Welcome to Day 14 of my 47-day series about the revival version of Doctor Who (2005-present). I’ve come up with 47 topics / questions to answer, all of them basically positive and upbeat about the program. Each day (or as often as I can actually write these–so far so good!) I’ll pick one of them at random (using this convenient random number generator) and then write up an answer.
Why 47? It’s my favorite number.
Why Doctor Who? It’s my favorite show.
Why the modern day Doctor Who only? Simply because I remember it better.
Why only positive stuff? Because really, I write enough snark.
Today is Day #14, and around and around goes the Random Number Generator, and without any false starts this time (the first time in a while), we get number 22, which means the topic of the day is this:
“Funniest Story”
Doctor Who, at its best, is a well-balanced mixture of scary, thrilling, emotional and funny, so pretty much all of the good episodes of the show have got some funny stuff. That said, the one that I always remember in particular for its laughs is
The Lodger
This was a Season 5 story, written by Gareth Roberts, featuring Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor and Amy Pond. Amy was trapped in the TARDIS for most of the story, and to save her the Doctor had to become roommates with the hapless and completely ordinary 21st century English bloke Craig Owen. The Doctor must solve a sci-fi mystery without letting on that he is not also a completely ordinary English bloke…cue the hilarity!
Some of the highlights include the Doctor’s unusual manner of greeting new acquaintances (kissing them on both cheeks), the Doctor trying to find the “on” switch of an ordinary screwdriver, the Doctor transferring memories to Craig via a painful head butting, and my personal favorite, the Doctor going all “oncoming storm” on a friend of Craig’s who boasts that their going to kill the opposition in their next football match. In general, Matt Smith does a great job playing the zaniness of his Doctor against the relative straight man of James Corden’s Craig.
A runner-up for this pick would be Partners in Crime, which is generally not a very good episode but benefits from some good chemistry between David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and a very witty scene where they mime at each other through a couple of windows.
I also remember thinking the Caretaker was really funny but I can’t remember much about why.
Click here for a master list for this series.
Blue Towel Productions 
The Lodger is brilliant, without a doubt. I think my picks for funniest episodes would be Robot of Sherwood and The Day of the Doctor. I’ve never laughed more at Doctor Who than I did at those two episodes.
Which just goes to show how different opinions can be! I love The Day of the Doctor, and it does make me laugh at parts, but the humor is not what sticks out to me about the episode. But I really disliked Robots of Sherwood, except for when Robin Hood talks about laughing in the face of everything and the Doctor replied, “And do people ever punch you in the face when you do that?” But to each his own, obviously.