It’s amazing. I must be the only person to think the Doctor talking to himself in the first episode of Storm Warning works.
It’s absolutely obvious to me why he does this. Just as those scenes make it plain why the Doctor has companions with him almost all of the time.
Quite simply, he likes to hear himself talk. 🙂
Now, in this case, the Doctor speaking to himself has a dramatic purpose, to further the plot. The Doctor had no companion, no one to engage in dialogue with, and so plot exigencies force him to speak to himself. (Interesting how The Marian Conspiracy handles a similar situation: Doctor on his own, trying to puzzle out something.)
So, the Doctor’s running monologue doesn’t bother me. I think it shows a facet of the Doctor’s personality that hadn’t previously come to the fore.
Different strokes, though. For a show that’s always been about showing and not telling, for many the opening narration in Storm Warning smacks of a lot of telling.