Doctor Who: 10 Best Episodes Of The Last 10 Years
2. The Doctor's Wife (2011)
This bittersweet installment from Series 6 had us looking at the TARDIS in a totally new way and drove home the depth of the relationship between the Doctor and his trusty time machine. It started with a hopeful tone when the Doctor received a Gallifreyan message box from his fellow Time Lord, the Corsair. Overjoyed at the thought another Time Lord might also have survived the Time War, the Doctor set off to follow the signal. It led him outside the universe to a sentient asteroid known as House, but as soon as he arrived, the TARDIS was drained of all power and life. To add to the bizarreness of the situation, there was a woman on the asteroid who claimed to be the soul of the TARDIS trapped in a human body. The Doctor, naturally enough, scoffed at her claim but was soon forced to acknowledge that this really was his time machine after all.
The Doctor's Wife gave us a chance to hear from the TARDIS for the very first time. It had been established in previous episodes that the TARDIS was alive and sentient, but she didn't communicate in the normal way. But here the TARDIS got the chance to say what she thought of their adventures... and of the Doctor himself. It was a moving, beautiful tribute to the one companion who had never left the Doctor.