It is a sad fact - today was the last broadcast of original televised Doctor Who until David Tennant's swansong at Christmas. With The Sarah Jane Adventures finishing their slightly disappointing third series last week, there is not even a little spin-off to slight our appetite.
But whilst Easter's offering was quite poor, even for the action romp it was supposed to be, both the November special and Dreamland were quite amazing. Starting with the doubtlessly canonical episode, The Waters of Mars, there is little doubt that aficionados will have been left with their mouth gaping open after the oh-so-unusual ending. A warning here - spoilers begin!
The November special was billed as the scariest Who yet. In many respects that is true, even though it is scary in an unconventional way: here it's not the monsters that make the situation gritty. It is the Doctor. For the first time ever in the 46-year-old history of the show, the Doctor just is wrong with no excuses for it. Yes, in The Twin Dilemma, we had glimpses of an unlikeable Doctor, but that was down to post-regenerative trauma and directed against one person who had alienated quite a bit of the audience anyway. The death of Katarina in The Dalek's Masterplan can also be considered as wrong, but this is not a point the show dwells on.
Because of that, The Waters of Mars is a point of no-return in the show. Much like fan favourite The Caves of Androzani showed a weak Doctor who died for the wrong reasons and did not save the day (and thus, as was argued in Doctor Who Magazine, was a point of no-return in the show), there is no way for the Doctor now to keep the moral high ground. Short of an epic Trial of a Time Lord-like story or another long hiatus, the Doctor will have to live with his guilt - and we don't want any of that.
The only workable solution is a different trial, and for the Doctor to have to pay for his crime against time. A possibility is that, still in God-mode, the Doctor un-timelocks the Time War and brings the rest of the Time Lords back. The ungrateful bunch then sentence him to exile and force a regeneration... hang on, that sounds familiar!
Still, like at the start of the Third Doctor's reign, this or any other punishment would mean a full reboot (and explain the new-style TARDIS) - a new era for Steven Moffatt. It very much looks as though 2010 Who will be nothing like 2005 Who. So enjoy the few episodes that are left while you can![1]



And you could start with Dreamland. The latest gap-year special offering (after an awesome Torchwood plus audio extras, a guest appearance in the Sarah Jane Adventures, ...) is an animated adventure of a companionless Doctor meant to be set after The Waters of Mars (though it could be set right before and it wouldn't make much difference except in the meaning of a specific line, which refers to the latest special rather than to Genesis of the Daleks now). The story, written by Phil Ford, is everything Doctor Who has been about in the Pertwee years: a fun plot with scary aliens and meddling but good-hearted military... Except that it's done with Tennant's style and is now action-packed in a much better way than Planet of the Spiders part 3.
The animation itself is very disappointing, especially considering the recent relative successes of The Infinite Quest and The Invasion. Yes, the backdrops look magnificent and some scenes are breathtaking - but the characters just don't work. They walk as if they were in a video game environment, the lipsync is not up to scratch and they look quite angular. It makes you wonder whether that story would not have been better suited to an audio adventure or a comic book story (the concept art looks awesome!)
Still, the 6-episode, 7-minute format works really well for that story. Much better than the splitting up did for The Infinite Quest and the voice actors are really really good. The music is its usual Murray Gold gold, especially considering it didn't sound like there was any new theme.
Dreamland works really well. It just doesn't fit well after The Waters of Mars because it lacks its gritty edge.

Notes

[1] And I haven't even talked about the sterling performances and great production values, with a very-on-form Graeme Harper - because the end of the story is the star of this episode which has frankly barely any default!