2015 is clutching its chest, leaning on the TARDIS console and starting to glow at its fingertips.

Any minute now, 2016’s a-comin’.

Or, if you’re reading this a few days in the future, it’s already here, shiny and vaguely bewildered and not quite fitting into its clothes. Just like most of us post-Christmas, then.

Either way, there’s no time like the present to take a look back at the past year and assign conceptual trophies and imaginary pats on the back to randomly chosen aspects of our favourite show about time travel and the architectural aesthetics of corridors.

So welcome to CultBox’s third annual Doctor Who Awards (we had our first in 2486 and the second in the year two billion/apple45/delta… time travel, eh?), where we’ll celebrate the best bits of the frankly quite excellent Season 9 by using the word ‘winner’ a lot. A lot.

> Buy the complete Season 9 box set on DVD on Amazon.

> Buy the complete Season 9 box set on Blu-ray on Amazon.

So without further ado, it’s time to open the psychic envelopes and begin!

 

Best actor: Peter Capaldi

Could the winner be anyone else? After a maudlin first year for his Doctor, the Time Lord came back and surprised us with a performance that was completely different to his debut season. (Can you imagine the Doctor of ‘Into the Dalek’ riding a tank?)

The grumpiness and passive-aggressive remarks were gone, or at least channelled into punchlines, and a new sense of eccentricity and energy was embraced. Even his ‘no banter’ rule, strictly enforced in ‘Robot of Sherwood’ was abandoned by the time of ‘The Zygon Invasion’. It was like watching a different Doctor. And it was, as another Doctor would say, fantastic.

We can’t wait to see what Capaldi has in store for his Doctor in Season 10!

 

Best actress: Jenna Coleman

Some people never got Clara, and that’s okay. Arguably, the show never really figured out who she is or what she should be after fumbling her introduction in Season 7, while skipped character moments (How did she become a teacher? What happened to the Maitland kids? Why did she never seem concerned about her own family in contemporary Earth-based stories?) made it tough at times to truly believe in her as an actual person.

But even if you found her daredevil demeanour too Doctor-ish (although after the events of Season 8’s finale I think her reckless new attitude made a lot of sense), there’s no denying Jenna Coleman gave it her all.

Special mention must also go to her portrayal of Clara’s Zygon duplicate Bonnie, effortlessly establishing two distinct characters in the same scene. Whether dangling out of the TARDIS having the time of her life or terrified trapped inside a Dalek while Missy encouraged the Doctor to shoot her, has Clara undeniably become one of the show’s all-time great companions.

For such a tiny lass, Jenna Coleman sure has left big shoes to fill next season.

 

Best episode: ‘Heaven Sent’

It’s the ‘Blink’, the ‘Midnight’, the ‘Turn Left’ of Season 9 – and it might be better than all of them. Yeah, I said it.

‘Heaven Sent’ is that one episode you lift up from a season and say ‘That. That was bloody brilliant. That’s how good this show can be.’

A terrifying fairytale and a terrific piece of sci-fi, it’s basically Groundhog Day in Bowser’s Castle, and it could have so easily fallen on its arse. But with a smart script that sees Moffat at his most Sherlockian, and a tour de force solo performance from Capaldi, it demonstrates that, even after 52 years, Doctor Who is a still a show which can defy expectations in glorious ways.

 

Most ‘Eww!’ Moment: Scratch delivers payment

In a season which featured liquefied Dalek carcasses, a heart-breaking Zygon transformation, the Doctor’s face being burnt off, and Reece Shearsmith’s entire head dissolving into sleepy sand, there was nothing more stomach-churning at teatime than the sight of sore-throated Scratch unlocking his head in ‘The Husbands of River Song’.

It’s a tour de force for the show’s sound effects team, and the props department as he pulls out the payment cylinder from that gooey mass. The Doctor’s right, you don’t want to do that in restaurant – I nearly brought up my Christmas dinner.

 

Most ludicrous use of the Sonic Specs: Walking around in the dark

Some loved them, some loathed them, but whatever you thought of the sonic specs, they got up to a lot of, erm, sonic-ing.

They ordered the TARDIS to re-materialise, wiped memories, created holograms, lit candles, browsed The Daily Mail website (why else would The Doctor worry about his internet history being deleted?), and turned a radio into an amp.

Their most ludicrous use though? 12 wearing them while wandering around a house IN THE DARK in ‘The Woman who Lived’. Sunglasses. At night.

 

Best cliffhanger: ‘Heaven Sent’

In a year of ace cliffhangers, there were plenty of contenders to choose from here. When the season’s very first episode ended with the apparent extermination of both Clara and Missy, we had a feeling there were some big cliffhangers in store.

The Doctor’s dead-eyed ghost floating towards the screen in ‘Under the Lake’? Centuries of Ashildr’s life played out in a stunning visual effects sequence as we realise she’s trapped in a never-ending hell? Zygon Clara shooting down the Doctor’s plane? Each a winner in any other season.

But there can only be one winner…

‘Heaven Sent’ not only gives you Gallifrey’s return, but leaves you at a point where you have no idea at all what is going to happen next (well, at least if you’d avoided the maddeningly spoilery finale synopsis from BBC Press).

No idea what The Doctor’s going to do, or what the Time Lords are planning, or where the next episode is going to take us. It’s the most open-ended, stakes-as-high-as-you-like that a cliffhanger has ever been. Moffat teased it over a year ahead of its airing, calling it ‘a whopper’. He wasn’t wrong. A week has never felt so long.

 

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