But the beauty of time travel is that you don't say goodbye to everyone in your life, you just pop off to have a few adventures and return a second or so after you left - a concept that was briefly covered in "The Power of Three" (series 7).

As for The Cybermen and Daleks, I believe there's a bit BBC emotional baggage involved, as there is with me having watched the Daleks since their inception in 1963. However, I agree that the "Dark Water/Death in Heaven" stories were a bit wishy-washy, though I cannot agree about the lack of originality/being better.

Here are a few worthy of mention...

S1
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances

S2
Tooth and Claw
School Reunion (The return of the late Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith)
The Girl in the Fireplace

S3
The Shakespeare Code
Human Nature/The Family of Blood
Blink

S4
The Unicorn and the Wasp
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead

S5
Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone
Vincent and the Doctor
The Lodger
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang

S6
The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon
The Doctor's Wife
A Good Man Goes to War/Let's Kill Hitler

S7
A Town Called Mercy
The Angels Take Manhattan

S8
Mummy on the Orient Express
Flatline

Roll on Saturday.