The Idiot's Lantern
This was a well-made if unoriginal Doctor Who adventure: a casserole of bits from last weeks cyberman two-parter (a newfangled gizmo turns people into monsters), The Empty Child (a similar period setting) and the authors own The Unquiet Dead (a being without corporeal form manifesting itself in one of the utility services... I fully expect water monsters emerging from the faucets of the 1920s next year, Mark).
The build-up was all very well done, though. Maureen Lipman is always a welcome presence and hammed it up less drastically than Roger Lloyd-Pack last week, Rose has come back to life again now that Mickey has disappeared, and the whole 1950s period setting was all much more tastefully and authentically portrayed than in the obnoxious Delta And The Bannermen (possibly the most screen-kickingly bad Doctor Who story of all time, in my less-than-humble opinion).
For all its unoriginality, this was one of the scariest Whos for years. After the sanitised off-screen Auton invasion in Rose, its wonderful to see some real horror back on TV of a Saturday teatime. The scenes in which grandma was alluded to having become a monster scared even me, and the cage full of faceless people and later the faceless Rose would have had Mary Whitehouse foaming at the mouth in apoplectic rage. Always a good thing. That was terrifying Doctor Who at its best.
The rushed ending was a let-down though. The day was saved by a boy changing a fuse; the whole mast-climbing silliness deflated an otherwise thoughtful and very creepy episode; and the 45-minute constraint meant that the family issues were solved in a pat and convenient way, Roses fatherly advice being the least convincing heartstring-tugging so far.
So all in all, a brilliant made and very creepy episode that was let down by a botched ending and like the X-Files and some of the other New Doctor Who stories disappointingly demystified by the need for a sci-fi alien invasion explanation.