between the two. As always the danger is still upon them and the Atraxi are ready to destroy the Earth for harboring Prisoner Zero. With the TARDIS still not functioning properly and his sonic screwdriver out of commission, the Doctor has to use his cunning to figure out a solution to the problem. It was a fun, exciting episode, but was punctuated by the Doctor's monologue to the Atraxi. Matt Smith put his stamp on the Doctor with that speech. He showed us that he could handle all the history and panache of a character that has been around for 50 years. When he said, "Basically run..." I felt like cheering. Welcome to my heart Eleven!