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If you write "The flashback in the extended Two Towers was ill-judged because it retrospectively changed Boromir's motivation, making him a less interesting and less admirable character, and contradicting what we've already been told about him", a certain proportion of the Interweb will hear "I morally deny this scene's right to exist because it contradicts the footnote to the unpublished appendix on the use of the dative in middle-Quenya."

Similarly, the magic rhetoric fairy will take the words "I don't think you should criticize things without reading them first" out of your mouth and turn them into "You cannot possibly appreciate Glamourpuss unless you have read and memorized the minute details of all 300 issues of Cerebus."

(I'm Andrew Rilstone, and I used to read to RPG.Net, but I've been clean for over a month.)

So, whatever I am about to say, certain segments of my fanbase will interpret it as meaning "I wish that spaceships still looked as if they'd been made out of old hair-driers and I'm still sore at Jon Pertwee for quitting."

But I think it would be really helpful if before going any further, we all sat quietly for a moment, and said in our hearts some of the things that we really like about Doctor Who.

The redesign of the TARDIS interior.

Destroying the Time Lords.

Powerful, scary Daleks.

Daleks with personalities and dialogue; slightly sympathetic Daleks.

The Time War

Billie Piper.

The Doctor as a darker figure.

The Doctor as a lonely figure.

The Doctor as capable of romance.

Showing the creature inside the Dalek.

Re-imagining the programme as taking place in a real world setting.

Recurrent scenes involving the companions' family.

The Ood.

Billie Piper.

The re-design of the Cybermen.

Use of CGI to do stuff that previously only happened in TV Century 21

Billie Piper.

Use of real world cameos to give impression that big stuff is happening.

The re-design of the Sontarans.

Making companions equal partners with the Doctor.

The idea of the Doctor as a tourist.

Sense of a Doctor Who world – Harriet Jones, UNIT, Torchwood, etc...

45 minute episodes

Dalek

The Satan Pit

The Empty Child

Human Nature

Blink

The Girl in the Fireplace

Father's Day

The title sequence

Does anyone else want to share?

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