3. The End of Time
Why it is beloved? The Master has returned. The Time Lords have returned. The epic finale of the Tenth Doctor. Why it's overrated? The End of Time has its great moments that can - and have - left fans salivating, but how to connect them into a complete story seems to have been very difficult. So the Master got resurrected. In a contrived, silly way. Fine, it's the Master. It comes with the territory. But now he has super powers and an eating disorder? Why do that? How did that even contribute to the story? And why stop there? Give the Doctor super strength and energy powers, too, while you're at it. So the Time Lords escaped their death from the Time War by travelling to the future. How? Wasn't the Time war "time locked", meaning that anyone in it cannot use time travel? Well, as it turns out, all the Time Lords needed to do was send a diamond to the future so that the Master from the future could use it to let them through. No wonder Donna Noble's brain is burning up. Russell T Davis had a tendency of overhyping cast departures and this one is no different. The regeneration is prolonged so far that even The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King's multiple endings would tell it to calm down. The Doctor makes a goodbye tour to all of his former companions who all just look at him with sad faces. Why? He isn't dying - all of them understands the concept of regeneration, especially Sarah Jane who has witnessed it once and knows full well it's not the end of the universe. It's just silly. This story is majorly about the Tenth Doctor's drama about regenerating which he did everything in his power to stop because, in his words, it's "just like dying". When he already knows nothing will stop it, he goes on screaming and crying. While David Tennant sells the scenes it still makes no sense. He has already experienced regeneration over and over again so why is this one so special that it needs to be stopped? Is this some kind of sick sabotage by Russell T Davis to cripple Steven Moffat's run before it even begins by making it clear that the Eleventh Doctor killed the Tenth and has stolen the time that fans should be having with him? Stranger things have happened.