officially sad

I knew it had to come eventually, but I was hoping not yet -- David Tennant has announced his departure from Doctor Who. He'll finish out the specials and then leave at the same time as RTD. Which does give Moffatt the chance to cast the new Doctor, and does make sense, and yes, 3-4 years is a very typical run for an actor to play the Doctor, and yes, I completely understand Tennant's desire to leave while he's still enjoying the show rather than waiting until he can't stand it anymore . . .

But I am really going to miss him.

And the really sad thing is, I now suspect that I've already seen the best of the Tenth Doctor episodes. Because RTD and I do not have a good thing going with big blow-out specials. I did like "The Christmas Invasion." Then I saw "The Runaway Bride" and had to say it kind of sucked. There were good moments, yes -- especially the fighting and bonding between the Doctor and Donna (the "I'm not a Martian" line, and the scene on the roof) -- but on the whole I didn't really like it. Then came "Voyage of the Damned," which took suckiness to whole new levels of disaster episode suckdom. So, I'd already been dreading what we're going to get for the Doctor Who TV season this year. And now . . . well, I hope I'm wrong and RTD can keep it toned down and worthy of the first-class farewell season that Tennant deserves, even if it is a bunch of specials and not a real season. RTD is capable of writing excellent episodes ("Midnight" is one of my all-time favorites). He is also capable of completely screwing things up, especially when he tries to go for the big blow-out ("Last of the Time Lords" is one of my all-time most-hated episodes). So, we'll see.

This might need to be a night for re-watching "Logopolis." Then again, that just might make me feel worse.