Is there anything important to say about season 10?

Possibly. It is the first Who season to do a little navel-gazing. It also breaks the format from the past three seasons, yet proves that the creative staff wasn't too sure how to proceed in a new direction. There's also closure to a character arc which began two seasons before, when a certain flibbertigibbet named Jo Grant appeared in the Doctor's lab at UNIT HQ.

It all begins with the nostalgia romp The Three Doctors. Granted, the story is rubbish, and features some really bad acting by Katy Manning and Nick Courtney. However, the fun is in watching Troughton and Hartnell outshine Pertwee. Hartnell only looks like he's line reading during the famous "dandy and a clown" line. Otherwise, he's wonderfully crotchety with his successors and the Time Lords. Troughton is having a ball and steals almost every scene. Pertwee is in cruise control - neither all that bad, nor brilliant. As far as story lines go, the Doctor wins his freedom for dealing with the Omega crisis, and we see the first overt hints that Jo loves the Doctor in more than just a friendly way - a theme which will play out through the season.

Carnival of Monsters is atypical Pertwee. Robert Holmes shows his enjoyment of hustlers and con men for the first time, and creates some very interesting aliens in the Inter Minorans. The real fun bits are in the double team of Vorg and Shirna, and the Tribunal of Kalik, Orum and Pletrac. Katy gets to show a bit of character and range in this one, and Pertwee is much less pompous and arrogant in this one. Holmes touches on the Doctor's more human qualities - He has to back into the scope to rescue Jo because he's responsible. He's also far less than Mr. Know-it-all that is prevalent in other Pertwee stories. Acting all around is brilliant. It's a story to be savoured.

Hmmm... Until Big Roger Delgado shows up in episode three to liven things up, Frontier in Space is definitely the Pertwee cliché story. Chases, captures, escapes, high handed moralizing, etc. Pertwee and Manning go through the motions, except in the scene in the cell on the Master's prison ship, which works as a big summing up of three seasons worth of events, along with a hint of the feelings between the Doc and Jo. The themes are similar to The Silurians and The Sea Devils, only tossed into the 26th Century. Only this time, the humans and lizards (Draconians... yes, yes I know) manage to put their differences aside. For once the Doctor manages to make the peace. It's still bloody boring, only livened up by Big Rog having fun and stealing every scene he's in. The end is a bit of a mess, as we have no idea what happened to the Master in those final climatic moments.

Planet of the Daleks is a direct follow-up to Frontier in Space. Allegedly, Frontier/Planet are supposed to be a redo of The Dalek Master Plan. Planet of the Daleks borrows from The Daleks for many of its plot points. There's lots of running around, squawking pepperpots and capture/escape/capture stuff going on. Some of the set pieces are good - the parachute escape, Wester's sacrifice - but a lame attempt at a romance between Jo and Latep doesn't work, and Pertwee is a one dimensional gasbag in this one. The low point of the season.

The Green Death is good DW. It plucks your heartstrings with Jo's story line and entertains with a loopy computer and some gross maggots. The three big story lines - the environment angle, BOSS and Stevens, Jo's departure - are set up early and are paid off well in the end.

Jo goes hasta la vista. Everything is set up in the first couple of episodes, the conversation between the Doctor and Jo and the initial meeting between Clifford Jones and Jo. In fact the first time Jo and Cliff meet is a dead ringer for the first meeting between the Doc and Jo in Terror of the Autons. Professor Jones is set up as a Doctor-clone purposely, making it blatantly obvious that Jo loved the Doctor and vice versa. By the end of The Green Death, Jo has been proposed to twice, and accepts Cliff's over the Doctor's promise to show her the Universe. We see the Doctor slip out the back and ride off into the sunset, heartbroken. It's a touching moment and the second best leaving scene, ever. What's even more interesting is that not only is this love story set up in The Green Death, it's something that's been hinted at since The Three Doctors (and possibly much earlier).

So, in the end, season ten is uneven. Two strong stories are surrounded by an Anniversary romp and cliché Pertwee. The big theme of the season is actually the relationship between the Doctor and Jo, which adds some depth in unexpected places.