Awesome / Doctor Who Series 4

"I'm the Doctor. You need me. Check your memory banks. My name's the Doctor. Leave this man alone. THE DOCTOR IS ME!"

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"Time Crash"

• For the first time in the modern run, a classic Doctor returned.

"Voyage of the Damned"

• After a couple who won tickets onboard the ship fall for a prank by the upper-class passengers, the Doctor soaks the pranksters in their own champagne with his sonic screwdriver.
• When the survivors demand to know who he is.
  The Doctor: I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I am 903 years old, and I'm the man who's gonna save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?
• Bannakaffalatta taking down the Host with an EMP.
  Bannakaffalatta: Bannakaffalatta, proud! Bannakaffalatta, CYBORG!
• Astrid and the forklift truck.
  Astrid: Mr. Capricorn... I resign.
• The Doctor striding forwards, holding out his hands and being lifted up through the ship by a pair of angels, and then pulling the Titanic up in the nick of time, missing Buckingham Palace by inches. The music playing during his ascension makes it amazing.
• Wilf coming out of his stall to shake his fist at the sky. This is the man who, when the entirety of London ran in fear of the invasions of years past, stayed in his stall to mock any aliens who might try it this year.
• The Queen has stayed behind in London. She could have fled — she decided not to, decided to stand her ground and show to the aliens that Britain does not cower in fear. God save the Queen!
• It's a small one, but Mr. Copper telling Rickston to shut up.

"Partners in Crime"

• Donna took it upon herself to investigate the conspiracy of Adipose Industries entirely on her own, simply because she wanted the adventure. Even without the Doctor's many advantages, she succeeds in breaking in and investigating, finding out what was going on at the same time as him.

"The Fires of Pompeii"

• Evelina's semi-delirious Badass Boast on behalf of the Doctor when revealing her genuine prophetic gifts.
  "Even the word 'Doctor' is false. Your true name burns in the stars, hidden in the cascade of Medusa herself. You are a lord, sir. A Lord... of Time."
• The Doctor holds off the attacking alien menace with a water pistol. At first he treats it as a bluff, but then he remembers that these are lava monsters, and the water has to at least sting.
  Donna: You fought her off with a water pistol?! I bloody love you!
• Donna convinces the Doctor, after being forced into a horrible Sadistic Choice (Pompeii or the world) to go back.
  Donna: Please. Not the whole town... just save someone.
• When she realises that the Doctor has to push the button and destroy Pompeii, what does Donna do? She doesn't just support him in his decision; she pushes the button with him, shouldering the guilt of killing hundreds of people with him.

"Planet of the Ood"

• The Ood's song of freedom. It's so beautiful that it stops all of the fighting in the compound.
• Towards the end of the episode, Kleinman Halpen starts defending his horrific action of cutting off the Oods' hindbrains (essentially a form of lobotomy) by claiming that he was acting in humanity's best interests because the Ood are idiotic "savages" in their natural state. Donna then pulls off an EPIC Shut Up, Hannibal! that is so succinct and furious that even the Doctor is impressed.
  Donna: You idiot. They're born with their brains in their hands, don't you see that makes them PEACEFUL! They've got to be, because a creature like that would have to trust anyone it meets!
  Doctor: ...nice one.

"The Sontaran Stratagem"

• Martha's quiet but serious calling out of the Doctor when he accuses her of having joined the "soldiers"—she points out that it's all very well and good for him to come and go whenever he pleases and look down on gun-wielders since he has Super-Intelligence, but everyone else doesn't have that luxury.
• The Doctor taunts General Staal and temporarily knocks him out with applied squash. While Staal has no idea who he's dealing with.
• Donna being the one to notice something strange about the ATMOS workforce using her office temp skills to find the empty folder that should contain the paperwork for staff sick days.
• Donna getting a salute from Colonel Mace.

"The Poison Sky"

• Sylvia Noble freeing her dad from the deadlocked car by smashing the windshield with an axe.
• When Luke points a gun at him, the Doctor just snatches it out of his hand and discards it without breaking stride, angrily muttering.
  "If I see one more gun..."
• Col. Mace leads UNIT in a truly awesome attack on the Sontarans.
  Mace: The Sontarans might think of us as primitive, as does every passing species with an axe to grind. They make a mockery of our weapons, our soldiers, our ideals, but no more. From this point on, it stops. From this point on, the people of Earth fight back. And we show them, we show the warriors of Sontar what the human race can do.
  • "Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much for your lack of faith, but this time I'm not listening."
  • For context, the Doctor haas been dismissing the chances of UNIT taking the Sontarans in a straight fight, thanks to their superior technology, which they used to jam the copper-jacketed bullets. Cue UNIT swapping to steel-jacketed bullets, Mace telling the Doctor to shut up, giving the above speech, and UNIT absolutely mopping the floor with a race that once (briefly) conquered Gallifrey.
  • Mace introducing two bullets to Commander Skorr's head:
    Mace: "You will face me, sir!"
    • Keep in mind that Sontarans are at a disadvantage when their back is turned. He willingly gives up his advantage and still wins. Even Skorr seems impressed, considering it a worthy warrior's death.
  • The Valiant on the start of the attack run. Even the Doctor is impressed.
• Donna Noble knocking out a Sontaran.
  "Back of the neck!"

"The Doctor's Daughter"

• Delivered after relocating the shoulder of a Hath soldier under gunpoint:
  Martha: Now then, I'm Dr. Martha Jones. Who the hell are you?
• Jenny making it through the beams via epic gymnastic skills.
• After Jenny takes a bullet from General Cobb, the Doctor points a gun at Cobb's head... and, for a moment, it looks like he's going to pull the trigger. When he decides to be the better man, he tells Cobb and the rest of the colonist descendants...
  The Doctor: I. Never. Would.
• Donna again using her temp skills to work out the colony's true age.
  Ten: Donna, you're a genius!

"The Unicorn and the Wasp"

• Agatha uses the Firestone to lure the Vespiform out of the house, and actually manages to partially control it as well.

"Forest of the Dead"

• The Doctor tries to get the Vashta Nerada - who are smugly referring to the people in the Library as "our meat" - to back down, so he tells them to read all the files on him in the Library. The Vashta Nerada instantly back down.
  The Doctor: Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I liked, that is not a safe place to stand! I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe. [pauses] Look me up.
  Vashta Nerada: [*pause, then visibly retreat*] ... You have one day.
• The Doctor running back to the Library's core to save River by uploading her mind to the data core.

"Midnight"

• The Hostess is ultimately the one who manages to save the ship by throwing herself and the possessed Sky out of the airlock to be vaporized.

"Turn Left"

• Wilf going Grandpa Wolf on the soldier who pointed a gun at Donna and calling him a disgrace who should be court-martialled.
• Donna finally going through with Rose's plan after seeing the stars going out.

"The Stolen Earth"

• The Daleks striking terror into every known corner of the Whoniverse with a single Ex-ter-mi-nate! and proceeding to utterly squash UNIT and lay waste to the planet. Equally awesome and terrifying.
  "Daleks are the masters of Earth! Daleks are the masters of Earth!"
• Wilf takes on a Dalek. With a paintball gun. Then the Dalek vaporises the paint from its eyestalk with the line "My vision is not impaired." Even though it didn't work, it takes rare courage to face down a Dalek as fearlessly as did Wilf.
• Gwen and Ianto:
  Ianto: [after being handed a gun by Gwen] Those don't work against Daleks.
  Gwen: Yeah? I'm going out fighting. Like Owen. Like Tosh. How about you?
  Ianto: Yes, ma'am.
• Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister, gets hers when she's about to die.
  Harriet Jones: Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister.
  Dalek: Yes, we know who you are.
  Harriet Jones: Oh, you know nothing of any human, and that will be your downfall.
• Sarah Jane is driving so fast that she power-slides a tiny, green, white-roofed Nissan Figaro and gets screechy-wheel-spin too!
  • Becomes slightly funny when you realise the only person who could have taught Sarah Jane to drive is her aunt Lavinia. Sarah Jane didn't just inherit Bannerman Road from Lavinia. She inherited the whole lead foot too!

"Journey's End"

• Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler arriving in the universe just in time to rescue Sarah Jane from the Daleks by blasting them to pieces. Jackie follows up by asking where the hell her daughter is.
• Martha not only blackmails Davros by holding the destruction of Earth (and all Davros' plans) in her hands, but while she's doing that, she tells the Doctor to shut up. For those counting, this is the fifth time^note  "Smith and Jones," "Gridlock," "Evolution of the Daleks," "Sontaran Stratagem," and this episode in two seasons she's called him out and refused to go along with what he wanted.
• After that same scene, Sarah Jane spoke up about the warp star to destroy the space station. Davros insistingly remembers her from their first encounter, with Sarah giving a Badass Boast that she learned how to fight since then.
• One belongs to none other than Dalek Caan:
  Caan: I saw the Daleks, what we have done throughout time and space. I saw the truth of us, creator, and I decreed: No! More!
  • The lead-up to Caan's declaration against his own kind makes it even better. After the Doctor and his allies trounce Davros and the other Daleks in the room, Davros demands to know why Caan didn't see it coming and warn him. Caan just starts cackling madly and the Doctor realizes that he's been manipulating events the whole time for exactly this outcome. Caan even shows some humility by claiming that it all would have happened anyway and he just helped things along.
• Davros' magnificent Breaking Lecture to the Doctor, hurting him as he has never been hurt, destroying the foundation of his entire life and morality and all with a single speech:
  Davros: The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your Children of Time, transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this.
  The Doctor: I'm trying to help.
  Davros: Already I have seen them sacrificed today, for their beloved Doctor. The Earth woman who fell opening the Subwave Network.
  The Doctor: Who was that?
  Rose Tyler: Harriet Jones. She gave her life to get you here.
  [flashback of Harriet Jones]
  Davros: How many more? Just think, how many have died in your name?
  [more flashbacks of the people who have died helping the Doctor]
  Davros: The Doctor, the man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself.
• Davros' ultimate MoA must come when he falls off the wagon of sanity and unveils what the Reality Bomb will do in typically Hitleresque fashion, increasing in volume with each word.
  Davros: Across the entire universe. Never stopping, never faltering, never fading. People, planets and stars will become dust. And the dust will become atoms. And the atoms will become... nothing. And the wavelength will continue, through the rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade! Into every dimension! Every parallel! Every single corner of creation! THIS is my ultimate victory, Doctor! THE DESTRUCTION! OF REALITY! ITSELF!
  • The best thing was that this was exactly what he and the Fourth Doctor had talked about in "Genesis of the Daleks". Davros finally had within his grasp the universal removal of all non-Dalek life — in every universe — and this all-consuming Critical Existence Failure was stopped only by a series of fortunate events.
  • The episode even includes a wonderful little nod to that earlier scene. In the scene from "Genesis", Davros is holding up his hand with finger and thumb just parted, as though holding the imaginary vial of virus — and even before he actually exclaims "Yes! I would do it!", he brings the digits together as though crushing the vial. In the more recent episode, he unconsciously makes the same gesture, this time when he orders the detonation of the Reality Bomb.
• After every stolen planet is returned to its rightful place in the universe, the Doctor and company notice Earth is still floating aimlessly in the Medusa Cascade and know that just won't do. So how do they get it back home? After what seems like just another wave of Technobabble, we are introduced to perhaps the single most beautiful, insane, over-the-top two minutes in the history of science fiction: A time-and-space traveling Police Box towing Planet Earth back to Sol at light speed. Just to rub in the glory of what you're seeing for all its worth, it cuts between the so-called Children of Time piloting the TARDIS looking positively ecstatic as they move Earth back home and their own allies on Earth, either having a ball or freaking out at the mild earthquakes their transport is causing. All to the tune of "The Song of Freedom".

"The Next Doctor"

• Humongous Mecha trampling Victorian-era London. The Doctor counters this by borrowing a hot air balloon.
• The scene after they first encounter Miss Hartigan. The Doctor and Jackson turn to run. Rosita decks her in the face. The Doctor's impressed, but can't admit it:
  The Doctor: Can I just say... I completely disapprove!
• This exchange with Miss Hartigan and the Cybermen:
  Miss Hartigan: But you promised me! You said I would never be converted!
  Cyberleader: That was designated: A lie.
  • Miss Hartigan gets one back on the Cybermen when it turns her mind is too strong to be upgraded and she promptly takes over the entire Cyberman operation with her willpower.
• The Doctor managing to hold off two Cybermen in his own with nothing but a sword that would never pierce their armour.

"Planet of the Dead"

• Malcolm becomes an Ascended Fanboy when he meets his idol, the Doctor. Then he gets to save the world with said idol, who not only thinks that he's a genius, but calls him "[his] new best friend".

"The Waters of Mars"

• The Time Lord Victorious scene is terrifying... but it is awesome.
  The Doctor: The Laws of Time are mine! And they will obey me!

"The End of Time"

• Lucy Saxon sabotages the Master's resurrection:
  Lucy Saxon: 'TILL DEATH DO US PART, HARRY!
• In the cliffhanger, the Narrator chronicling the events finally reveals who he is, and to whom he is speaking...and the grand reveal may well be one of the most chillingly awesome moments of Ten's era. What happens when you allow Timothy Dalton to eat all the scenery? Just look below:
  Narrator: And so it came to pass, on Christmas Day, that the human race did cease to exist. Yet even then, the Master had no concept of his greater role in events, for this was far more than humanity's end.
  (fade to the Narrator himself, wearing familiar robes...)
  Narrator: This day... was the day upon which the whole of creation would change forever. For this was the day... the Time Lords returned. For Gallifrey!
  Time Lords: For Gallifrey!
  Narrator: For victory!
  Time Lords: For victory!
  Narrator: FOR THE END...OF TIME...ITSELF!
  Time Lords: FOR THE END! OF TIME! ITSELF!
• The Doctor points out a small but significant detail to the Master: "That guard is one inch too tall." Then Rossiter cold-cocks the Master with his rifle.
• Quite possibly the best usage of one of Ten's Character Catchphrases ever:
  Tenth Doctor: There's an old Earth saying, captain. A phrase of great power and wisdom, and consolation to the soul in times of need.
  Adams: What's that then?
  Tenth Doctor: ALLONS-Y!
• Wilf further cementing his badass status by piloting an anti-missile turret and saving the entire ship.
  • Wilf has an epic, but entirely well-meaning What the Hell, Hero? moment when he tells the Doctor that he better dare not, even for a moment, consider putting the Master above the whole of the human race.
• After the Master taunts him, calling him ancient and decrepit, gloating that he will turn every last one of the Time Lords into a genetic copy of himself, Rassilon undoes the Master's handiwork on the entire human race. With a flick of the wrist and his Gauntlet of Doom.
• The Master's completely unexpected Heroic Sacrifice and devastating "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Rassilon:
  The Master: You did this to me! All of my life! YOU! MADE! ME! ONE! TWO!! THREE!!! FOUR!!!!
  • The Master throughout the episode, really. He starts out scrounging in the garbage, and ends the first part having taken over the world yet again with a completely improvised plan. Came Back Strong doesn't begin to cover it.
    • Later materials reveal that the Master survived his confrontation with Rassilon and forced him to regenerate by stuffing White Point diamonds down his throat and that Rassilon screamed the entirety of his regeneration. We don't often absolve the Master of murder, but there's no denying that Rassilon deserved the stink out of it.
• The Eleventh Doctor is born as the TARDIS burns around him, laughing joyfully while it's exploding, and a kick-ass guitar riff plays in the background.
  Eleventh Doctor: Something else, there's something... important. I'm... I'm... I'm... [explosion knocks him back] CRASHING!!! [laughs] [explosions] GERONIMO!!!

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