Season 1 isn't a very good example of the show.
Season 1 is a wonderful example of the show.
The Ninth (Tenth) Doctor is a purely fantastic way to pick things up after the television movie failed to reboot the show. Not that episode 1 is perfect, the Nestene Consciousness is a very confusing concept to use to reintroduce people to Doctor Who, but that's 'meh.'
If you must skip over Eccleston's Doctor for whatever reasons (though I implore you not to, it is really worth watching if not for at least the subtle nuances), at least watch The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances as well as Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways.
Tennant's Doctor for the most part is pretty hit or miss for me too, cause honestly sometimes the soft sci-fi really does start to get hokey.
Now, SPOILER:
The thing I don't particularly like about Steven Moffat's writing, as well as some of the other writers from the RTD era of 'NewWho' is this fear of making something permanent.
I understand that that's a core concept of Who, The Doctor can't die- just keep changing. But where are the paradoxes? Why are there so many? Why must a man who revels in the ideas of science and 'fixed points in history' be so apprehensive and unwilling to accept his own past? He's a 1200 year old child, much as John Hurt's Doctor gaffed at.
Galifrey was dead, and frankly it should have stayed that way. The Day of the Doctor was just a convoluted canonical retcon of the Time War because Moffat didn't like it.
Moffat wants Who to go back to being Classic Who, which for the most part is fine, but that doesn't mean changing an established bit of character development to suit your needs. The Doctor learned an important lesson blowing up Galifrey in order to stop the Daleks and really basically wipe them both out forever (which big loving whoop writers of Who, you loving brought back Daleks and Darvos in like, three seasons, good to know the Doctor's sacrifice was worth it. I suppose it is only fitting that Time Lords be brought back as well).
He became the last of his kind, an old and sad madman with a box who reverted to his most childish of principles to try and forget the horrors of the Time War. You know, like an actual real being with real emotions might do.
The Day of the Doctor proved to the Doctor that literally nothing is permanent, nothing is susceptible to be changed at the loving tip of a fez. Time Lord Victorious? Right? That's what you've become, Doctor, just not as melancholy about it this time, are we?
It's no wonder the Valeyard is a thing you become, bro. You've lost all connections to reality because reality bends at your whim.
The Master might be maniacal in that he uses his powers as a Time Lord as well as kills things for his own selfish gains, but you're not that far off. You justified your genocide and frankly that was good, because even with the justification it ate away at you. It corroded you and twisted you until you regenerated into basically a child. But you kept that hatred for yourself, you continued on knowing that "a good man has rules" and there's a reason you have your rules. Now? loving now? You can just stuff all over those because if you make a mistake, Doctor, you can just go back an fix it, laws of the universe be damned. In fact, I'm glad you brought back Galifrey for this, Time Lords used to give you stuff all the time about this and rightfully so.
So good on you, Doc. In one episode you've managed to completely undermine the fifty years of the point of your show. I mean I'm going to keep watching in hopes that you (Moffat) don't use this power for evil. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.
