3. Midnight
Written by Russell T. Davies Series 4 Episode 10 I think that there can be no list celebrating David Tennant without this episode featuring very highly on it. This is one of the scariest episodes ever written yet it still manages to achieve this without much action or a marketable monster. All of the power here comes from the writing and David Tennant's performance. By this point in Doctor Who Davies and Tennant had come to fully understand what the other one wanted and what their limitations and capabilities were and I think that this episode is the ultimate example of what their partnership could achieve. They each were the two halves of what made this episode the masterpiece of television that it really is. Russell T.Davies excels when writing groups of characters. He can come up with a dozen people, give them each histories, likes and dislikes and most impressively of all he can convey to the audience who they are in a nominal number of words. From the Professor to Sky Silvestry, each of the characters represent different walks of life and different types of people from the common holidaymakers with their embarrassed son, the faux-intellectual Professor and the keen, sharp-as-a-tack assistant. Even though the episode does feature a wonderful supporting cast, its success still hinges on David Tennant's performance. The story focuses on an invisible creature that takes over the Doctor's body so Tennant has to portray through his eyes and face alone the terror he feels because of his attackers, and his disgust and disappointment in humanity. The closing scene shows Donna mimicking The Doctor's voice in the manner of the mysterious creature and the Doctor for the first time not playing along tells her to stop. It shows that the Doctor has been through something unlike anything he ever has before, and highlights this as a very important episode.