The Doctor Dances

Coupled with the initial chapter, "The Empty Child", this has been, for my money at least, the strongest story of the series so far.

To give a little background, I am someone who enjoyed Doctor Who as a child (excluding the McCoy era) but am not well versed in the 'expanded universe' of books, audio stories etc. So my review is based purely on one factor - enjoyment.

My first comment is how well paced the whole story was. "Aliens of London" and "World War 3", as the series' first two-parter, seemed to sag in places and was padded out with a lot of unneccesary Slitheen self-congratulation - not to mention fart gags. Don't get me wrong, I love fart gags, but not in Doctor Who. I digress however. The new two parter didn't let up for a second, the script was lean but detailed and the direction was spot on. As we have come to expect with this series, the characterisation was excellent, but never overplayed as it was, at least in my opinion, in "Father's Day".

Visually this two-parter was hard to fault, from the Nanogenes through to Captain Jack's cloaked ship, everything looked perfect, and the central character of "The Empty Child" played brilliantly on the strange alien qualities of the WWII gas mask. The child himself was the stuff of nightmares, his incessant "Are you my mummy?" put me in mind of "Red rum" from The Shining, along with various other horror movie stalwarts.

This was also a storyline (and there haven't been many) where the Doctor himself had a chance to shine. It has been disappointing in previous episodes to see him unable to act in the face of danger, but at the start of "The Doctor Dances" he undid all that by acting very decisively and sending the child to it's room. And it didn't end there - his deductions were impressive right until the end, where the seemingly confused strands of plot suddenly, and rather cleverly, were all tied very neatly together. And although I had my doubts about "Captain Jack" at the start, his purpose in the end made perfect sense - a rogue, a conman and an idiot. Everything the Doctor isn't, and the perfect anti-hero to set the Doctor against.

Rose took less centre-stage this time and it was nice to see. Previous episodes have been quite Rose-heavy, and although I have nothing against her, let's face it, the program is called "Doctor Who" and that's who we have switched on the television to see.

All in all, I have enjoyed the series thus far and it seems to keep on improving. I would like to see some more writing from Mark Gatiss - I was a big fan of League of Gentlemen, and I think their warped sensibility is perfect for the new Doctor. In a world of shows like Stargate SG-1 and Enterprise, Doctor Who has to compete on the quality of it's writing and it's English quirks - it's managing to do so admiribly so far, so I hope they keep their collective feet firmly on the gas pedal.