I’m a Whovian, and I’ve been rewatching the series. Not really closely, ’cause I’ve been with the Wee One, but I’m preparing to watch Cipaldi’s doctor, the 13th. (I know; I’m behind the times.)
As I rewatch it, I’m reminded of the monologues that gave me shivers the first time I heard them, and that I still go back to hear again. They reflect details of the Doctor’s history and add meaning to already interesting characters.
- “He was being kind.” At minute 1:40, it starts.
2. “He’s like fire and ice and rage.” This story arc is my favorite, as I’m sure I’ve said before, and there are several good speeches from it. This is just a few lines at the beginning of the clip, but with the background score its powerful.
3. “Will they thank you?” Start at 0:44. This isn’t a monologue, really, but the delivery of this character, Baines. I don’t think he blinks once and the way his volume fluctuates is powerful.
4. “Let someone else try first.” The speech starting at 0:40. It took me several viewings of the 11th Doctor’s stories to buy into them, but over time, I have come to appreciate that Matt Smith is a masterful speech maker.
5. “If I believe in one thing, I believe in her!” The Doctor is communicating with a mute Satan, so it’s just him talking. I couldn’t find a clip with the whole speech, and this is just the last part, but it’s cool.
6. “I watched it happen; I MADE it happen!” Again, this isn’t technically a monologue, but it’s basically Eccleston talking to a trash can with a whisk, and he carries the scene. When I first started watching Doctor Who, I started with his season and gave up many times because it seemed so hard to take seriously. This episode and this scene in particular is what really hooked me.
7. Start at 1:55. The Bill Nighy speech about Van Gogh ranking as an artist. It was beautifully written, and especially so moving because of the actor who played Van Gogh – he was fantastic, and watching him, you really got a sense of his agony and the majesty and pain of the person, so you have an idea of what the words meant to him. It’s one of the better stories, in my humble opinion, of Smith’s tenure.
8. Rose Tyler – The Parting of the Ways “You don’t just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand. You say “no.””
9. It’s just a few lines, but the Jack Harkness speech in The Parting of The Ways.
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Jack: Rose…you are worth fighting for. [kisses her passionately, turns to the Doctor] Wish I’d never met you, Doctor. I was much better off as a coward. [kisses him as well] See you in hell.
10. Martha’s “Bones of the Hand” dialogue with Nurse Joan Redfern. It was good to watch Martha stand up for herself against someone who doubted her capability.
Martha: Human. Don’t worry. And more than that, I just don’t follow him around. I’m training to be a doctor. Not an alien doctor, a proper doctor. A doctor of medicine. Joan: Well that certainly is nonsense. Women might train to be doctors, but hardly a skivvy and hardly one of your color. Martha: Oh, do you think? Bones of the hand. Carpal bones, proximal row. Scaphoid, lunate, triquetal, pisiform. Distal row. Trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate. Then the metacarpal bones extending in three distinct phalanges. Proximal, middle, distal. Joan: You read that in a book. Martha: Yes, to pass my exams!
Other Whovians out there? What do you think?
I Didn't Just Wake Up This Morning With A Craving 
Aw, I love Doctor Who!
I’m English and I’m not a Whovian, but I admit the Van Gogh clip had me going!
I’m glad you liked it! I imagine you get the Doctor in your face quite a bit, as an Englishman.
They get a lot of work from winning the role – guest chair at quiz shows and the like. I had a restaurant on the South Coast, and Jon Pertwee was a diner there once (he was appearing at he local theatre). He was a lovely man. He gave a sort of improvised stand-up routine for us, had everyone in stitches. .