N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

I want to like Time Crash so much more than I do. I really do.

“Back when I first started at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important, like you do when you’re young.”

The (Tenth) Doctor, Time Crash

It has arguably my favourite Doctor in it — the Fifth (certainly the Doctor I would say was my Doctor) and judging by the look on David Tennant’s face when he says it, possibly his Doctor too!

Maybe it’s because it’s a little bit too knowing, a bit too ‘meta’ for my liking? Maybe it’s the horrible description of the TARDIS interior as a ‘desktop theme’? (Way to immediately sound dated, Moffat!) Maybe it’s the Fifth Doctor thinking the Tenth Doctor is a fan — or possibly a member of LINDA — that irritates me? Or maybe it’s the drawing attention to the oddness of wearing a ‘decorative vegetable’? (Presumably he’s forgotten his allergy to Praxis range gases?)

Perhaps it’s all these things combined?

Neverthless, what saves Time Crash for me is the joy with which this brief encounter appears to have been made. Tennant and Davison really do look like they’re loving the back-and-forth.

And as with School Reunion and the Doctor bumping into Sarah Jane again, you get the sense that very little acting on David Tennant’s part was required when the Tenth Doctor tells the Fifth ‘I loved being you.’

And, despite my misgivings, it really was wonderful to see the Fifth Doctor again, no matter how briefly.