"...I think sometimes you need somebody to stop you."

He's back!!! Dr. Who is back.

Now, for a full consideration of all things Who, you should really zip over to Matt Zoller Sietz's blog. Ross Ruediger does a bang-up job of illuminating and appreciating the Doctor's adventures, and at a length I cannot hope to match. That said, how cool is it that the Doctor is back!

Season three kicked off with "The Runaway Bride." Like "The Christmas Invasion", it's a stand-alone aired on Christmas in Great Britain. It's neither season two nor season three, but a bridge between the two. It begins where "Doomsday" ended--the Doctor open-mouthed, tears on his cheeks, turning to find a woman (Catherine Tait) in a wedding dress standing in the middle of the TARDIS. Her name is Donna and she has disappeared from her wedding and materialized in front of the Doctor. According to the Doctor, this is impossible--for a guy who is 900 years old and travels across space and time, he says that a lot.

"TRB" is a rather special Dr. Who. For one thing, it's a full-on, slam-bang action piece. The stellar ratings of the new episodes must have shaken down some money from the BBC tree, because the effects and set pieces are altogether greater than anything the series has attempted before. The chase down the freeway (the TARDIS flying alongside a speeding taxi) not only allows us to see the TARDIS in motion, but it also shows us something heretofore unseen. We've always heard that the TARDIS is "bigger on the inside", but this episode lets us see it, and it's very effective.

We also see one of the creepiest villains that DW has ever shown us, the Empress of Racnoss, a giant spider/centaur. She's a classic villain portrayed by Sarah Parish, who starred with David Tennant in Blackpool. It's also good to see Don Gilet from 55 Degrees North. I admit it; I'm a whore for BBC America.

One of the real strong points of the new Dr. is the way it hides a big point inside the plot. That big moment comes in "TRB" when the Doctor finally vanquishes the Racnoss in particularly final and effective manner. Donna is horrified by his cold and somewhat cruel demeanor; she even shouts at him to stop. That leads to her last lines to him, after she has turned down his offer to be a Companion (about time somebody turned it down, and her reasons are funny and spot-on), the title to this post.

Tennant has really seized the role of the Doctor. His brio and emotional effervescence have made his flashes of darkness even more compelling and "TRB" offers an excellent example. As he is exterminating the Racnoss, his thin-lipped mouth compresses to a flat line framed by his beaky nose and pointy chin. Tennant's eyes go cold and he looks like a great, pitiless bird of prey. It's a chilling moment and one of the hallmarks of Russell T. Davies' interpretation of Who.

So Rose is gone, right? Not on your life. Her spirit haunts the entire episode. The Doctor's references to her as very alive, and happy, and with her family are some of the most melancholy lines you'll hear on television.

"The Runaway Bride" is not only the return of Dr. Who, it's also a perfect bridge between seasons two and three. It's Christmas airing in Britain, five month after "Doomsday", three months before "Smith and Jones", probably made that status even clearer.

"Smith and Jones" introduces Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), the Doctor's newest Companion. Aside from the obvious fact that she's the first Companion of color, several important differences are established between her and Rose, differences which highlight Martha's uniqueness while also recalling Rose. Like "Rose", "Smith and Jones" is designed to introduce the new Companion and set up her relationship with the Doctor. It does that well enough, but like many of the best Who episodes, the A-story is functional while the cool stuff weaves around and through it. Take the Judoon, an alien race that doesn't want to take over the world. They're cops, there to do a job. It's a nice twist. Notice how the phrase "reverse it" occurs just as it did in "The Runaway Bride." Chuckle as the hospital administrator, one Mr. Stoker, is killed by the draining of his blood. See the Doctor plant a kiss on Martha (pretty hot, that)!

The real trick of "Smith and Jones" is how it outlines Martha Jones. Where Rose Tyler was a shop girl in a dead-end life, Martha is a medical student. Rose was bored with her life and family; Martha is just tired of the fighting and idiocy of her clan. Rose went with the Doctor to escape the numbing drudgery of her life. Martha, on the other hand, seems more drawn to the idea of knowledge, of discovery. She's almost mastered the human body; how cool would it be to know what else is out there? The show also confidently uses it's own mythology. Martha is very aware of the Christmas invasion and the Racnoss web-ship. She isn't staggered to discover how weird the world is. She knows it's weird; what's exciting about the Doctor is that he promises to show her the how and the why of that weirdness.

So he's back, he's really back. Good show.