I like David Tennant as the Doctor a lot, even admitting that he wasn’t great at the darker stuff either. He is just a pleasure to watch, and really inhabited the character well.
Well, you know, compare Tennant’s romance with Rose and then how that subtly (and not so subtly) affected his relationship with subsequent companions to how Smith did something similar in the latest season (avoiding Clara). A big part of it is the writing and story structure, obviously, but Tennant is also just plain a better actor when it comes to truly internalizing stuff like that.
