"You look Time Lord."

The thing is... I can't speak for ed_rex, but I know that I went into S05 expecting everything to be different. It was a different writer, a different Doctor and a different companion. Pretty much, as long as the TARDIS was still blue I was sold. 'Different but good' was what I was after.

I got bored. Really, truly, that was the problem with S05 for me. I stopped watching at The Lodger because the effort involved in locating the show on iPlayer was greater than the expected reward in mindless entertainment. I mean, I watch Glee and I used to watch Hotel Babylon. Mindless entertainment is definitely a thing I can live with.

When I watch Glee or Hotel Babylon, I'm at least engaged at the level of 'I like some of these characters'. They pay back the minimal effort required to turn them on. S05 hasn't even managed that for me.

(I do agree with you about RTD's all-emotion problem, but at least I liked his characters when they weren't whining. The specials were dire though.)