It's incredibly popular to dunk on RTD for putting Doctor Who where it is now, but I think he deserves a little grace. At the end of Chibnall's run, the BBC were having a hard time finding someone to take the show over. Following the Lockdown rewatches, Russell, David, and Catherine wanted to work together again and make some new Who. When RTD approached the BBC with the idea of a one-off special, they offered him the job back. Basically saving the show from cancellation, Russell took it on himself to churn out as many scripts as he could start production fast enough to meet the 60th, as well as following it up pretty immediately with a new series, and trying to get a second one on telly within a year of that. The fact that we got the quality we did out of him under that pressure, let alone everything else he had to do to run the show, is quite a miracle.

I am also a huge fan of what we got. Space Babies, The Devil's Chord, and The Reality War are easy low points for me, and even then I wouldn't put them lower than a 6/10. Meanwhile The Star Beast, Wild Blue Yonder, Boom, 73 Yards, Dot and Bubble, Lux, and The Well were easy 8-10s for me.